The 4-Hour Work Week (Book Review)

What a book. It’s motivating, sparks a great number of ideas and it’s worth a buy simply for the list of resource of websites, books and companies that it has. Warning this Blog Post has spoilers of what the book has ahead, but it’s still a damn good read (the book I mean).

The book is divided into four sections, with the help of the acronym DEAL:

Definition:
The cover of the book states, “Escape 9-5, Live anywhere, and Join the New Rich.” Who are the New Rich? The New Rich, don’t only take money to be their currency, but two other essential ingredients that are necessary to be actually living the life of the wealthy, rather than merely collecting for it. i.e. Time and mobility. Without which you may have all the money you will ever need, but if you’re unable to create that time/mobility for yourself, that money may as well be in a chest buried in the jungles of Congo.

In this section, Tim goes in depth and helps you chart out your Dreamline, TMI (Target Monthly Income) and your Worth per Hour. All tools that help you join the leagues of the New Rich.

Elimination:
Now comes the challenge, how do you free up your time? Just like exercising regularly, You’ve heard it before, you know it’s good for you, do you do it? It’s the Pareto principle (commonly referred to as the 80/20 rule) and Parkinson’s Law (you know that the more time you have to do a task that much longer it will take). Tim explains with personal examples how he’s personally implemented these. Honestly speaking, these insights were not so great to make permanent habit changes, but am working at it.

Automation:
Here’s the meat. Go ahead, sink your teeth in and savour every last juicy drop. Is it really possible to automate income so much that one would need to put only 4 hours in a week? You can bet your last paycheck that it is. How do you do it? I’m not sure if I’d be giving too much away in posting this, but in summary he provides a methodology that by using the combined power of outsourcing, the internet and the intellectual knowledge that you already have, to design products that can you give steady & regular streams of income. The detail and examples for which Tim goes into is exemplary.

Liberation:
After having Eliminated unnecessary time-gobbling activities and Automating income so that you don’t have to work all day, what do you do for the remaining 6.9 days of the week, every week, for the rest of your life? How about taking a 3 month Mini-Retirement to Thailand? Or take a class in ltaly how to make chocolate truffles? I know you can’t because you’ve got responsibilities, you’ve got kids and it’s just way too expensive. Taking long vacations is not a personal goal of mine, but if it’s yours, here Tim gives loads of websites resources that can help you make that journey and also case-studies of people who have liberated themselves to achieve mobility while attending to their responsibilities.

In conclusion, sure I admit to achieve a 4-Hour work week, may be a bit of an exaggeration. Maybe some of the ideas may not be immediately implementable. But as Tim puts it even if you can reduce your working time to 5 days a week or even 4 days a week, that would still add up to years to your life to pursue that one excitement that you always wanted to do but never had the time.

To get more of a flavour of the 4 Hour Work Week without buying the book, download an hour long presentation delivered by Tim by clicking here or what’s even better is this You Tube video of another talk he gave at Google. Well, that’s about it. Once you’ve successfully implemented the 4 Hour Work Week, I’ll see you at the Bahamahs :-) .