When searching for some materials around topics like passive income and financial freedom, this book keeps being mentioned by different parties and made me curious about it. I recently finally finished this book and decided to put down some of my takeaways! (I was “reading” it in an audiobook format.)
Basic Information
Title: The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich
Author: Timothy Ferriss
Publisher: Harmony
Rating (out of 5): 🧡🧡🧡🧡
100 Words Summary
This book introduced a new concept called “the New Rich”, which is those who have a different-from-traditional financial mindset. The book first defines the new, balanced relationship with life and money that this term represents, then it provides steps and methods to let you “escape 9-5”, join the New Rich, and live the life you want.
Notes and Thoughts
These “teach you how to escape 9-5” type of titles usually keeps me away from the books, because I don’t really “hate” my job. Earning other income outside of my 9-5 is still attractive to me, not that I want to “escape” my job, but because it can increase the number of my income streams to decrease the risk of having only one single income source. It can also increase the flexibility I have when making choices and don’t need to consider the money factor that much. So I wasn’t too into this “4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5” clickbaity title. But I heard too many good reviews about this book to not read it. So… now I’ve finished it.
And I’m not disappointed! It turns out that the “New Rich” concept is not really focusing on getting you to quit your job, but more about how you should plan the life you truly desire, and what steps you can take to make it happen. Although I can’t say I’m 100% agree with everything this book mentions, but I’ve learned quite a lot of new concepts and steps I can immediately take. Overall, I will recommend this book, especially you are currently working on a 9-5 job (whether or not you’re planning to quit it 😉 ). Listing below is three of my main takeaways from this book for your reference.
Increase efficiency; reduce work time
A big portion in the first part of the book is to have as little work time as possible. From doing your best to increase your work efficiency, avoiding unnecessary. time-consuming interaction with others (e.g. time-wasting meetings, interruptions, etc.), to outsourcing part of the work (under a reasonable condition), negotiate with your boss for switching to remote work to be more flexible with when and where you work, etc., the author has provided a lot of practical steps and tricks to reduce your “9-5” work time. If you are having a 9-5 job now, I think you’ll like this part and might find some of the tips helpful to immediately put to test and improve the work efficiency!
Build your money-earning machine; create passive income
After reducing your “9-5” work time (it will not be a 9-5 anymore, ideally), the next step is to create other sources of income. In this part, the author mentions the concept of passive income and emphasizes that the goal is to build a money-earning machine that doesn’t need too much of your time and energy to maintain in the long run. By doing so, it can help to eliminate the limitations of when and where you’ll need to work, or even the “work” itself. Let the machine you built work for you so that you will have time to enjoy the life you desire.
Redefine the concept of “retirement”
The author also mentions that many people have the thought of “I want to work very hard to earn money first, then retire after I’ve earned x amount of money, laying on the beach every day.” But once they’ve reached their “retirement goal”, they often realize that laying on the beach every day is actually pretty boring and not what they want to do in their lives. He reminds readers that you should start planning for your ideal life and figure out what are the things that you truly enjoy. He also suggests that you should start trying out your dream life to see if that’s what you expected it to be. Distribute the “retirement” along the way instead of waiting until a certain point of time then do nothing but your “retirement”.
I think a change of mindset might be able to cause a difference. This reminds me of a concept mentioned in Pixar’s movie Soul: learn to enjoy those little moments in life along the way. Instead of feeling like you’re enduring every “now” to get to a better future, changing the mindset to enjoy the day-to-day might help set you up for a happier, more balanced life.