Is the Four-Hour Work Week Possible?

I got to Timothy Ferris through a post that was on Reddit.com called “From Geek to Freak: How I Gained 34 Lbs. of Muscle in 4 Weeks.” While at his blog, I saw that he had written a book called “The Four Hour Work Week.”Intrigued, I downloaded the Audible.com file, listened to it and bought the book. I thought it was smart, has a lot of thought-provoking ideas and have told my friends the chapters on eliminating emails, phone calls and meetings are worth the price of admission.

Timothy has been on a whirlwind media tour. (In the book, he writes his goal is to be a best selling author selling 20,000 copies a week. I’ve watched the book climb the Amazon charts to best seller in business. I’m impressed.)

I had heard he was going to appear at Rich Scheferin’s information summit in July. On a conference call, Rich mentioned Tim had done 28 radio interviews in one week. Then, Annemarie Segaric pointed me to Marlene Green’s blog where she has links to two audio interviews with Tim, one at Joe Polish’s blog and another at Ken McCarthy’s.

Tim talks about mini-retirements (which is something I know intimately, having spent a year away from NYC with my family in Panama). He also talks about creating a “Muse,” an (online) business that generates revenue with minimal involvement from the owner. These are ideas are very smart and very do-able. (OK, I don’t have a muse yet, but I’m working on it.)

But perhaps what is most interesting is the timing.

I believe Timothy has fired the opening salvo in a war against “24/7 Always Available, Always On” culture. He’s not the only one, but he may be one of the first to reach the NYTimes Best Seller List with these ideas.