the four hour workweek
before we get to the video coverage of this weekend’s events, i thought i’d write about a book i read on the way. the book is the 4-hour workweek by timothy ferriss.
just for starters, timothy ferriss is a total douchebag. in the first chapter or so he goes over how he became some kind of martial arts champion in china by finding a loophole in the rules where if you push your opponent off the platform three times in one match, you automatically win. so that was his whole strategy. he trained for four weeks at pushing people off the platform and won. that’s really lame. no wonder he’s single.
ok so i managed to put that behind me and continue reading. the book has some interesting ideas. the thing that stuck out the most was the concept of creating “mini-retirements” throughout your life instead of saving every penny up for an actual retirement. this makes sense to me - i’ve always had a bit of a problem with the whole dave ramsey school of thought where you work your butt off and penny pinch most of your life to “enjoy” your retirement later. and if i die before then, then what did i actually accomplish? plus there’s the whole idea of how your health tends to deteriorate as you age, so maybe it’d be nice to see europe sometime before i’m 60?
i will say this book was a little easier to digest because i’m working from home now. i’d say chances are slim that the plan he lays out for getting your employer to allow you to work remotely would really work. however, the flip side of that is, if you aren’t happy enough with your job to want to be there 40 hours a week, then why are you wasting your time there? he talks about how losing/quitting a job isn’t as big a deal as everyone makes it out to be - he’s right. try it a few times and soon it won’t even phase you anymore 
i also liked how he made it a point to try to get the reader to understand that you can live outside the 9-5 mentality. i know i do this - even working from home. i feel like i have to find something to do for every minute between 9-5, whether its efficient or effective or not, because its so much a part of our culture to stay busy during those hours that you feel like you’re cheating the system if you aren’t.
so overall, the plan of the book is this: set up a business that is essentially run by itself, via outsourced/automated partnerships and then use that as your main source of income while you figure out what you love to do. not really a new concept, but i suppose not many people have written out a plan for it like this.
now that i’ve finished reading it…i kinda feel like selling everything in my house and moving to europe for 6 months…or maybe 12?
I’m in the middle of this same book right now, and am in one of those mini-vacations, too. Interesting reading. There are a few things from it I’ll be taking into whatever work situation I find myself in next.
Comment by Mike Hon — August 20, 2007 @ 2:50 am
so what you are saying is.. if a person is single they must be lame as well..
gee thanks!
Comment by jv — August 20, 2007 @ 4:55 pm
actually, the subject of that paragraph is found in the first sentence “timothy ferriss is a total douchebag”. then i follow up with my reasons for thinking this about him, and come to the conclusion that its not surprising to me that he’s single.
if the main subject were about single people being lame, which i would never write about because i know many wonderful single people
- then i would have started with a sentence about that, followed up with a few examples showing that all the single people i know are lame, and come to the conclusion at the end that all single people are lame - and probably would not have made this claim amidst a blog post about a book that is completely unrelated to being single.
:P
Comment by crystal — August 20, 2007 @ 7:14 pm
What do you think about single people who are also borderline cat ladies (like me!)? Surely, that’s lame.
Comment by jamie — August 20, 2007 @ 9:43 pm
cat ladies weren’t covered in the book either.
Comment by crystal — August 21, 2007 @ 7:47 am
OH, but are you saying then that all Timothy’s are douchebags? Here I thought we were friends!!!
Comment by Tim — August 21, 2007 @ 8:06 am
let me just offer a quick paraphrase of what i was trying to say in this blog post:
1. all single people are lame
2. i hate cats
3. i don’t ever want to talk to anyone named tim again
4. because of reasons 1-3, i want to move to a life of isolation in remote europe.
5. i also hate unicorns, flowers, rainbows, puppies and muppets. oh and especially fraggles.
i thought those points were pretty clear in the above post, but i guess there was some confusion.
Comment by crystal — August 21, 2007 @ 2:55 pm
But I’m still cool, right?
Comment by The Angry Gnome — August 21, 2007 @ 5:03 pm
thanks for the paraphrase. i should have just skipped the whole darn thing and just read that instead. i think next time you should put a disclaimer at the beginning that would save me the excessive reading.
also, you need one of these:
http://www.teeful.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=ABC%2D8
and maybe this one too?
http://www.teeful.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=ABC%2D1
Comment by tiff — August 21, 2007 @ 5:47 pm
As a postscript I would just like to add my person belief that “douchebag” is a word that is underrepresented in the blogosphere, so kudos to Crystal for her fine use of the word.
Comment by The Angry Gnome — August 22, 2007 @ 8:22 am