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Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals Hardcover – August 10, 2021
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AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
"Provocative and appealing . . . well worth your extremely limited time." ―Barbara Spindel, The Wall Street Journal
The average human lifespan is absurdly, insultingly brief. Assuming you live to be eighty, you have just over four thousand weeks.
Nobody needs telling there isn’t enough time. We’re obsessed with our lengthening to-do lists, our overfilled inboxes, work-life balance, and the ceaseless battle against distraction; and we’re deluged with advice on becoming more productive and efficient, and “life hacks” to optimize our days. But such techniques often end up making things worse. The sense of anxious hurry grows more intense, and still the most meaningful parts of life seem to lie just beyond the horizon. Still, we rarely make the connection between our daily struggles with time and the ultimate time management problem: the challenge of how best to use our four thousand weeks.
Drawing on the insights of both ancient and contemporary philosophers, psychologists, and spiritual teachers, Oliver Burkeman delivers an entertaining, humorous, practical, and ultimately profound guide to time and time management. Rejecting the futile modern fixation on “getting everything done,” Four Thousand Weeks introduces readers to tools for constructing a meaningful life by embracing finitude, showing how many of the unhelpful ways we’ve come to think about time aren’t inescapable, unchanging truths, but choices we’ve made as individuals and as a society―and that we could do things differently.
- Print length288 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherFarrar, Straus and Giroux
- Publication dateAugust 10, 2021
- Dimensions5.75 x 0.95 x 8.55 inches
- ISBN-100374159122
- ISBN-13978-0374159122
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From the Publisher
Praise for Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman
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Editorial Reviews
Review
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
"In addition to whatever help it might offer, Four Thousand Weeks is also just good company; it addresses large, even existential, issues with a sense of humor and an even-keeled perspective. I found that reading it―Burkeman might balk at this particular way of describing it―was a good use of my time." ―John Williams, The New York Times
"Provocative and appealing . . . Well worth your extremely limited time." ―Barbara Spindel,The Wall Street Journal
"Burkeman is the self-help writer for people like me who find self-help books oversold on magical transformations . . . Four Thousand Weeks is full of such sage and sane advice, delivered with dry wit and a benevolent tone." ―Joe Moran, The Guardian (UK)
“Four Thousand Weeks will challenge and amuse you. And it may even spur you on to change your life.” ―Robbie Smith, Evening Standard (UK)
"[Four Thousand Weeks] is perfectly pitched somewhere between practical self-help book and philosophical quest . . . As with all the best quests, its many pleasures don't require a fast-forward button, but happen along the way." ―Tim Adams, The Observer (UK)
"Subtle, provocative, and multi-layered . . . Four Thousand Weeks offers many wise pointers to a happier, less stress-filled life, with none of the usual smug banalities of the self-help genre." ―Craig Brown, The Daily Mail (UK)
"This book is wonderful. Instead of offering new tips on how to cram more into your day, it questions why we feel the need to . . . My favorite kind of book is this one―a book that doesn't offer magic solutions to life because there aren't any. Instead, it examines the human struggle with intelligence, wisdom, humor, and humility . . . Reading this book was time well spent." ―Marianne Power, The Times (UK)
"I have long loved Oliver Burkeman's wise and witty journalism that both interrogates and elevates the 'self-help' realm―revealing its possibilities for absurdity while honoring the deeper human impulses that it meets. Four Thousand Weeks is a splendid offering in that spirit. This book is at once sobering and refreshing on all that is truly at stake in what we blithely refer to as 'time management.' It invites nothing less than a new relationship with time―and with life itself." ―Krista Tippett, host of On Being
"A wonderfully honest book, Four Thousand Weeks is a much-needed reality check on our culture's crazy assumptions around work, productivity and living a meaningful life." ―Mark Manson, bestselling author of Everything is F*cked and The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
“This is the most important book ever written about time management. Oliver Burkeman offers a searing indictment of productivity hacking and profound insights on how to make the best use of our scarcest, most precious resource. His writing will challenge you to rethink many of your beliefs about getting things done―and you’ll be wiser because of it.” ―Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and host of WorkLife
“Four Thousand Weeks is a book to read and re-read, to absorb and reflect on. Compassionate, funny and wise, it has not left my mind since I read it. The modern world teaches us to pretend to be immortal―this book is a dip in the cold, clear waters of reality, returning us refreshed and alive.” ―Naomi Alderman, author of The Power
“We all know our time is limited. What we don’t know―but what Oliver Burkeman is here to teach us―is that our control over that time is also limited. This profound (and often hilarious) book will prompt you to rethink your worship of efficiency, reject the cult of busyness, and reconfigure your life around what truly matters.” ―Daniel H. Pink, author of When, Drive, and To Sell is Human
“Oliver Burkeman provides an important and insightful reassessment of productivity. The drive to get more done can become an excuse to avoid figuring out what we actually want to accomplish. Only by confronting this latter question can we unlock a calmer, more meaningful, more resilient approach to organizing our time.” ―Cal Newport, New York Times bestselling author of A World Without Email and Deep Work
"Insightful . . . Burkeman’s thoughtful, reassuring analysis will be a welcome balm to readers feeling overwhelmed by the (perhaps unrealistic) demands of life." ―Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux (August 10, 2021)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 288 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0374159122
- ISBN-13 : 978-0374159122
- Item Weight : 13 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.75 x 0.95 x 8.55 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #9,116 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #20 in Personal Time Management
- #89 in Philosophy (Books)
- #111 in Happiness Self-Help
- Customer Reviews:
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Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
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Customers find the book profound and unique, examining time in an original way. They also describe the writing style as well-written, nice, and organized. Readers say the book goes beyond time management and gets into why we use and misuse time. They say it's thoughtful, original, and timely.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the book profound, thought-provoking, and compelling. They also say it offers a kinder and more fulfilling alternative, and is a read that could make them more peaceful.
"...This book is thought provoking in its encouragement to re-think our relationship with time and productivity...." Read more
"...While it has certainly helped the existential funk I've been in over the last few months, I can't help but believe this book will become incredibly..." Read more
"This book is like the anti-time management book. Very good advice for me, who is trying to live each moment." Read more
"...basically finished and considering a re-read, this book is really thought provoking and an important to those looking to live a successful and..." Read more
Customers find the writing style well written, quick, and meaningful. They also appreciate the dozens of great quotes and say the book is well researched and put together. Readers also mention that it can be funny, engaging, and at times tedious.
"...There are dozens of great quotes throughout Four Thousand Weeks...." Read more
"...more than others, but overall this book is an engaging read and is well-written...." Read more
"...It can be funny, engaging, and at times tedious.The gist is “Finitude.” We have limited time...." Read more
"...Like many said, most of the ideas are not original and the book is well written...." Read more
Customers find the book relevant and original. They also say it goes beyond time management and gets into why we use and misuse time.
"This book is like the anti-time management book. Very good advice for me, who is trying to live each moment." Read more
"...I just got started reading this book and this is going to be lifetime-evolving." Read more
"...The bottom line for this book is your life is finite, you cannot manage time, much less control it, so find what you want to do and do it...." Read more
"This informed, down to earth, practical view of time management was all that the person who recommended it to me promised...." Read more
Customers are mixed about the readability of the book. Some find it cerebral and easy to understand, while others say it's hard to finish.
"This informed, down to earth, practical view of time management was all that the person who recommended it to me promised...." Read more
"...It is a long and rambling work but a pleasure to read. Our happiness, or conversely, our unhappiness hinge on how we deal with remorse and anxiety...." Read more
"I enjoyed this book very much. It was practical, approachable, and often very funny. Many of the author’s examples apply directly to me." Read more
"...However, i found the first few chapters hard to get into...." Read more
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The real measure of any time management technique is whether or not it helps you neglect the right things.
The premise of Four Thousand Weeks is that an average person lives for only four thousand weeks. What will you do with that time? All of human history has taken approximately 310,000 weeks. We are but a blip, and knowing this, Burkeman asks the reader, how will you get everything done?
We don’t. Plain and simple.
Arguably, time management is all life is. Yet the modern discipline known as time management—like its hipper cousin, productivity—is a depressingly narrow-minded affair, focused on how to crank through as many work tasks as possible, or on devising the perfect morning routine, or on cooking all your dinners for the week in one big batch on Sundays.
Burkeman advocates not for Pomodoro techniques, bullet journals, and habit trackers but for actively choosing what you won’t do. He explains how we strive for things like Inbox Zero or crossing things off our to-do lists only for more things to find their way into our email and onto our lists. The key, Burkeman shares, is not eschewing stuff you don’t want to do in favor of what you do want to do but choosing what matters most for your time of all the things you do want to do. For example, you may not want to go to your upcoming reunion, so saying no to that event in favor of going on a vacation might be easy. We must genuinely manage our time when we want to spend time with our partner, write a book, learn to ski, adopt a pet, decorate cakes, and take a vacation. It’s much more challenging to choose what you won’t do when you genuinely want to do the things on your list.
The day will never arrive when you finally have everything under control—when the flood of emails has been contained; when your to-do lists have stopped getting longer; when you’re meeting all your obligations at work and in your home life; when nobody’s angry with you for missing a deadline or dropping the ball; and when the fully optimized person you’ve become can turn, at long last, to the things life is really supposed to be about. Let’s start by admitting defeat: none of this is ever going to happen.
There are dozens of great quotes throughout Four Thousand Weeks. I love the thought that you can only have three things or projects going on at any given time. To take on a new project, you must finish or quit one of your other three. I also appreciated how Burkeman addresses side hustle culture and burnout culture, which seems prevalent in the millennial generation (hi! That’s me!).
…it’s now common to encounter reports, especially from younger adults, of an all-encompassing, bone-deep burnout, characterized by an inability to complete basic daily chores—the paralyzing exhaustion of “a generation of finely honed tools, crafted from embryos to be lean, mean production machines,” in the words of the millennial social critic Malcolm Harris.
He also describes hobbies as critical, but it’s okay if you feel silly talking about them with others because you do them out of pure enjoyment – not with the goal you might one day monetize it.
When an activity can’t be added to the running tally of billable hours, it begins to feel like an indulgence one can’t afford. There may be more of this ethos in most of us—even the nonlawyers—than we’d care to admit.
Four Thousand Weeks is the book everyone must read to get over hustle culture and project mindsets. Sometimes the purpose of life is to enjoy existing.
The world is bursting with wonder, and yet it’s the rare productivity guru who seems to have considered the possibility that the ultimate point of all our frenetic doing might be to experience more of that wonder.
I instantly loved this book, and it will sit at the top of my recommendations for quite some time.
One small warning: The author is mostly philosophical and still practical. The philosophical reasoning for many of the practical points relies on a secular point of view that come across as nihilistic, or at least skeptical of religion. That comes through in the book’s repeated mantra that no one really cares about your life in the grand scheme so don’t stress out so much about it (as well as its frequent quoting of atheist philosophers). While our lives are far less significant than the modern American stresses themselves out believing, another way to support the conclusion without taking such a strong stance on religion or the meaning of life is that in the grand scheme of your life, the small things you stress out about moment to moment really are insignificant. This comes through in the final chapter’s suggestion to do “the next right thing.” If you have any religious inclinations, you can take the author’s own philosophy for a grain of salt and still benefit from the overarching concepts.
Also note to the Author who I am sure reads comments on his books: Great job and I think I would love to get a beer with someone wired so similarly to me! Knowing that won’t happen (neither of us has time ;) ), I do recommend that you and other like-minded readers check out The Reason for God by Timothy Keller and Counterfeit Gods by Timothy Keller. I think you’d enjoy both books based on your love for philosophy and our shared search for significance and fulfillment.
The book is certainly worth reading, but it can also be alienating. YMMV.
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Your time is finit, and what you can do with it is finite. You won't be able to do all that you want, but perhaps all that wanting is actually misguided. To want to much may be a symptom of not really being here, "now".
On the other hand, "being here now", as new age types often promote, is not exactly to be pursued in the same way such spiritual people day that you should. It's an uncomfortable feeling, and there are traps and pitfalls that inhabit this proposition or desire to "be here now". Falling into these traps makes us behave in a way that actually mirrors the productivity meatgrinder that is the attitude towards life pushed by the current culture.
This is not a mumbo jumbo self help "you can do it", nor is it some "lite feel age" book for you to feel good. It's a cold bath and a wake-up call. It will make you feel uncomfortable, not because of some new fact but rather because it will make you pay attention to what you've been avoiding.
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