The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9–5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich – Timothy Ferriss

In The 4-Hour Workweek, Timothy Ferriss advocates for abandoning the traditional 9 to 5 grind by finding ways to work remotely and infrequently, letting your business run itself and enabling you to travel the world and experience life to its fullest.  While it seems easier said than done, it is a goal for many of us to work less, travel more, and get more enjoyment out of life.

I recently got myself a digital Chicago Public Library card, despite not living in Chicago, which gives me access to eBooks and audio books that I would never have otherwise.  This was my first checkout, and just the second audiobook I’ve listened to in the past 11 years of this 52 book challenge.  Ferriss, as read by Ray Porter, has some interesting ideas, many of which were probably novel when he first wrote this back in 2007, but I wonder how much of it is still applicable in 2021.  I imagine all of the façade companies sitting in front of drop shippers that were going to be successful have already been created, so finding a turnkey business that can run by itself with limited hands-on focus.  His chapters on how to convince your bosses to allow working from home seem quaint in a post-pandemic world where many people, myself included, have been working remotely for 17 months and counting.

I do like the concept of what he is selling here.  As a newly minted home-based worker, I have been looking for ways to translate my ability to work from anywhere to spend time away from home.  I haven’t quite figured out a good way to do that as of yet, at least not without paying twice to live somewhere, but this has just put my thinking about these plans into hyperdrive.