Essay See The File.

Name

Name of Professor

Name of Class

Day Month Year

Book report

Response to Question 1:

Lifestyle design is a philosophy which is centered on the concept that one can skip the conventional lifestyle and can live the unorthodox life without waiting till retirement. The typical style of planning life is, putting off hobbies, volunteer activities, travel, and enjoyment until retirement. The lifestyle design is the concept which emphasizes that one does not needs to delay all the enjoyable activities until retirement, but it is possible to live the loved lifestyle right now. This concept is the replacement for a typical lifestyle of going to college, finding a good job and then spending 3o to 40 years of life in that corporate environment. The book, “The 4-Hour Work Week" by Timothy Ferriss highlights this concept. Ferriss defines the lifestyle design in his book as, “The New Rich (NR) are those who abandon the deferred-life plan, and create luxury lifestyles in the present using the currency of the New Rich: time, and mobility. This is an art and a science we will refer to as Lifestyle Design (LD)” (Ferriss, 12).

As the lifestyle design is for everyone, it can be implemented in life by questioning the traditional routine tasks, which makes us just live for vacation, and work the rest of the days. I believe that I can be a lifestyle designer of my life, by asking myself my goals, priorities and planning the ways I can achieve my goals. I will not stick myself in conventional stuff, and will be focusing on what I love to do. First I will define what I want to achieve from life, and I will calculate what I need to reach there. I will be working hard to achieve whatever I want from life. I am also looking forward to doing freelancing so that I could earn remotely without working conventionally from 9 to 5 and because I want to begin now.

Response to Question 2:

The 4HWW gave numerous life lessons about planning life, and being one’s own lifestyle designer. It offers a lot of positive hopes that skipping the traditional lifestyle can be very exciting, and rewarding. The first lesson that I learned from the book is that if one has free time is to move. and go anywhere in the world, then the value of money increases 3 to 10 times. There is a huge difference between having money, and living like a millionaire. One who has more freedom to go anywhere in the world is richer as compared to the person making a lot more money but having no freedom to move anywhere due to restrictions of a conventional lifestyle. In this case, more money is less valuable.

Working less does not make one a lazier person (Ferriss, 63). The new idea of living life according to the book is about doing more in less time. The lifestyle designers are not lazy but they are smart workers instead of hard workers, they are able to get more in less time, vacations through the whole year along with the alternating periods of hard work makes them focus on what generate results for them and in this way they eliminate what doesn't work for them.

The third lesson obtained from the book is that risk-taking is always good. Rather than living a life we have never dreamt of, it is better to try a new lifestyle. We should not choose misery over uncertainty because life itself is very uncertain and tomorrow is always unpredictable. Therefore it is absolutely alright to take new risks, stepping out of comfort zone and getting know-how about the way things work out. Being a lifestyle designer means that one is ready to take new risks and trying new things out finding out the best ways.

Response to Question 3:

If I would get the chance to interview Tim Ferriss, I would like to ask a few questions few related to lifestyle, the title of the book and some other ones. The first question I would love to ask is how one can live a desired lifestyle in limited income. As in this book he mentions that having money is not just something needed to live a life one wants, so I would like to ask how one can have an idealized lifestyle without having enough money. The second question I would like to ask is that how one can idealize their own lifestyle.

I am keen to know the interest, and motive behind the book name “The 4-Hour Work Week. I would ask the author what is the title all about. Another question I would like to ask that what made the author share the secret of his life, and experiences with others, in fact from where he obtained the idea of putting everything in a book for other. I am also eager to know how many hours does he works a week, and what does he do in the rest of his hours. I am eager to know how people spend their lives if they actually work 4 hours a week and implement lifestyle design in their lives.

Last few questions I would like to ask from the author is that what if someone idealizes the luxurious lifestyle, which needs a lot of money, and income. How can such person change their lifestyle design to achieve what they want in life? It is possible for such people to achieve their desired lifestyle by doing less hard work working four hours a week? What advice he would like to give to such people? The last question I would like to ask is that it is bad being a workaholic since the book discourages working all the time, and it is also considered stupid in another book (Fried and Hansson, 11)?

Response to Question 4:

After reading the book I am willing to change a few of my habits to see the outcomes. I am overwhelmed by the lessons that the book teaches and I am passionate to apply some to my life. The first habit I am going to develop is the implementation of 20-80 rule in whatever I do (Ferriss, 53). From now onwards I will not be focusing on working as best as I can but rather I will be more focused on what 20% of things I can do to obtain 80% of the results. I will be focusing on doing a few things that could bring great outcomes, rather than doing a lot of things. I will not be wasting a lot of time doing one single task.

I am looking forward to adopting the new way of life i.e. DEAL. I will center all the efforts of my life on this one principle. I will begin by defining what I want in my life, and setting my goals accordingly. My goal is not to simply become rich but to focus on my desires and choices. I will try to eliminate all the useless things from my life, people which bring me down and 80% which does not bring results for me. I will try to automate the possible actions of my life and I will try to liberate myself from one specific routine which makes me feel stuck.

One more habit that I will develop from learning obtained from this book is that there is no right time for doing anything. I will stop delaying, and putting off things and will focus on doing it ‘now". In addition, I will try to reduce my uncertainties and fears of the unknown and will focus more on trying new things, and fighting with my fear.

Response to Question 5:

The three most relevant tools that I found out is rescuing time using some specific software. As the author mentions RescueTime can allow restricting spending time on some unproductive software, and application. It is very essential to keep a check of productive and unproductive use of time. Another tool that is still relevant is making use of a timeline to bring goals into actions. Doing some action is something which brings results, not just planning, therefore, having a timeline on dreams can motivate one towards change. Ferriss called this timeline as, "dreamlining”. Creating a timeline for the next three to six months enables one to see the results in the next few months. Another most relevant tool is to make use of software to interrupt all the interruptions that come in the way. Use of modern tools such as Google Voice, Evernote, BookFresh and CopyTalk and Freedom can be used to stay more productive and skip all the interruptions, and less productive activities.

None of the tools I believe is irrelevant however, some of them may not be useful for each and everybody. Some of the tools that I found irrelevant to me is invoicing tools such as Freshbboks.com. Dropbox is not the only file-sharing software, for me Google Docs, and some other applications are useful. Some of the Off-the-Beaten path tools I do not find very relevant for those who do not travel or who are not willing to go to the areas where these tools can be helpful. I do not I will ever be stuck in the remote island, and I will need to use satellite phones or pocket size solar panels. However, these tools can be beneficial for those who may be traveling very often.

Works Cited

BIBLIOGRAPHY Ferriss, ‎Tim. The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich. London: Ebury Publishing, 2007.

Fried, Jason and David Heinemeier Hansson. Rework. Crown Business, 2010.