Free Book Summary - The 4-Hour Workweek - Written by Tim Ferriss

When I picked this book up, I was very skeptical about the contents. I have always had the mindset for myself that I may not be the best at something or the smartest by a long shot but I always vowed that I would never be outworked. Well reading this book puts everything in perspective on the concept of Work. This is the quintessential book on Smart and Effective work. I thought that I did not want to pick up a book that taught laziness. This book does not do that. In fact, it teaches you to use your brain and stop sleep walking through life. If you want a fundamental paradigm shift in your life then you need to read this book.Why is this important to me?This is important because life can slip away and the concept of working and driving hard for 40 years and then stopping is unrealistic. People have fantasies about retirement and how great it would be to quote "be free". Reality sets in and people either wither away because of lack of motivation or celebrate too much and worr
y that they are going to run out of money. Both scenarios are bad and there needs to be a new paradigm. Tim talks about that paradigm in this book. Two core concepts that are the framework of this book are:1.80/20 Rule - Most of you don't know me but I am a numbers geek. Pareto was an Italian mathematician and this is his rule. Basically it translates to 80 percent of the results comes from 20% of the work. If you combine being efficient and effective than the 80/20 rule has compound effects. The one weakness here is that you can become very efficient at in-effective work thus you need to evaluate what is in-effective and stop doing it. There is nobody better than that then Tim Ferriss.2. Parkinson's Law - This is outstanding because I have not heard it before reading Tim's books. Basically it says that a task will swell in "Perceived" difficulty as the time allotted lengthens. In a nutshell, you can get a term paper done in one night or all term. The difficulty of the proje
ct only seems more difficult by name - i.e. Term Paper. To use this law effectively you need to focus on good and NOT perfection. Thus you can get 95% effectiveness in say 1 month opposed to 100% effectiveness in 5 years. This is where this law has real value.This book is packed with relevant stuff on becoming part of the "New Rich" The process acronym is DEAL. It is the following:1. D for Definition - Who are the New Rich (NR) and how do they operate? A comparison of Deferrers (D) to the New Rich encompass: D: Work for themselves while NR have others work for you. D: To work when you want to NR: To prevent work for work's sake and to do minimum necessary for maximum effect (minimum effective load). D: To retire early NR: Mini-retirements now and not making inactivity a goal. D: To buy all the things you want to have. NR: To DO THE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO. D: To be the boss or in charge NR: Be the owner and train others to run it. D: To make a ton of Money NR: To make a ton of
money with specific reasons defined and dreams to be attained. You can see that Definition is important because it is a paradigm shift in thinking and action.2. E for Elimination - Let's face it, the most common saying among American workers is - "I am too busy". Elimination forces you to ask - "Busy doing what"? You asking this question and using Pareto 80/20 rule and Parkinson's Law will free up more than 80% of your time. You need to measure what matters and eliminate what doesn't. Two core concepts need to be drilled into your head:1. Doing something unimportant well does not make it important.2. Requiring a lot of time does not make a task important.A great quote to imprint in your brain is - "Being busy is a form of laziness" This quote has real power when you give it some thought. Most people find mindless tasks to do to avoid what really needs to be done. This gets ingrained and people end up sleep walking through life. Elimination forces you to evaluate things. Sid
e Note: Anybody who knows mean understands that I am a time person. Males in my family have a short life span thus I am possessed by not wasting time on minimal things. Remember "Tomorrow is promised to know one. "3. A for Automation - Tim is a big fan of outsourcing. He promotes maximizing your money with the following maxim - "Make dollars, live on pesos and compensate in rupees." This is very profound. Personally I want to create jobs here in the U.S. but the fundamental concept of automation works regardless if you outsource stuff "on shore" or "off shore". Initially it may be cheaper off shore but quality on-shore needs to be looked at. The real mind "bleep" here that you will need to overcome to make this work is CONTROL. Automation requires diligence on your part. One way to put your head on this is to calculate your hourly worth either now or your goal and then automate or delegate stuff that is less. Example: If you make $300 per hour then you should not be spending
time on any task that can be done for a lesser hourly rate. This is true in all businesses. Would you have a top programmer working on your new whiz-bang product fixing a user's computer? NO WAY!!!!!Example: Tim talks about what a waste of time email is. Most business people live in their inbox which wastes a ton of time. Tim outsources his email and ONLY responds to the ones that fit the 80/20 rule and Parkinson's Law. Most people including myself cannot fathom doing this but if you don't, you could spend hours and hundreds of hours per month buried in email as your business grows. One excellent technique in the book is to setup an auto-responders and let people know that you only read email twice per day. This is very effective and allows you more time to work on what matters.4. L for Liberation - This comes down to time freedom. This is much harder if you are a 9-5 employee but doable if you commit to a productive schedule. I can tell you from a business owner's perspect
ive that owners care about customers, stakeholders and profit. I know the profit sounds harsh but without it then nothing else exists in the business. Thus if employees can generate profit through effective work then you will gain Liberation freedom with at home work. This is required for the 4-Hour Work Week Life style. The easiest example is seen in salesman. Business owners do not care if they hit their quote in 2 hours per week or 80 hours. Just as long as they hit it is all that matters.Remember: "You never see a U-Haul following a hearse" You can't take it with you when you are below ground.I realize this summary does not scratch the surface on how good this book is but for the sake of time, I need to keep it short.Another excellent part of the book is covered under Automation. Tim talks about Income Automation. This is excellent because any financial guru will tell you that CASHFLOW is king. If you can setup an automated cash flow streams then you can easily dictate y
our freedom. Make it a goal to have your money work harder than you and you will have all the time freedom in the world.I hope you have found this short video summary useful. The key to any new idea is to work it into your daily routine until it becomes habit. Habits form in as little as 21 days.One thing you can take away from this book is respecting your time. Time is the one commodity that is NOT REPLACEABLE. Ingrain this in your mind and live by it and you will flourish.

View this post on my blog: http://www.yourgamebook.com/free-book-summary-the-4-hour-workweek-written-by-tim-ferriss.html