After working 6months as a Junior Doctor, the workload and speed of work do take a toll on your health. Personally after having worked 1 in 6 and 1 in 4 nights, it has become difficult to keep up with life outside work.
The more I work the more I realize the importance of the small things in life, like the stroll by the sea, sipping that coffee or just enjoying some sun on the beach. I think we as doctors are training to neglect our emotions and our love for life and focus on a more robotic clinical way of thinking.
After having read the book the 4 hour work week, I personally think that the ancient idea of finding a career and sticking to it, buying a flat and just living to work and survive is not the way forward.
The 4-Hour Workweek is basically a productivity concept, a book that is a bible for business entrepreneurs. In this book we explore the possible reality of shifting our life from working 8hour days in our 9-5 jobs and moving towards more freedom buy working less hours. The author tested this theory and went from making $40,000 per year on an 80-hour workweek to making $40,000 per month.
At first i thought to myself how is that even possible? If it was a 4-hour workday, the concept would be believable. It obviously seems out of reason, I thought. However after reading the book, I realized it was more realistic than I expected.
This book was inspirational as it helped me change my lifestyle. Basically Tim Ferriss is convincing entrepreneurs that there’s a better way to live, basically by working less and make more money.
Most freelancers or nomads can be divided into 2 main categories:
- Those are working for themselves but need to put in the extra hours in order to really make a living
- Those who work few hours however have also little income that they can hardly pay the bills.
From my experience working part time as a freelance pharmacist, I did have a more layback lifestyle however I also was not making much financial gains.
The basic idea behind the book is to aim at becoming financially independent, working that is location independent and producing a passive income. Ferris argues that in order to achieve our goals of lifestyle we should follow a set of principles. Here I summarize 7 principles, while leaving out one principle as for me I tend to find it irrelevant.
The main principles I believe we should focus on are:
Interest & energy are cyclical
We should use those days when we have the most energy in order to be more productive and that days off to rest and unwind. This idea considers taking mini retirements or gap years. Distributing times of work with times of rest instead of working really hard for 40 years.
Less is not lazy
This principle looks at the concept of producing results by putting in less time. Here ferris looks at ways we can optimize our time to work less and create more. For example using 1hr of your day to write a blog or write a book or creating a YouTube video that eventually leads to results down the line.
Ferriss suggests techniques for cultivating selective ignorance. Basically stop spending time on processing information you don’t need and learn to value your time.
Timing is never right !
The timing is never ever going to be right! Waiting for something to happen is going to send your dreams to the grave. In order to change pour lives we must put in the work. If you want to take that trip, loose weight or date someone you facy or invest in stocks just go for it. don’t waste time thinking otherwise you will miss an opportunity when it presents its self.
Emphasize your strengths and not your weaknesses
Here the concept is simple do the things you are good at or that inspire you. If you are skilled at languages go and study them, create a blog or a podcast. If your good with people or have an interest for surgery just go for it!.
Money is not the solution!
The concept that you need money to start a Youtube channel or that you need money to become a photographer is false. look at all the people around you driving 30K cars spending money on CUCCI sunglasses or apple Iwatches. In order to set up a business money is not that important. you can always start small and grow big over time. For example to set up this blog it costed me 10euros. go ahead just do it.
Relative income vs Absolute income
Most of us have an average salary, however most people also spend a good part of their lives shopping in a supermarket, window shopping or travelling just to go to the discount store that actually in the long run is more expensive. In order to save up on 10% you end up spending 20% more than you save.
Destress is bad while eustress is good
Eustress is the beneficial type of stress that gets you doing stuff, its the stress that makes you aware that you are wasting time instead of finishing the work you have to do. It makes you aware that in order to achieve a goal a certain step needs to happen.
Destress is the bad form of stress that creates physical and mental harm. destress is more physiological in nature and is a negative consequence of over doing it and not taking time to relax and unwind.
Ferriss also explains that in order for us to get to a certain goal in life we should approach life with the acronym DEAL.
Define
Define enables us to both define our fears and our dreams. Once we are able to define our fears we are able to take a more goal oriented behavior and approach our lives fully in order to achieve our dreams. Our fears can be used as a source that enables us to achieve a dream. Everything starts from fearing what we don’t want to happen.
If we fear becoming old and immobile or gaining weight, we can push ourselves to do the exact same opposite.
explains there’s a difference between Deferrers (those who live carefully only to find that life has passed them by) and The New Rich (those who have goals, distinct priorities, and life philosophies). The New Rich have others working for them. They prevent work for work’s sake. They do the minimum necessary for maximum results. That’s the goal I wanted to achieve. My current position wasn’t allowing me to do that, so I had to take the next step:
Eliminate
Some of us are on the wrong track, we work a job (usually a 9-5 or a 9-1 job) get a decent amount of income and fall for social pressures to but stuff we don’t need . However sometimes its good to realize that a job might be a dead end. some job might pay well however lack progression, flexibility and lack the the possibility to work remote.
Elimination can be a challenge. Its easy to feel comfortable in a job that gives you a steady pay and robs you of your personal time. Most of us are working for other people, however isn’t better to work for yourself?
With the current pandemic there are various opportunities to work remote. Platforms like upwork, fiver enable us to work or find work remotely. Other great options could also include creating a course on skillshare or udemy.
Automation
The principle of automation mainly deals with creating a system that automatically generates income and enables us to live more and work less. This can be done in various ways by creating a product that sells such as a course or book or investing. Real estate investing or stocks might also be possible strategies of generating a passive income stream.
The 80/20 principle
The Pareto Principle or better known as the 80/20 principle, recommended states that 20% of your efforts result in 80% of the effects. The goal here is to observe your entire workload and decide what’s effective and what’s making you waste time.
This can be applied to various aspects of life. When you exercise the most effective exercise is the one that leads to most gains. When you study those 30min of focus produces the best results.
Rethinking our life from just working to live to living to work is the way forward. the standard 9-5 job in future will become more automated with the advent of new technologies.