This is the kind of book that you either love or hate. I found value in it, but I can definitely understand the perspective of the haters. First off: the title. It’s probably one of the most blatant cases of over-promising that I’ve ever seen. Secondly, he’s kind of a jerk. A number of his tips involve lying and in school he had a strategy of interrogating his lecturers in detail when they gave him a bad mark so that they’d think very carefully assigning him a bad grade. And of course, while drop-shipping might have been an underexploited strategy at the time when he wrote the book, it’s now something of a saturated market.
On the plus side, Tim is very good at giving you specific advice. To give you the flavour, he advises the following policies for running an online store: avoid international orders, no expedited or overnight shipping, two options only—standard and premium; no cheque or Western union, no phone number if possible, minimum wholesale order with tax id and faxed in order form, ect. Tim is extremely process oriented and it’s clear that he has deep expertise here and is able to share it unusually well. I found it fascinating to see how he thought even though I don’t have any intention of going into this space.
This book covers a few different things: - Firstly, he explains why you should aim to have control over when and where you work. Much of this is about cost, but it’s also about the ability to go on adventures, develop new skills and meet people you wouldn’t normally meet. He makes a good case and hopefully I can confirm whether it is as amazing as he says soon enough - Tim’s philosophy of work is that you should try to find a way of living the life you want to live now. He’s not into long-term plans that, in his words, require you to sacrifice the best years of your life in order to obtain freedom later. He makes a good point for those with enough career capital to make it work, but it’s bad advice for many other who decide to just jump on the travel blogging or drop-shipping train without realistic expectations of how hard it is to make it in those industries - Tim’s productivity advice focuses on ruthlessly (and I mean ruthlessly) minimising what he does to the most critical by applying the 80⁄20 rule. For example, he says that you should have a todo list and a not todo list. He says that your todo list shouldn’t have more than two items and you should ask yourself, “If this was the only thing I accomplished today, would I be satisfied?”. - A large part of minimising your work involves delegating these tasks to other people and Tim goes into detail about how to do this. He is a big fan of virtual assistants, to the point ofc even delegating his email. - Lots of this book is business advice. Unlike most businesses, Tim isn’t optimising for making the most money, but for making enough money to support his lifestyle while taking up the least amount of his time. I suspect that this would be great advice for many people who already own a business - Tim also talks about how to figure out what to do with your spare time if you manage to obtain freedom. He advises chasing excitement instead of happiness. He finds happiness too vague, while excitement will motivation you to grow and develop. He suggests that it is fine to go wild at first, jumping from place to place, chasing whatever experiences you want, but at some point it’ll lose it’s appeal and you’ll want to find something more meaningful.
I’d recommend this book, but only to people with a healthy sense of skepticism. There’s lots of good advice in this book, but think very carefully before you become drop-shipper #2001. And remember that you don’t have to become a jerk just because he tells you to! That said, it’s not all about drop-shipping. A much wider variety of people probably could find a way to work remotely or reduce their hours than we normally think, although it might require some hard work to get there. In so far as the goal is to optimise for your own happiness, I generally agree with his idea of the good life.
Further highlights: - Doing the unrealistic is easier than doing the realistic as there is less competition - Leverage strengths, instead of fixing weakness. Multiplication of results beats incremental improvement - Define your nightmare. Would it really be permanent? How could you get it back on track? What are the benefits of the more probable outcome? - We encourage children to dream and adults to be realistic
Book Review: The 4 Hour Workweek
This is the kind of book that you either love or hate. I found value in it, but I can definitely understand the perspective of the haters. First off: the title. It’s probably one of the most blatant cases of over-promising that I’ve ever seen. Secondly, he’s kind of a jerk. A number of his tips involve lying and in school he had a strategy of interrogating his lecturers in detail when they gave him a bad mark so that they’d think very carefully assigning him a bad grade. And of course, while drop-shipping might have been an underexploited strategy at the time when he wrote the book, it’s now something of a saturated market.
On the plus side, Tim is very good at giving you specific advice. To give you the flavour, he advises the following policies for running an online store: avoid international orders, no expedited or overnight shipping, two options only—standard and premium; no cheque or Western union, no phone number if possible, minimum wholesale order with tax id and faxed in order form, ect. Tim is extremely process oriented and it’s clear that he has deep expertise here and is able to share it unusually well. I found it fascinating to see how he thought even though I don’t have any intention of going into this space.
This book covers a few different things:
- Firstly, he explains why you should aim to have control over when and where you work. Much of this is about cost, but it’s also about the ability to go on adventures, develop new skills and meet people you wouldn’t normally meet. He makes a good case and hopefully I can confirm whether it is as amazing as he says soon enough
- Tim’s philosophy of work is that you should try to find a way of living the life you want to live now. He’s not into long-term plans that, in his words, require you to sacrifice the best years of your life in order to obtain freedom later. He makes a good point for those with enough career capital to make it work, but it’s bad advice for many other who decide to just jump on the travel blogging or drop-shipping train without realistic expectations of how hard it is to make it in those industries
- Tim’s productivity advice focuses on ruthlessly (and I mean ruthlessly) minimising what he does to the most critical by applying the 80⁄20 rule. For example, he says that you should have a todo list and a not todo list. He says that your todo list shouldn’t have more than two items and you should ask yourself, “If this was the only thing I accomplished today, would I be satisfied?”.
- A large part of minimising your work involves delegating these tasks to other people and Tim goes into detail about how to do this. He is a big fan of virtual assistants, to the point ofc even delegating his email.
- Lots of this book is business advice. Unlike most businesses, Tim isn’t optimising for making the most money, but for making enough money to support his lifestyle while taking up the least amount of his time. I suspect that this would be great advice for many people who already own a business
- Tim also talks about how to figure out what to do with your spare time if you manage to obtain freedom. He advises chasing excitement instead of happiness. He finds happiness too vague, while excitement will motivation you to grow and develop. He suggests that it is fine to go wild at first, jumping from place to place, chasing whatever experiences you want, but at some point it’ll lose it’s appeal and you’ll want to find something more meaningful.
I’d recommend this book, but only to people with a healthy sense of skepticism. There’s lots of good advice in this book, but think very carefully before you become drop-shipper #2001. And remember that you don’t have to become a jerk just because he tells you to! That said, it’s not all about drop-shipping. A much wider variety of people probably could find a way to work remotely or reduce their hours than we normally think, although it might require some hard work to get there. In so far as the goal is to optimise for your own happiness, I generally agree with his idea of the good life.
Further highlights:
- Doing the unrealistic is easier than doing the realistic as there is less competition
- Leverage strengths, instead of fixing weakness. Multiplication of results beats incremental improvement
- Define your nightmare. Would it really be permanent? How could you get it back on track? What are the benefits of the more probable outcome?
- We encourage children to dream and adults to be realistic