'Four Thousand Weeks' by Oliver Burkeman - Book Impressions

About the Author:

Oliver Burkeman is a British author and journalist

He has published many books including: ‘The Antidote:Happiness for People who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking’ and ‘Help! How to Become Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More Done.’

He used to write a column in the Guardian: ‘This Column Will Change Your Life’. 

Book Impressions:

A colleague at work gifted me this book as I approached a key milestone: my 60th birthday!!  So, using Burkeman’s analogy of ‘Four Thousand Weeks’ a big chunk of my ‘time on earth’ was definitely behind me! It was the perfect gift to help me make wise decisions about the remaining time. 

This book is about exploring our relationship with time.  Recognising that time is finite.  Accepting that, even with the best productivity hacks, we will never complete all the things on our to-do lists - even those things that we regard as important. We have to: make choices about what we want to do; get used to the fear of missing out, and; not leave the best till last (when it might be too late!)

I didn’t agree with everything in the book and found some of the statements presumptuous and not applicable to me.  However,  I got loads out of this book.  It was clear that a lot of thought, work, and passion had gone into it.   It is well referenced (including an index) and covers a lot of different topics around the theme of time.  The style of writing is conversational and flows. Burkeman carries the reader along with him. 

It is a bit embarrassing that I didn’t catch onto this sooner - though I recognised years ago that my time was being pulled away from the things I really enjoyed to the more mundane things.  Burkeman’s analysis and presentation is a wakeup call for most of us, and spells out the consequences of continuing on the treadmill . So I thank him for telling me what I really should have figured out before now!!

I took away many life lessons and wise quotes.  I found that as I read I was putting the information into action.  This book is a life changer.  It has left me feeling much calmer knowing that my ‘To Do’ lists are merely menus to choose from rather than a list I must, or ever will,  finish.  In addition, it has taught me to find a balance between all the doing and instead to pay attention to what matters in my life.

This book is for anyone who struggles to get their To Do list done (all of us) and who feels there never seems to be enough time to do the stuff that really matters.  It is for those people who keep putting off life's pleasures to a later date (normally retirement!), and those that have tried the productivity tools, the apps, and still feel like they are drowning.  

My 10 Favorite Learning Points:

1. ‘Time Management’ should be a balance between doing and being.

2. Beware of using up your ’limited time’ on earth in mindless distraction, unless that is how you consciously choose to spend it.

3. No matter how much money you have, you will always want more, as the goal posts of what you desire move further away.

4. You will rarely get around to doing the right things - the things that really matter to you.  You will tend to put them off until you have completed all the other stuff, or, until it is too late!! 

5. Trying to get more done at work can result in working longer hours, even into your weekends.  You will get more money [if you are lucky] which you can use to buy more stuff  [that often you don’t even need]. You then need more time and money for their upkeep - and so you work harder. It goes on and on and still your finite time may not be used for the things you value. 

6. Ask yourself whether each new commitment is really worth a portion of your precious time. If it isn’t, then don’t do it.  Decide where you want to put your focus, and neglect the rest rather than trying to do it all.

7. Get used to the ‘fear of missing out’ (FOMO) - it’s guaranteed when you start to make more conscious choices on how you use your time.

8. It is a sobering thought, but you will never have enough time in your life to complete even those things that are important to you.  

9. No matter how fast you reply to your emails, you will never get to inbox zero.  The more quickly you reply the more quickly you generate responses and get the reputation of being efficient at responding (so you get even more!)  It’s a vicious circle.

10. A bottomless bucket list leads to ‘existential overwhelm’ - where there is a big gap between the experiences that are available to you and what you are realistically able to do in your lifetime.

My 10 favourite quotes:

“....we’ve been granted the mental capacities to make almost infinitely ambitious plans, yet practically no time at all to put them into action.” 

“....our attention spans have shrivelled to such a degree that even those of us who were bookworms as children now struggle to make it through a paragraph without experiencing the urge to reach for our phones.”

“....time seems to speed up as you age - steadily accelerating until, to judge from the reports of people in their seventies and eighties, months begin to flash by in what feels like minutes.” 

  “..when people make enough money to meet their needs, they just find new things to need and new lifestyles to aspire to; they never quite manage to keep up with the Joneses, because whenever they’re in danger of getting close, they nominate new and better Joneses with whom to try and keep up with.” 

"We sense that there are important and fulfilling ways we could be spending our time, even if we can’t say exactly what they are - yet we systematically spend our days doing other things instead.”

“...mortality makes it impossible to ignore the absurdity of living solely for the future. Where's the logic in constantly postponing fulfilment until some later point in time when soon enough you won't have any 'later' left?"

“Our struggle to stay on top of everything may serve someone’s interests; working longer hours - and using any extra income to buy more consumer goods - turns us into better cogs in the economic machine.  But it doesn’t result in peace of mind, or lead us to spend more of our finite time on those people and things we care most deeply about ourselves.” 

“To remember how little you matter, on a cosmitc timescale, can feel like putting down a heavy burden that most of us didn't realise we were carrying in the first place."

“None of us can single-handedly overthrow a society dedicated to limitless productivity, distraction and speed.  …..you can stop buying into the delusion that any of that is ever going to bring satisfaction.” 

“Over the last decade or so, more and more people have begun to report an overpowering feeling, whenever they pick up a book, that gets labelled 'restlessness' or 'distraction' - but which is actually best understood as a form of impatience, a revulsion at the fact that the act of reading takes longer than they'd like."

If you enjoyed this, you may enjoy my other book impressions.

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