Book Review: The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss

July 16, 2012

I stumbled across this book due to a recommendation by a customer of The 4-Hour Body. I had seen the book years ago, but was turned off by the title. I mean really, The 4-Hour Workweek; I come from 40+ hour per week, 35 year on the job stock. Well, I loved The 4-Hour Body, so I quickly ordered the Workweek.

This book covers building an online business through outsourcing, lifestyle management, and how to achieve a mini retirement. Far-fetched, maybe, but I love a good how-to book. (Especially when money is involved.)

The book centers around the Pareto Principle, or the law of the vital few. Simply stated, 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts. As an old mentor used to tell me, "work smarter, not harder." Tim Ferriss makes big claims on what understanding this principle can do for you.

He applies the 80-20 rule to business in that you should focus on the 20% of your customers who provide 80% of your income. Mr. Ferriss goes as far as to say that the other 80% of your customers who have lots of demands and make little purchases should be eliminated.

I especially liked the fact that the author gave specifics on his methods. He also provided names of vendors and third-parties who could help you build a business that fuels your dreams.

This is the second book with an improbable title that I wished I had read sooner. The first being You Can Be a Stock Market Genius by Joel Greenblatt.

All of this just goes to show you that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Oh yeah, if you like the subject of starting an home based Internet business, read anything by Scott Fox.

Mike T.
South Independence Branch