Second time I've read this book and I get something out of it each time. Just a fantastic book to shape your ideas of what your work day should look like, what your worth is, and how you want to spend your time.

It's a little dated because it was released so long ago, so ignore most of the links in there. But the concepts are sound. ( )

This book is no longer important for its content as it is for it capturing a particular moment in history where networks could be leveraged with minimal costs by everyone. Today the world is much more complex and I think this sort of approach would not work.

Ferris is a kind of strange hack genious... ( )

Contained some useful productivity tips, but the emphasis on running small businesses (most of which sounded not that interesting or useful to me) made a lot of it not very interesting or relevant to my life. ( )

An interesting look at entrepreneurship, and how to make it work without wasting your life putting in 12-16 hour days for twenty years. I can't say I agree with everything Ferris recommends, but I thought a lot of his advice was sound. (C ) ( )

Kind of outdated from the early two thousandsands. You can still follow his program but the competition has quadrupled. ( )

Life is too short to read books this annoying. DNF

This is one of those books I had heard about but not got around to reading until now.

My key takeaways:
- Think about what parts of your work or personal life you could outsource to free up time to do other things (some good references are provided in the book such as elance, Your Man In India and Brickwork).
- There are some good reminders about time management, handling interruptions, testing (even down to product name testing via Google AdWords) and keeping it simple for the customer by reducing the number of decisions they need to make.
Some good advice was provided about having a minimum advertised pricing clause in order to prevent wholesaling wars (not only by organisations, but also by discounters on eBay)
- There are some useful links to tools and sites to get a website up and running quickly, some good advice about projecting that your company is bigger than it is (e.g. by having multiple email addresses for multiple departments) and using this as an enabler to scale later.

I skimmed over many of the other parts of the book since it was a bit too verbose. ( )

This is an absolute must read for anyone looking for more freedom in their life. There are so many great tips and case studies that it really feels possible for anyone to accomplish the flexibility of a 4 hour work week. It is written in a fun, easy to read manner but provides great information on resources for each section. I can't wait to start implementing things in this book to improve my life ( )

http://pro-libertate.net/node/27 ( )

Like many things in life the value of this book totally depends on what you hope to get out of it. If you are looking to sluff off your job travel the world making millions while only working 4 hours a week you're going to be sorely disappointed. If you're looking for ways to streamline your life and business and some alterative perspective this book has a lot to offer. If that's what it was advertising I'd happily recommend it. However, the way it is I find it kind of offensive. While I don't think it's filled with lies his examples depend on an extreme amount of luck and are definitely outliers. All in all, I'd probably say leave this one on the shelf. ( )

student ( )

Disclaimer: I did not finish this book.

I listened to this as an audiobook and made it about 15% through (Chapter 4, Part 2, Step 1) before I decided it was not worth my attention or time. While the bones of this book have some good messages about how to recognize routines and break out of the mold, I could not stand the packaging or delivery. I felt as if I were a cat and someone had just run through hand backwards through my fur.

I did not like the tone, nor the personality of the author. To me, he came off as ethically questionable, incredibly selfish, and speaking from a place of privilege.

I recommend skipping this book and just reading a summary. ( )

I couldn't get past the phrase 'new rich,' so I got little out of this book. Perhaps I will read it again & try to ignore the connotations of an acceptable wealth disparity. ( )

(actlly was inspired to pick up French after this long ago) ( )

I appreciate the premise: How do you do the least amount of work possible? For any developer that's a goal. That's not the goal because then you can take off though - it's so you can get more done. Most of the projects suggested in the book contribute nothing to society, and are usually self serving. ( )

Useful, with reservations.

Ferriss lives a unique life as a part of the New Rich (NR). This book outlines how he made it. The book is part lifestyle advice and part business advice. You can take the book wholesale, if you'd like, but I find the usefulness of the book lies in how many resources he shares and how it clearly shares his ideas.

Ferriss' goal is to be happy, which is reasonable on a human level, but that's not the the point of life. Rather, the point of life is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. His methods, if you follow them blindly will end you in a similar place as Solomon in Ecclesiastes. But if you follow them with wisdom, you will find yourself more effective in your endeavors. ( )

Not entirely convinced about this book. It was ok, but again I was put off by the US-centric approach to everything. I think I should stop reading non-fiction books by American authors... :-)

I did get a valuable insight or two from the book though, most notably:
- you don't want to become a millionaire to hat one million sitting at your bank. you want to be a millionaire to live the lifestyle linked with it. and you don't need a million dollar to have just that.
- don't build a company that is as big as possible (while trying to avoid a burn-out). try instead building a company that bothers you the least (while making it provide you with enough income).

Easy read, some good ideas, but many sections I just flipped through... ( )

Be an Eloi, not a Morlock. Let other people do the drudge work (at least, the things that machines can't do yet).

I'm not sure I agree with that hard interpretation of letting go, bit living a good life now rather than waiting for retirement is a good message. You don't have to let go of all work for that, just minimise what you can't do, or what doesn't bring you joy. ( )

This seems targeted more towards entrepreneurs and sales (people for whom time is flexible), but I, as a salary employee, found it interesting and motivating. From this book, I now feel motivated to:

- reduce time physically at work to increase productivity and satisfaction
- look into alternate revenue streams that have flexible time commitments (read: income is not tied to time spent)
- outsource boring tasks, even personal ones

Tim Ferriss gives lots of helpful suggestions as to how to accomplish a fulfilling life where time is spent precisely how you want to spend it. I will likely reread this once I've made some of the changes above. ( )

The book contains lot of motivational stories. It may probably help you to remove lot of clutter in life, and to be more productive. I will take every advice in the book with a grain of salt. In case of outsourcing life, I completely ditch it. I don't want a third person to select my son's gift or write apology letter to my wife. I regret that I gifted this book to someone else after reading first few chapters. Overall the book is loaded with useful information but it does not live up to it's hype. ( )

Much more interesting than I originally thought, although a good chunk of the book I skimmed, as it comprised a lot of testimonials about the methodology. Also, a number of the tips and tricks in the book are either outdated (sites have disappeared) or directly relate to the form of business that Timothy Ferriss built (which isn't terribly interesting to me). I did find some reaffirmations of advice (cut down on the crap you're reading), and it's a good kick-in-the-pants for folks that want to adopt the Noveau Rich lifestyle espoused in the book. Whether or not I adopt it fully is yet to be determined, but regardless of your thoughts on the book, it's at least worth a borrow from the library. ( )

This book has been quite important and inspiring for me. It reinforced my desire to simplify my life and to focus on what’s truly important. I’ve started to use the 80/20 Pareto-principle much more often in my life. ( )

Inspiring. I would love to have my own VA. After reading this, I’m convinced social security will not exist for my generation. ( )

I really enjoyed this book for the practical insights it gave me into the world of product creation, marketing and distribution. I found it to be more practical than the other business books I've read. ( )

I picked up this book thinking it was going to be about productivity, which some of it was (and I enjoyed those parts), but it felt more like a self-help book (which it says it is on the back cover). So, I had different expectations of the book and because of this I didn't read it all. I also didn't read every page because it was filled with too much fluff.