This book changed how I spend and think about time

The average human life spans approximately 4,000 weeks. This isn't a philosophical concept, but a mathematical reality. In his book Four Thousand Weeks: Time and How to Use It, Oliver Burkeman explores our most fundamental time management challenge: how best to use our 4,000 weeks.

We don’t have time to do all of the things that matter

The reality is time is a fixed resource and the time we have alive is very short, meaning we won’t be able to do everything we want to do. For me, this means for example I am unlikely to ever master speaking multiple second languages, even though as someone who loves to travel and explore other cultures this would be interesting and useful.

Denial that time is a fixed resource

Time is a zero-sum game. Every decision to do one thing means not doing something else. Most people understand this intellectually but struggle to apply it practically. The reality that we can’t do everything we might like to do in life can be confronting, leading us to procrastinate or engage in 'busywork' that creates an illusion of productivity.

As Burkeman notes, a common way of procrastinating (and one I am guilty of) is by ‘clearing the decks’ by working on small but annoying and seemingly urgent tasks, rather than focusing on our most important goals. Although as we know, you will never fully ‘clear the deck’ as our task list is never complete. We could spend days clearing out our email inbox only for it to fill up again.

Another way people commonly avoid focusing on things that matter is submitting to distractions. I don’t just mean going down a rabbit hole on social media. Distractions from what really matters could be spending excessive hours at work and neglecting your relationships or your health. As Burkeman writes “Distractions aren’t the ultimate cause of our distraction. Although well-engineered they are ultimately the place we go to seek relief from the discomfort of facing our limitations.”

Embrace our limits

Accepting limitations isn't defeatism - it creates clarity. Economists call this 'opportunity cost thinking.' By explicitly acknowledging what we won't do, we can create time and energy to focus on doing the things that matter.

How to be more intentional with our time

Burkeman offers several practical solutions to start being more intentional with our time. These five are the ones I found most valuable to apply to my own experience.

1. Adopt a ‘fixed volume’ approach to productivity

It’s impossible to get everything done, or even to get everything important done. Instead, start from the assumption that hard choices are inevitable and focus on only having a limited number of active projects at any one time. One simple strategy for limiting the amount of projects at any one time is to keep two to-do lists - one with ‘active’ projects you are currently working on and one with ‘pipeline’ projects that you might do at some point in the future. I personally keep two versions of this type of list - one for work and one for the rest of my life.

2. Serialise, serialise, serialise

Multitasking is a productivity myth. Cognitive research consistently shows that humans perform best when focused on one significant task at a time. By serialising projects—completing one substantial project before starting another—we maximise cognitive resources and minimise mental switching costs. This doesn’t mean only focus on one thing - we all have obligations or business as usual things, but one big project at a time. For example, applying for a new job at the same time as renovating your house and training for a triathlon is a recipe for anxiety over the lack of progress you are making in any one area. Instead, focus on one of these three big projects and once it is complete, move onto the next one.

3. Decide in advance where to fail

Underachieving in at least one aspect of your life is inevitable with fixed time and energy to dedicate. By deciding in advance where you won’t expect excellence of yourself (and won’t beat yourself up about failing), so you can instead focus your time and energy on your priorities instead. There is scope to embrace this on a cyclical basis, for example if you are training for a marathon, your social commitments may need to scale back during this specific period to factor in time for training and a stricter nutrition plan. This approach rejects the myth of ‘work-life balance’ that you can have it all, all of the time, and instead a form of intentional imbalance.

4. Focus on what you’ve already completed, not just on what’s left to complete

Since by definition you will never get everything done you would like to do, and at the same time the pressure to get everything done is constant, it’s easy to feel despondent. Or as Burkeman writes “you can’t feel good about yourself until it’s all finished - but it’s never finished, so you never get to feel good about yourself.” A strategy to maintain motivation is to keep a ‘done list’ which starts empty at the beginning of the day and you gradually fill with whatever you accomplish. After all, you could have instead done nothing but sat on the sofa and watched tv. This serves as a reminder that you are making progress and has the motivating power of ‘small wins’.

5. Consolidate your caring

There are infinite things you could care about - hundreds of charities and causes you could care about. The abundance of information on the internet exposes us to an unending stream of this on a daily basis. While each individual cause may be a worthy use of our time, energy and money, in aggregate it is more than one individual human could ever hope to tackle. Realising that a lot of the things you think you have to do are actually optional, frees up time to spend on the things you do care about. A practical way to apply this is to apply the serialise concept and select one cause or charity to spend your time and money on annually, similar to a New Year resolution, and everything else could go on a ‘maybe’ list for future years.

In summary

Productivity isn't about doing more. It's about doing what matters most with intentional focus. By understanding our time as a limited resource, we can make strategic choices that align with our most meaningful goals.