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Comment by mattmaroon | Hacker News Reader

Most of those aren't really time management tricks, just reasons for hating Tim Ferris, as anyone with a brain already does (possibly including Tim Ferris).

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The part about him spamming her blog cracked me up. I think some of the resources in his book are good, but her post exemplifies what happens when a large group of people take a book (or title) literally. I like the idea of automating as much of the mundane tasks as possible, but the book and him are controversial by design. It's marketing. A few examples:

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.

the blog is hilarious to read. surely her book sold well!?

> re: 2. This is his world record: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9pWKB2D23k

weird. the show spells his name wrong: 'Ferrioss'

I am shocked people know so much about this guy and his book.

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.

His stuff has been on HN many times.

7 is real. I've seen the show. IIRC, he played an FBI agent...

What's the show called? Or for that matter, what's his Chinese name? I get HK here and I've never seen him.

I'm not even sure if he had a name on the show, because it wasn't a big part. He was not the star of the show, and it might be stretching it to even say he was a regular. I think he was just on a couple/few episodes...? I believe it was broadcast out of Taiwan. He mostly just stands around in a suit with shades on, IIRC. That's why I seem to remember him as a Fed.

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?

Tim Ferris is a perfect example of why every message should be judged on its own merits, regardless of speaker.

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.

When a friend first told me about Ferriss and his book, I was quite skeptical. I got the book from the library (or my friend lent it to me), and ended up buying it.

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.

Agreed... I'd hate myself if I only got to work 4 hours a week, work is sort of fun. What do you do with the rest of the week? Wallow in self loathing? :)

Shouldn't you read the book before you hate him for it? He goes through what he does the rest of the time. (sports, holiday, fun, learning things etc)

I read the book, and I hate myself for spending time with that. He is not just a self promoter, he is a liar, he certainly doesn't work 4 hours per week. He may have done it for a small period of time, but how many times per day do you think you need to work to get the self promotion he gets?

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...

He states in the book that the '4 hour of work' is just an arbitrary number. The title was used because his publisher was against his original title of 'Selling Drugs for Fun and Profit' and being such a self promoter he figured that working only 4 hours is something that would grab attention.

Um, you seem to have missed a rather key part of his story. Sure, he works more than four hours a week--that's not some amazing insight, it's plainly obvious. The thing you seem to have missed is that he only spends a negligible amount of time maintaining his income from the supplement company which was founded long before the book was even written. That was his primary income before the book and may very well still be today.

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.

The point of the book is that you should do what is fun for you.

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.

I don't have time to read the book. Too busy working :)

Seriously, the title and whole premise of it isn't something I'm interested in at all.

The way he picked the title was interesting. He purchased adwords for a large array of possible book names and then went with the one that got the most click throughs

Sure, interesting, if all you want to do is sell books to the masses in the short term. If you want some longer lasting credibility, then probably best to choose the title and content some other way.

You should really read the book.

Do you have data to back that up?

Got time to comment about it though! :-)

If you did you'd realize you're making his point for him.

It sounds like the guy just redefines work as non-work. I guess that's what happens when you have to build a book around a title culled from AdSense responses. You have to do some semantics ninjitsu.

Having to work only four hours a week to survive is not the same thing as getting to work only four hours a week for the joy of it. That's what the content of the book is about.

FTA:

"The week that Tim actually works a four-hour work week will be a cold week in hell."

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