Millennial manifesto spells out how to break free of the daily grind

▶ The 4-Hour Workweek is a nice idea, but is it possible to shake off the old-school shackles? Peter Cooper looks into the pros and cons

Self-help and how-to-starta-business books have always been best-sellers in the UAE because so many people who come here are in search of a better life and self-improvement.

This summer, my nonagenarian mother flagged up a recent addition to this genre, The 4-hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New

Rich, saying, “You might find the odd useful idea.”

It was strange that an older person should be promoting what is essentially a millennial manifesto for smart working in the internet age.

I thought the advice on smart working was well explained. From cutting down on the amount of time spent checking email to a rather ruthless approach to reducing your news overload and meetings, the author, Tim Ferriss, has a lot of useful practical advice for all generations.

He segues from radical personal reorganisation into how to set up an internet trading business and how to promote and market it.

The objective is pretty clear. You declutter and maximise efficiency in your work space and then use the time saved to set up a business that earns you plenty of money without you actually having to do very much.

That time and money can then be used for more interesting activities like travelling the world, pursuing a sport or pretty much any other hobby or education.

I must admit, having been a UAE dot-com entrepreneur in the early 2000s, I could probably relate more to his advice than some other readers.

However, I did recollect working more like 12 to 16 hours a day to make it happen, not four. Success was also far from guaranteed. My co-founding of AMEInfo.com was undoubtedly a success, but my subsequent five years at ArabianMoney.net was rather less enriching. So, could a reader of this book really buy shirts from France, as it gives as an example, and sell them online in America and make a decent living without doing very much actual work?

Ferriss has some interesting thoughts on outsourcing your business systems and virtual assistants, and I reckon he is best on how to use Google ads and other online market techniques.

But in my view, sustainable business models with minimal effort are a bit pie-in-the-sky. I have millennial generation friends running a very successful site selling software from Dubai, but they never seem to stop working.

The trouble is that commerce is very competitive and the moment there is a whiff of easy money to be made the whole world wants to get in on the act. You can’t just disappear on a long holiday the moment you have money in the bank.

That said, I don’t regret reading this book and certainly learnt from it. There are few really original self-help books and this is one of them.

We all get a little too hooked to our digital devices these days, and Ferriss is very good at how work tends to expand to fill whatever time is available, and how to deal with it.

Perhaps everybody ought to know more about digital marketing tricks, too. These days if your business is not promoting itself online then it is probably on the way out.

This is a very hands-on book and aimed firmly at the individual and how to do stuff. Indeed, it is almost an A-Z of bending modern technology to do your bidding.

I liked the part on how to persuade your boss to gradually allow you to outsource your work to your own home. Used correctly this is the start of a process of liberation that will free you from 9-to-5 working and give you a new life with time to fulfil your dreams, even if you don’t go the whole way and go into business on your own account.

If I am really critical then I must admit, as a millennial manifesto, this did seem rather self-indulgent and lacking in a desire to contribute to the world in a more philanthropic way. That, I suppose, could come much later if you have a successful business.

Still, unlocking the secrets of the internet and other digital technology to free your life and create new opportunities is a wonderful idea and I can think of few people who would not benefit from reading this book. Doubtless, that’s why it was a New York Times No 1 bestseller.