The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 95, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich [Audiobook] [Englisch] [MP3 CD]

Did you know that if the trends of the last two centuries hold, everyone's workweek will be four hours by 2407? What will people do with all that free time? It's a good question that this book recommends you consider.

Mr. Ferriss does a favor for those who hate their jobs but cannot find work they like by explaining how you can still draw a salary while working very few hours (by hiding from the boss and using the 80/20 rule -- 80 percent of results come from 20 percent of efforts). His method is deliberately manipulative (possibly fraudulent is another possible description that comes to mind), so you'll have to watch out that you don't get caught or you might have to repay some of that salary.

What do you do while you are hiding from the boss? Mr. Ferriss recommends starting a highly profitable online retail business that's so highly automated it can be operated in only four hours a week. You'll find details of how to do this that matches what I receive in lots of spam e-mails every week.

After you've got half a million a year rolling in by selling expensive items at a high profit margin, Mr. Ferriss provides lots of advice on how to take six-month miniretirements in cheap places around the world (Argentina and Berlin are his favorites). I'm still puzzled by why Berlin can be a cheap place to live. The rest of Germany when I've visited certainly isn't.

The book's come-on explains how Mr. Ferriss has accomplished all kinds of world-class things to boost his credibility. Unfortunately, you'll find that it isn't always classy how Mr. Ferriss does this. For example, he won the Gold Medal at the Chinese Kickboxing National Championships in 1999. He dehydrated himself more than the other competitors did the day before the competitions for the weigh in so that he could compete against men much smaller and lighter than he was, and he then simply used his quickly regained weight the next day to push competitors off the platform (three times off the platform and you are disqualified).

I find several problems with this book:

1. There's almost nothing original in it. You're just reading summaries that might have been written by a $5 an hour researcher in India. And much of what he draws on isn't acknowledged. For instance, he uses some of Dr. Stephen Covey's seven habits as chapter subtitles . . . but never references or credits Dr. Covey once in the book.

2. He provides so little information on each aspect of his ideas that I doubt that very many readers can really implement what he recommends.

3. There's no moral center to the book. Mr. Ferriss comes across as a con man in several ways.

4. He achieves a 4-hour workweek by simply skimming the cream of a business model that any one of two billion literate people can implement at some level. Are we to believe this business model will be highly profitable for the next several years? I doubt it.

5. I've met very few small business people who simply wanted to retail something on the Internet so they could work only four hours a week. Usually, small business people see their businesses and work as a creative activity that energizes them.

I do admire the book's title. It's a real grabber. It's too bad that there's not more substance to go with it.

If you want to learn how to make breakthroughs in personal and organizational productivity that allow you to live the life you want, there are better resources out there such as The E-Myth Manager by Michael E. Gerber, The Success Principles by Jack Canfield and Janet Switzer, How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life by Alan Lakein, and Photoreading by Paul R. Scheele.

Timothy Ferris demonstriert in seinem Buch einen neuen Ansatz zur Lebensgestaltung ("lifestyle design"), der stark autobiographisch gefärbt ist. Der Ansatz basiert auf 4 Schritten, die er mit dem Akronym "DEAL" zusammenfasst:
- D=Definition: Eine neue Einstellung (im Sinne von Mindset) aufbauen. Kernforderung ist hier, das 9-to-5 Modell mit dem Lebensziel eines Ruhestandes (retirement) in Wohlstand aufzugeben und demgegenüber das Modell der "New Rich" zu adoptieren. Dieses Modell kombiniert Arbeit und Auszeiten ("mini-retirements") zu gleichen Teilen.
- E=Elimination: Ein radikales Zeitmanagement schafft Freiräume für andere Dinge als die Arbeit (allerdings nicht Faulenzen!). Zwar sagt Ferris, Zeitmanagement sei Quatsch; die dargestellten Empfehlungen sind allerdings eindeutig in typischer Zeitmanagement-Literatur zu finden (80/20, Prioritäten etc.) Allerdings empfiehlt Ferris eine sehr radikale Anwendung dieser Prinzipien, was seinen Ansatz durchaus originell erscheinen lässt.
- A=Automation: Hier geht es darum, ein Geschäft (die konkreten Beispiele sind hauptsächlich Internet-Versandhandelsaktivitäten) aufzubauen, dass mit möglichst geringem Aufwand betrieben werden kann und so einen stetigen Cash (In) Flow garantiert. Ferris wird hier sehr konkret und beschreibt detailliert ein mögliches Vorgehen. Während einige Hinweise auch allgemeinen Charakter haben (z. B. wie man vermeidet, dass die Marge erodiert), ist vieles eher für Internet-Entrepreneure gedacht.
= L=Liberation: Sich schrittweise aus dem Job "zurückziehen" (= Anteil der Home-Office-Zeit erhöhen) und die Zeit für "mini-retirements" nutzen. In diesem Zusammenhang finden sich eine Menge Reiseempfehlungen, die allerdings aus der Perspektive eines US-Amerikaners erfolgen. Zum Schmunzeln sind die Ausführungen, wie preiswert man in Berlin leben kann ... (obwohl er hier definitiv Recht hat!).
Das Buch ist spannend geschrieben und lässt sich trotz knapp 400 Seiten in kurzer Zeit lesen. Man findet viele interessante und praktische Tipps (Software-Empfehlungen, Buch-Empfehlungen etc.), die für mich einen hohen Nutzwert hatten. Da das Konzept jedoch stark an das Leben von Tim Ferris angelehnt ist, ist ein 100%-Nutzen nur zu erreichen, wenn der Leser exakt den Lebensstil von Ferris imitiert (dürfte kaum vorkommen). Andernfalls muss man sich die Rosinen unter den Empfehlungen herauspicken, wobei für mich sowohl Anzahl als auch Qualität der Tipps durchaus beeindruckend sind. Ich habe es definitiv nicht bereut, das Buch gelesen zu haben und empfehle es gerne weiter.

This book is about self-discipline, that's it. There are some interesting advertising campaigns, and some of the tools and tricks described are quite helpful. Also, when you enter the author's website, you get a credit for Google Adwords, which is nice.
However, almost all that's written in this book is nothing new. It goes without saying that you can learn a language in three months' time when you have nothing else (like work) to do besides. The techniques the author mentions on how to work most productively are known to anyone: When I have a deadline to meet it's totally clear that I don't answer the phone or refrain from watching the news or reduce checking my e-mail to just the essential. I don't need to read a book to tell me so.
I happened to see this book in the amazon top ten list and read the reviews - on amazon US that is. They were all enthusiastic, praising the book to the skies, treating it like a revelation, which induced me to order it. After reading the first chapter I was totally disappointed and checked the reviews on amazon UK, which were completely different, more realistic and not so naive.
Being a tutor for foreign languages myself, I fully agree with the bonus chapter on the website "Why language classes don't work". And I'm quite thankful for these pages, so I can show my students that there's someone else who thinks like me and I'm not making things up. What the author writes is in no way wrong, but again, to me this is nothing new. It's how I handle work - and life in general - without any script.