Does The 4-Hour Workweek Really Work?

We thought we would like to share our real life experiences implementing Tim Ferriss’ first book, The 4-Hour Work Week (4HW). It has been an adventure implementing his strategies over the last two years.

The premise of the book is about breaking free of the limitations that tradition tells us must exist. These would include limitations of time, money, and career choices. Through documented experimentation, Tim decries those limitations and he challenges the reader to do the same.

Immediately we recognized that this book was different. In it, Tim explores the different perspectives on running businesses. This then turns traditional ideas on their head. The book is packed with a lot of powerful information and unique approaches to business. It’s a lot to take in the first time around, but the good news is that the book is always there to refer back to.

We decided we were going to implement as many of these ideas as we could over that next year. To do this we journeyed into the unfamiliar and even the downright scary, but we were determined to test these ideas regardless of how little we knew about them.

For instance, the concept of a virtual assistant was completely foreign to us. The idea of outsourcing was something a little scary as we love feeling highly involved in our business not to mention the concept is a little bit taboo. After educating ourselves on the realities and capabilities of outsourcing options, we knew we had to try it. To be honest, at first, we couldn’t think of many things for our new assistant to do. Today, we employ a team of assistants who average 180 hours per month for us. Better still, with every passing task these assistants learn more about us and our business so we have to communicate less with them. Our businesses are more efficient, more profitable, and less time consuming than ever by implementing just this one strategy from 4HW.

Another concept we felt had a powerful effect was what the 4HWW explains about communication skills. The book contrives an experiment dealing with employees, employers, investors, vendors, assistants, and everyone else in our lives. His idea about making every communication count really helps cut out all the “fat.” Email, phone calls, meetings, casual conversations can be distractions that keep you from being focused and as effective as possible.

And then there are the concepts in daily organization and task management. This has been a surprise because as small as it seemed at the time, we learned how to increase our productivity well over 100% with a few tips offered on this subject. If you read the book and apply these principles, you’ll be surprised at how much more effective they will help you become.

Finally, our long term vision for our businesses has greatly changed. We no longer feel the need for a large business with large overhead because we now know it’s possible to have a large business with little to no overhead. Instead, we can run our businesses from anywhere at any time or they will run effectively in our absence. That is only because we’ve designed them that way after reading 4HW.

This book created giant shifts for us. We highly recommend it. Even if you don’t have a business or work, this book can create great things in your life. This book is about living life to its fullest and not just waiting until you are incapable of enjoying new events to experience them.

Stay tuned. We are currently testing Tim’s new book, The 4-Hour Body and we’ll get a review up soon.

Tim Ferriss takes goal achievement with less effort to a whole new level. Learn more about goal achievement strategies by visiting our site.