Ask HN: Is Anyone Living “The 4-Hour Work Week”? A book popular in our industry is now a decade old. Has anyone put the advice from the author Tim Ferriss into practice? If so, how did you manage to do it and what have you learned from the experience? |
Side note. Our entire family has been destroyed by fighting over money. Money isn't everything. :)
In the book Tim, emphasises that burning through 90 hour work weeks are pointless if you are not able to enjoy the $$$ it will bring in. Rather spend some money to reduce your workload and focus on things that excite you.
While most the examples he cites are not very useful for me. (I am from India and outsourcing the boring jobs to India isn't very effective ). It helped me focus on what I want in my life. And what is the $$$ amount which will help me achieve that. Its a hard conversation which most of us don't have with ourselves.
I sum up the book as; "There is no point in feeling like shit in your 20s and your 30s for a great life in your 40s which might not even come." Its not exactly YOLO as it emphasises to have a great time and not just let life happen.
There is nothing 'hipster' about doing something outside of your normal routine, like travelling or yoga. I'd recommend you try it more often, you'd be pleasantly surprised at what sort of things (good and bad) will happen.
I recently went on a trip, and when the plane landed my first thought was that I wished I stayed home. Good and bad things happened on this trip, but boy am I glad I did it.
Working on an automation system for the house using ESP8266 behind every socket and learning Elixir, React Native, etc. along the way.
I also get to work on Self-Driving Cars, Hydroponics and other stuff I like.
This would not have been possible if I was stuck at a 9-5. I work remotely and independently.
Tim did Tango and Vagabonding because maybe thats what made him happy. Being a te(/a)cky guy I am doing all things geeky to make me happy. :)
Tim's method is to approach maximum joy in life. Although money is not everything, I don't think joy is either. I tend to think of life as an optimization problem of 2 variables: joy and meaning, sometimes you need to do something unpleasant, yet meaningful.
So I rented a desk for $10 overnight (EST hours) and billed the hours after 2 nights.
In Cebu, $960/month is more than enough to live comfortably. So I realized I made an entire months living (traveling) expenses in one day of work. That's almost like the "2 hour work week"
Like any other book... There is no recipe for success. But there are a lot of techniques on how to maximize your income.
That's not to say 4HWW is without value, but you're right and we should be clear about what it is.
Who cares if you're not "living the dream" as long as you're doing better than before? 4HWW can be a real eye-opener in many respects and it's certainly not just about selling cheap info products while making use of cost of living arbitrage.
In fact, Ferriss has stated several times that the 4HWW is neither about literally just working 4 hours nor is it necessarily about constantly travelling through low-rent countries (though that certainly can be a beneficial option). It's much more about making efficient use of your time and doing so according to your own standards instead of somebody else's.
Some of the comments here depict him as some kind of snake oil salesman. I think he genuinely wants to teach and help people but that's just my personal opinion.
Consider this though: Who are the real snake oil men here? The one who tries to teach you to live a better life by your own standards or the ones that try to sell you a "> 40 hrs of work per week; consume as much as you can; don't enjoy life until you're too old to actually enjoy it;" lifestyle as the 'proper' way of living your life?
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/09/05/better-faster-s...
Eventually I got a little bored with it and wanted to create bigger companies so I dove back in, but I still attribute a lot of my success to stumbling across that book one day.
What would your advice be? As someone who's lived the success, do you think its possible to start from the ground up with 4HWW in mind?
Doing this has helped me create bigger things as well. I create a business, more or less automate it, and then use that cashflow to work on other businesses. Eventually creating a portfolio of cashflow businesses, with a few exits in the middle.
It's striking to me how people seem so baffled about anything anymore these days. Is there a God? The best framework humans have discovered for figuring things out is the scientific method, and according to that, the answer is: not as far as we can tell. Why is this even a question anymore and why do religions still exist, 20+ years after the internet has been around for the public? Again, the answer to that is on the web as well (the answer probably has to do with how longstanding institutions take a long time to die without meteoric disruption - and physics research/the discovery of the Higgs boson clearly wasn't enough to disrupt religion, nor was the recent rise in popularity of Nick Bostrom's simulation theory which happens to be my favorite theory about what this universe is, etc.).
Anyway, I digress...the point is that nearly anything can be figured out via Google. Want to become a rocket scientist? Google it. Read the best books out there. Don't sell yourself short. Want to be an engineer? Google it. And then do it. You can also learn almost anything with very low cost, thanks to the Internet.
I just gave you the secret to the 4 hour work week. Google + determination.
If you're struggling with accepting this answer - start with getting better at searching Google. You can get good at it like any other skill.
I'm currently transitioning into the part time freelancing phase.
Actually kinda amazed that there aren’t many similar people in the thread...I can email you from a public address, it would prove I have a real reputation and not just Tim’s paid commenter.
Then hire other people and try to optimize your business to work without your control. It's very important to be able to manage the company remotely.
A lot of people are trying to get to some huge expertise to achieve "bigger salary" or something. But no one really focuses on earning a small regular no-hassle income.
That's mostly it...Focus on 20% of stuff which gives 80% of results, like the book said.
No internet at home helps me stay on track. When I need internet I walk to the coffee shop with a to-do list.
https://www.indiehackers.com/@yvo/how-ive-lived-the-4-hour-w...
Also I have a couple of friends who have done it for a while.
For those that cannot work remotely, you can still improve your productivity. I have a DND button on my phone that goes right to voicemail after one ring. I funnel everyone into creating a Jira task instead of trying to email, call, or ask in person for some work.
I document commonly asked questions like his FAQ in Confluence so I can point all new hires in other departments to this introduction training material.
Gotta milk that survivorship bias though!
He created product where the brunt of the work took place in the first few months/years, but the SEO traffic paid dividends for years to come.
...is a key two lines to me.
Interestingly, both eventually got married and settled down back in the states. They each seem to be doing well - but have more conventional lifestyles now (i.e. Living in the burbs with kids).
Science is useless in testing or proving supernatural phenomena but that doesn't necessarily mean it can't exist.
How did you do the marketing?
It's called 'marketing'. That title was specifically chosen for its performance in a Google AdWords experimental run, which is a commonly recommended approach for testing MVPs.
The problem is that people read books and get a short spurt of inspiration and desire, but said inspiration / desire is for the end goal - to get there you need to do a journey first. Ferris didn't write his book overnight or even in a few weeks (maybe the summary), nor did he just have the ability to write books - that stuff takes time. It's just that looking at people who got to the end result make it look easy.
Care to share some more details on the process?
It is a great way to make some money for live and launch ideas.
I already read something about courses to sell (video/ebook) in the book called Launch (Jeff Walker).
I am living in a country from Latin America, so I will try something for here. Thanks again. :)
Money has a way of being the perfect "excuse" for vicious people to expose their viciousness.
In my case, a certain person did things so despicable that in my view until they atone for their crimes (actual crimes, not just wrongdoings) in prison, I will never be able to even start forgiving them. Instead, they're living the high life. It's very sad.
I hope you and your family are ok, if nothing else the ones you still care for. These episodes in my life have certainly made me appreciate my immediate family in a different and stronger way.
For me, it was a lesson that absurd unethical behavior within a family happens in real life, it is not a thing of soap opera.
Fortunately, there was no crime committed in my case. "Only" obnoxious behavior, greed, and extreme selfishness.