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T4HW is a book I liked even though it left almost nothing in my memory. I think he described a lot of tools and approaches about leading an effective work life

by TekMol 5y ago

T4HW is a book I liked even though it left almost nothing in my memory. I think he described a lot of tools and approaches about leading an effective work life? I remember that while I was reading it, I thought "Hmm.. I like this book even though I think it is all fake". Why did I like it? Because Ferris has such a positive vibe about living life consciously and taking matters in your own hands. Did anybody get anything else out of the book? An approach or a tool you really used?

redisman 5y ago
As much as people deride it, and I'm not trying to defend the book or Tim on what's on the page - but it definitely started a little ember in my head on thinking about WLB more seriously. I guess I'd be happy with a 4-day work week as a first step. I'd be happy to give up the salary for that day if that's what it takes.
- jakub_g 5y ago
  https://4dayweek.io https://4dayweek.io
- sgt 5y ago
  Many companies will expect the same output if you go from 5 days to 4. So why accept a pay cut?
hayksaakian 5y ago
It was one of the first business books I read, and for the time it was published in it contained a lot of actionable advice. I learned about the concept of hiring people on freelancing websites. I learned about the power of delegation. I'm sure in hindsight Tim didn't discover any of this stuff, but I don't think that's the point. It was a great "101" book for someone without a clue about how business works.
- TekMol 5y ago
  What did you hire your first freelancer for?
  - hayksaakian 5y ago
    one of my first companies was a recruiting business so we found a freelancer to post job ads every week for our clients.
vector_rotcev 5y ago
When I first read his first two books was when I had just left university and moved to a big city and gotten a 'proper' job, and I didn't get how you were supposed to organise your time in an office and what you were supposed to pay attention to and what you should ignore, what you should worry about and what you should not care about at all, and I recall that my second job where I applied his advice about not reading or responding to emails, and searching to automate and avoid meetings as much as possible resulted in better performance and reviews and relationships with my manager, such that I ended up able to save enough money to quit and backpack around the world for ~two years. Looking back now, I have a similar feeling that I can't recall anything specific (apart from only checking email at 10:00 and 16:00), but I do seem to have absorbed by osmosis some of his approach of almost obsessive application of 80/20 analysis on everything, and I think that's had a significant positive effect on my life of habituating the regular identification and shedding of negative things (I still use Twitter and Instagram, but on on the PC - the apps are removed from my phone). I've actually just realised while writing this that I also still do a weekly 80/20 review, which is where I identify that kind of thing. I think I also found his super positive vibe about taking matters into your own hands to be great, and it was the first time I'd encountered the idea that you could have that much control over your own life. The thought-space of being able to change whatever aspect of life you want didn't exist before then.
notahacker 5y ago
I think this is the best take on it. It's actually full of specific actionable advice, it's just very little of it is stuff I'd actually use (IIRC there's a fair bit of "how to outsource technical bits of having a web presence" which probably isn't recommendations the HN crowd's looking for). And if I was convinced my mailbox was busy enough to benefit from a personal assistant in the Philippines, the advice on where to find them is probably a bit out of date, though IIRC the advice on evaluating freelancers is solid enough. But it's core thesis is "Pick a side project in a niche you know and like. Charge money for stuff in it. Value your time. You don't need hockey stick growth followed by a seven figure exit to have most of the tangible lifestyle benefits of being rich if you have low-maintenance recurring revenue" which is actually much better advice than the "how I quit my job to work twice as many hours for less money building a loss-making business propped up by VC money" blogs for many of the people browsing HN. But it's written by a pill-selling huckster with some dubious anecdotes, and somehow the four hour claim gets more attention than PG's even more exaggreated claim that startups are about compressing your entire working life down to four years! I get the feeling if instead of being a bestselling book written by a guy with a background in the shadier areas of ecommerce it was a series of Medium blogs written by a web developer, it'd be a lot more popular here for its messaging, even if nobody purchased a single service from his long list of recommendations.

by TekMol 5y ago

redisman 5y ago

As much as people deride it, and I'm not trying to defend the book or Tim on what's on the page - but it definitely started a little ember in my head on thinking about WLB more seriously. I guess I'd be happy with a 4-day work week as a first step. I'd be happy to give up the salary for that day if that's what it takes.

jakub_g 5y ago
https://4dayweek.io https://4dayweek.io
sgt 5y ago
Many companies will expect the same output if you go from 5 days to 4. So why accept a pay cut?

hayksaakian 5y ago

It was one of the first business books I read, and for the time it was published in it contained a lot of actionable advice. I learned about the concept of hiring people on freelancing websites. I learned about the power of delegation. I'm sure in hindsight Tim didn't discover any of this stuff, but I don't think that's the point. It was a great "101" book for someone without a clue about how business works.

TekMol 5y ago
What did you hire your first freelancer for?
- hayksaakian 5y ago
  one of my first companies was a recruiting business so we found a freelancer to post job ads every week for our clients.

vector_rotcev 5y ago

When I first read his first two books was when I had just left university and moved to a big city and gotten a 'proper' job, and I didn't get how you were supposed to organise your time in an office and what you were supposed to pay attention to and what you should ignore, what you should worry about and what you should not care about at all, and I recall that my second job where I applied his advice about not reading or responding to emails, and searching to automate and avoid meetings as much as possible resulted in better performance and reviews and relationships with my manager, such that I ended up able to save enough money to quit and backpack around the world for ~two years. Looking back now, I have a similar feeling that I can't recall anything specific (apart from only checking email at 10:00 and 16:00), but I do seem to have absorbed by osmosis some of his approach of almost obsessive application of 80/20 analysis on everything, and I think that's had a significant positive effect on my life of habituating the regular identification and shedding of negative things (I still use Twitter and Instagram, but on on the PC - the apps are removed from my phone). I've actually just realised while writing this that I also still do a weekly 80/20 review, which is where I identify that kind of thing. I think I also found his super positive vibe about taking matters into your own hands to be great, and it was the first time I'd encountered the idea that you could have that much control over your own life. The thought-space of being able to change whatever aspect of life you want didn't exist before then.

notahacker 5y ago

I think this is the best take on it. It's actually full of specific actionable advice, it's just very little of it is stuff I'd actually use (IIRC there's a fair bit of "how to outsource technical bits of having a web presence" which probably isn't recommendations the HN crowd's looking for). And if I was convinced my mailbox was busy enough to benefit from a personal assistant in the Philippines, the advice on where to find them is probably a bit out of date, though IIRC the advice on evaluating freelancers is solid enough. But it's core thesis is "Pick a side project in a niche you know and like. Charge money for stuff in it. Value your time. You don't need hockey stick growth followed by a seven figure exit to have most of the tangible lifestyle benefits of being rich if you have low-maintenance recurring revenue" which is actually much better advice than the "how I quit my job to work twice as many hours for less money building a loss-making business propped up by VC money" blogs for many of the people browsing HN. But it's written by a pill-selling huckster with some dubious anecdotes, and somehow the four hour claim gets more attention than PG's even more exaggreated claim that startups are about compressing your entire working life down to four years! I get the feeling if instead of being a bestselling book written by a guy with a background in the shadier areas of ecommerce it was a series of Medium blogs written by a web developer, it'd be a lot more popular here for its messaging, even if nobody purchased a single service from his long list of recommendations.