The 4-Hour Workweek

What the book is about

The 4-Hour Workweek asks a simple question: why spend your best years working flat out, just to enjoy life at 65? Tim Ferriss argues there is no need to wait. Instead of one long retirement at the end, he suggests taking time to live now, in regular breaks spread across your working life.

The book is a practical guide to getting there. It shows how to cut the work that doesn’t matter, hand off or automate much of what’s left, and set up income that doesn’t need you sitting at a desk. Ferriss uses his own story throughout, from 80-hour weeks to a business he could run from anywhere in the world.

Who wrote it

Tim Ferriss is an entrepreneur, angel investor and number one New York Times bestselling author. He has advised or invested in companies including Facebook, Twitter, Evernote and Uber. Today he is best known as the host of The Tim Ferriss Show, the first business and interview podcast to pass 100 million downloads. It has now passed one billion and has been named “Best of Apple Podcasts” three times. His other books include Tools of Titans, The 4-Hour Body and The 4-Hour Chef.

What readers are saying

What they love: Readers say it changed the way they see work and retirement, and that it gives clear steps rather than vague motivation. Many credit it with starting their interest in remote working and running a business from anywhere. Others like that you can use it while still employed, starting with small changes such as checking email less often. Years after it first came out, The New Yorker revisited it as a book that saw today’s changes in how we work coming.

What well-known names said: Jack Canfield, co-creator of Chicken Soup for the Soul, called it “a long-overdue manifesto for the mobile lifestyle”. Men’s Journal called it “the self-help hit of the decade”.