Time management tricks I learned from years of hating Tim Ferris (of the 4 hour work week)
blog.penelopetrunk.com
blog.penelopetrunk.com
Seriously, the title and whole premise of it isn't something I'm interested in at all.
The plan of the guy is simple: 1) find something that most people are interested in (working less in this case); 2) Research whatever has been said about the topic and write in a friendly way; 3) make people believe by whatever unsubstantiated means that he is the master of that topic; 4) promote the book and laugh all the way to the bank...
I'm not sure how you missed it. That he was able to establish an almost entirely automated source of income is pretty central to the book. Unless you'd like to supply some evidence that he didn't do that, you've done a better job of painting yourself as a liar than him.
For Tim, that is not work.
If for you, it is work.
Then perhaps Tim would argue that you should do ...
guess ...
that's right,
work.
"The week that Tim actually works a four-hour work week will be a cold week in hell."
1. He sells shady supplements making penis-pillesque claims.
2. This is his world record: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9pWKB2D23k
3. He "won" Wired's greatest self promoter of all time
4. Read about the Chinese kick boxing championship
5. Self claimed "Advisor to more than 30 world record holders in professional and Olympic sports (not substantiated)."
6. Self claimed "Cage fighter in Japan, vanquisher of four world champions (MMA)" and a "National Chinese kickboxing champion" (not substantiated)."
7. Self claimed: "Actor on a hit TV series in mainland China and Hong Kong (not substantiated)"
8. Plagiarism? http://www.johnwinsor.com/my_weblog/2008/04/was-another-new.....
Yeah, he comes off as a douche bag, but the overall message of his book, IMHO, is spend more time doing what you enjoy. And even with all these criticisms, the book is certainly better than the self-improvement fluff and vapor proliferating itself all over the Amazon best seller lists.
> re: 2. This is his world record: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9pWKB2D23k
weird. the show spells his name wrong: 'Ferrioss'
Have I been living under a rock? I heard about the book, but had no clue that he has some weak world record.
He clearly does a great job marketing himself.
I heard him provide more information about the show in an interview or something...a friend of mine lives in Taiwan now and she sent me VHS copies of the show, but I don't have them anymore. I don't speak Chinese, so the show didn't have much context/meaning for me overall.
Sorry I couldn't be more helpful. Maybe you could email Ferris to ask him for more details?
For what I've seen of him (and that's very little), I don't imagine we'd be best friends, but his book is straightforward and preaches a message that many people are looking to hear. HN preaches the same message, yet offers different methods.
Nothing really wrong with that.
Sure, some stuff is questionable, but there were enough interesting, practical ideas to make it worthwhile.
Ferriss is trying to make some points and sell a product, and he seems to be good at it, and his points are worth some consideration even if you don't always care for how he presents them.
Hate him? Steal the better ideas and ignore what you don't like.
He is winning the I-work-less-than-you game with a similarly questionable method: semantics."
Sounds like TF is a hacker and she is jealous of his sk33lz.
Finding optimal solutions is good, whatever industry you're in.
You shoulda stuck with your first instinct.
It's general knowledge now that The 4 Hour Work Week is a farce, so your hatred only makes you look silly.
People here at hn genuinely appreciate good advice. Yours isn't. Move along now.
If you define it a certain way, most people working 40 hours a week, probably "Work" less than 4 hours.
What's the next book though? The 3 hour work week? The 10 minute work year? It's just silly.
And no, I haven't read the book. I don't have time to read a book about getting work done. I have too much work to do.
"I don't have time to read a book about getting work done. I have too much work to do." - Are you suggesting I shouldn't read up on programming because I have too much coding to do?
Just eat less and excersize.
As for time and reading, you certainly should read things you think are valuable. But I doubt the efficacy of methods that sound good, feel good, but have not been tested. What seems to work for me and everyone else I know is working hard. I think I'll stick to that.
That is literally judging a book by it's cover.
FWIW, building a self sustaining income isn't that hard. Buying and selling traffic and making a nice profit in the middle is simple to do, and once set up, it takes nothing to maintain, but it's a bit soul destroying and boring TBH.
At this point, I'll probably pick it up in a book store, flip through it, and read a few passages.
Yep. It's a farce!
Though, like much farce, it does prove a rather important point: Book titles are chosen by publishers to sell books. They're often inaccurate, or cheesy, or stupid, but if they move books they've met their design goal. The difference between this book and all the others is that it gives away that secret in the middle of the book. Think: Penn and Teller's Cruel Business Tricks for Dear Friends.
- The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War
- Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders
- Shake Hands With the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda
- Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War
- On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society
- The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
- The Yiddish Policeman's Union
Each of those titles tells you the contents of the book. The only one that perhaps does not is "The Yiddish Policeman's Union," but it's clearly fiction, and it is in fact about a Jewish policeman.
Maybe what you said applies to bad books.
Yes, that's where the phenomenon becomes obvious. I note that none of your titles are business books, for example. ;)
[Pertinent side question: How do I know that? I haven't read any of the books. Though I probably should, because your reading list sounds awesome.]
Which is not to say that the titles of all those books weren't chosen primarily to enhance sales. It's just that the target customer was a nonfiction reader, a person who is probably more likely to buy a book if it has a descriptive, serious-sounding, nonfiction-type title. Perhaps the median nonfiction reader is much more likely to pick up The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York than Architect: Robert Moses and his Largely Discredited Ideas, or Robert Moses: A Musical Homage to an Architectural Juggernaut. (Though the last one might turn out to be a great farce!)
Have you noticed that every nonfiction book has a colon in the title? Even my fake book titles have that stupid colon -- it's like a tic, I can't get rid of it! Why is that, do you think? I think it's because the titles are designed for marketing: The initial title is short, and memorable, and evocative like a tiny little poem, kind of like a good domain name should be. The part after the colon tells you what the book is actually about, because the first title is so busy being pretty that it doesn't have time to tell you anything.
Similarly for The Coldest Winter, the author (David Halberstam) stresses the cold as a perennial problem for the infantry, and most of the events occur during a particular winter. I've read several of his books, and it's very much in line with his writing style.
Same with Shake Hands With the Devil. The author (Romeo Dallaire) uses that phrase in the introduction and at a turning point of the book to express how he felt about his position - he literally shook hands with perpetrators of genocide.
I agree that non-fiction books often have a kicker in the title to clarify the subject matter. But I think the pretty, poetical title is usually written by the author. At least I think it is for the books I read.
What's the difference? Just because the author wrote the title doesn't mean it wasn't chosen for marketing purposes -- to grab your eye, to be memorable, to describe the subject concisely, to pique your curiosity, to remind you of a story inside of the book so that hearing the title mentioned in conversation prompts you to tell the story. Authors are marketers too. Indeed, the first task of any new commercial author is to convince a publisher to buy a manuscript, and that requires a title which catches the publisher's eye, and which the publisher is convinced will catch the public's eye.
In other words, when I suggest that publishers pick titles with an eye to marketability, I'm not suggesting that the typical model is "publisher buys the book and then suggests the title". I suspect that's actually rather rare, although some authors have had that experience. Much more likely is the model where the publisher solicits hundreds of manuscripts and proposals and then picks out the handful that feel commercially viable -- and a good title helps a manuscript to stand above the rest of that slushpile.
--> no, that wasn't actually the coldest winter on record
- Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders
--> unless they are very old or made of glass, books aren't usually classified as "fragile"
- Shake Hands With the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda
-->likely the Devil never shakes anybody's hand
- Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War
--> the US action in Somalia was not a war
- On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society
--> OK, I'll concede this one
- The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
--> New York didn't "fall"-- I was just there and it was still standing
- The Yiddish Policeman's Union
--> I'll concede this one, too.
They're all using metaphors help market themselves.
His interviews with veterans who had killed was both fascinating and heartbreaking.
Regarding media, one point he makes that I agree with is the non-chalance with which people kill in movies and tv is ridiculous. Not offensive, just fantasy. It did change how I view killing in entertainment. Simply, in reality, most people won't kill.
What I didn't buy was his final argument, which tries to argue that the rise of violence in media has contributed to the rise of violence in society. I did not find his evidence convincing. He just spent an entire book arguing for the value of conditioning through actual training, then claims that viewing violence is enough to make someone do it. Unfortunately, this claim is what Robert Grossman is most famous for. I think that's sad, because the rest of the content are things I think all of society should know, in particular those who know someone who has served.
A note on the writing itself: not the greatest. In many ways it reads like someone's term paper. He also tries to make connections to the fuzzy-wuzzy side of psychology at times. But that doesn't stop the rest from being good and worth your time.
Honestly, I'd rather ask you what you thought about it. I've never been a soldier, so I'm fascinated to know what soldiers feel about it.
A farce is a comedy written for the stage or film which aims to entertain the audience by means of unlikely, extravagant, and improbable situations, disguise and mistaken identity, verbal humour of varying degrees of sophistication, which may include sexual innuendo and word play, and a fast-paced plot whose speed usually increases, culminating in an ending which often involves an elaborate chase scene.
I think we're in the chase scene phase now.
But, seriously, yeah: The book is a farce! Quite deliberately so in many parts. The bit where he outsourced his social networking to India? The intent is that you will laugh at that. It's "unlikely, extravagant, and improbable" in a way that's meant more to entertain than to inform.
Playing real life as a farce is not a polite style of humor. I've never been a big fan of practical jokes, I'm intrigued by the late Andy Kaufman but I often find him uncomfortable to watch, I can't bring myself to watch Borat and I didn't watch Punk'd. Nor would I ever want to actually see Ferriss hacking his way to a kickboxing championship by exploiting a loophole in the rules -- though perhaps fans of Borat would enjoy watching it, and I find it very funny when it's described abstractly in print.
The book should be read as follows (not listed in chapter order):
1) how to build a business that scales in output in a more than linear proportion to the time you put into it. [and how to avoid nonlucrative or time-intensive businesses].
2) suggestions of how to spend your time and money in a way that makes the most of both, in terms of quality [assumes you enjoy travel]
3) various useful companies and resources, some specific to US-based businesses that need to drop-ship physical goods
4) stupid chapter on how to skip out on work if you're an employee [with potentially useful tips on how NOT to do it]
5) various inspiration to get off your duff and do things (both in terms of starting your own business, and in traveling and doing things you've always wanted to).
The most useful pieces are (1) and (5), followed by (2) and (3) if they apply to you. (4) is the only part that I'd consider farcical, but the rest of the book was interesting enough that I don't sit around wishing for my $20 back.
There seems to be a decent contingent of people who hate the book, but I'm more interested in hearing from people who actually tried out the recommendations in the book and failed, especially if they're willing to go into the details of what went wrong.
The book's title is to catch attention and summarize a goal that uses a lot of little cool "life hacks" that Tim has invented.
His book is not so much being lazy or avoiding responsibilities. I got out of it 2 major learning points:
1. How to use your time wisely, either by streamlining human interaction or outsourcing menial jobs.
and
2. How to execute on a product business using new web tools and hacks that even I, a veteran web entrepreneur, had very little exposure or knowledge of.
Obviously either of those titles would be extremely boring and not sell well, so Tim had to do what he had to do to sell his book. But there is a lot of good stuff, probably one of my top 5 books of all time.
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