Time Management for Mortals with Oliver Burkeman
The average human will live for roughly 4000 weeks. Foregrounding this can be a source of stress, leading us to constantly run from one task to another. Or, it can be a source of meaning and purpose, nudging us to focus on what really matters.
In this episode, I am joined by bestselling author Oliver Burkeman for an exploration of what’s really at stake in what we call “time management”. You’ll learn why doing things faster only leaves you with more to do, the hidden payoffs of constant busyness, and how we can live a more fulfilling and enjoyable life by embracing its finite nature.
About our Guest: Oliver Burkeman is a bestselling author and journalist. His most recent book is Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, and prior to that wrote The Guardian column titled, “This Column Will Change Your Life.” He writes and publishes a twice monthly email newsletter called “The Imperfectionist.”
Watch the Episode: Prefer watching video? You can watch this episode on YouTube.
Key Topics:
0:00: Introduction
0:55: Oliver’s movement towards “anti-productivity”
2:55: Doing fewer things more purposefully
4:55: Looking at your own experience, and the paradoxical notion of perfect efficiency
10:15: The wheel of craving, secondary gains, and grappling with our mortality
15:30: Procrastination and freedom from an ideal result
20:15: The poignancy of limited choice
22:50: Existential crisis, insight, and fulfillment
30:20: Organizing your daily schedule around your top priority
35:55: Frameworks for working within someone else’s schedule
39:45: The allure of middling priorities
41:40: Identifying our wants and needs, and choices that enlarge and diminish us
45:50: Five questions to ask yourself from Oliver’s book
50:00: Suffering from trying to find a solution, and life not being a ‘prologue’
57:35: Recap
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