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 enlarge | Author: Timothy Ferriss
Publisher: Crown
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
Buy New: $11.45
You Save: $8.50 (43%)
New (62) Used (29) Collectible (2) from $10.32
Rating:  788 reviews
Sales Rank: 179
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.7 x 1.2
ISBN: 0307353133
Dewey Decimal Number: 650.1
EAN: 9780307353139
ASIN: 0307353133
Publication Date: April 24, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Revolutionary Approach to Work and Life, Focus on What You Do Best, and Eliminate, Automate, or Outsource the Rest! November 23, 2008
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
Timothy Ferris shows people how to create their dream lives right now, rather than someday when they are "retired." Tim uses outsourcing, geographic arbitrage, and performance/productivity principles to transform his life from 80 hour workweeks to 4 hour workweeks, while making as much per month as he used to make in one year.
The four big ideas to take and use from this book are: eliminate unnecessary and unimportant work from your life; automate anything that can be automated; use technological tools to work anywhere; and outsource work to others who can do the same task better, faster, and cheaper than you.
I like how he applies the 80-20 rule not just to tasks, but to people and customers. Learning how to say "no" to the trivial allows you to say "yes" to the vital.
You can transform services and information into products that automate themselves. If there is basic information that you always tell people, just write it, record it, or video it one time. It's as simple as making a website to pull your niche customers in, rather than making calls all day to push something on your market segment.
Life is good when you earn in dollars and pay in pesos. If your work is related to computers or technology, you can just as easily type on your laptop on a beach as in a desk. I used this technique during a full-time school year to visit over 40 cities.
Outsourcing your work is not about "taking advantage" of poor people. It's allowing each person to do what they do best. If you have a legal problem, do you apply to a law school and spend 4 years to get a license? Or do you just hire a lawyer? If you have to mow a lawn, do you go out and buy a new lawn mower? It's the same principle for most things in life.
Are you treading water or swimming ahead? When you fall of a boat, you have to tread water or else you will drown. But, if all you do is tread water and stay in place, you will eventually drown. You have to swim ahead and move forward to get to your destination.
In life, take three weeks to three months to learn how to tread the water, and then systemize, delegate, or outsource that task so you can focus on swimming ahead. There is no glory, no honor, and no reason to waste your most precious resource--your time--in anything that does not make you grow in life.
Time is the great equalizer. We all have the same amount of time. It is what we do with our time that makes our lives so different. Are you spending your time treading water or swimming ahead?
A Must Read for any Business Owner November 20, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
This book has changed my working life. Even though I love running my own business it was taking up a lot of time away from my family. This book helped me to review my work processes and vastly reduce my number of work hours and at the same time increasing my the output I got from those hours.
This has also become a great reference book, when I feel my work hours are creeping up I read certain sections to regain my focus.
It's worth the money :) November 19, 2008
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
I had so much fun reading the book and i thoroughly enjoyed it.It's worth the money.
 Okey, November 18, 2008
0 out of 6 found this review helpful
I like the book and it is worth the money.
But there is a but...
The 4-hour workweek. Would not we all like to have it like that!
I can not read it without getting a feeling that the authors way to his own 4-hour week is making money by living on others dream of a no work and earning money. The book does not come up with any not earlier written subjects but still it is quite entertaining and some real tips to your lifestyle design can be found.
Buy it but it is in no way a bible to the subject but rather a small ignition to your own new lifestyle. It surely more helps the person who may caught up in the squirrel wheel of the business world rather than the CEO which it is flirting with.
It does not reach 4 out of 5 because to me it has a tone of that "serious work" is not cool, which I do not like. 3/5 for this kind of "self development" kind of book is not bad though.
Best Regards
Chris
It's All About Mindset November 17, 2008
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
A lot of people criticize this book based on the title and the author's seemingly over the top claims of free money and a life of leisure interrupted by short bursts of activity that just can't be avoided. Some people ask "Who will be working if everyone only worked for four hours week?". It all depends on how you define 'WORK'.
In Ferris's world, 'WORK' is whatever you don't want to do. Maybe what you do for fun is work to someone else and what you think of as work is fun to someone else. Here's a practical example. Last summer, I hired someone to mow my lawn. The guy pulls up with a trailer full of equipment and half an hour later, he's gone and my grass looks great. It cost me $35.00. If I had done that work myself it would have cost me 4 hours of my life that I can never get back. Instead, it cost me $35.00 and I went to lunch and a movie with my wife. I hate yard work, but the guy who mows my lawn, LIKES it and he likes getting paid for it. Conversely, I've spent upwards of 20 hours working on some particularly tricky computer problem and I didn't charge the client a dime, because it was fun and I learned some things that now save me time nearly every day. It was fun for me, but some people would consider it work. In Tim Ferris's world, neither of us is really working.
He says in the book "Eliminate before you delegate". It's about eliminating as much unnecessary BS as you can then delegating the rest, so you only have to address the things that truly cannot be avoided. Why is that bad?
I like the book a lot. I had already done some of the stuff he describes. I almost never answer the phone and I use e-mail for all business related communication, because it's faster and I can use the e-mail as a record of the week's events. I've also raised my rates to get rid of some whiny cheapskates who were sucking up all of my time and making me miserable. Now, I do less work, but make the same amount of money. Why is that bad?
Ferris carries it to an extreme that I wouldn't have considered until I had read the book. I'm not saying everything here is practical or even desirable, but it does have some good tips on how to manage your time and eliminate unnecessary activity so you have time to do more of what you like.
Depending on how you define work, this book is great otherwise it's just hype. It's all about mind set.
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