4 Ways to Actually Implement a Four Hour Work Week Into Your Life
By: Katie E. Lawrence
Tags: Entrepreneurship, Personal Development, Startup, Business, Finance

I was probably about thirteen years old when I first found and utterly devoured Tim Ferris’ first book, The 4-Hour Workweek. Although I didn’t have any sort of business at the time, I wanted to, and I was chomping at the bit to start something and begin making money.

Fast forward several years, I’ve read the book again, and I’ve had a few questions about it. The 4–Hour Workweek, while an engaging title and a clever idea from the legend Ferriss himself, still appears to be a vague concept at the end of your read.

“Focus on being productive instead of busy.”― Tim Ferriss

In the world of open-concept offices and always being available by means of our cellphones and portable working devices, it’s hard to stop working, that’s for sure. Many of us can never seem to get away — but we need to.

While it can be fun for some, it’s practical and nearly essential for others. Students, parents, and people with part-time or full-time jobs distinguished from their side hustle need as much time as they can get. The question is, how does one, whatever their situation, practically implement the wisdom in The 4–Hour Workweek to their life?

Step 1: Pick Your Business

Tony Robbins picked coaching, Mel Robbins picked speaking, Tim Ferris picked health supplements, Buffet picked investing, Zuckerberg picked FaceBook, and Jobs picked computers and portable cellular devices we now call iPhones. They picked what path they were on and traveled down it on purpose, with great intention.

“You have to understand your own personal DNA. Don’t do things because I do them or Steve Jobs or Mark Cuban tried it. You need to know your personal brand and stay true to it.” — Gary Vaynerchuk

Before you even attempt to cut down your workload as significantly as a true 4-Hour workweek would require, you have to pick a single thing to focus on. It could be writing, coaching, photography, film-making, or basically any other type of business, online or in-person, that you can think of — it just has to be something that can generate income and can be scaled in some way.

Pick your business, then you’re ready to get to work.

Step 2: Lay the Framework

After you’ve decided what business you are going to work on and generate your newfound income in, you’re going to have a little more work to do than what can be done in just four hours out of the week.

Building a business can take a little while. Before you actually start making money, you’re going to need to build the framework, the foundation that you’re going to need in order to actually begin making money.

“Timing, perseverance, and 10 years of trying will eventually make you look like an overnight success.” — Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter

This might involve making money to use as startup costs, buy equipment, buy a building, etc. You can’t jump straight into just four hours a week if you’re interested in making money quickly. Before you start cutting your workweek, you’ll probably need a website, clients, a designated email address for your new business, contacts, business cards, and, most importantly, a product of some kind, whether that be a physical or intellectual/educational item.

Lay the framework well and you’ll build your business with ease as you move forward.

Step 3: Practice Essentialism and Deep Work

There’s just one problem with doing a significant amount of meaningful work in four hours — you only have four hours. With such a significant time constraint for your business and income-making venture, you have to be really careful about what you spend your time on.

“If you don’t produce, you won’t thrive — no matter how skilled or talented you are.” — Cal Newport, author of Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

In those four hours every week, you need to be making things, creating and producing products. You need to create in order to be able to make money. You need to create in order to grow a business and see significant returns based on those four hours.

“Essentialism is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done. It doesn’t mean just doing less for the sake of less either. It is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at our highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential.”

― Greg Mckeown, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

But you also must know what needs to be done. During Step 2, laying the framework and foundation for your business, go ahead, and start planning what work you’ll need to be doing. The truth of the matter is, there have been many famous writers who make $500 per article that they write. Let’s say that writing and editing and submitting that article takes four hours. With just four hours a week, that individual can make $24,000 a year with a part-time side hustle — with just that.