My life changer moment - The 4 Hour Work Week

Tim Ferris (@tferriss) wrote the 4-Hour Work Week (4HWW) back in 2008.  For me the book was life-changing - insomuch that instantly, I was able to manage stress.   I'd been through 8 years of an annual stress cycle ever since becoming self employed in 2000.  I was stuck in a kind of stress loop.

The 4 hour work week opened my eyes and allowed me to understand my stress.  Stress didn't disappear overnight, but I was able to look at it from a distance, accept that it was there, and know that there were solutions.  I instantly felt in control.

I've followed the principles of the 4HWW ever since - OK not to the exact detail - I don't live in Argentina whilst earning in Dollars and spending in Rupees (a great life hack that Tim actually excercised for some time, although generally Worldwide, not just Argentina!  

The general principles fit most peoples lives and situations.  The main things that have resonated with me since reading the book (which I did in a couple of hours I was that engrossed) are as follows:-

  • Outsourcing - I was actually doing this from 2000 onwards whereby I sourced CAD drafting in India for my Architectural Practice.  I was paying Indian firms $3.5 USD per hour and charging out to UK clients at £20/ hour.  OK, not a lot - but the markup was pretty substantial.  I have done this ever since and still do - although the margins aren't so great these days.  People Per Hour is a great resource for outsourcing - www.peopleperhour.com.  Most of the time now I use Peopleperhour to find good freelancers for logo design and graphics.  Outsourcing has certainly freed up my time immensley whilst adding profit to the bottom line.
  • Avoid the 9-5 trap.  Traditionally we have all worked a shift pattern - 9-5 being the stereotypical working day.  Staff will sit for 8 hours and fill these hours to look busy.  Even being self employed, I used to do the same.  Now, the working day will be whatever it needs to be for me to achieve the tasks required that day.  If this means a 3 hour day - great.  Sometimes it requires a 10 hour shift - as long as it is meeting my goals and aligns with my ideals.  This kind of works on location too - at the point of writing 4HWW, working from home was a rarity.  Freedom of time AND location was the ideal that 4HWW pursued.  Since then of course COVID has forced many of us to follow the freedom of location - although it still astounds me that pre-COVID, despite Skype being on the scene since 2003 (and in video call form since 2010) businesses and professionals were slow to adopt.
  • Defferred life plan - Tim talks about retirement - something we all work towards.  But why work until we're 65 (or is it 67 now in The UK?) to then spend 10 years hobbling around the places we always dreamt of visiting.  This of course is if you're lucky to be fit enough by then.  Instead Tim talks of Mini Retirements - taking 3 months of here, a month there - etc. in order to fulfill some of these dreams and goals now while we're (hopefully) fit enough to do so.
  • No is the default answer - and I couple this up to having no qualms about being selfish about my time.  Outside interruption and intervention is cancerous to productivity and achievement.  Distraction is the devil.  Saying no to everything stops you from over committing your valuable time and resource to something you heart is not really invested in.  Other lifestyle Gurus have elaborated on this notion, suggesting that something has to be a 'Hell yeah' kind of thing - or its a no.  In otherwords, we only agree to something that really does light our fire.  My selfish addition to this trait is that we shouldnt feel guilty about doing things for ourselves for the fear of offending others.  We're here on this planet for a finite amount of time and we have every right to spend that time and effort on ourselves and our own goals.
All of Tims tools lead to a plethora of techniques, disciplines, habits - all of which have spawned seperate books in their own right - the topic is endless and with the advent of new apps and techniques on a daily basis, finding those which work for you takes time.  I've trialled what I believe to be everything and I am quite content that I have found a series of tools that works for me, for now!  I'll talk about these in my next Blog.

References:




The 4-Hour Work Week
Timothy Ferriss
ISBN 9780091929114
www.eburypublishing.co.uk
tim.blog





People Per Hour
www.peopleperhour.com


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