Tim Ferriss Quotes

I own my own time.

I work as often as I want and yet I'm free as a bird.

Today as always, men fall into two groups: slaves and free men. Whoever does not have two-thirds of his day for himself, is a slave, whatever he may be: a statesman, a businessman, an official, or a scholar.

Successful people have control over the time in their life. A shoemaker who owns his own shop gets up one morning and says, "I'm not opening." That's a successful guy.

My dream was to not work for anyone. There's only so many things I was good at - and how am I not going to work for anyone? I just don't want people telling me what to do.

True luxury is being able to own your time - to be able to take a walk, sit on your porch, read the paper, not take the call, not be compelled by obligation.

So It's not like I go from being this disciplined person who has to get up and go to work to now I just lay around all day in my underwear eating Cheerios. I have this structure. I still have to do this and the difference is I'm doing this for me and my company.

Writing is self employment, so you can make your own schedule.

I'm in a position that allows me to do what I want to do, and I do it.

I live at home and, if I want to start work at 11 o'clock, I can.

I never planned to be rich, frankly speaking. I was more interested in being free, and doing things. And money helps. But otherwise I was never that interested in it.

I do what I like now. I just don't have time for it all.

Retaining a sense of control is really important. I like to do things in my own time, and in my own style, so an office with targets and bureaucracy just wouldn't work.

I always had a very strong sense of independence. I really liked being able to buy my Alanis Morissette 'Jagged Little Pill' album. I wore that as a badge of honor. I love not having to rely on anyone.

In the free world, your days pass very quickly because you have so many things to do, and you're in control of your life.

It's natural to want to have the things your peers do, adopting a lifestyle that lets you have the best of all worlds, but it's a trap. Don't let any person, thing or even a lifestyle have the power to control you. Learn to break free and be independent.

I could be anywhere. I just need my space to work.

I prefer to work at my own pace.

I just want to do things on my own terms as much as possible.

At the age of 19, the day after I graduated high school, I moved to a place where it snowed, and I became a massage therapist. With this job, all I needed were my hands and my massage table by my side and I could go anywhere. For the first time in my life, I felt free, independent, and completely in control of my life.

It's cool having a little bit of money to do your thing.

There are great advantages of making things on the independent market. There's freedom and control there, and kind of a cleanness to the process that I like.

I love having ten times as much stuff to do as I can possibly find time to do. That way, I can pick the one-tenth that I want to do most. But if I only have enough to just occupy all my time, I'm stuck doing all of whatever stuff it happens to be.

Obviously the great thing about this job is the complete freedom of the schedule. So long as I meet the deadline, they don't care when I work or how I work.

If I want my time wasted, I'll waste it myself.