4 hour work week, Tim Ferriss
Personal,  What I'm....

What I’m Reading – The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss

Have you ever wondered how you can be more efficient with your time?  Whether you are trying to figure out how to balance your personal life, quit your job and work for yourself, or just be more efficient at your current job, The 4- Hour Workweek is for you.

Curiosity About ‘The 4-Hour Workweek’

When I first saw 4 Hour Work Week, I thought for sure it was having some get rich quick scheme. But my friends, let me tell you something. It is NOT. I am about 40% of the way through, so I may have more to update later when I have finished it. So far though, it is an excellent read. While I don’t have plans to actually quit my job, I do enjoy reading Tim Ferriss’ books and was curious about this one.

Tim Ferriss’ Way of Taking Things to the Extreme

While I don’t agree with the extreme side Tim Ferriss has taken somethings (like outsourcing his dating life?!?!), I am grateful that he has taken things to the extreme and written about them. These experiments not only help provide us with examples of how far we can push ideas but also help us brainstorm ideas for ourselves!

Breakdown of Each of the Sections

Each section is broken down into a few parts. 1. The body is full of him writing about his ideas and sharing real examples of people that have had success with the same or similar ideas. 2. Comfort Challenge (FYI – Tim Ferriss’ comfort challenges are designed to get you out of your comfort zone. Some are easier than others, but I think each reader will find different ones easier or harder than another reader). 3. Question and ACTION – This part reviews some key points from that section and provides you with action steps to take.

Section of the Book that Deals with Outsourcing

One of the recent sections I had finished in The 4-Hour Workweek went over outsourcing. For the action section, Tim Ferriss encourages his readers to hire a Virtual Assistant, even if they don’t need one yet. I have to say, this one was weird to me as I just have (currently) a tiny blog and do not have work from my day job that could be outsourced. And my personal life…well, that’s my personal life. Why outsource what makes me….me? On top of that, I don’t really make enough to be able to afford a virtual assistant.

My Experience with Upwork

What did I do? I did some research!  I checked out Upwork, which has a diverse (culturally, skill-wise, and cost) group of people just waiting to be hired to virtually help people out! Then I sat down and wrote out things that I do, or need to do, that could possibly be handed off to someone else. In the 4-Hour Workweek, Tim Ferriss gives some suggestions that help you figure out what you can outsource and what you cannot.

You might be wondering what I chose as my first task to outsource for my practice. Editing essays! I recently went back to school and had to write short essays almost every week.  So, I have hired a virtual assistant to take care of the editing/proofreading. It has been a pleasant experience so far! My virtual assistant is from India, but she can read and write English fluently. In fact, I think she might be better than me!

Once I’ve assigned more than one project, I’ll create another post full of tips for hiring a virtual assistant. But for now, I’ll leave it at that for the virtual assistant topic since I’m still a newbie!

Conclusion

From the bit that I have read, and applied, I can see this book is really good at making you think about things differently. It makes you think about what your time is worth to YOU. And doing what you can to make changes that will help you reach the life you want to have. It’s not always going to be pretty, and you’ll likely have some blood, sweat, and tears along the way. But learning to remove the inefficient, unnecessary tasks that we waste time on every day, and replacing them with things that are efficient and/or more fulfilling, will help us reach the life we want.

I may not be all the way through the book yet, but so far, I do highly recommend it.