Timothy Farris - How to work 4 hours a week

Publisher: Good Book, Moscow, 2007.
321 pp., Translated by Uliana Saptsina.
The printed version will cost you $ 12-19.
Original: Crown Publishing Group, 308 pages, published in April 2007.

This book interested me by its name. The original name “The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich” sounds like “How to work 4 hours a week, not be in the office from call to call and still live anywhere get rich . Do not rush to close the review - an unfortunate title is not yet talking about a failed book.
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What's inside?

Having bought it by chance, I walked around for a long time, each time putting it off to a far dusty shelf. Scrolling through 20 pages, put it off even further, forgetting about it for several days. I began to suspect that this is another fiction written in a bad tone, "Make a million on a book about how to make a million . " As it turned out, I was not far from the truth: unknown and not rich before the book, after its release in 2007, Ferris found himself the author of one of the bestsellers according to the NYC Times, and at the same time a rich and successful 30-year-old writer who started selling books through his acquaintances bloggers.

Unlike the better-known Robert Kiyosaki with his “Rich Dad,” Ferris favors specifics. And if Kiyosaki is tired of the routine, the clerk sitting with a book on the subway or a minibus on the way home reads “drop everything and be rich”, then the situation is just the opposite. A 4-hour workbook with examples tells how you can optimize time costs and really spend a lot less on work.

From now on, remember: what you do is infinitely more important than how you do it. Efficiency also matters, but it is useless if it is aimed at worthless things.

After a third of the book, I found that the far-off dusty shelf became even more dusty, and the book suddenly turned out to be much more interesting than it seemed. If so, it is necessary to finish reading.

And there is something to learn from it: playing with the reader's feelings, Ferris writes beautifully and easily about the white sands of Rio, about the beer festival in Munich, get-togethers in London or traveling on a motorcycle in China. Already on these pages, many of the readers will say to themselves: “I, too, I can!”, But they will, alas, be wrong.

If you are an employee, it is not only you who are guilty of being stuck in trifles. People, as a rule, have no incentive to use time rationally, except for those who work for a commission. Adults uncles established a rule: from 9 am to 5 pm it is necessary to sort out pieces of paper.

The hero of the book, the author calls the "new rich." This person is usually young, ambitious, loving travel, new experiences and new languages, smart and taking a lot of time not only for the intellect, but also for the sport. The book, thus, turns out to the same autobiographical.

Who if not us?

How to change your life and abandon the usual working day from 9:00 to 17:00? The sweet word "freelancing" in this book did not sound, but in vain - in part about him it is here and goes. How to travel the world without giving up work and continuing to earn money? Ferris offers a simple option - delegate maximum tasks to remote assistants. Receiving calls and processing mail, packing and sending goods, writing blogs, news and releases - all this needs to be reassigned to those whose working time is cheaper than yours. After that, pack a suitcase and go to Prague to drink beer and get acquainted with the ladies.



It should be noted - the author is an American, so many of the concepts from the book should be used with an eye to the realities of the country in which you live. Look around - if there are a lot of Chinese around you, prices in dollars and striped flags with fifty stars, you can safely skip this paragraph. If not, pay attention to the fact that Indian workers, to whom Ferris recommends to reassign your work, can earn more than you. If on your car numbers there is a tricolor, and on TV they talk about some other country with the same name as yours, but everything is good, then it’s time to doubt a great deal of work.

The need to chase after success will cease to be yours, as soon as you realize that there are no other rules and restrictions besides those that we have set ourselves.

We are advised to entrust the main functions of an office worker, which are time-consuming, but still someone must perform, to assign remote workers from India or, strangely, Canadians. Do not rush to immediately put everything into practice, think - to entrust 90% of the entire work to someone else is not as easy as it seems. The assignment of duties is a complex and sometimes ungrateful business, requiring extensive experience and competent control. Think about the consequences before applying anything from this book. And in general, try to think more often, this is useful.

There is nothing wrong with a full-time job if you like this job. This is what distinguishes vocation from work in the usual sense of the word.

Arrange the shelves

At the risk of being biased, I note that the book is conditionally divided into three parts: in the first reader they offer to dream what life can be without an office routine, how to wake up well in a bungalow overlooking the ocean or in a house in the middle of the mountains, and not in a noisy metropolis, like it is good to use only what is necessary, and not to increase fat and buy on credit unnecessary phones, expensive laptops and credit lancers.

The second part is practical and the most useful. Here, from words, we can get down to business and find out how, guided by the 80/20 rule, we can reduce our time in office to 1 day a week, and eventually not appear there. Timothy advises time freed up to take up his business, which would not require a lot of time and constant presence at the computer.

In the third part, the laurel wreath of the winner of the routine is already resting at the reader's feet, and now you can choose a place on the map where to go and relax and gain impressions. The third part of the book is no less important, because these are explanations of what to do with the huge amount of time that is available if you forget about office life, the five-day work week and other joys of modernity.

What is the result

Sitting six days out of seven doing nothing, you can either go crazy or sleep. Estets can do the first first and then the second. So, to prevent this from happening, ask yourself the question: do you need to free up your work time for entertainment? Do you need so much working time? Many for some reason want eternal life, not knowing how to occupy Friday evening.

The book will be useful to all: and office workers, and business owners, and freelancers. Many examples of life and practical advice, as well as links to sites with details allow not to tear the theory from the practice.

The list of recommended literature in the final of the book is another reason to open it and to read it - there are more than a dozen interesting books that you should pay attention to.

Author

The author, Timothy Ferris, for friends Timothy Ferriss, was born in 1977 in the United States. Having written a book about the 4-hour work week in 2007, which was a huge success, in 2010 he wrote The 4-Hour Body book on how to keep himself in shape, have stunning sex and be a superman.

In November 2012, his third book, The 4-Hour Chef, was published, in which Timothy explains how to quickly learn to cook like a professional. All three books became bestsellers.

Today, Ferris is a successful businessman, his company BrainQUICKEN has been selling bio-additives since 2001, almost 400,000 people read his twitter, and millions of books are browsing the world. Now, perhaps, and you :).

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