My favorite Tim Ferriss Show episodes

I’m excited for Tools of Titans, Tim Ferriss’s 4th book, coming out in December. I want to set some time aside to devour it, then write and draw a book notes post.

His first three books are all related in that they’re not quite what their titles suggest. The 4-Hour Chef isn’t really about cooking, it’s about meta learning. The 4-Hour Body is really about trying things yourself and seeing the results. The 4-Hour Work Week is really about systems.

Ferriss published the audiobook version of Daily Rituals. He loves getting into the actionable aspects of other people’s day to day. From things he’s said leading up to its release, it seems like he’ll be making a tome of knowledge from the podcast.

Tools of Titans will be over 700 pages. I’m guessing it will cover the routines and systems of world-class performers. But it will really be about practical application of that knowledge. I’m guessing Tools of Titans will be something like Daily Rituals, except with his podcast guests replacing the historical figures.

The Tim Ferriss Show has a lot of significance for me and this blog. Earlier this year, Ferriss talked about writing two crappy pages as his goal. I started aiming to write two crappy pages each day.

Then I tried posting daily for 100 days. After finishing that, I turned my attention to drawing. Which led to the current form this blog has taken: I write a weekly post with some drawings to accompany it.

A lot of the posts I wrote were basically show notes of his podcast episodes. Here are five of my favorite episodes from the past year.

Chase Jarvis: This is the episode where he talks about two crappy pages. Ferriss talked about starting the podcast and not worrying about the equipment or insanely high audio quality. He knew people would be listening while doing other things. Audiophiles don’t test setups with podcasts. 

He made sure it was easy to do. Podcasts are a great format for that because he could go long with minimal editing.

Through this year I’ve continued working on reducing any barriers in creating posts. I had a pretty good system. Then I started drawing and now I’m modifying my system.

David “DHH” Heinemeier Hansson: This probably has to do with me writing about the episode and drawing him. It was the first episode I wrote about in one of the Make Show Learn posts. I admire Basecamp’s view on work life balance being a part of a sustainable business.

Sustainability and consistency have been themes for me this year.

Malcolm Gladwell: This came out right in the middle of my 100 posts project. He talks about writing being blissful (check out my post about that). In the sense that most writing isn’t actually writing. It’s planning and editing. When he can really sit down and just write, that’s bliss.

Derek Sivers(That’s a transcript): Before the current iteration of this blog, I had random book notes posts. When I was in the 100 posts phase of this blog, a lot of times I was just trying to mimic what Derek Sivers had in his book notes section.

He shares a lot of great stories on the Tim Ferriss show. All with good lessons. He found success while making an effort to stay small.

Mike Birbiglia: I’m all-in on episodes with people talking about writing habits. Birbiglia goes to a coffee shop first thing in the morning and writes for at least three hours. Sometimes five.

Like other writers, he starts by getting words on the page with minimal editing. Everyone has different names for it. He calls it his throw-up pass. (See The vomit draft).

Most of the posts I wrote during the 100 days, 100 posts weren’t very good. I wrote about a quote Birbiglia talks about: Only emotion endures. It’s one of those 100 that I’m actually happy with in hindsight.