To work only four hours per week and still lead a life of adventure and luxury - Tim Ferriss says you can do it, in his book «The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich
This is Part 5 of my series on T4HWW. An overview of the series can be found here.
Getting away from it all - Liberation
It's not a specific income, car or family what defines the «middle class» - says Tim Ferriss. But being bound to one place. Being chained to one place. From facing and settling your fears to having fun on wheels, wings or planks Tim describes a program to mobilize and liberate you. And it's not just for athletic, single, white males:
- Disappearing Act: How to escape the office
- Beyond repair: Killing your job
- Embracing the mobile lifestyle: Mini-Retirements
- Adding life after subtracting work: Filling the void
Disappearing Act: How to escape the office
To escape the office, as an employee you need permission to work remotely. Tim suggests taking multiple steps.
First, increase your value for the company. It all begins with the money your company is investing into - you. You are becoming an investment as soon as you receive (expensive) trainings. That's why you should ask for them, not only for life-long learning purposes.
you need to demonstrate the benefits of remote work. A great opportunity is when you call in sick - yu may not be able to go to the office, but you can get some work done at home. It should turn out to be considerably more that what you can achieve during a regular business day. Make sure your boss notices the difference and attribute it to being able to fully concentrate on your tasks - due to a lack of interruptions. Absence of commuting makes another perfect reason, reducing stress and increasing productivity. «Higher productivity» is more impressive when expressed in numbers, so let your boss know the increase in whatever appropriate shape he prefers.
As soon as the company acknowledges the improvement, suggest a revocable trial period: one, two, three days per week for working from home. It goes without saying that the remote work should always turn out to be much more productive than the usual 9-5 office style (bamboozle, anyone?) The hour glass approach is an alternative: office time i periodically reduced in favor of remote time and then increased again. If you're facing appeasement tactics or fluffy excuses with respect to possible objections by your coworkers, Tim has good advice on that, too.
Beyond repair: Killing your job
More options equate to more power, less options to less power. It applies especially to the employment market. Being discontented with your current job is a strong motivator for a change, but it's not sufficient in itself.
Whether you dare to cancel your current job (or at least start looking for a new one) depends on your answers to fundamental fears:
- «I'd never make it back to my former life»
- «I won't be able to pay the bills»
- «Health insurance and retirement accounts disappear»
- «Such a period wouldn't look that great in my CV»
Tim is mostly referring you to the first part of his book for answers. By now, you must know and have addressed your fundamental fears. Is it true what my fears are telling me?
Embracing the mobile lifestyle: Mini-Retirements
Better than working patiently towards your «retirement» years at the end of your life, distribute these years across many mini-retirements.
The basics and essential preparations (like dreamlining) were covered already in the first part of the book. Now it's time for concrete plans. As usual, Tim's recommendations are radical: you're never really mobile unless you actually spend one to six months abroad, repeatedly. The costs of living may shrink dramatically if you're focused on dreams of being and doing instead of having. Interestingly, Tim gives his personal balance sheets for various countries, listing flights, flats, food, learning, transportation….
Living abroad gets cheaper than living at home if (and only if) you don't have a home anymore. Literally, Tim recommends that you stock your belongings and sublet your flat - or even sell your house, if you own one. Keep less and take less with you is Tim's credo: following the Pareto principle he keeps only the 20% of things he uses and enjoys most. Things that impose stress on him get dumped, sold or given to those who can make better use of them.
Routine tasks must be automated (like standing orders), for extreme cases of emergency he grants power of attorney in advance, to people he really trusts in.
Adding life after subtracting work: Filling the void
What happens you've got rid of all work and started shuffling your residence options every four weeks? Nothing. Nothing ever just «happens», you have to make it happen. Tim says it's understandable if you follow your first impulse to consume more, or travel more.
At some point in time, however, having cocktails at the bar just doesn't give you a kick anymore. Doubts creep in. Questions like: Weren't «people» right in saying it wouldn't work? There is a reason why such questions emerge: after subtracting work from your days, you need to add life to them. If you don't, the classical Meaning-of-life worries start to bother you. Tim's recommendation: If you can't define it or act upon it, forget it.
Being a part-time resident of foreign countries, you can start growing by learning the language of the country and mingling. There's your first meaningful occupation. Tim suggests to complement this with learning, in each country, something that involves kinesthetic feedback. Both experiences tend to produce lots of social interaction - friends, anyone? Just in case you are looking for your ultimate vocation: it's not in the book. Rather, Tim suggests to stay pragmatic: don't become a cause snob and don't listen to cause snobs. Whether people have to sleep under bridges or not does not affect the value of your comittment to, lets say, animal welfare. Do your best and hope for the best.
Finally…
The book concludes with two chapters covering motivation and resources (including myriads of online links). It would not make much sense to sumamrize them here, be assured that for each aspect of the DEAL you'll find something useful here.
My impression
Tim's book to me is one of the most inspiring ones I've read in years. It is challenging everything popular, constantly - which makes it a frontal attack on most real and fake «concerns». Lots of Tim's suggestions look unethical or immoral, but he is very clear here: laws and natural laws apply everywhere, but other rules can be bent. That's a bit too rude for me, sometimes. Maybe this is due to the fact that I'm not obsessed with winning by resorting to this kind of creativity.
Would I recommend anybody to follow Tim's advice? No. Anybody asking me for such an advice clearly doesn't have the guts to roll up his life.
Would I follow Tim's model? Not blindly. Fortunately, I don't need to, I can try out most things without too much risk. That is what I intend to do..
To be continued…
That was the last part of the book review series (please find the overview here). I'll try out a lot of Tim's ideas, for sure and will post my experiences at Evomend. Since I live in Germany, it will be a special pleasure to research counterparts for Tim's international and US service companies. Exciting!
