There’s a title doing rounds on social media, “The 4-Hour Work Week.” Everybody is talking about it and recommending it to read but is it really worth reading?
With that thought I also decided to pick this book to reduce my working hours and here’s what I found:
This book isn’t for everyone. If you love your 9 to 5 job and don’t want to skip it in any part of your life then don’t pick this book. It’s for those who want to take the risk, start their side hustles, and have dreams to make it big.
The 4-hour Work Week will suggest everything from ideas to resources to escape the 9-5 grind and join the category of entrepreneurs and solopreneurs.
This book will also tell you how to read faster which I won’t recommend because for me reading is a treat so I don’t encourage the concept of speed reading just to accomplish a higher number of reads every year.
Ferriss also shared the concept of “mini-retirements” that I also appreciate because we often think of retirement after 40-60 years of working about which we aren’t sure if we’ll be living that long in our life. But with mini-retirements, you can take a break from your work, go on 3-6 months vacations and travel everywhere.
For this obviously, you need money and for money, you need to work smart. So, in a few chapters, Timothy will guide you on how to convince your boss to allow work from home so you can get time to work on your own hustle. It’s kind of scumbaggery but if you’re exhausted from your mundane jobs, you need to take the risk because if you don’t you will be forever stuck in your job.
About making the hours productive, Timothy tells you not to keep checking your emails frequently and set some specific days or hours for it because if you’ll always be replying to emails, when will you work?
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Secondly, Ferriss talks about outsourcing work that is quite rare in Pakistan entrepreneurship culture. We like doing things on our own and have problems trusting other people. But if you hire a team of virtual assistants, you can outsource the time-consuming such as customer support services, revisions, and low-budget work which doesn’t require so much of your brain.
4 Hour Work Week is filled with links that will help you to:
- Monitor your online working
- Measuring your website analytics
- Tracking your ideas
- Creating forms
- Cheap hosting services
- Travel Management
- Retirement Preparation and Planning
So, with this book, you’ll know the list of websites to depend on in any of the above cases.
Apart from that, this book is more like an inspiration than a guide. It will inspire you to take action but some tips are outdated such as telling lies to skip telephonic conversations, meetings, and calls from strangers.
I agree that those who run their businesses don’t have time to manage everything but lying and skipping isn’t the solution in every case.
To wrap it up if you’re loyal to your job and don’t want to make a living out of it then this isn’t for you.
On the contrary, if you’re looking for inspiration to skip your job, this is the book you should take your hands on.
Here’s one of the best quotes from the book:
“For all of the most important things, the timing always sucks. Waiting for a good time to quit your job? The stars will never align and the traffic lights of life will never all be green at the same time. The universe doesn’t conspire against you, but it doesn’t go out of its way to line up the pins either. Conditions are never perfect. “Someday” is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. Pro and con lists are just as bad. If it’s important to you and you want to do it “eventually,” just do it and correct course along the way.”
Timothy Ferriss, The 4-Hour Workweek
I prefer books and diaries more than phones and Facebook. Soulfully connected to Pakistan. And I passionately believe that I can change the world through blogging.
