{"id":19875,"date":"2019-01-23T12:29:28","date_gmt":"2019-01-23T11:29:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zenkit.com\/?p=19875"},"modified":"2023-07-17T11:49:36","modified_gmt":"2023-07-17T09:49:36","slug":"whats-the-deal-with-the-4-hour-workweek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenkit.com\/en\/blog\/whats-the-deal-with-the-4-hour-workweek\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s the Deal with Tim Ferriss’ 4-Hour Workweek?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"What's<\/p>\n

The mainstream expectation of working life is that once you graduate from high school and college, you find a job, work about 40 hours per week until you reach the retirement age\u2014which in the United States is your 60s\u2014and only \u2018til then can you relax and start lapping up the luxuries of the life you’ve always wanted.<\/span><\/p>\n

Timothy Ferriss’s “4-hour workweek<\/a>” method challenges this. <\/span><\/p>\n

In his bestselling book of the same name, the American author, entrepreneur, podcaster, and investor offers an alternative. He espouses that<\/span>\u00a0you can reduce your working hours and still reap the same financial gains by automating your income which will leave you more time to pursue other avenues in life that you are interested in.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Man<\/p>\n

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What Is the 4-hour Workweek?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Since its initial release in 2007, Ferriss’s book, “The 4-Hour Workweek,” has not only spent several years on the New York Times Best Seller list<\/a>\u00a0but it’s also developed a legion of fans and followers. And it’s not hard to see why.<\/p>\n

As suggested in its name, Ferriss’s method demonstrates that it’s a perfectly viable option to spend only four hours working per week. He offers solutions that enable you to do so without being financially penalized. But before we get into it, let’s take a look at how this all came about.<\/p>\n

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Who Is Timothy Ferriss?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

After <\/span>graduating<\/span><\/a> from Princeton University in 2000 with a BA in East Asian studies, Ferriss moved to San Francisco to work in Silicon Valley. It was there where he built BrainQuicken, an online sports nutritional supplements company which he was putting about 80 hours of work a week into.<\/span><\/p>\n

Overworked and frustrated at the lack of free time he had, Ferriss took time off and went on what was supposed to be only a three-week sabbatical in Europe. Those three weeks turned into months when he continued to travel around Asia and South America.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was during this time that he got the idea for the 4-hour workweek after realizing how manageable it was to keep his business going by outsourcing tasks and developing a system of only checking emails once a day.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ferriss became conscious of the fact that working less doesn’t necessarily mean you’re being less productive. It just means that you’re optimizing your time and spending it wisely.\u00a0<\/span>With all of this amounting to about four hours a week, this gave him a great deal of free time, which, in this day and age, can be considered as valuable a commodity as money.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The New Rich<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u201c$1,000,000 in the bank isn’t the fantasy. The fantasy is the lifestyle of complete freedom it supposedly allows.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In contrast to the Old Rich, the gentry of established wealth, the New Rich is a term coined by Ferriss that describes a group of people characterized by not only their financial freedom but also the ability to go wherever they want, whenever they want. In other words, people who have total control of their time<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The biggest appeal of being rich is the idea that the more money you have, the less time you have to spend working. Instead, you can spend your time doing the things you love<\/a> because you don’t have to worry about earning anything.<\/span><\/p>\n

But Ferriss sees otherwise.<\/span><\/p>\n

He believes that you don\u2019t need a million dollars to live a million-dollar lifestyle. What you need to live the life of luxury are flexibility and mobility. It’s these two things that will allow you to live a life that enables you to do whatever you want, whenever you want. And neither is feasible if you work the standard 40-hour week.<\/span><\/p>\n

Being part of the New Rich involves not being born into wealth, but attaining it through developing what is known as a “muse”. A muse is your best idea, something that can be turned into a profitable product or service that will fund your 4-hour workweek lifestyle. <\/span><\/p>\n

This shouldn’t be confused with a startup idea, because unlike that, your muse doesn’t have to be managed by you. You’re not meant to be an entrepreneur, because that requires time and effort spent on strategy, leadership<\/a>, and management<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span>A muse must enable you to automate your income so that you to spend the majority of your time leisurely.<\/p>\n

\"People<\/p>\n

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What’s the D.E.A.L?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Of course, transitioning from full-time work to a 4-hour workweek doesn’t happen instantly. How that happens is by following the acronym D.E.A.L framework established by Ferriss. Here’s what each stage entails:<\/p>\n

Definition<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The first step is to rethink your goals and give them new definitions. For instance, those part of the New Rich don’t see retirement as their ultimate objective. Instead, their golden years are the present. They live for what Ferriss describes as “mini-retirements”, prolonged breaks in between periods of work, and strive to incorporate that into their working lifestyle.<\/span><\/p>\n

Defining your goals, or “dreamlining” them, will give you a clear perspective on how and what you should aim for in order to live the life you want. By dreamlining your goals\u2014calculating daily expenses\u2014you can work out what kind of muse you need to set up in order to finance your lifestyle.<\/p>\n

Ferriss shares a dreamlining calculator and worksheet on his website which you can access here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Elimination<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The next step encourages you to learn how to disregard the things that aren\u2019t important or aren\u2019t helping you to grow. As there is only so much time in the day, by eliminating things that distract us or\u00a0<\/span>aren’t worthy of our time, we will be able to spend our working hours more productively<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

An example of this is the excess of information available at our disposal that most of us spend perusing on a regular basis. Instead of reading every single thing online through various websites and publications, limit your information intake and restrict yourself to just one source, once a day. This is what is known as the “low information diet<\/a>“.<\/p>\n

Another way is to implement the <\/span>Pareto principle<\/span><\/a>. Also known as the 80\/20 rule, it’s a notable concept in economics which asserts that 80% of effects come from 20% of the causes. In other words,\u00a0<\/span>80% of your successful sales come from only 20% of your customers, or <\/span>80% of your profits come from only 20% of your efforts. <\/span>So focus only on the 20%.<\/p>\n

The process of eliminating distractions forces you to prioritize your tasks<\/a> and evaluate the activities that are helping or hindering your endeavour. By doing this, you\u2019ll figure out the ones that are essential to maintain and the ones that you can say adi\u00f3s to.<\/span><\/p>\n

Automation<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Now that you’ve eliminated the time-wasting activities, it’s time to go one step further to reduce your work hours by turning your muse into an automated revenue stream.<\/span><\/p>\n

To earn a passive income, take a look at the tasks at hand\u00a0and see what can be delegated<\/a> and outsourced. In this digital age, r<\/span>eliable virtual assistants and teams are not so hard to come by. Delegating responsibilities and the daily operations of your business is what will free up your time and enable you to reduce your working hours to the ideal four per week.<\/p>\n\r\n