Book Review: The 4-Hour Workweek

“What you do for money and how you spend your time can be two different things.” (paraphrased)

This was the book I wish I had read in high school or right after high school when I had my first blog (cashapaige.blogspot.com which no longer exists. It is a business book for anyone looking to escape the traditional 9 to 5 desk job and move towards the realm of location-independent work. 

This was a reread for me as I first read the book a few years ago when I first started taking interest in audiobooks, by way of my husband. The book lays out very clear and concrete steps one can take to change the way you live and work and not feel confined to your office space in one particular city. One thing I like about this book is that it has a companion site and if you’re truly looking to change your life, you will be book marking and underlining many of the websites and resources listed in the book.

The book talks about the new rich and how they define freedom. The 4-Hour Workweek has lots of Instagram-worthy quotes by Seneca and others at the beginning of each chapter. Listening to this book again has made me curious about this human Seneca for when I’m feeling faux deep.

The book recognizes that not everyone wants to quit their day job for whatever reason, but that doesn’t mean that you have to wait until you’re retired to enjoy your life and travel. There are outlined methods to help you spend less time working from your office and more days working from home . The chapters that outlined this process reminds me of something I recently told my Year 13 students about life: in college and in the workplace, it doesn’t really matter if you’re not present or why you’re not there. What matters the most is that you still get your work done and completed on time as if you were still there. Your college professor doesn’t care why you’re absent as long as you turn in that 10-page paper by midnight of the deadline. 

I’ve never had a job that I could do where I did not have to go into the physical work place and even so, there are some jobs like in the hospitality fields that working from home or another remote location would not be feasible. Even if you read it and felt like it would take too much time, effort and discipline to make the necessary changes, at least you could still take from the book that we live in a world that is up and running 24/7 and the traditional 8-hour work shift doesn’t have to be the end-all be-all.

This book is for you if:

• You’re tired of the 9 to 5 rat race and want to enjoy the comforts of life before you retire and die.
• You are interest in arbitrage, dropshipping and other ways of making money online either as a side hustle or full entrepreneur business model.
• You still like your office desk job but you want to redesign it so that you have more day to day freedom.

One thing to note is that the book hasn’t been updated since 2009 so there may be some resources listed that are outdated. Not everyone is a fan of the book, even calling Tim a fraud but I say let us all use common sense in 2018 and take any and all advice with a grain of salt. I don’t have the luxury of white male privilege but after having tested the dropshipping waters, I know that with time, effort and discipline I could be making decent money online working from wherever I wanted. Ultimately, it doesn’t hurt to have more tools in your box that’ll help you navigate this life you live.

See more of my 2018 Reading Challenge