The 4-Hour Workweek

''The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9–5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich'' (2007) is a self-help book by Timothy Ferriss, an American writer, educational activist, and entrepreneur. It deals with what Ferriss refers to as "lifestyle design", and repudiates the traditional "deferred" life plan in which people work grueling hours and take few vacations for decades and save money in order to relax after retirement. The book spent four years on ''The New York Times'' Best Seller List, was translated into 40 languages, and sold around 2.1 million copies.

Background

Ferriss developed the ideas present in ''The 4-Hour Workweek'' (4HWW) while working 14-hour days at his sports nutrition supplement company, BrainQUICKEN. Frustrated by the overwork and lack of free time, Ferriss took a 3-week sabbatical to Europe. During that time and continued travels throughout Europe, Asia, and South America, Ferriss developed a streamlined system of checking email once per day and outsourcing small daily tasks to virtual assistants. His personal escape from a workaholic lifestyle was the genesis of the book.

The format of ''The 4-Hour Workweek'' took shape during a series of lectures Ferriss delivered on high-tech entrepreneurship at Princeton University, his alma mater. The lectures (and book) described Ferriss' own experiences in company automation and lifestyle development.

Reception

''The New York Times'' noted that Ferriss spends far more than 4 hours per week in blogging and self-promotion, which Ferriss describes as "evangelizing." ''USA Today'' commented: "If it all sounds too good to be true, maybe it is. Or maybe not. Clearly, selective ignorance, farming out chores and applying the 80/20 principle have paid off for Ferriss." ''Wired'' praised the book's ideas for remote work and its pre-retirement advice, but faulted it for "formulaic writing" and that "nearly every idea staken to an extreme. No sense of work being anything more than a paycheck". Some reviewers noted that the book was quite lengthy and hard to read. Leslie Garner of ''The Telegraph'' noted that the book had a "punchy writing style" and that Ferriss had "struck a chord with his critique of workers' slavish devotion to corporations." Meagan Day of ''Jacobin'' criticized the book for advising readers to "become a fake expert." Jimmy Wales, cofounder of Wikipedia, said that he secretly moved to Argentina for a month after reading the book.

The book received coverage also through ''Fast Company'',Scoble, Robert
Timothy Ferriss and 4-Hour Workweek
''Fast Company''. March 3, 2010. ABC News, ''The Today Show'', ''Newsweek'', and MSNBC.4-Hour workweek: How to escape your 9-5 job
''MSNBC.com''. June 25, 2007.

In popular culture

The book was mentioned in a 2011 episode of ''The Office'', where Darryl Philbin, quite ironically, was using Ferriss’s ideas to help get more work done so that he could get promoted.

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:4-Hour Workweek
2007 non-fiction books
Business books
Self-help books
American non-fiction books
Books by Tim Ferriss