The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich

Timothy Ferriss

Last read January 23, 2022

View on Amazon

Highlights

17 highlights.

Uncertainty and the prospect of failure can be very scary noises in the shadows. Most people will choose unhappiness over uncertainty.

Location: 781

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. —GEORGE BERNARD SHAW,

Location: 911

The level of competition is thus fiercest for “realistic” goals, paradoxically making them the most time and energy-consuming. It is easier to raise $1,000,000 than it is $100,000. It is easier to pick up the one perfect 10 in the bar than the five 8s.

Location: 941

If you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is, too. Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think.

Location: 943

  1. Doing something unimportant well does not make it important. 2. Requiring a lot of time does not make a task important.

Location: 1,220

What you do is infinitely more important than how you do it.

Location: 1,222

Slow down and remember this: Most things make no difference. Being busy is a form of laziness—lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.

Location: 1,303

Being selective—doing less—is the path of the productive. Focus on the important few and ignore the rest.

Location: 1,305

Parkinson’s Law dictates that a task will swell in (perceived) importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for its completion.

Location: 1,342

Identify the few critical tasks that contribute most to income and schedule them with very short and clear deadlines.

Location: 1,351

At least three times per day at scheduled times, he had to ask himself the following question: Am I being productive or just active?

Location: 1,385

Stop asking for opinions and start proposing solutions.

Location: 1,482

Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.

Location: 1,511

Most information is time-consuming, negative, irrelevant to your goals, and outside of your influence. I challenge you to look at whatever you read or watched today and tell me that it wasn’t at least two of the four.

Location: 1,531

Think back to your days on the playground. There was always a big bully and countless victims, but there was also that one small kid who fought like hell, thrashing and swinging for the fences. He or she might not have won, but after one or two exhausting exchanges, the bully chose not to bother him or her. It was easier to find someone else. Be that kid.

Location: 1,669

resolve to keep those around you focused and avoid all meetings, whether in person or remote, that do not have clear objectives. It is possible to do this tactfully, but expect that some time wasters will be offended the first few times their advances are rejected.

Location: 1,772

If you are a micromanaging entrepreneur, realize that even if you can do something better than the rest of the world, it doesn’t mean that’s what you should be doing if it’s part of the minutiae. Empower others to act without interrupting you.

Location: 1,942