THE 4-HOUR WORKWEEK: A SUMMARY

Bias alert: I love pretty much everything Tim Ferriss writes. This book, 4-Hour Workweek, is no exception. It is nearly impossible to summarize one of his books, because his books are densely packed summaries already.?They’re absolutely chock-full of references, links, and actionable advice.?Because the latest providers of certain services change constantly, SOME OF THE LINKS BELOW ARE OLD (BROKEN).?I list them anyway, because once you understand what you are looking for, it’s easy to find more recent providers of the same services.?There are a LOT of great quotes in this book.?I will not requote all the quotes worth quoting because that alone would be a 10-page summary.

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My goal in providing an outline is to demonstrate that it’s worth it to buy the book.?Tim’s acronym is D.E.A.L. and the book follows this outline:

Definition

Elimination

Automation

Liberation

STEP I: D IS FOR DEFINITION

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Chapter 1

Cautions and Comparisons: How to Burn $1,000,000 a Night

Tim defines “the goal” as having something meaningful towards which you want to work beyond just retirement. He believes in finding a way to take a mini retirement or be permanently retired; other people do all the work for you.?He compares the Deferrers (D) to the New Rich (NR).?

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Attributes of the New Rich

• Make a ton of money, with specific reasons and dreams in mind, defined timelines, following specific steps.
• Put cash flow first and a big payday second.
• Be the business owner who eliminates the least profitable customers and projects, outsources all operations and travels the world.
• For example: develop an Amazon business that delivers enough income you can work part time doing something you enjoy in a job with benefits.
• Your income should be measured by dollar per hour not an absolute total net annual income.

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Chapter 2

Rules That Change the Rules: Everything Popular Is Wrong

• Retirement Is The Worst-Case Scenario Insurance.
• Interest And Energy Are Cyclical: alternate between activity and rest to thrive.
• Less Is Not Laziness: “Focus on being productive instead of busy.”
• The Timing is Never Right.
• Ask For Forgiveness, Not Permission.
• Emphasize Strengths, Don’t Fix Weaknesses.
• Things In Excess Become Their Opposite.
• Money Alone Is Not The Solution.
• Relative Income Is More Important Than Absolute Income:
• Absolute Income?= Measured In Dollars, which is the measurement of the Deferrers?
• Relative Income?= Measured In Dollars Per Hour, which is the measurement of the NR
• Distress Is Bad, Eustress Is Good:
• Distress: “The harmful stimuli that make you weaker, less confident, and less able.”?
• Eustress: “The stress that is healthful and the stimulus for growth” and progress.

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Chapter 3

Dodging Bullets: Fear-Setting and Escaping Paralysis

“To do or not to do? To try or not to try? Most people will vote no, whether they consider themselves brave or not. Uncertainty and the prospect of failure can be very scary noises in the shadows. Most people will choose unhappiness over uncertainty.”

• The Power of Pessimism: Defining the Nightmare.
• Conquering Fear = Defining Fear.
• Uncovering Fear Disguised as Optimism.

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Chapter 4

System Reset: Being Unreasonable and Unambiguous

• Doing the Unrealistic is Easier Than Doing the Realistic.
• Correcting Course: Get Unrealistic.

Dreamlining

1. What would you do if there was no way you could fail and you were 10 times smarter than the rest of the world?
2. Drawing a blank? What if you had 100 million in the bank?
3. What does “being” entail vs. “doing?” Convert each “being” into a “doing.”
4. What are the four dreams that would change at all?
5. Determine the cost of these dreams and calculate your target monthly income (TMI).

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STEP II: E IS FOR ELIMINATION

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Chapter 5

The End of Time Management: Illusions and Italians

Pareto Principle

Roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes.?Other names for this principle are the?80/20 rule.

• Get rid of bad customers
• Dump more money into the advertising that works and fire the ones that don’t
• Fire the low yield affiliates and focus on the few that provide you with income

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Parkinson’s Law

The task will swell in complexity in relation to the time allotted for completion.

• His tactics here include pretending you can only work two hours a day: what would you do? What are the top activities that move the ball forward??Who are the 20% of people who produce 80% of your enjoyment and propel you forward?
• Do not multitask.

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Chapter 6

The Low-Information Diet: Cultivating Selective Ignorance

• Stay on a low information diet.
• No social media, news, web browsing, TV, etc.
• Learn to speed read (instructions provided in the book)

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Chapter 7

Interrupting Interruption and the Art of Refusal

• Batch read emails
• Say no to everything

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Elimination Sources

Grandcentral.com

Provides a cover phone number.

youmail.com

Provides the same for E-mail

Doodle.com

Allows you to schedule meetings

Timedriver.com

Works similar to Calendly for allowing others to schedule you.

Xobni.com

Inbox spelled backwards and it helps you manage Outlook

jott.com

Allows you to capture thoughts, create to-dos, and sets reminders. You can also post voice message links on Twitter and Facebook

Copytalk.com

Dictate any message of the four minutes I have a transcription email to you with an hours.

ibibliO.orG/Fred/freedom

Will shut off network on an Apple computer for up to eight hours at a time.

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STEP III: A IS FOR AUTOMATION

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Chapter 8

Outsourcing Life: Off-loading the Rest and a Taste of Geoarbitrage

Outsourcing Life

Here he begins to outline outsourcing to India a personal assistant, specifically in this case YMII, whom I have called and now only works for bigger companies.?Brickwork Is the name of the other company he mentions and I believe I’ve called them too. They focus exclusively on business work.?Easy to find a virtual assistant on UpWork, however.

S.O.P. for Virtual Assistants

• Throughout the rest of the chapter, he provides precise directions for managing virtual assistants (VAs).
• Require a status update every few hours.
• Set a deadline a week in advance or daily. Create deadlines of how far along they should be with confirmation updates.
• Do not give someone too many tasks.
• Set an order of importance for the tasks you issue.

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Eliminate before you delegate

He provides a good email script for assigning tasks to a virtual assistant.

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Virtual Assistant Links

iavoa.com (dead)

Asksunday.com

Vworker.com (now Freelancer)

Guru.com

Elance.com (now UpWork)

B2kcorp.com

Taskseveryday.com

Yourmaninindia.com

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V.A. Management Links

busysync.com (dead)

To sync calendars cross Gmail accounts

Weboffice.com (dead)

Allows you to share your calendar online I’ll making personal appointments and can be synchronize with outlook.

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Electronics manufacturing source

Flextronics is a Singapore-based engineer in manufacturing team that makes the Xbox as well as Kodak digital cameras

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Limit the Number of Resellers

If you sell through resellers Tim believes the more competing resellers that are, the faster your product goes extinct. This is because they get in a bidding war with each other to lower prices.?He believes you should limit wholesale distribution to one or two resellers who can move serious quantities of product and agree to maintain a minimum advertised price. Otherwise, rogue discounters on eBay will drive you broke.?Then in exchange for exclusivity negotiate a higher profit margin.

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Ryan Moran parrots this advice in?12 Months to $1 Million.

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Chapter 9

Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

Step One: Pick an Affordably Reachable Niche Market

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