4-Hour Work Week Concept: How it Works?

If you haven't heard of the 4-Hour Work Week Concept by Timothy Ferris, you are probably living in the cave somewhere without internet. In that case, you might not stumble upon this post. That means, somehow in one way or another, you might have scroll through the post on 4-Hour Work Week on your Facebook timeline. Do you ever dream of working 4 hours a week and yet can still sustain your lifestyle?



This concept took the internet by storm, which the internet calls it "the new rich". A lot of people tried it and succeed with the concept, now living somewhere on island sipping their margarita by the beach while earning thousands of bucks by just working 4 hours a week. Mind you, a lot of people failed as well. Whether this 4-hour work week suits you or not, we shall leave it up to you to try out.

For now, we would like to introduce to you the 3 action plan for this concept:

Step 1: Define

First, define what is important to you. What would you like to achieve? What is your definition of success? What is your project goal?

Let's say, you would like to build a graphic design agency. You need to define your resources such as the tools you need, the license you need to pay for your software, who are your clients, will you hire a partner or will you work on your own? How do you want to present your portfolio.

All of these falls in the definition part which is crucial for you to kick start your new lifestyle. This is also the most important part. If you have failed to define a vital part, the 4 hour work week might fail because you will need to revisit this first step to redo your plan all over again.

Step 2: Eliminate

This highly dependent on your "Definition". If your work idea is to have a mobile office so that you can travel the world, you will have to eliminate a brick-and-mortar office. The key is to keep your business operation cost as low as possible by eliminating the unnecessary spending. You will also need to eliminate the unimportant tasks so to save your time and focus on the important things.

Step 3: Automate

Once you have establish your ground work, it is time to automate some of your tasks. Majority of your tasks can be automated through specially designed software or purchase a ready-made software to help you with the bigger chunk of your work. Work such as sending out newsletter, social media updates, report generation can be done through automation. It is crucial to keep yourself update with technology trend.

If the tasks are not manageable through software or any computer programming, you can look into delegating your tasks to manpower that readily accept your work. This is the concept we know as drop-shipping.

Step 4: Liberate

When you finally can let go of a few strings, liberate yourself from the commitment to your work. This is when you can leave your day job and focus on your project, pack your bags and travel the world while you are working. Also, you might liberate some of your responsibility if you can find someone capable to execute your project while you going through the automation process.


If you are interested in the concept, we recommend you to read The 4-Hour Workweek book by Timothy Ferris. It is a best-seller, so we recon it is available at any major bookstore near you.

Lastly, we would like to quote a phrase from the book which is so relevant to what we personally believe in...