Book: "The 4-hour work week".

Although the title of this book may sound utopian or that we need to belong to a wealthy family to achieve it, this is not so. There are three fundamental aspects that this book advises us to achieve this level of autonomy: Elimination, Automation and Liberation.

But before delving into these aspects it is important to take into account some definitions and the first of them is to establish a differentiation between: Relative income vs Absolute income, for example:

Person A

Who earns 1.000€ per week

Works 40 hours/week

Person B

Who earns 600€ per week

Works 10 hours/week

If we ask ourselves who is the most economically solvent person, you will tell me that Person A, now let's add one more data to the example: analyzing his income per hour, person A earns 25€/hour, while person B earns 60€/hour, now we see that person B is more solvent; that is why the relative income is much more important than the absolute income, not only the income is important but the place of work, the hours worked, the conditions, etc. There are many people who with few hours worked manage to have enough money to cover their expenses and also have time available while other people have very high salaries but their place of work has such high living costs that it is difficult for them to even save.

Another concept we should mention are some important rules that differ from people's traditional thinking:

Waiting for retirement: which is not a good strategy to have free time, but it is true that it gives you security. You are going to dedicate 30 or 40 years of your life in which your time will be scarce and once you are 60 or 70 years old you will have the longed-for time to do other things.

Perfect time to do something: many times we wait for the time to be perfect to carry out our own projects, but in reality the time will never be ideal, if you are waiting 15 years while saving a certain amount of money you will probably never execute those plans you have today. If you have an idea, implement it as soon as possible.

Thinking that the one who works more hours is more productive: this is not true you can be more efficient with less working hours and even earn more money. Today there are many ways to generate passive income that can represent a great source of earnings without the need to work eight hours a day.
We must break down this type of traditional thinking we have. Now is the time to define our fears that prevent us from quitting our jobs or taking on new adventures, and with these questions you can identify these fears and take action. Starting your own business does not mean that if you fail you will not be able to find another job or establish new plans for your life, the worst scenario will never be as bad as you imagine.

Finally, define the goals you want to achieve (more time for your family, financial freedom, travel the world ...), can be many things the important thing is that you set ambitious goals.

Now that we are clear about these concepts, let's move on to the phases advised by the author:

- Elimination

Eliminate the management of our time, it is not about doing more activities in less time but to eliminate through the Pareto principle those activities that are irrelevant. The idea is to use your time only and exclusively in fundamental tasks.

Selective ignorance, here we can make an analogy with food, the author tells us that today we are exposed to many high-calorie foods that we do not need in our diet and the same happens with information, today we have newspapers, internet, radio, magazines, ... but of all that information contained we only need a small portion that is relevant to us. The recommendation here is not to spend valuable time on so much irrelevant information to which we are exposed every day.

Eliminate interruptions, such as email, discussions, meetings,... Try to limit your email checking to twice a day and notify your contacts that you will do it this way, so if it is urgent they will know they will have to call you if they will not wait until you respond at the times you have set.

Once you have eliminated the time from your agenda, it is time to automate.

- Automation

Delegate some of your functions, since many times we are involved in tedious tasks that could be perfectly delegated to a third party. Nowadays on the Internet there are many sites where you can delegate functions, the most important thing is to define well the tasks that you are going to delegate and if they are not important the best thing to do is to eliminate them. Undoubtedly there are certain risks of delegating, such as that the person is not so expert and may take longer than estimated to do the tasks entrusted; that is why a very valuable recommendation that this book gives us is not to hire people in particular but companies with teams dedicated to this type of work and that can also handle cheaper prices.

Income generation, to make this possible you must have a product that you can promote on the internet. Now you may be saying "but I do not have any product to offer", however, today you do not even need to have your own product, you can promote products from other people or other companies, even if you have a website you can affiliate to google adsense and generate income from ads posted on your page.

- Freeing yourself

You don't need to be in an office to be able to produce the results you are asked for, if you are an employee there are some applications like "Go to my Pc", which allows you to use your computer remotely from your home or any other place, which will save you a lot of time that you can dedicate to your family, learning new things or even traveling while doing your work.

As we can see we have many tools that we can use in our favor to reduce our obligations without having to do them all on our own and we also have many ways to generate passive income through the internet. It is clear that not all people can do it, either because of lack of knowledge or because the profession does not allow it, for example, it is clear that a doctor could not delegate their functions in this way, however, if you could use many of the tools described here to generate additional income.

If you want to know more about our training proposal in aesthetic medicine, we encourage you to contact us. We will solve your doubts and advise you on what you need.

Dr. Manuel Rubio Sanchez

aesthetic doctor