Four Thousand Weeks

Time and How to Use it

by Oliver Burkeman

Paperback

ISBN:: 978-1-84792-402-5

(73 reviews)

The average human lifespan is absurdly, outrageously, insultingly brief: if you live to 80, you have about four thousand weeks on earth. How should we use them best?

Of course, nobody needs telling that there isn't enough time. We're obsessed by our lengthening to-do lists, our overfilled inboxes, the struggle against distraction, and the sense that our attention spans are shrivelling. Yet we rarely make the conscious connection that these problems only trouble us in the first place thanks to the ultimate time-management problem: the challenge of how best to use our four thousand weeks.

Four Thousand Weeks is an uplifting, engrossing and deeply realistic exploration of this problem. Rejecting the futile modern obsession with 'getting everything done,' it introduces readers to tools for constructing a meaningful life, showing how the unhelpful ways we've come to think about time aren't inescapable, unchanging truths, but choices we've made, as individuals and …

The average human lifespan is absurdly, outrageously, insultingly brief: if you live to 80, you have about four thousand weeks on earth. How should we use them best?

Drawing on the insights of both ancient and contemporary philosophers, psychologists, and spiritual teachers, Oliver Burkeman sets out to realign our relationship with time - and in doing so, to liberate us from its grasp.

11 editions

horiaconstantin reviewed Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman

Mindblowing read

5 stars

This book challenges many of my views on efficiency, getting things done, distraction, etc. Besides offering a philosophical, historical, and down-to-earth perspective on life, it has solid advice.

About increasing the quality of the time you spend: 1) "cut out time for yourself first", 2) limit work in progress, 3) resist the allure of seductive but not essential priorities.

About patience: 1) develop a taste for having problems (it will always be that we have problems); 2) embrace radical incrementalism (small, constant work VS. big-bang work); 3) originality lies on the far side of unoriginality (the metaphor is those of busses leaving from a train station, that follow the same route initially, only to diverge later).

Five questions to contemplate in order to get closer to living more: 1) Where in your life or your work are you pursuing comfort when what's called for is discomfort? Does this choice diminish …

This book challenges many of my views on efficiency, getting things done, distraction, etc. Besides offering a philosophical, historical, and down-to-earth perspective on life, it has solid advice.

About increasing the quality of the time you spend: 1) "cut out time for yourself first", 2) limit work in progress, 3) resist the allure of seductive but not essential priorities.

Five questions to contemplate in order to get closer to living more: 1) Where in your life or your work are you pursuing comfort when what's called for is discomfort? Does this choice diminish me or enlarge me? 2) Are you judging yourself by standards of productivity or performance that are impossible to meet? 3) In what ways have you yet to accept the fact that you're who you are and not the person you think you ought to be? 4) In which areas of your life are you still handling back until you feel like you know what you're doing? 5) How would you spend your days differently if you didn't care so much about seeing your actions seeing fruition?

Balise reviewed Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman

Review of 'Four Thousand Weeks' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I liked it a lot and it feels like it has a lot of interesting/challenging things to say, but that I'm not necessarily ready to hear them yet because my brain goes into an anxious loop of "I... do agree with everything you're saying, but I REALLY DON'T WANT TO, and I really don't know what to make of that and 'now what'". That said, it was for sure interesting food for thought and it did give me ideas and insight about how I could try to make my days work better - not because it gives plan of any way, but because it allowed me to take a step back and see the problem differently. It would definitely be a 5* if not for my own anxious relationship with time which made that book pretty challenging for me.

BethOwl 📚✍🏻🦉🇺🇦🌈 reviewed Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman

Review of 'Four Thousand Weeks' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Busts the myriad time management models of efficiency, "success," and so on. A clear, no bullshit approach to how life really works, and suggestions for a saner way to live it.