Several friends have pointed me in the direction of the Four Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss. I’m not linking to it, because you can get it from your library easily enough. In fact, in a week or two, I’ll give my copy away for the price of the postage. A lot of the info in the book is available free on his blog, anyway.
I have to wonder if the author (who does, indeed remind me of a young Woody Smith) had read “The Man Too Lazy to Fail” early in life and then decided to choose a way to put it into practice.
Overall, it’s a good book — loaded with information and written in a blog-like style, so the concepts are easy to digest.
I found the title a little misleading. No-one capable of doing this has the personality to sit on his ass most of the time, and the author doesn’t. Though I confess I take his claims of greatness and achievement with a slight grain of salt. Good self promotion requires a bit of yarn telling ability and glossing.
In spite of the occasional raised eyebrow, “naughty boy” smirk, and headshake at the “Dig me” stuff, the concepts in the book are quite sound, and the underlying theme is the most important part:
Travel? There are ways to do that without spending much money, and he give some interesting ideas.
Family? He gives some strategies that can work for some people to reduce time in the office. (You’ve gotta be willing to be a bit of a rule breaker for some of them. Just sayin’). I happened to have a job that requires my ass in the office from 8-4:30, so well.. I quit and am doing something else. (Yes, I’m insane. Tell me something I don’t know).
Self-development? Okay, this guy acts like he’s “rode out West on a covered wagon, shot a wild Indian and shook hands with the Prez”. Still, even allowing for a certain bullshit factor, the guy really has packed a lot of living and learning into less than 30 years.
“But what if I don’t want a four hour workweek. What if I want to work long hours on what gives me deep satisfaction, as per Heinlein’s definition of happiness?”
Well, that’s part of living consciously, now innit? I mean, jeez, I wouldn’t want my writing limited to four hours a week!
One Reply to “The Four Hour Work Week”