Oliver Burkeman.
Four Thousand Weeks: time managemant for mortals.
Vintage. 2021
rating : 3 : worth reading
review : 27 July 2024
We’re obsessed with our lengthening to-do lists, our overfilled inboxes and the sense that our attention spans are shrivelling. But to find peace of mind, we must confront the ultimate time management problem: the question of how best to use our ridiculously brief time on the planet, which amounts on average to about four thousand weeks.
Oliver Burkeman’s book is an uplifting, engrossing and deeply realistic exploration of how to face our finitude by embracing rather than denying our limitations – and in doing so unlock a more meaningful life.
This isn't one of those typical time management books, telling us how to increase our efficiency, and pack ever more work into our ever more crowded lives. Instead, Burkeman notices that it is entirely impossible to do everything: even if one were to succeed in finishing the to do list, all that would happen is more would be added. So, instead, we should embrace our limited life spans (why does 4000 weeks sound so much shorter than 77 years?); we should be happy we have the chance to experience as much as we do, and we should choose wisely what to do, prioritising the meaningful over the merely efficient. A refreshingly upbeat philosophy.