5 Lessons From The 4-Hour Work Week For Digital Nomads

It’s no secret that Tim Ferriss’ 4-Hour Work Week has been a massive success. The book has sold millions of copies and has been translated into dozens of languages. But what can digital nomads learn from this best-selling book? A lot, it turns out.
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It’s no secret that Tim Ferriss’ 4-Hour Work Week has been a massive success. The book has sold millions of copies and has been translated into dozens of languages. But what can digital nomads learn from this best-selling book? A lot, it turns out.

Tim Ferriss wrote his book to help people escape the everyday life 9-5 grind and achieve more freedom. Written in 2007, it outlines how to become a digital nomad before the idea of digital nomads even existed. He taught people how to use email, virtual assistants, and other tools to live a more location-independent lifestyle. And while some of the services and techniques he advocated for may be dated, the underlying principles remain.

The 4-hour workweek is a guide that every aspiring digital nomad should read. The methods and thinking it lays out are still relevant today and can help digital nomads achieve their desired lifestyle.

This article will discuss some essential lessons digital nomads can learn from the 4-Hour Work Week.

Lifestyle Design

“Beating the Game, Not Playing the Game” – Tim Ferriss –

The critical lesson digital nomads should take away from the 4-Hour Work Week is lifestyle design. At some point in life, we learn to let go of our childhood dreams and aspirations. We are told to get realistic and let go of childish fantasies. People put their heads down and focus on work. Life becomes about making a “good living,” all the while giving up on what makes us happy.

By questioning the traditional 9-5 mindset and re-assessing what it means to live a good life, Tim Ferriss teaches that it’s possible to create a life that we love and gives practical steps to get there. 

Lifestyle design is taking control of your life and re-assessing your goals. Question the goals you have set for yourself. Are my goals based on self-limiting paradigms taught about how to live my life? 

Key Points For Digital Nomads

  • You are the master of your destiny, and you have the power to re-define and re-design your life
  • You can overcome common sticking points through self-improvement

5 Lessons From The Four Hour Work Week

  1. Define Your Dream
  2. Eliminate
  3. Automate and Delegate
  4. Liberate

1) Define Your Dream

“$1,000,000 in the bank isn’t the fantasy. The fantasy is the lifestyle of complete freedom it supposedly allows.” – Tim Ferriss –

The first step in achieving freedom and letting go of the traditional 9-5 lifestyle is clearly defining your goals. Many often define their life by their net worth and what they own. But when you truly step back and look at what you want out of life, it’s not about the big house you own; it’s about the life you live.

Traditional wisdom tells people to go to school, get a good job and work hard. Buy a big house and a nice car, and send your kids to a good school. But lifestyle is not about more money; it’s about how well you live your life. Living like this leads to dissatisfaction and burnout.

Absolute Income vs. Relative Income

Ferriss introduces the concept of relative income. You should measure your wealth based on how much you earn per hour worked versus your annual income. Your time is valuable in and of itself, and working 80 hours a week for $500,000 a year looks good on paper, but you can’t truly live life trapped in the office; you are a wage slave.

The goal is to make more and work less. The purpose of life is not just to increase your annual income but to increase your quality of life by giving you freedom. Someone who earns much less but makes more hourly (as long as they can cover their ideal lifestyle comfortably) can live a much better, more fulfilling life. They don’t sacrifice their lifestyle for money. Ferriss challenges readers to re-assess their personal goals and find out what they truly desire in their life. It’s not more money; it’s more money and more freedom.

Tools to Define Your Dreams

Dream Lining

Dream lining is taking your goals and breaking them down into smaller, more manageable tasks within a set time frame.

Dream lining allows you to track your progress and creates a sense of urgency that keeps you motivated as you progress. Here is a step-by-step guide to dream lining: 

  1. Get rid of reasonable – The sky is the limit, the more unreasonable, the better, as long as it is true to you.
  2. 4’s the Limit – Take your list of unreasonable goals and choose your top 4.
  3. Cost it out – Determine the daily or monthly cost of your 4 goals
  4. Identify 3 Actions to make it Happen – Identify 3 things you can do (they must have the maximum possible impact) to move your goals forward.
  5. Start Now

Fear Setting

The heart of all inaction is fear. We often use excuses to mask our fear and tell ourselves that we can’t get something done because of outside factors.

When we define the worst-case scenario, we quantify our fears and realize how much smaller they are. It allows you to re-assess the real impact of something going wrong. Fear setting exercise:

  1. Define your worst-case scenario.
  2. Identify steps you could take to mitigate the negative effects.
  3. Define more probably scenarios
  4. Identify what you are putting off due to this fear.
  5. Write down the cost of inaction due to fear.

Key Points For Digital Nomads

  • Focus on relative income, not absolute income
  • Use dreamlining to set unrealistic goals and actions to achieve them.
  • Fear is limiting you, define your fears, and you can overcome them.

Pro Tip:

When you look at your daily to-do list, there should be at least one action that scares you. The action you fear is your number one priority for that day and the one you must tackle first. If your list doesn’t illicit fear, you aren’t challenging yourself.

2) Eliminate

We live in an age of distraction. Everything and everyone competes for our attention. Email and social media are literally buzzing in your pocket, giving you a dopamine hit every time you check the latest notification. It’s no wonder we feel overwhelmed and overworked.

In the digital world, less is more. 

How to Disconnect and Focus

Low Information Diet

To focus on what’s important, you must first reduce the amount of information you are exposed to. Unsubscribe from email lists, delete apps from your phone, turn off notifications and only check social media once a day.

You must be selective with the information you consume. Only watch news relevant to you, read articles that will help you achieve your goals, and limit the number of blogs and websites you visit.

Selective Ignorance

Most information, especially from social media, is irrelevant. It doesn’t help you achieve your goals or move your life forward. Identifying what is important and what isn’t is a critical skill. Reduce the amount of information coming in, and focus on what matters.

Time Management Super Powers

Most of what you do on a daily basis has no impact. There is a difference between being effective vs. being efficient. Effectiveness moves your closer to your goals – efficiency is doing a task in the most economical manner possible. You can be very efficient and still be very ineffective. Most people waste time not by doing nothing but rather by doing the wrong things.

“One of the biggest traps for smart engineers is optimizing something that shouldn’t exist.” – Elon Musk –

As Oliver Burkeman talks about in his book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, we do not have enough time to get everything done. No matter what system you use or how you optimize, prioritize or manage your time, there are too many things to do. Once you realize this, time management isn’t about getting more done; it’s about getting the right things done.

The Pareto Principle and the 80/20 Rule

The Pareto principle states that 80% of outputs come from 20% of inputs. Taken in the context of time management, it means we get most of our results from a small portion of what we do. Time management is about identifying that 20% and consistently prioritizing it. The fastest way to failure is to try to do everything.

Identify the 20% of things you do that are the most effective and do more of that. Identify the 80% of things that have little to no impact and ruthlessly remove them from your life.

How to Eliminate

Tim Ferriss has an elegant method to identify time wasters in your life.

Ask yourself the following questions:

  1. If you had a heart attack and had to work two hours per day, what would you do?
  2. If you had a second heart attack and had to work two hours per week, what would you do?
  3. What would you remove if you had a gun to your head and had to stop doing 80% of what you do?
  4. What are the top three activities that I use to fill time to feel as though I’ve been productive?

Batching Your Tasks

Tim Ferriss also recommends batching similar tasks together so that you can go into a flow state and become hyper-efficient. Overall digital nomads need to discipline to maintain their lifestyle, maximize efficiency and achieve their goals.

Tips For Digital Nomads

  • To become a digital nomad, you must eliminate extraneous activities to give yourself the time to be a nomad.
  • Become more efficient with your time by mercilessly managing your time.
  • Use the Pareto Law to identify the 20% of activities that have the most significant impact and do more of that.
  • Batch repetitive tasks to minimize interruption and reduce set-up/takedown time.

3) Automate and Delegate

“The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.” – BILL GATES –

Automation For Digital Nomads

Automation is a vital tool for any effective digital nomad. When Tim Ferriss wrote the book in 2007, the tools available to digital nomads were limited. Today, many digital tools are available to automate processes and make life easier for digital nomads.

Automation is leverage, which is the key to increasing your relative income. Through automation and delegation, you can multiply your time and give yourself the freedom to do what you want. Below are tools you can use to automate your tasks as a digital nomad:

Email Outreach

Social Media Management

Project Management

Second Brain

Delegation For Digital Nomads

When the 4-hour work week was published, virtual assistants were relatively unknown. Times have changed, and digital nomads can now delegate tasks and projects to virtual assistants worldwide.

Before delegating any task, there are certain caveats:

  • Never delegate when you can eliminate
  • Never delegate when you can automate
  • Test and learn yourself before you delegate
  • Create and document a process that you can then teach someone how to do
  • Have clear goals and limits for tasks that you can monitor for success

Realise that when you start delegating, there will be mistakes. Most people focus on saving money when they begin to delegate, but delegating is not about money; it’s about leveraging your skills and knowledge and buying back your time and freedom.

If digital nomads want to make the most of their lifestyle, they need to be comfortable delegating mundane tasks and focus on the activities that really matter. Below are some places you can hire people to work as overseas virtual assistants.

4) Liberate

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” – Steve Jobs –

The final stage is liberation. Free yourself from the shackles of society’s perceived success and live life on your terms. Whether your plan to work remotely, start your own business, or want to be a serial entrepreneur, don’t let anyone stop you from achieving your goals.

Mini Retirements

Mini-retirements are short sabbaticals that allow you to explore different places and cultures or relax and refresh. Mini retirements challenge the idea of a deferred life plan where you work your whole life until you retire and can sit on your laurels. Instead, use the time now using the techniques in the 4-hour work week to free yourself up to take mini-retirements.

Liberation Tools For Digital Nomads

Health Insurance

Multi-Currency Bank Accounts

Remote Work Job Sites

Pack your bags and embrace digital nomadism and relish the mobile lifestyle it brings.

Once you have mastered the lessons in the 4-hour work week, you can achieve the ultimate goal of liberation. Free yourself from the constraints of 9-5 life and do meaningful work in a digital world while seeing different places, cultures, and people.

FAQ

What is a digital nomad?

Digital nomads use technology to separate where they live from where they make money. Location-independent ways to make money include remote software development, digital marketing, digital design, and more. Digital nomads use their digital skills to earn an income from any location with access to the internet.

What do digital nomads actually do?

Digital nomads are bloggers, YouTubers, freelance writers, and remote workers. A digital nomad can do any location-independent job and usually use digital tools and the internet to complete their work.

How much money do you need to be a digital nomad?

This depends on the digital nomad and their lifestyle. Generally, digital nomads need enough money to cover expenses and have some extra income for experiences and travel. Depending on the lifestyle, this can range from a few hundred to several thousand dollars per month. Many take advantage of digital arbitrage earning in a more valuable currency while living where costs are cheaper.

How much do digital nomads make?

The digital nomad lifestyle is not about making a lot of money but about having the freedom to pursue meaningful work in remote locations. Digital nomads can make anywhere from a few hundred dollars to thousands per month, depending on their skills and experience.

Why is Tim Ferriss famous?

Tim Ferriss is a New York Times bestselling author, blogger, and podcaster. He is best known for his book The 4-Hour Work Week, which has sold over 1 million copies worldwide and provides digital nomads and entrepreneurs with strategies to work smarter, not harder. Tim Ferriss also hosts a popular podcast series, The Tim Ferriss Show, which features interviews with world-renowned entrepreneurs.

What is the concept of the 4-hour work week?

The 4-hour work week is a popular book by Tim Ferriss that has sold over 1 million copies. It provides digital nomads and entrepreneurs with strategies to work smarter, not harder. These tips include using digital tools, automation, and outsourcing to make the most of their time and money.

Is The 4-Hour Work Week still relevant?

Yes, the 4-hour work week is still relevant, and digital nomads are using it to reach more freedom and life balance. The digital world has enabled digital nomadism to become mainstream, but digital nomads must remember never to stop learning and adapting as digital tools and processes develop.

Is the 4-hour work week a good book?

Many digital nomads attest that the 4-hour work week was the catalyst for their digital nomad lifestyle and career. It is filled with actionable advice that digital nomads can use to work smarter, not harder. Overall, it is an excellent book and highly recommended for digital nomads looking to start or boost their digital nomad lifestyle.

Final Thoughts

If digital nomads want to make the most of their lifestyle, they need to think beyond money and success and how they can maximize their quality of life while still achieving their goals. By utilizing practical tools and techniques, digital nomads can gain more control over their lives and achieve meaningful goals while still enjoying a high quality of life. Whether digital nomads are looking to increase their income, automate tedious tasks or liberate themselves from the shackles of society’s idea of success, they should look no further than Tim Ferriss’ 4-Hour Work Week as an excellent starting point.

Mike Humphrey is a writer and entrepreneur. He has operated several hotels and restaurants and founded mykhumphrey.com. He has been published in yahoo finance, people.com, gobankingrates.com, skiasia.com and snow-fercast.com

When not writing, Mike lives his passion hiking and skiing mountains near where he lives. His mission in life is to educate others on how to live location and time independent lifestyle.

Learn more About Mike's journey.