David Lowe - Quicklet on The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss

About Tim Ferriss:

Tim Ferriss is the author of The 4-Hour Workweek, a New York Times bestseller that incorporates the Pareto Principle and Parkinsons Law into a lifestyle of reduced working hours and more personal free time.

After graduating from Princeton University, where he earned a degree in East Asian Studies, Tim started his first business at age 23, selling nutritional supplements.

Since selling his business, Tim has earned a spot in the Guinness Book Of World Records for achieving the most tango spins in one minute, and now hosts his own program on the History Channel. He resides in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he is an angel investor.

Tims second book, The 4-Hour Body, was published by Crown Archetype in 2010 and in 2011 Tim announced he would publish a third book, The 4-Hour Chef. The book is being released by Amazon.com and is expected to become available for purchase in April 2012.

About The Book

The 4-Hour Workweek is Tim Ferriss first book. Detailing his personal experiences of success and failures in lifestyle design, the book provides readers with a clear road map on how to outsource mundane work, create smooth income streams, and ultimately retain more free time.

The author believes that pursuing dreams and goals now is more important than deferring them until after retirement, and his book promotes a variety of lifestyle design options that give readers exciting alternatives to the ordinary 9-5 routine.

The 4-Hour Workweek was released in 2007 and has since sold millions of copies. The book has been translated into 35 languages.

In 2009, an extended and updated version of The 4-Hour Workweek was released, which included 100 additional pages chronicling real world examples of how people have benefited by adhering to the concepts presented in his book.

Tim Ferriss: As author of The 4-Hour Workweek, Tim uses his personal experience with lifestyle design to give readers a road map to more career choices and income streams. Tim uses his experiences a mixture of successes and failures to create a new way to look at life.

Vilfredo Pareto: An economist and philosopher, Pareto discovered that in virtually every aspect of life (including the business world), 20% of the source caused 80% of the results. The remaining 80% created just 20% of the results. Focusing on the top 20% decreases time spent resolving problems caused by the less productive 80%.

Cyril Northcote Parkinson: Creator of the Parkinsons Law, which states that the size of a task will grow parallel to the time allotted to complete it. Assign less time to get a job done and the result will be accomplished with less stress and time.

Douglas Price: As a lifestyle designer who shares many of the same beliefs as Tim Ferriss, Douglas consistently keeps Tim on target when Tim loses sight of the goals he has set for himself. He continually uses the image of a corpulent man in a red sports car as a mechanism to keep Tim on track.

Sherwood: A n importer of French shirts, Sherwood is a prime example of how product testing can go right for a business seeking streamlined operations and a mobile lifestyle. He successfully completes the Automation steps outlined in the book, and is able to treat himself to a trip to Germany the first of many mini-retirements.

DEAL (Definition, Elimination, Automation, Liberation): By utilizing this system of steps, the reader can identify how his current life situation displeases him, reduce his dependence on mass media and electronics, find a business that can be set on auto-pilot, and then choose to live where he likes, pursuing dreams and activities now.

Lifestyle Design: Implementing the four terms of DEAL, the reader can radically change how he looks at his life, how he spends his time, and how he earns and manages money.

Deferrers: These are people who follow set career paths, working full-time, often unhappy positions that require long hours. This traditional career path pushes back the enjoyment of life until after retirement.

New Rich: Those who understand there are creative ways to earn a living, and who prefer mini-retirements now to enjoy life rather than putting it off until achieving traditional retirement.

Eustress: Good stress that pushes you towards your goals through positive pressure, and that that results in the achievement of your dream. It is an antonym of distress.

Adventure Deficit Disorder: Without a clear idea of what excites you, life can pass by without dreams being accomplished. Define what excites you and go for it.

Dreamline: A list of dreams you want to achieve in a set period of time, in the next six to twelve months, for example. Detailing the costs and steps involved, you can assemble a step-by-step plan.

Pareto Principle: 80% of any business clientele is responsible for only 20% of its profit, while only 20% produces a staggering 80% of the revenue. Avoid wasting time on the 80% that is distracting you from the important 20%.

Parkinsons Law: Whenever a task is assigned a specified length of time to complete, the amount of time and effort will increase in direct proportion to the larger amount of time allotted.

The Puppy Dog Principle: When offering a product, a free, no-risk trial will result in more closed sales than a product sold without a generous return policy.

Virtual Assistant (VA): Mundane tasks can eat up large amounts of free time. Outsourcing them to a virtual assistant, commonly referred to as a VA, can increase free time to achieve goals.

Muse: A nickname given to a business that is self automated to reduce time running it, resulting in sufficient revenue to become location independent.

Mini-retirement: Rather than taking a big trip or extended vacation after reaching the traditional retirement age, mini-retirements are used by the New Rich as a way to relax and recharge now, rather than after a grueling career in the working world.

W4W: Work for Work refers to self-creating issues and problems into larger entities that can either be handled by someone else or ignored.

By following the four components of DEAL (Definition, Elimination, Automation and Liberation) readers take innovative steps that can lead them to a life of increased job satisfaction and prosperity.

Definition

The career path of the 9-5 workweek and retirement at age 62 is changing. Rather than following the prescribed path, which delays achieving dreams and desires to much later in life, The 4-Hour Workweek declares that there is a better way to live.

Taking a hard look at life can be a painful experience. Only after we realize and acknowledge our unhappiness, can we make positive changes. Continuing to play the game that has been the source of this unhappiness has to stop. Money should never be the only goal in life, nor should reaching a fixed level of financial security.

Fear is the most important emotion we need to conquer in order to create a new life. Dreamlines define goals we want to achieve because we can see in clear financial terms and steps what is necessary to achieve these dreams, eliminating fear and resulting in action.