
Time management tricks I learned from years of hating Tim Ferris (of the 4 hour work week) - AlexeyMK
http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2009/01/08/5-time-management-tricks-i-learned-from-years-of-hating-tim-ferriss/
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mattmaroon
Most of those aren't really time management tricks, just reasons for hating
Tim Ferris, as anyone with a brain already does (possibly including Tim
Ferris).

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axod
Agreed... I'd hate myself if I only got to work 4 hours a week, work is sort
of fun. What do you do with the rest of the week? Wallow in self loathing? :)

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immad
Shouldn't you read the book before you hate him for it? He goes through what
he does the rest of the time. (sports, holiday, fun, learning things etc)

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coliveira
I read the book, and I hate myself for spending time with that. He is not just
a self promoter, he is a liar, he certainly doesn't work 4 hours per week. He
may have done it for a small period of time, but how many times per day do you
think you need to work to get the self promotion he gets?

The plan of the guy is simple: 1) find something that most people are
interested in (working less in this case); 2) Research whatever has been said
about the topic and write in a friendly way; 3) make people believe by
whatever unsubstantiated means that he is the master of that topic; 4) promote
the book and laugh all the way to the bank...

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jmackinn
He states in the book that the '4 hour of work' is just an arbitrary number.
The title was used because his publisher was against his original title of
'Selling Drugs for Fun and Profit' and being such a self promoter he figured
that working only 4 hours is something that would grab attention.

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raffi
"It's childish. It's a childish, semantic game. And it reminds me of him
winning the Chinese National Kickboxing Championships by leveraging a little-
known rule that people are disqualified if they stop outside the box. So he
pushed each of his opponents outside the box to win.

He is winning the I-work-less-than-you game with a similarly questionable
method: semantics."

Sounds like TF is a hacker and she is jealous of his sk33lz.

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ced
I don't know if _that_ qualifies as a hack, but I don't see what's admirable
about it, nor is it particularly clever. Should we applaud when a businessman
finds a loophole in the tax system? Or when he hires a lawyer to "hack" the
justice system?

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ig1
You bet I do. I'd much rather hire someone clever who finds the optimal
solution rather than some career jobber who just hammers out any old solution
to get his pay check.

Finding optimal solutions is good, whatever industry you're in.

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run4yourlives
The only thing worse than a blatant self-promoter is somebody that publicly
rants about it as if they'd really want to do it too, but can't.

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raphar
You mention ENVY, but HATE is also present.... May be theres some love story
gone bad that we dont know about :D

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run4yourlives
Perhaps, she didn't even want to meet him for coffee.

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Tichy
She says that NOW, but the reality is that she DID meet him for coffee.

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edw519
_I didn't blog about it because...I figured people would say that I'm
jealous._

You shoulda stuck with your first instinct.

It's general knowledge now that The 4 Hour Work Week is a farce, so your
hatred only makes you look silly.

People here at hn genuinely appreciate good advice. Yours isn't. Move along
now.

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teej
What do you consider a farce about The 4 Hour Work Week?

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axod
Surely it's as she said in the blog post - it's a matter of semantics. What do
you define "Work" to be?

If you define it a certain way, most people working 40 hours a week, probably
"Work" less than 4 hours.

What's the next book though? The 3 hour work week? The 10 minute work year?
It's just silly.

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teej
Have you read the book or followed it at all? Tim Ferris has made it quite
clear that the book isn't about working 4 hours a week. The title was picked
solely on the response rate in online tests. It's about decreasing inputs and
increasing the quality of output.

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scott_s
So it's purposefully deceitful?

And no, I haven't read the book. I don't have time to read a book about
getting work done. I have too much work to do.

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teej
"So it's purposefully deceitful?" ... yes? Isn't all marketing a little
deceitful?

"I don't have time to read a book about getting work done. I have too much
work to do." - Are you suggesting I shouldn't read up on programming because I
have too much coding to do?

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scott_s
I assume a book's title is a representation of its subject and contents. If
you violate that assumption, then you've lost my trust and I don't want to
read your book.

As for time and reading, you certainly should read things you think are
valuable. But I doubt the efficacy of methods that sound good, feel good, but
have not been tested. What seems to work for me and everyone else I know is
working hard. I think I'll stick to that.

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GHFigs
How does that work? You're both rejecting a book for having a title which you
feel is misleading _and_ for the content which you assume the title would
indicate if it were _not_ misleading.

That is literally judging a book by it's cover.

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scott_s
No, it's judging a book by the analysis many people have given.

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GHFigs
How so? It sounds more like confirmation bias. If I told you (in more words
than I use here) that your previous description of the book sounded like
bullshit on a stick compared to the book I read about implementing data-driven
improvements to workflow effectiveness, would my analysis count? Or is the
title and cover still too off-putting to consider?

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axod
If you told me concrete things that you have done as a direct result of
reading the book, that have improved your life, then sure, I'd take notice.

FWIW, building a self sustaining income isn't that hard. Buying and selling
traffic and making a nice profit in the middle is simple to do, and once set
up, it takes nothing to maintain, but it's a bit soul destroying and boring
TBH.

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charlesju
I can't believe how many people are bashing this book without actually reading
the book.

The book's title is to catch attention and summarize a goal that uses a lot of
little cool "life hacks" that Tim has invented.

His book is not so much being lazy or avoiding responsibilities. I got out of
it 2 major learning points:

1\. How to use your time wisely, either by streamlining human interaction or
outsourcing menial jobs.

and

2\. How to execute on a product business using new web tools and hacks that
even I, a veteran web entrepreneur, had very little exposure or knowledge of.

Obviously either of those titles would be extremely boring and not sell well,
so Tim had to do what he had to do to sell his book. But there is a lot of
good stuff, probably one of my top 5 books of all time.

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jwesley
This blog post made my day. Now if only he can be retroactively removed from
the NYT bestseller list. As bad as The Secret...

~~~
MaysonL
If you liked this one, try the one about career women and oral
sex:[http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2009/01/06/high-income-
women-g...](http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2009/01/06/high-income-women-get-
more-oral-sex-maybe/)

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Jasber
Who is Penelope Trunk? Her about page reveals little information.

~~~
fallentimes
Paris Hilton: Acting

Penelope Trunk: Career Advice

~~~
anamax
Paris Hilton makes more money acting than the vast majority of professional
actors.

~~~
scott_s
But she's still a terrible person to give advice on acting itself.

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craigbellot
I loved that book. Found it extremely insightful.

