The Tim Ferriss Experiment

I am, admittedly, a Tim Ferris fan. I have all three of his books and subscribe to his blog. I am not a Tim fanboy, but do enjoy his work.

I recently watched the first episode of The Tim Ferris Experiment and enjoyed it. The show is very straightforward and does not contain a whole lot of fluff. Tim introduces the premise, in this episode learning to drum well enough to play one song on stage (with Foreigner!) and then sets off on his quest. Each show focuses on Tim learning one new skill in one week. Featured prominently is one of Mr. Ferris' favorite laws, "The Pareto Principle" AKA 80/20 rule. Tim finds the 20% that is most important to learning a skill and focuses on that.

I enjoyed that they really showed each step, especially Tim's FIRST attempt at drumming. They really get into how it feels to be completely new at something with absolutely no experience and then show how you can progress with the right help.

Tim Ferris detractors who feel that he espouses shortcuts for everything will also enjoy this show as it feature Tim working non-stop for a full week, showing that hard work also helps.

I look forward to seeing what other challenges and skills are presented during the season.

First of all, after purchasing the entire season, I found that only thumbnails downloaded to my iPad. I then went to my desktop computer to watch a few episodes which I found were bare outlines of the subject matter, especially learning a foreign language which just showed Tim demonstrating his grasp of beginning Tagalog. There was no explanation of how he learned it. I took my laptop on the road and downloaded some more episodes. The golf episode only played a 15 sec. clip despite taking a few minutes to download. I feel that Tim could do a lot better by making sure downloads play completely, and by giving a more detailed explanation of the learning process and the skill of the best teachers.

Just watched episode #2, "Rally Car Racing" and was blown away by the production quality. Typically, I associate 'reality' shows as low-budget, but I actually came to IMDb hoping to find out more about the team beyond the production of this show. Beautiful cinematography throughout and I really liked the design style used to display on- screen information such as the width of the roads. Hoping The Learning Channel or Discovery pick up the show for a second season.

Would agree with earlier comment, would have liked a little more insight into not just what was taught, but how Tim learned. What are his tricks and shortcuts that enable him to accelerate his learning of these new skills. Will keep watching more episodes.

As is typical for Tim Ferriss - top notch!