The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss
My Rating: 9 / 10
The 4-House Workweek Book Cover
The 4-Hour Workweek has been on my reading list for quite some time. Over the years I have heard many people quote aspects of this book and live their lives differently because of what they have learned. After reading it I can understand given Ferriss’ approach to life and the changes he suggests we should all make.
What I liked about this book were the many snippets of wisdom from Ferriss such as “Retirement is worst-case-scenario insurance.” When reading these snippets I regularly had to stop and think about them for a minute in order to absorb the insight. What you end up doing is seeing things about your life from a different perspective which is quite valuable.
One insightful area of the book touched on the concept of renewable versus non-renewable resources. For example, resources like income are renewable, however, resources like time or attention are not. Ferriss focusses more on attention versus time which I think is quite apt. You can utilise your time adequately yet your attention (or purpose) may not be in alignment. You never get time nor attention back therefore it is important to understand why you are investing your attention on a particular task/goal.
The only criticism with this book is that it hasn’t been updated since it first was published back in 2004. Some of his ideas around traveling along with costs are not as accurate today as they were when the book was published. Given the big theme of travel, sites like AirBnB are not even mentioned. With that being said it is still worth the read!
Three key takeaways from the book:
- What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.
- The opposite of live is indifference, and the opposite of happiness is …. boredom
- “If only I had more money” is the easiest way to postpone the intense self-examination and decision-making necessary to create a life of enjoyment – now and not later.
