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A review by schiavenza1981
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman
5.0
If there was ever a case of a brilliant book undermined by its title, Four Thousand Weeks is it. I'm a sucker for a good self-help book, which I find entertaining even when they're not terribly useful. But to call Four Thousand Weeks a self-help book is selling it short. Instead, it's more accurate to describe it as a work of philosophy about what time management really means, and why our attempts to master it are doomed to failure.
Learning how to harness our waking hours has spawned a cottage industry of methods — for example, the deliciously named "pomodoro" method advocates breaking up our days into 25-minute increments. There's really nothing wrong with trying to use our time better, but, as Burkeman writes, the push to productivity obscures a deeper truth: you're never going to feel on top of everything. There is never going to be a moment when you've achieved optimal efficiency and that you will truly feel satisfied. It's an illusion.
As a person who has spent a lot of time, ironically, thinking about time management, I found this to be intuitively true. I've always taken pride in how quickly I respond to emails, only to find that this skill has brought me no award other than a reputation for answering emails promptly. Which thus incentivizes people to write more of them. Which I then answer promptly. And so on. I've also subscribed to the notion that if I just sweep aside all of the minor, mundane tasks that clutter my day, I can finally focus on those big picture projects I've been meaning to tackle. Except this doesn't work either.
Burkeman writes that modern life, with its myriad distractions, is a big part of the blame. How many people feel they cannot watch a two-hour movie at home without looking at their phone? We procrastinate because we want to avoid pain; we chafe at work responsibilities because we imagine a future free from struggle, even though this future never seems to arrive.
What's the solution? Giving ourselves a break, for starters. Burkeman writes that accepting our limitations frees us from the burden of perfectionism and allows us to devote ourselves to things we care about. Sounds easy, right? Not exactly. But reading Four Thousand Weeks felt truly inspiring in a way that the million of other self help books I've read do not. It doesn't hurt that Burkeman is a brilliant writer, erudite and funny and humane, and reading his words feels like an afternoon spent in the company of a good friend — one of those afternoons in which you find you've lost track of time, even.
Learning how to harness our waking hours has spawned a cottage industry of methods — for example, the deliciously named "pomodoro" method advocates breaking up our days into 25-minute increments. There's really nothing wrong with trying to use our time better, but, as Burkeman writes, the push to productivity obscures a deeper truth: you're never going to feel on top of everything. There is never going to be a moment when you've achieved optimal efficiency and that you will truly feel satisfied. It's an illusion.
As a person who has spent a lot of time, ironically, thinking about time management, I found this to be intuitively true. I've always taken pride in how quickly I respond to emails, only to find that this skill has brought me no award other than a reputation for answering emails promptly. Which thus incentivizes people to write more of them. Which I then answer promptly. And so on. I've also subscribed to the notion that if I just sweep aside all of the minor, mundane tasks that clutter my day, I can finally focus on those big picture projects I've been meaning to tackle. Except this doesn't work either.
Burkeman writes that modern life, with its myriad distractions, is a big part of the blame. How many people feel they cannot watch a two-hour movie at home without looking at their phone? We procrastinate because we want to avoid pain; we chafe at work responsibilities because we imagine a future free from struggle, even though this future never seems to arrive.
What's the solution? Giving ourselves a break, for starters. Burkeman writes that accepting our limitations frees us from the burden of perfectionism and allows us to devote ourselves to things we care about. Sounds easy, right? Not exactly. But reading Four Thousand Weeks felt truly inspiring in a way that the million of other self help books I've read do not. It doesn't hurt that Burkeman is a brilliant writer, erudite and funny and humane, and reading his words feels like an afternoon spent in the company of a good friend — one of those afternoons in which you find you've lost track of time, even.