7 min readWhat I learned from Oliver Burkeman’s “Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals”

I’m an unemployed millennial who quit her job because, well, she didn’t like it (sorry ex-boss, you were genuinely great). Sounds cliché? Wait for it. I struggle with generalised anxiety, chronic procrastination, and what feels like endless self-doubt.

In the midst of all this, I thought that if I became a master of time – something that has always phased me – some of my struggles would definitely improve. It could be especially useful during this period when I’m refocusing my career on my own. I believed that by not using time efficiently, optimising it so that I can do everything I wanted to do, my anxiety would keep growing. Or even worse, I wouldn’t get to achieve any of the great things I had in mind.

Naturally, I decided to buy a book on time management. Finally, I was going to become the time guru I dreamed of being. Half an hour of Googling later, I found what seemed to be the best book on time management: Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Guardian journalist Oliver Burkeman.

Well, what I thought would be a crash course in productivity strategies turned into Oliver slapping me in the face. It was the good kind of slapping. Let me explain.

In this wise book, Burkeman throws preconceived ideas about time management out the window (with grace and respect), and goes to the roots of it all. Instead of another attempt at controlling time through new and improved productivity hacks, the book has helped me understand my relationship to time on a deeper level.

The result? Peace of mind.

Patience is power.

I get it, you’re probably sick of hearing the good ol’ patience lecture. Sorry (not sorry) to break it to you, but that just means you need it even more. Let’s flip this pancake for a moment.

Have you ever heard of the term “speed addiction”? A psychotherapist in Sillicon Valley, whose patients worked in the tech field, noticed a lot of similarities between the symptoms of addiction to substances, and the way her patients felt from chasing to achieve everything, all the time. The addict gets the same “intoxicating thrill” from their substance as non-addicts get from living life at high speed. Another thing is that these professionals felt bad when time slowed down – they needed to do things all the time, and do things fast, to avoid feelings like anxiety.

When you finally face the truth that you can’t dictate how fast things go, you stop trying to outrun your anxiety, and your anxiety is transformed.

Oliver Burkeman

Most of us unconsciously want things to happen as fast as possible – or even faster than that. These past few years, I’ve been working hard to be more patient, but I still notice that sometimes I automatically demand things to happen at the speed I want them to happen. What’s up with that? For example, the line at the supermarket or, more notoriously, the website not loading in the first 2 seconds. Sometimes I notice I’m rushing through a simple chore, even though I have absolutely nowhere else to be, and nothing else to do.

Take this blog, my first independent creative project – I’ve had countless moments when I caught myself wanting it to develop faster than it naturally was. Moments when I pressured myself that I should do it at a speed that just didn’t work for me. The book considers the consequences of capitalism on our obsession with productivity, but also recognises that it’s not the only thing to blame.

Point is, we see value in doing everything fast to feel like we’re in control. Paradoxically, deep down we all wish we could slow down time – to delay the reality of our finitude: death.

A TEST OF PATIENCE

Go to a museum, and look at a painting or sculpture for three hours straight.

This amazing idea is an assignment that Jennifer Roberts, an art history teacher at Harvard, gives to her new students. It’s meant not only to teach them to be more patient in a fast-paced world, but to show them what exists beyond the boredom that they usually avoid whenever faced with this type of artwork. Let’s be honest, when do we ever look at it for more than a few minutes? And if we do give it the time it deserves, what will we see?

“But Roxy, who has three hours to spend looking at art?” I get it, even I’m struggling to find the window for it. Maybe it helps to think of the time you easily spend at the cinema – only the museum is the cinema, and the film is the painting.

Time isn’t something we own.

Besides impatience, we need to take a closer look another invisible demon: control.

Have you noticed that doing something usually takes longer than you expect it to? It always happens to me, even when I set aside more time than I think I need so that I can really be in control. Apparently, the cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter coined this phenomenon as “Hofstadter’s law” – the concept that things will always take longer than planned for.

Most of us are pretty desperate in wanting to control time. I know I’ve been there, and still am sometimes. It’s understandable, but it’s also like trying to catch air with your hands. We want to slow it down, we want to speed it up, and many of us actually believe it’s possible.

After reading this book, it hit me on a new level: the reality that not only is it maybe the biggest illusion, but also that it comes from a deep fear – my “expiration date”. The more we try to control it, the more it feeds it. I’m not fully there yet, but it’s helped me to accept my limitations on another level.

Do something you enjoy – with no purpose.

Yup, you read that right. No purpose at all. In the book we learn about the editor Karen Rinaldi, who loves surfing so much that she spent all her savings on a house by a beach. At that point, she’d spent years on learning to surf, invested in it, but guess what? She’s still mediocre at it. This enlightened me. We don’t need to be great, not even good at something we’re interested in. Before anything, we need to remember to love how it makes us feel, to allow it to give us the peace of mind we want.

The freedom to suck without caring is revelatory.

Karen Rinaldi

Don’t be afraid to be mediocre.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been feeling a little overwhelmed by the heavy focus on a greater purpose. My tone here is pretty cynical, but don’t get me wrong – I connect with the idea, I fully believe in the truth behind it.

On the other hand, I also believe that too much of anything isn’t good. Of course I want to fulfill my dreams, but this book helped me realize that purpose isn’t always the answer.

I recently picked up painting for fun. Or so I thought. It took me no time to imagine that I might have real talent, and who knows – maybe someday I’ll end up exhibiting my work! Wouldn’t that be amazing? Say what?! I barely got to relax, and enjoy splashing some colors like the amateur I really am, before I quickly set the bar high. No wonder I started feeling anxiety around it.

Maybe this trend about doing something great with my life got me fixated on a finding purpose in anything I do. Mr Burkeman, you were right. I’ve now embraced that I’m mediocre at painting, and by default stopped trying to use time well when really, all I want is to paint a cute-ugly tree and relax. For my fellow anxious peeps out there, trust me – it’s a game changer.

Let things take the time they take.

I’m so grateful for this book. It’s given me the freshest perspective on time, helped me slow down, and manage my time with a whole new mindset. It’s served me more than any mega-optimized-to-do-list-so-you-can-do-it-all could ever do.

The core lesson I take with me is to not even attempt to do everything – this mindset will only make you want to do more. Sometimes, make sure you do nothing. Thank you for taking the pressure off, Mr Burkeman.