Podcasts about this column will change your life

How can we embrace the limitations of time and the certainty of death and create real fulfillment that thrives on an honest assessment of our human predicament? These are the questions at the heart of this episode. Ethan welcomes back bestselling author and journalist Oliver Burkeman for a discussion of finitude, death, limitations, productivity, and dueling concepts of the meaning of meditation.  Oliver Burkeman is the author of Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts, and the bestselling Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, is now available. Oliver wrote a long-running weekly column on psychology for The Guardian, "This Column Will Change Your Life," and his work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Psychologies, and New Philosopher. Learn more about him at oliverburkeman.com, and subscribe to his regular newsletter, The Imperfectionist. Please support the podcast via Substack and subscribe for free or with small monthly contributions. Paid subscribers will receive occasional extras like guided meditations, extra podcast episodes and more! The Meditation Group starts up again on May 15th, and a special podcast/meditation on “Intuition” will be released to paid subscribers this Friday, May 2nd. You can also subscribe to The Road Home podcast wherever you get your pods (Apple, Spotify,Ethan's Website, etc). Check out all the cool offerings at our podcast sponsor Dharma Moon, including the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training program beginning June 13th, 2025. Free video courses co-taught by Ethan and others, such as The Three Marks of Existence, are also available for download. 

Adrienne is looking back at some of her favourite Power Hour episodes from years gone by!Oliver Burkeman worked for many years at The Guardian, where he wrote a popular weekly column on psychology, “This Column Will Change Your Life.” His books include the New York Times bestseller Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals and The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking. Oliver's new book Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts is described as "A map for a liberating journey toward a more meaningful life―a journey that begins where we actually find ourselves, not with a fantasy of where we'd like to be". It's available no in stores and online. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oliver Burkeman, bestselling author of Four Thousand Weeks and Meditations for Mortals, on the power of embracing imperfection in both life and creativity, how to overcome distractions that hinder our creative flow, and the tools that can help us thrive in an imperfect world. *ABOUT OLIVER BURKEMAN Oliver Burkeman worked for many years at The Guardian, where he wrote a popular weekly column on psychology, “This Column Will Change Your Life.” His books include the New York Times bestseller Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals and The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking. His latest book is Meditations for Mortals.*RESOURCES & LINKS

Are you ready for a writing masterclass from one of the best self-help writers in the world?   After graduating from Cambridge, Oliver Burkeman wrote the popular column “This Column Will Change Your Life” in ‘The Guardian' for over 15 years sharing his real-world, real-time poetic exploration of the self-help universe. In 2021 he published 'Four Thousand Weeks,' a literary examination of how we live today. Mark Manson (our guest in Chapter 28) called it “a reality check on our culture's crazy assumptions around work, productivity and living a meaningful life” and Adam Grant (our guest in Chapter 72) called it “the most important book ever written about time management."   Oliver's work is much more about how to live a good life in the limited time we have than the system and hacks you find in other popular productivity books, and he's just released a wonderful follow-up called 'Meditations For Mortals.' This book offers the reader 28 short chapters meant to be read one a day for 28 days, a quiet evening ritual with Oliver's potent words.   Naturally with such a talented guest, this Chapter dives deep into writing craft. How does a productivity writer focus on meaningful work? What does Oliver always have in his pocket on a walk to help him write? And what is his dream writing schedule?   But we also mine Oliver's brilliant mind in wide conversations that ask: What are the signs of living in a totalitarian state? What is Jungian analysis? Is promotion offensive? And why does Oliver wear earplugs even in silence?   Oliver Burkeman is my favorite self-help writer so it was a great pleasure that he joined me on 3 Books. Join me to learn how Oliver manages his writing projects, his 3 most formative books, the best question to ask before making big decisions, why mess is necessary, and much, much more.   Let's flip the page to Chapter 142 now...

What if I told you that, when it comes to managing your time and your life, you were never going to get it together — and that was okay? Continuing the thread from our last conversation with Kendra Adachi, today on the show we have the incomparable Oliver Burkeman, who wrote the book Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts, which came out October 8. Literally from the opening page of the book — page one of the introduction, which is called “The Imperfect Life” — Oliver had me hooked with the words “This is a book about how the world opens up once you realize you're never going to sort your life out.” The hard truth? There will always be too much to do. We will never win the unwinnable battle of conquering our time. But the good news? We will be okay, and Oliver's book teaches us how. We will, in his words, never reach the end of the trouble-free phase. Our culture has a productivity and busyness obsession, and it all comes down to grasping for control in an uncontrollable world. The book is broken up into bite size chunks — daily offerings over four weeks. Those four weeks are Week 1: Being Finite; Week 2: Taking Action; Week 3: Letting Go; and Week 4: Showing Up. Today on the show Oliver talks to us about why he decided to organize the book this way and teaches us about a concept called strategic underachievement and what he calls JOMO, which is the JOY of missing out, as opposed to FOMO, the fear of missing out. We talk about embracing “imperfectionism” and why people pleasers may struggle with this more; a major fallacy about time that Oliver thinks we've gotten terribly wrong; and so much more. Oliver is also the author of 2021's Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, the title of which roughly represents the length of a human life. Oliver wrote the weekly column “This Column Will Change Your Life” for The Guardian from 2006 to 2020 and, in addition to Meditations for Mortals and Four Thousand Weeks, is the author of two other books, HELP!: How to Be Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More Done and The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking. You're going to love him. If you're looking to be liberated from your to do list, explore a more meaningful life, and take a four week “retreat of the mind” (unless you're like me and gobble his book up in one sitting), take a listen. Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts by Oliver Burkeman

Oliver Burkeman explains how to make the most of our limited time on earth, and how to have a meaningful lfie. Oliver Burkeman is an author, journalist, and writer the weekly column "This Column Will Change Your Life" for the newspaper The Guardian. He published "Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, a self-help book on the philosophy and psychology of time management and happiness." For the Sake of Argument podcast: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@jakenewfield Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4k9DDGJz02ibpUpervM5EY Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/for-the-sake-of-argument/id1567749546 Twitter: https://twitter.com/JakeNewfield

Workplace productivity apps like Slack, Notion, and Trello are encroaching on our personal lives. According to a trending article in San Francisco Standard, new apps specifically for couples and families, like Lovewick and Coexist, are gaining traction in Silicon Valley. These tools promise to balance domestic labour by optimizing everything from your chores to your #couplegoals. But is life a project that needs to be perfectly managed? Could there really be an app for that?Our guest, Oliver Burkeman is best known as the author of the weekly self-help column “This Column Will Change Your Life” for The Guardian. In this episode, we speak with him about the rise of productivity apps in our personal lives, whether technology can divorce-proof a marriage and what we might be missing when our relationships are too optimized. Oliver's new book is Meditations for Mortals. He is also the author of Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. His newsletter, “The Imperfectionist,” is about productivity, mortality, and building a meaningful life in an age of bewilderment. Also, Vass and Katrina discuss Vass' greatest organizational tool: her new pencil case.This is Lately. Every week, we take a deep dive into the big, defining trends in business and tech that are reshaping our every day.Our executive producer is Katrina Onstad. The show is produced by Andrea Varsany. Our sound designer is Cameron McIver.Subscribe to the Lately newsletter, where we unpack more of the latest in business and technology.Find the transcript of today's episode here.We'd love to hear from you. Send your comments, questions or ideas to lately@globeandmail.com.

Oliver Burkeman worked for many years at The Guardian, where he wrote a popular weekly column on psychology, “This Column Will Change Your Life.” His books include the New York Times bestseller Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals and The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking. Oliver's new book Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts is described as "A map for a liberating journey toward a more meaningful life―a journey that begins where we actually find ourselves, not with a fantasy of where we'd like to be". It's available no in stores and online. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oliver Burkeman is the author of the Sunday Times bestseller 'Four Thousand Weeks' and 'The Antidote,' and for many years wrote a popular weekly column on psychology for The Guardian, ' This Column Will Change Your Life'. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Psychologies and New Philosopher. He has a devoted following for his writing on productivity, mortality, the power of limits, and building a meaningful life in the age of bewilderment. Find the book, and more from Oliver here: https://www.oliverburkeman.com

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ . Our relationship with time is dysfunctional. Here to help us explore possibly the most critical effect of AI on the pace of life is Oliver Burkeman, author of the best-selling self-help book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals and former author of the psychology column “This Column Will Change Your Life” in The Guardian. Most of us can attest to being severely overworked and with a shrinking amount of personal time left over. This is true despite the introduction into our lives of a huge amount of technology from the PC to the Internet. Why have tools like email, Google, and instant messaging not reduced our workload and stress? In fact, it's not hard to believe that they are responsible for making those things worse. In which case, we must ask, what effect will unleashing AI – which accelerates everything it touches - have on our work life?  This is exactly the thought space that Oliver inhabits, and his work has made a major difference in my own life. Read Oliver's posts and subscribe to his newsletter at OliverBurkeman.com. In the conclusion of the interview, we talk about whether this is Luddism, the influence of the Silicon Valley billionaires' pursuit of immortality, the appropriate use of AI to save us time, and what will remain constant throughout any amount of technological evolution.  All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.          

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ . Our relationship with time is dysfunctional. Here to help us explore possibly the most critical effect of AI on the pace of life is Oliver Burkeman, author of the best-selling self-help book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals and former author of the psychology column “This Column Will Change Your Life” in The Guardian. Most of us can attest to being severely overworked and with a shrinking amount of personal time left over. This is true despite the introduction into our lives of a huge amount of technology from the PC to the Internet. Why have tools like email, Google, and instant messaging not reduced our workload and stress? In fact, it's not hard to believe that they are responsible for making those things worse. In which case, we must ask, what effect will unleashing AI – which accelerates everything it touches - have on our work life?  This is exactly the thought space that Oliver inhabits, and his work has made a major difference in my own life. Read Oliver's posts and subscribe to his newsletter at OliverBurkeman.com. In this first half of the interview we talk about the parable of the rocks in the jar and how it's a pernicious lie, the psychology of perceiving life as finite, and how technology has not changed our work stress and may be making it worse through induced demand.  All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.          

My guest today is Oliver Burkeman. Oliver is the author of the New York Times bestseller Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, which is about embracing the finite nature of life and finally getting around to what matters most. He is also the author of  The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking and Help!: How to Be Slightly Happier, Slightly More Successful and Get a Bit More Done. For many years Oliver wrote a popular column on psychology for The Guardian called, This Column Will Change Your Life. He currently writes a newsletter called, The Imperfectionist, where he discusses productivity, mortality, and building a meaningful life in an age of distraction. Oliver is also a contributor to Sam Harris' meditation app, Waking Up. Some of the topics we explore in this episode include: - How Oliver's work overlaps with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) - Oliver's background and how it helped him understand what doesn't work regarding time management- The idea of paying yourself first with time- Making our peace with not being able to do everything that matters- The importance of finding value in experiences themselves - How our limitations are connected to distraction and impatience - Oliver's new book that he is currently writing—————————————————————————Oliver's website: https://www.oliverburkeman.com/4000 Weeks: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374159122Twitter: https://twitter.com/oliverburkeman—————————————————————————Thank you all for checking out the episode! Here are some ways to help support Mentally Flexible:You can help cover some of the costs of running the podcast by donating a cup of coffee! www.buymeacoffee.com/mentallyflexiblePlease subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It only takes 30 seconds and plays an important role in being able to get new guests.https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mentally-flexible/id1539933988Follow the show on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mentallyflexible/Check out my song “Glimpse at Truth” that you hear in the intro/outro of every episode: https://tomparkes.bandcamp.com/track/glimpse-at-truth

Figured many of you here would like to hear the conversation I had recently with Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management For Mortals over at the British intellectual podcast Intelligence Squared. It's one of my favourite podcasts, and so I was supremely thrilled when they invited me to lead an "in conversation” about self-help scepticism. Here's the blurb they ran: Oliver Burkeman is the anti-self-help author that everyone interested in self-help should read. He encourages us to embrace uncertainty and imperfection in a world obsessed with self-improvement and relentless goal-setting. For over ten years he wrote the popular ‘This Column Will Change Your Life' column for The Guardian and his latest book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management For Mortals, was a huge bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic. Sarah Wilson is the founder of the global ‘I Quit Sugar' movement, was editor of Cosmopolitan Australia at the age of 29, and has interviewed two Australian prime ministers, Beyoncé, Brené Brown, the Dalai Lama and dozens of moral philosophers, effective altruists and existential risk experts during her career. Her most recent book, This One Wild and Precious Life, won the US Gold Nautilus Prize and describes how she spent three years hiking around the world, following in the footsteps of Nietzsche and Wordsworth and emerging with a blueprint for living a wilder, more connected life. For this episode, Burkeman and Wilson come together at Intelligence Squared for an engaging discussion about the limitations of the traditional self-help industry, the importance of mindfulness, and practical strategies for leading a more balanced and purposeful life.SHOW NOTESCatch my interview with Oliver (about his book Four Thousand Weeks) hereCheck out Intelligence Squared hereIf you need to know a bit more about me… head to my "about" pageFor more such conversations subscribe to my Substack newsletter, it's where I interact the most!Get your copy of my book, This One Wild and Precious LifeLet's connect on Instagram Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oliver Burkeman is the anti-self-help author that everyone interested in self-help should read. He encourages us to embrace uncertainty and imperfection in a world obsessed with self-improvement and relentless goal-setting. For over ten years he wrote the popular ‘This Column Will Change Your Life' column for The Guardian and his latest book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management For Mortals, was a huge bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic. Sarah Wilson is the founder of the global ‘I Quit Sugar' movement, was editor of Cosmopolitan Australia at the age of 29, and has interviewed two Australian prime ministers, Beyoncé, Brené Brown, the Dalai Lama and dozens of moral philosophers, effective altruists and existential risk experts during her career. Her most recent book, This One Wild and Precious Life, won the US Gold Nautilus Prize and describes how she spent three years hiking around the world, following in the footsteps of Nietzsche and Wordsworth and emerging with a blueprint for living a wilder, more connected life. For this episode, Burkeman and Wilson come together at Intelligence Squared for an engaging discussion about the limitations of the traditional self-help industry, the importance of mindfulness, and practical strategies for leading a more balanced and purposeful life. We'd love to hear your feedback and what you think we should talk about next. Send us an email or voice note with your thoughts to podcasts@intelligencesquared.com or Tweet us @intelligence2.  And while you're listening, why not visit Intelligencesquared.com and sign up to our newsletter to be the first to hear about some of our great upcoming events and deals. If you'd like to support our mission to foster honest debate and compelling conversations, as well as ad-free podcasts, exclusive bonus content, early access and much more, become a supporter of Intelligence Squared. Just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever felt frustrated by the endless pursuit of efficiency? Have you ever felt that there was more to life than the zero inbox? Well, today is part one of a two part interview with Oliver Burkeman, the author of 4,000 Weeks. For many years he wrote a popular column on psychology for The Guardian called This Column Will Change Your Life. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Psychologies and New Philosopher. By the end of today's episode, you will have the mindset that Burkeman believes most upends the time management industry of the last 30 or 40 years. Learn more about Oliver here: https://www.oliverburkeman.com/ Join my weekly newsletter at GregMcKeown.com/1mw Learn more about my books and courses at GregMcKeown.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The average human lifespan is absurdly, insultingly brief. If you live to be 80, you'll have had about 4,000 weeks. But, to Oliver Burkeman, that's no reason for despair. Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals was a smash hit from author and journalist Oliver Burkeman. On 25th July, he'll join us on It's Bloody Complicated to talk time, reality, the delusions we hold about productivity, and how to focus on the ‘gloriously possible' in a time of spiralling global crises.Oliver is the author of The Antidote: Happiness for People who Can't Stand Positive Thinking and Help! How to Become Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More Done. He wrote a long-running column for the Guardian, This Column Will Change Your Life, and has a devoted following for his writing on productivity, mortality and the power of limits.Support the showEnjoyed the podcast and want to be a live audience member at our next episode? Want to have the chance in raising questions to the panelist?Support our work and be a part of the Compass community. Become a member!You can find us on Twitter at @CompassOffice.

Oliver Burkeman is a British author and journalist, formerly writing the weekly column This Column Will Change Your Life for the newspaper The Guardian. In 2021, he published Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, a self-help book on the philosophy and psychology of time management and happiness. For more information please visit https://www.oliverburkeman.com/Support the show

This week I'm really excited to share this conversation with Oliver Burkeman. I was inspired by this chat as Oliver is proposing a fresh and humane look at productivity that goes far beyond time management systems and software trends to reach into the finite nature of time and the intuitive skills that we all possess to handle our daily tasks and schedules in a way that is more forgiving and human.  In his latest book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals Oliver unpacks how the approximately four thousand hours that the average person has on earth is often spent thinking about, and even stressing about time management rather than embracing the natural flow of time and work cycles. As a contrast to this dread or even guilt that so many of us have regarding our productivity, Oliver stresses the importance of recognizing our limitations and finitude in terms of time and control.  In our talk Oliver also emphasizes the value of understanding these limitations and how it can be freeing, allowing us to focus on realistic goals instead of feeling overwhelmed. In addition we explore the concept of intentional choice in using our limited resources and how it can lead to greater productivity. Oliver also points out techniques for how to distinguish between pursuing groundbreaking projects and trying to do everything at once, highlighting the latter as a futile struggle that often hinders meaningful work.  Oliver Burkeman is the author of The Antidote: Happiness for People who Can't Stand Positive Thinking and Help! How to Become Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More Done. He wrote a long-running column for the Guardian, This Column Will Change Your Life, and has a devoted following for his writing on productivity, mortality and the power of limits. To receive his writing as soon as it's published, subscribe to his twice-monthly email The Imperfectionist. Connect with Oliver: Website Linkedin Twitter YouTube Connect with Erik: Facebook  LinkedIn  Twitter  Instagram  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the holiday week, I'm re-releasing one of my MVP (Most Valuable Podcast) episodes. Author Oliver Burkeman explains how we can all gain a new relationship with time and stop pushing ourselves to fit it all in.   ~ WE'LL DISCUSS ~ Why our time is finite The reality behind procrastination Why we should focus on enjoying the things we have time for and not the things we don't   References Mentioned: Maria Shriver's Newsletter, I've Been Thinking…about What We Truly Need The Guardian article,  Time Millionaires Oliver's book recommendation, Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life by James Hollis   ~ ABOUT OLIVER BURKEMAN ~ Oliver Burkeman is a winner of the Foreign Press Association's Young Journalist of the Year Award and has been short-listed for the Orwell Prize. He wrote a long-running weekly column on psychology for The Guardian, "This Column Will Change Your Life," and his work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Psychologies, and New Philosopher.    Book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals Website, oliverburkeman.com Twitter, @oliverburkeman   Get on the waitlist for the Advocate with Elegance membership!   Stay Connected with Heather: To schedule a call with Heather, click here  To follow Heather on Instagram, click here To subscribe to Heather's newsletter, click here To request a transcript of this episode, email: operations@heatherhansenpresents.com     ____________ Disclaimer: The Elegant Warrior Podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It is not a substitute for the advice of a physician, a lawyer, a professional coach, a therapist or other qualified professionals.  

The average human will live for roughly 4000 weeks. Foregrounding this can be a source of stress, leading us to constantly run from one task to another. Or, it can be a source of meaning and purpose, nudging us to focus on what really matters.In this episode, Forrest is joined by bestselling author Oliver Burkeman for an exploration of what's really at stake in what we call “time management”. You'll learn why doing things faster only leaves you with more to do, the hidden payoffs of constant busyness, and how we can live a more fulfilling and enjoyable life by embracing its finite nature. About our Guest: Oliver Burkeman is a bestselling author and journalist. His most recent book is Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, and prior to that wrote The Guardian column titled, “This Column Will Change Your Life.” He writes and publishes a twice monthly email newsletter called “The Imperfectionist.” Watch the Episode: Prefer watching video? You can watch this episode on YouTube.Key Topics:0:00: Introduction0:55: Oliver's movement towards “anti-productivity”2:55: Doing fewer things more purposefully4:55: Looking at your own experience, and the paradoxical notion of perfect efficiency10:15: The wheel of craving, secondary gains, and grappling with our mortality15:30: Procrastination and freedom from an ideal result20:15: The poignancy of limited choice22:50: Existential crisis, insight, and fulfillment30:20: Organizing your daily schedule around your top priority35:55: Frameworks for working within someone else's schedule39:45: The allure of middling priorities41:40: Identifying our wants and needs, and choices that enlarge and diminish us45:50: Five questions to ask yourself from Oliver's book50:00: Suffering from trying to find a solution, and life not being a ‘prologue'57:35: RecapSupport the Podcast: We're now on Patreon! If you'd like to support the podcast, follow this link.Sponsors:Get 15% off OneSkin with the code BEINGWELL at https://www.oneskin.co/  Go to BrioAirPurifier.com and use code BEINGWELL to save $100 on a Brio Air Purifier.Finally get that project off the ground with Squarespace! Head to squarespace.com/beingwell for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch use coupon code BEINGWELL to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.Join over a million people using BetterHelp, the world's largest online counseling platform. Visit betterhelp.com/beingwell for 10% off your first month!Want to sleep better? Try the Calm app! Visit calm.com/beingwell for 40% off a premium subscription.Connect with the show:Subscribe on iTunesFollow Forrest on YouTubeFollow us on InstagramFollow Forrest on InstagramFollow Rick on FacebookFollow Forrest on FacebookVisit Forrest's website

Oliver Burkeman, the bestselling author of Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals joins Joe to  discuss the problem of people not having enough time and the elusive work/life balance. He shares why most time optimization techniques make our lives worse off and offers a new way to approach time management that will help us live meaningful lives.Oliver Burkeman is a British author and journalist, formerly writing the weekly column "This Column Will Change Your Life" for the newspaper The Guardian. 

This video is of a live recording of The Sacred podcast on 19 April 2023 at the UnHerd Cafe. Elizabeth Oldfield was joined by Oliver Burkeman. Oliver is a British author and journalist, formerly writing the weekly column This Column Will Change Your Life for The Guardian newspaper, and is one of the leading voices on productivity, mortality and the power of limits. He has published multiple books on the topic of productivity and happiness, including the New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals (2021). He spoke about living a meaningful life, living in the present moment and the liberating nature of 'hitting the bottom'. He also participated in a Q&A with the audience at the end. Read the full transcript here: https://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/comment/2023/04/26/sacred-live-oliver-burkeman-on-living-a-meaningful-life-in-the-present-moment Purchase a copy of his book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Four-Thousand-Weeks-Embrace-limits/dp/1784704008/ref=asc_df_1784704008/ ***** The Sacred is a podcast produced by the think tank Theos. Be sure to connect with us below to stay up-to-date with all our content, research and events. CONNECT WITH THE SACRED Twitter: https://twitter.com/sacred_podcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sacred_podcast/ CONNECT WITH ELIZABETH OLDFIELD Twitter: https://twitter.com/ESOldfield Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elizabethsaraholdfield/ CONNECT WITH THEOS Theos monthly newsletter: https://confirmsubscription.com/h/d/E9E17CAB71AC7464 Twitter: https://twitter.com/Theosthinktank Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theosthinktank LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/theos---the-think-tank/ Website: https://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/ CHECK OUT OUR PODCASTS The Sacred: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-sacred/id1326888108 Reading Our Times: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/reading-our-times/id1530952185

*Deep Read-ing Lists for each episode are available at public-library.online* My guest today is the author and journalist, Oliver Burkeman. I first interviewed Oliver back in 2019, when he was writing ‘This Column Will Change Your Life' for The Guardian. Since then, he has become the best-selling author of ‘Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals' -which is a thoughtful and thought-provoking challenge to our futile modern obsession with 'getting everything done'. Its core message - to embrace your limits, accept mortality, and give up on the belief that you will ever complete your to-do list - is a much-needed antidote to the productivity gospel that has dominated our culture for all too long.   

Bestselling author Oliver Burkeman @oliverburkeman on his process for writing impactful articles plus how he wrote his popular book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. We chat about reevaluating our relationship with time, the truth about perfectionism, why it's liberating to know that we are insignificant in the cosmos, and how we might use this reality to lead happier and more creative lives. *ABOUT OLIVER BURKEMANOliver Burkeman is a feature writer for The Guardian. He won the Foreign Press Association's Young Journalist of the Year Award and has been short-listed for the Orwell Prize. He wrote a popular weekly column on psychology, "This Column Will Change Your Life". His books include Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals and The Antidote: Happiness for People who Can't Stand Positive Thinking.*RESOURCESFour Thousand Weeks: Time Management for MortalsArticle: Everyone is Totally Winging It, All of the TimeAll of Oliver's articles from his Guardian column: This Column Will Change Your LifeFinding Meaning in an Imperfect World by Iddo LandouOliver's next masterclass: Designing Your System for CreativityOliver's newsletter: The ImperfectionistConnect with Oliver on Twitter @oliverburkeman*For show notes, transcripts and to attend our live podcasts visit: podcast.londonwriterssalon.comFor free writing sessions, join free Writers' Hours: writershour.com*FOLLOW LONDON WRITERS' SALONTwitter: twitter.com/​​WritersSalonInstagram: instagram.com/londonwriterssalonFacebook: facebook.com/LondonWritersSalonIf you're enjoying this show, please rate and review this show!

NYT bestselling author Oliver Burkeman has more than a decade of experience discussing topics like productivity, procrastination, and anxiety in his column for The Guardian newspaper, This Column Will Change Your Life. On this episode, Oliver talks about his game-changing new book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management For Mortals, his career path, how he came into the role of productivity expert, and the freedom of what he calls “a limit-embracing attitude.” More from the episode What are the added challenges of doing what you love professionally, in terms of productivity? The importance of stopping, and how patience can help you reach the finish line more consistently. Oliver describes his own system for finishing creative projects, and what productivity looks like for him. Why learning to tolerate discomfort is essential to developing a healthier relationship with time and productivity. Where do most people go wrong with time-management and productivity tools, and what can they do instead? Connect with Oliver Burkeman Oliver Burkeman's bi-monthly newsletter: https://www.oliverburkeman.com/the-imperfectionist https://www.oliverburkeman.com/ https://twitter.com/oliverburkeman Additional Links Want to get things done? Stop thinking, start doing | Oliver Burkeman - The Guardian Why it pays to cut yourself some slack | Oliver Burkeman - The Guardian Your new superpower: NOT trying to do everything | Jessica Abel Endless to-do list? Here's how not to waste your life | Oliver Burkeman - FTFor full transcripts, show notes, and more episodes, head to https://jessicaabel.com/acpod/

Hello and welcome back to Ctrl Alt Delete this is a replay of my episode with Oliver Burkeman recorded in October 2021. He is an award-winning feature writer for The Guardian and writes a popular weekly column on psychology called This Column Will Change Your Life. In this episode we discuss his new book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, an uplifting, engrossing and deeply realistic exploration of productivity and time management, rejecting the society's obsession with 'getting everything done' and one of my favourite non fiction books.' I hope you enjoy this episode! Four Thousand Weeks: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/153/9781784704001My Substack page, come and say hi: https://thehyphen.substack.com/My books: https://uk.bookshop.org/contributors/emma-gannonBooks mentioned on Ctrl Alt Delete podcast: https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/books-mentioned-on-ctrl-alt-delete-podcastTwitter: Twitter.com/emmagannonInstagram: Instagram.com/emmagannonuk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

                                                Oliver Burkeman tells us how "The ability to tolerate minor discomfort is a superpower" why we should "Let things take the time they take" why it's important to "Seek enlargement rather than happiness " and more. Hosted by Duff Watkins. About Oliver Burkeman Oliver Burkeman is an award-winning British journalist who wrote a long-running weekly column for The Guardian, entitled "This Column Will Change Your Life."   Burkeman has won the Foreign Press Association's Young Journalist of the Year award, FPA's Science Story of the Year 2015 and has been shortlisted for the Orwell Prize in 2006. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Psychologies, and New Philosopher. He lives in New York City. He is the author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking focuses on his theory of negativity and Help! How to Become Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More Done (2011).  He also has his own blog, on which he features a wide range of articles covering topics such as business management and various interviews with noteworthy individuals including Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter His new book, Four Thousand Weeks - time management for mere mortals , is about making the most of our radically finite lives in a world of impossible demands, relentless distraction and political insanity (and 'productivity techniques' that mainly just make everyone feel busier). Episode Notes Lesson 1: Seek enlargement rather than happiness 06:47 Lesson 2: Everyone is totally just winging it 11:01 Lesson 3: You're always procrastinating on something 18:23 Lesson 4: Nobody else really cares what you do with your life 23:34 Lesson 5: The ability to tolerate minor discomfort is a superpower 26:33 Lesson 6: What makes it unbearable is your mistaken belief that it can be cured 30:49 Lesson 7: Let things take the time they take 33:06 Lesson 8: You wouldn't want the control you think you need 35:15 Lesson 9: Don't fight time; it always wins in the end 40:42 Lesson 10: You don't need to justify your existence 43:59

This week's conversation is with Oliver Burkeman, a British author and journalist who I've really enjoyed his writings on productivity, mortality, the power of limits, and thoughts on building a meaningful life in an age of distraction. Oliver is the winner of the Foreign Press Association's Young Journalist of the Year award, and for many years wrote a hit weekly column for The Guardian called This Column Will Change Your Life.In this conversation, we dive into Oliver's newest book, Four Thousand Weeks - where he uses the average number of weeks that humans live, 4k – as a reference point to help us examine how we are living…especially in a world of impossible demands, infinite choice, and countless “productivity techniques” that mainly just leave us feeling busier - and less fulfilled. Oliver's perspective and insights were a breath of fresh air, and I hope you'll leave this conversation inspired to do the work to get clear on your values and prioritize your time based on the things that really matter to you – so that, ultimately, you too can make the most of your remaining weeks.----Please support our partners!We're able to keep growing and creating content for YOU because of their support. We believe in their mission and would appreciate you supporting them in return!!To take advantage of deals from our partners, head to http://www.findingmastery.net/partners where you'll find all discount links and codes mentioned in the podcast.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Only the first 38 minutes of this episode are available on the paywalled podcast version (the BLACK podcast logo). If you’d like to hear the full 1 hour and 28 minutes of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast, you’ll need to SUBSCRIBE here. If you’re already subscribed and on the private RSS feed, the podcast logo should appear RED. Sam Harris presents an unconventional perspective on time management from Oliver Burkeman. Rather than focusing on rote efficiency or productivity, Burkeman calls on us to embrace our finitude and surrender to the rhythms of life, so that we may “end our struggle with time”—and live with “more accomplishment, more success, and more time spent on what matters most.” Oliver Burkeman is the author of the New York Times bestseller Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, about embracing limitation and finally getting round to what counts, along with The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking and Help!: How to Be Slightly Happier, Slightly More Successful and Get a Bit More Done. For many years he wrote a popular column on psychology for The Guardian, This Column Will Change Your Life, and has reported from London, New York, and Washington, D.C. In his email newsletter, The Imperfectionist, he writes about productivity, mortality, and building a meaningful life in an age of distraction. Website: oliverburkeman.com Twitter: @oliverburkeman Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it. If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.

Oliver Burkeman is a feature writer for The Guardian. He is a winner of the Foreign Press Association's Young Journalist of the Year award, and has been short-listed for the Orwell Prize. He writes a popular weekly column on psychology, "This Column Will Change Your Life," and has reported from New York, London, and Washington. Oliver's latest book, is the fantastic: 'Four Those weeks: Time Management For Mortals' which draws 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. In the episode today, we discuss: - What is time? - Why we can never really control time - The perils of not accepting our mortality - Why trying to control our time only leads to more anxiety and stress - Cosmic insignificance therapy - The worst self-help advice - More Links: Oliver's book: shorturl.at/CGX28 https://www.oliverburkeman.com Watch the YouTube version of this interview (from 6pm UK Time), here: https://www.youtube.com/freedompact Instagram: @freedompact Email: freedompact@gmail.com

In this episode of the Evolving Leader, co-hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender talk to author and former Guardian journalist Oliver Burkeman. For more than 10 years, Oliver Burkeman wrote the weekly ‘This Column Will Change Your Life' column in the Guardian newspaper providing readers with ideas for a better life. In his latest book 4000 weeks, he rejects the obsession with 'getting everything done,' and introduces readers to tools for constructing a meaningful life by embracing rather than denying their limitations.Four Thousand Weeks (Vintage, 2022)This Column Will Change Your Life ‘the eight secrets to a (fairly) fulfilled life'. Oliver Burkeman's final weekly column in the Guarding (pubished 4 September, 2020) 0.00 Introduction2.40 Could we have a brief tour of your world and how you became a chronicler of ideas about living a good life.5.20 When you look back at your Guardian column, what were some of the ideas and people that most stood out to you?8.11 Tell us why you wrote 4000 weeks. 10.41 How has our concept of time changed through the ages?15.43 Can you tell us about the paradox of limitation?18.09 You describe how the German philosopher, Martin Heidegger argued that our finite existence is bound with time and that most of us spend our time denying this fact either through distraction or denial – what can we take from his thinking by flipping the constraints of mortality?23.24 How are we using distraction as avoidance, and how could positive distraction be useful?28.30 Let's turn to the benefits of procrastination.32.34 In the context of organisational life, how should leaders think about the idea of inevitable limitations?37.45  How can the mindset shift that underlies 4000 weeks be applied in an organisation? As a leader, what steps can be taken to normalise a change in philosophy whilst at the same time preventing it from being misused as an invitation to stop making plans for the future?42.25 This is where we hobbies and family life makes such a difference to our lives – how we're almost embarrassed to confess we have such a thing as a hobby. Can you talk about paying yourself first? Social: Instagram           @evolvingleader LinkedIn             The Evolving Leader Podcast Twitter               @Evolving_Leader The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

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.Oliver Burkeman is a feature writer for The Guardian. He is a winner of the Foreign Press Association's Young Journalist of the Year Award and has been short-listed for the Orwell Prize. He wrote a popular weekly column on psychology, "This Column Will Change Your Life," and has reported from New York, London, and Washington, D.C. His books include Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals and The Antidote: Happiness for People who Can't Stand Positive Thinking. Get Four Thousand Weeks Here: Amazon US Amazon AUSPre-order my new book 'The Path of an Eagle: How To Overcome & Lead After Being Knocked Down'. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thestorybox. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This podcast is about your relationship to time.  My guest is Oliver Burkeman. Oliver is a journalist and author. He writes and publishes a twice-monthly email newsletter called "The Imperfectionist." You can find The Guardian column he wrote from 2006 to 2020 online. It's titled "This Column Will Change Your Life." He's also the author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking, and his most recent book is Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. It is also the topic of the podcast.  Four Thousand Weeks explores concepts of time and time management, arguing that our modern attempts to optimize our time leave us stressed and unhappy. The book's first sentence is: "The average human lifespan is absurdly, terrifyingly, insultingly short." (About 4,000 weeks, on average; thus the title.). It is not your classic time-management book and in it, he explores the most profound questions we have in life.  In the book and on this podcast, Oliver prompts us to question the very idea that time is something you use in the first place."  Some of our talking points.  On what he's learned about happiness What we should seek besides happiness  Defining personal growth  The importance of frustration tolerance  How we relate to time  The problems with time management Optimizing the wrong things  To-do list and apps and the trap of planning The challenges of prioritizing  Practical tips on project management  And Oliver certainly helped me sort through my struggles with allocating my time, so I found the conversation very useful. I think you will, too.  For show notes and more, visit www.larryweeks.com   

For 14 years, our guest for this week's The 1% Podcast wrote a weekly piece for The Guardian entitled: “This Column Will Change Your Life”.    If that doesn't pique your interest, Oliver Burkeman has gone on to write three books to assist us with some of life's biggest challenges. ‘Help! How to Become Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More Done' was published in 2011, with ‘The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking' published in 2012.   It's Oliver's third book though, entitled: ‘Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals', that has garnered significant praise since being published in 2021 – and reinforced the author's reputation as a thought-provoking writer on the so-called “search for happiness”, the limits of modern-day productivity, and how our relationship with time actually tells us more about ourselves than we've ever realised.

Minter Dialogue with Oliver Burkeman Oliver Burkeman is a journalist who wrote the long-running column for the Guardian, "This Column Will Change Your Life." He was the winner of the Foreign Press Association's Young Journalist of the Year award, and has been shortlisted for the Orwell Prize. Beyond blogging and The Imperfectionist newsletter, Oliver has also written several bestselling books, including "The Antidote: Happiness for People who Can't Stand Positive Thinking" and "Help! How to Become Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More Done." His last book, "Four Thousand Weeks: Time and How to Use It. Embrace your limits. Change your life," is a runaway success. We discuss his book, time management, the essence of enough, cosmic insignificance, and how to make the most of our life on this planet. If you've got comments or questions you'd like to see answered, send your email or audio file to nminterdial@gmail.com; or you can find the show notes and comment on minterdial.com. If you liked the podcast, please take a moment to rate/review the show on RateThisPodcast. Otherwise, you can find me @mdial on Twitter.

In this episode of Just the Right Book with Roxanne Coady, Oliver Burkeman joins Roxanne Coady to discuss her new book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, out now from Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Oliver Burkeman is the author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking. He wrote a long-running weekly column on psychology for The Guardian, This Column Will Change Your Life, and his work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Psychologies, and New Philosopher. He lives in New York City. Roxanne Coady is owner of R.J. Julia, one of the leading independent booksellers in the United States, which—since 1990—has been a community resource not only for books, but for the exchange of ideas. In 1998, Coady founded Read To Grow, which provides books for newborns and children and encourages parents to read to their children from birth. RTG has distributed over 1.5 million books. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, we talk to Oliver Burkeman, New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author of 4,000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, about why and how to balance productivity and the present.Topics Discussed-Ancient philosophy's perspective on work and productivity vs nowHow our mindset towards work changedIs living forever bad?The balance between productivity and the present Why and how being highly productive leads to more workStrategies to prioritize time and lifeTime management for studentsThe most impactful books of Mr. Burkeman's lifeMr. Burkeman's advice for teensOliver Burkeman is the author of the New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller Four Thousand Weeks, about embracing limitation and finally getting round to what counts, along with The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking and Help! How to Become Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More Done. For many years he wrote a popular column for the Guardian, 'This Column Will Change Your Life'. In his email newsletter The Imperfectionist, he writes about productivity, mortality, the power of limits, and building a meaningful life in an age of distraction. He lives in the North York Moors. Our Website: https://www.aimingforthemoon.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aiming4moon/Twitter: https://twitter.com/Aiming4MoonYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6-TwYdfPcWV-V1JvjBXk 

Journalist Oliver Burkeman has made a delightful and important philosophical, spiritual, and practical investigation of all that is truly at stake in what we blithely refer to as “time management.” At this time of year, many of us are making plans and resolutions — treating time as part bully, part resource — something we could fit everything we want into if only we had the discipline. This conversation is offered up to release you from that illusion. He invites us into a new relationship with time, our technologies, and the power of limits — and thus with our mortality and with life itself.Oliver Burkeman is a journalist and author. His most recent book is Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. He's also the author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking. He writes and publishes a twice monthly email newsletter called “The Imperfectionist.” You can find The Guardian column he wrote from 2006 to 2020 online. It's titled, “This Column Will Change Your Life.”  This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Oliver Burkeman – Time Management for Mortals." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org. 

Journalist Oliver Burkeman has made a delightful and important philosophical, spiritual, and practical investigation of all that is truly at stake in what we blithely refer to as “time management.” At this time of year, many of us are making plans and resolutions — treating time as part bully, part resource — something we could fit everything we want into if only we had the discipline. This conversation is offered up to release you from that illusion. He invites us into a new relationship with time, our technologies, and the power of limits — and thus with our mortality and with life itself.Oliver Burkeman is a journalist and author. His most recent book is Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. He's also the author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking. He writes and publishes a twice monthly email newsletter called “The Imperfectionist.” You can find The Guardian column he wrote from 2006 to 2020 online. It's titled, “This Column Will Change Your Life.”  Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

In this episode, I talk to bestselling author Oliver Burkeman about his latest book Four Thousand Weeks. On the surface, it's easy to mistake it for another self-help book on time management. But instead of enthusing about productivity hacks, Oliver challenges his readers to confront the finite nature of humanity. By doing so, he argues  we can live fuller lives—without having to always carry the fear of missing out. We also touch on the topics of procrastination, positive psychology, flow, realism, deep time, and patience.BioOliver Burkeman is a journalist for The Guardian. From 2006 to 2020, he wrote the popular weekly column on psychology called “This Column Will Change Your Life”. He is the author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking and Help! How to Become Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More Done. In 2015, he won the Foreign Press Association's Young Journalist of the Year award, and has been short-listed for the Orwell Prize. His most recent book is Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals.Website: www.oliverburkeman.comTwitter: @oliverburkeman Topics00:02:03 The efficiency trap00:05:34 Accepting human limitations00:08:35 Why we handicap ourselves00:13:07 How to be a better procrastinator00:18:32 Each activity is paid for with your life00:20:55 The joy of missing out00:23:55 Harness more deep time00:27:57 The common theme of Oliver's books 00:32:02 Realism and doing the impossible00:37:29 Productivity and self-worth00:40:53 Embracing boredom instead of acceleration00:46:14 Developing a taste for problems00:50:21 Radical incrementalism00:57:30 “Originality lies on the far side of unoriginality”01:01:06 How time management distracts us from wonder01:03:50 Oliver's approach to new year resolutions

Oliver Burkeman is a feature writer for The Guardian and former columnist for Psychologies Magazine. His bestselling book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, written in 2021, is critically acclaimed and highly praised, and was instantly one of the best books I have ever read. He has written several other books, including The Antidote: Happiness for People Who can't Stand Positive Thinking, and HELP! How to Become Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More Done. He is a winner of the Foreign Press Association's Young Journalist of the Year award, and has been shortlisted for the Orwell Prize, and the What The Papers Say Feature Writer of the Year award. His Ted Talk has over 13K views! He wrote a popular weekly column on psychology, This Column Will Change Your Life, and has reported from London, Washington DC, and New York. His work has also appeared in Esquire, Elle, GQ, The Observer and The New Republic. He was born in Liverpool in 1975, grew up in York, and holds a degree in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University, and now lives with his family in Yorkshire, England!Find Oliver at-https://www.oliverburkeman.com/The Imperfectionist NewsletterAmazon- Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for MortalsTW- @oliverburkeman

It's an amazing time to be alive!  Today Jason talks about how precious life is and how little time we really have and how our guest talks about "Time management for mortals." Jason also talks about the doomsday clocks for both humanity and our personal lives as well. Healthspan and intermittent fasting, these are concepts that help us live lives that are both balanced and fulfilling. Jason also welcomes best-selling author Oliver Burkeman. Between 2006 and 2020 Burkeman wrote a popular weekly column on psychology, This Column Will Change Your Life, and has reported from London, Washington and New York. His published books are: HELP!: How to Become Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More Done., 2011 The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking, 2012 Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, 2021 Key Takeaways: [2:42] Life is precious and time so little [5:02] The national and personal Doomsday Clocks [7:48] The most expensive things [8:32] Healthspan and the Wheel of Life  [10:26] Intermittent Fast- reducing your eating window [13:36] Inflammation, Oxidation and Exercise [15:02] What is your real age? [17:20] John Denver's "On the wings of a dream" [20:25] Introducing Oliver Burkeman  [20:52] The thesis of the book  [22:37] A shift in perspective: embracing finitude and defeat [24:29] Our fingers in 12 pies [26:13] Accepting pessimism: Narrowing your focus [28:32] Getting the wrong things done [32:01] The problem with the advertising culture and consumerism [34:50] The Kardashians and the cult of fame & celebrity [36:11] Tricking our brains- social media and marketers [38:05] The productivity and efficiency traps and the attention economy [41:35] Reclaiming our hacked minds [44:42] making mistakes faster [46:26] The non-negotiable of being a human being [47:18] The Collective Tweetables: The social media revolution has just destroyed our brains- Jason Hartman Probably the sanest people in the planet are the ones who have no need for that kind of public acclaim- Oliver Burkeman   Website: Vitality.com OliverBurkeman.com   The WEALTH TRANSFER is happening FAST! Protect your financial future now! Did you know that 25% to 40% of all dollars ever created were dumped into the economy last year???  This will be devastating to some and an opportunity to others, be sure you're on the right side of this massive wealth transfer. Learn from our experiences, maximize your ROI and avoid regrets. Free Mini-Book on Pandemic Investing: https://www.PandemicInvesting.com Jason's TV Clips: https://vimeo.com/549444172  Asset Protection, Tax Savings & Estate Planning: http://JasonHartman.com/Protect What do Jason's clients say? http://JasonHartmanTestimonials.com Easily get up to $250,000 in funding for real estate, business or anything else  http://JasonHartman.com/Fund  Call our Investment Counselors at: 1-800-HARTMAN (US) or visit JasonHartman.com Guided Visualization for Investors: http://jasonhartman.com/visualization

This is the last episode before we take a podcasting break for the holidays. See you back here in January 2022!  And yes, we're trying out a new name. The focus of the podcast has become broader than the topic of “taking a gap year.” So the new name is [B]OLDER: Making the most of growing older. In other words, boldly reinventing life and work at midlife and beyond. Debbie is always on the lookout for guests who can lend a new perspective to the concept of time and our perception of how much of it we have. So when she read Oliver Burkeman's new book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, she knew he had to come on the show. Plus the book is terrific and it's getting lots of notice.The first sentence is “The average human life span is absurdly, terrifyingly, insultingly short.” In other words, about 4,000 weeks.Oliver is a British author and journalist who wrote a popular weekly column, This Column Will Change Your Life, for The Guardian for over a decade. He has reported from London, Washington and New York and recently moved with his wife and son from Brooklyn, NY back to Yorkshire in the UK to be near his family. He has established himself as a tongue-in-cheek expert on productivity and time management and how that does - or does not - lead to happiness. He sums up his new book very nicely in his Twitter profile: explaining that 4,000 Weeks is about embracing limitation and finally getting round to what matters. As he's 46, he's only lived about 2,400 of those 4,000 weeks himself but he tells Debbie in this episode  that he may be getting closer to a better relationship with time.Debbie and Oliver talk about time and self-worth, why we are so future-oriented, the connection between time and happiness, and why it might be okay that we use social media as a distraction. Oliver is a contrarian thinker but he's truly interested in how to build a meaningful life. Debbie had a number of aha moments in this conversation and listeners will too! Mentioned in this episode or useful:Oliver Burkeman's website@oliverburkeman on TwitterFour Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021)The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking by Oliver Burkeman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Reprint edition, 2013)This Column Will Change Your Life (The Guardian, 2006 - 2020)Jung on the Provisional Life (Jungian Center for the Spiritual Sciences)Who is Marie-Louise von Franz? (David C. Hamilton, Jungian Psychoanalyst, IAAP)Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2008)What is Flow in Psychology? (PositivePsychology.com, November 25 2021)Understanding Nonlinear Time (The Four Winds, November 27 2018)Chronos vs Kairos: How Ancient Greeks Saw Time (McKinley Valentine, November 3 2020)Telic vs atelic activities, and the meaning of life (Philosophy as a Way of Life, September 27 2019)Midlife: A Philosophical Guide by Kieran Setiya (Princeton University Press, 2017)Kieran Setiya Note from DebbieIf you've been enjoying the podcast, please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts. It takes less than two minutes and it really makes a difference. It makes me feel loved and it also attracts new listeners.Subscribe to my newsletter and get my free writing guide: https://bitly.com/debbie-free-guide.Connect with me:Twitter: @debbieweilInstagram: @debbieweilFacebook: @debbieweilLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/debbieweilBlog: Gap Year After SixtyEmail: thegapyearpodcast@gmail.com- Debbie We Are Looking For a Sponsor or Podcast NetworkIf you are interested in reaching a smart and thoughtful audience of midlife, and older, listeners, contact Debbie Weil. Media PartnersNext For MeEncore.orgMEA Support this podcast:Leave a review on Apple Podcasts: it will help us find a sponsor! If you are interested, contact Debbie WeilSubscribe via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or Spotify Credits:Host: Debbie WeilProducer: Far Out MediaPodcast websiteMusic: Lakeside Path by Duck Lake

Four thousand weeks is the amount of time the average person can expect to spend on this planet. But what, exactly, should we do with our brief spell on earth? That's the question that broadcaster and author Oliver Burkeman, author of the Guardian's much-loved ‘This Column Will Change Your Life', explores in Four Thousand Weeks. Drawing on the insights of both ancient and contemporary philosophers, psychologists, and spiritual teachers, he sets out to realign our relationship with time – and in so doing, liberate us from its tyranny. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

This week, we talk with with Oliver Burkeman. He is the author of "Four Thousand Weeks", a book about making the most of our radically finite lives in a world of impossible demands, relentless distraction and 'productivity techniques' that mainly just make everyone feel busier. It's a longer episode than usual because it is packed with wisdom. We discuss: - Oliver's understanding of ‘productivity' and the challenges of productivity culture - The finity of time and how to understand it - Why we turn towards unimportant tasks and leave the meaningful work undone - How technology makes us feel limitless, even though we are not - How to serialise your life - Why patience is a superpower And so much more…. Oliver is the author of The Antidote: Happiness for People who Can't Stand Positive Thinking and Help! How to Become Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More Done. He wrote a long-running column for the Guardian, This Column Will Change Your Life, and has a devoted following for his writing on productivity, mortality and the power of limits. To buy Four Thousand Weeks: https://www.oliverburkeman.com/books To follow Oliver & his thoughts: https://www.oliverburkeman.com/the-imperfectionist Host and Producer: Georgie Powell https://www.sentientdigitalconsulting.com/ Music and audio production: Toccare https://spoti.fi/3bN4eqO

Ethan Nichtern speaks with Oliver Burkeman about his new book, Four Thousand Weeks, and how a constant emphasis on productivity prevents us from being in the present moment. Oliver Burkeman is the author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking. His new book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, is now available. Oliver wrote a long-running weekly column on psychology for The Guardian, "This Column Will Change Your Life," and his work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Psychologies, and New Philosopher. Learn more about him at oliverburkeman.com, plus be sure to follow him on Twitter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

My guest today is the award-winning writer Oliver Burkeman, award-winning feature writer for The Guardian and writes a popular weekly column on psychology called This Column Will Change Your Life. Today we are discussing his new book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, an uplifting, engrossing and deeply realistic exploration of productivity and time management, rejecting the society's obsession with 'getting everything done.' It introduces readers to tools for constructing a meaningful life by embracing rather than denying their limitations. It's a big dose of reality, and after reading the book you might think differently about your endless to-do-list with a slightly different perspective, I absolutely loved the book, recommending it to anyone who will listen, and loved chatting to Oliver all about it. I hope you enjoy this episode! xGet your copy of Four Thousand Weeks here: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/153/9781847924018 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, have you subscribed to the bookmark newsletter? A fortnightly email with book reviews and ideas of what you should be reading next. Click here to subscribe.   About the book 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 as a society — and its many revelations will transform the reader's worldview. Source: https://www.penguin.com.au/books/four-thousand-weeks-9781847924025   About the author OLIVER BURKEMAN is the author of The Antidote: Happiness for People who Can't Stand Positive Thinking and Help! How to Become Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More Done. He wrote a long-running column for the Guardian, This Column Will Change Your Life, and has a devoted following for his writing on productivity, mortality and the power of limits. Source: https://www.oliverburkeman.com/books   Big idea #1 — In the long run, we're all dead There's no escaping this fact. But we try to constantly, from measuring everything, hacking our time, choosing convenient options, and practicing every time management trick in the book, we're constantly trying to control the uncontrollable. But what are we really doing with all this time we've hacked and supposedly saved from using the dishwasher, rather than doing the washing up, or getting takeaways or meal boxes, or smoothie-ing all of our different meals so we don't have to waste time eating or chewing? We're still being churned in the machine. We're burnt out, stressed, with a to do list that we'll never get done. And we're living for an imaginary time in the future (time which isn't guaranteed) where we'll magically have time for all of the things we say we don't now, despite how important we say these things that we never get round to are to us. We're also attaching our self-worth to how we spend our time, which is a of a fool's errand. The system is rigged. We are not machines. Time management is a lie, no list of ‘10 things to do before 7am' will fix the systemic issues of spending our time on the wrong things, because our idea of being fully optimised and living our best lives is impossible. But this is excellent news because by admitting it we can then let go and can take the first steps to spending our time actually in a better way. Big idea #2 — Finitude and FOMO We need to embrace our insultingly short time on earth and stop trying to do the impossible, which is everything, and controlling our time. But what do we need to do next? Firstly, we need to ditch FOMO. We need to accept that almost everything that happens in the world, we will miss out on. What we need to do after that, is think about procrastinating better, which means saying no to things that we do want to do. In order to be able to spend better time on the things that we really do want to do. This means starting the projects, even though we know they won't be good enough (because they won't be) because ultimately we only have one chance to do them. There's an idea in the book of paying yourself first. To do these things that we say we really want to do, and we want to happen, we need to do those first. We need to make the time in our days a month to do them, and accept the consequences of doing so. It might mean we need to reduce our client workload, or reduce our hours at work, or say no to other things in order to do the things that we say we really want to do, and that are important. This will it be helped if you limit your work in progress. Oliver only allows himself to have three tasks/projects in progress at one time. And he has a one in one out policy on those. Limiting your work in progress means you have to make sure that those three things really are the most important things, no middling priorities allowed. Of course, these priorities may change over time. Some will draw to a natural conclusion and allow for a new one to take its place, others will become less important (or fail) and be replaced by another.  He likens this to the adage of the rocks and the bucket. The problem with that particular anecdote, Oliver argues, is that the teacher turns up with only enough big rocks fit in the bucket in the first place. Whereas in our lives, we are overwhelmed by the opportunities and the possibilities of all the big rocks. There's a whole beach full of big rocks. The skill is not about fitting them in the bucket, but choosing which big rocks to put in there in the first place. And finally, he says that we should do some things just to feel good. Not everything has to be a means to an end. Big idea #3 — Five questions and ten antidotes In the book Oliver shares five reflective questions to help you decide if you're living a way that helps you make the most of your four thousand weeks, and ‘ten tools for embracing your finitude'. Here they are: The questions Where in your life or your work are you currently pursuing comfort, when what's called for is a little discomfort? Are you holding yourself to, and judging yourself by, standards of productivity or performance that are impossible to meet? In what ways have you yet to accept the fact that you are who you are, not the person you think you ought to be? In which areas of life are you still holding back until you feel like you know what you're doing? How would you spend your life differently if you didn't care so much about seeing your actions reach fruition?   The tools Adopt a ‘fixed volume' approach to productivity (ie create better time boundaries to your daily work) Serialise, serialise, serialise (one or two big things at a time) Decide in advance what to fail at Focus on what you've already completed, not just on what's left to complete Consolidate your caring Embrace boring and single-purpose technology Seek out novelty in the mundane Be a ‘researcher' in relationships Cultivate instantaneous generosity Practice doing nothing  What would you do differently with your time, today, if you knew in your bones that salvation was never coming — that your standards had been unreachable all along, and that you'll therefore never manage to make time for all you hoped you might?   Let's connect LinkedIn Instagram See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Oliver Burkeman is the author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking and an award-winning feature writer for The Guardian, where he wrote a long-running on psychology, “This Column Will Change Your Life.” His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Psychologies, and New Philosopher. He lives in New York City.Ina Hillebrandt, President of Pawpress™ and co-founder of Senior Moments Productions™, is a nationally known speaker, author, writing coach, editor and publisher. She works with previously unpublished as well as published authors, individually and in groups, and has led and appeared on numerous panels for professional as well as corporate and nonprofit organizations. Hillebrandt's Pawpress imprint publishes nonfiction and fiction, and has more than a dozen books in print. Vol. 2 in the series of memoirs by students, "Stories From The Heart," was named a best seller by Amazon. Under her Senior Moments Productions umbrella, Ina is currently working on TV and film versions of her own and writing students' works. http://InaTheMemoirCoach.com, http://InasPawprints.com, http://tinyurl.com/INA-AUTHOR, http://YouAreWhoYouEat.net

Four Thousand Weeks. Author Oliver Burkeman is asking us to reconsider what it means to “manage time." The conveyor belt of tasks is infinite, but our time most certainly is not. Instead, Burkeman says the most fundamental question is: “What would it mean to spend the only time you ever get in a way that truly feels as though you are making it count? And equally powerful: “In what ways have you yet to accept the fact that you are who you are, not the person you think you ought to be?” More About Oliver: Oliver Burkeman is the author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking (2012) and an award-winning feature writer for The Guardian, where he wrote a long-running weekly column on psychology, “This Column Will Change Your Life.” Today we're talking about his brand new book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. ❤️ Enjoying the show? The best way to thank us is by leaving a rating or review. Free Time is listener supported—consider donating to become a podcast BFF Insider and you'll get access to a monthly Q&A call with Jenny and private feed.

Oliver Burkeman is the author of the new book, 4,000 Weeks: Time Managment for Mortals, which Adam Grant calls “The most important book ever written about time management.”    In it, Oliver argues that using your life (4,000 weeks = about 80 years) most meaningfully requires abandoning the illusion that we can—or should try to—get everything done. And that the attempt to do so just leaves us miserable and isolated. So indeed, one of the keys to productivity is deciding what to ignore.    Further, Oliver reckons, when you put your existence into the context of the enormity of the universe, you realize that many of our “plans” are just distractions from the knowledge that we will all eventually be dead and won't be remembered for terribly long. So why shouldn't we just spend our days taking hikes and cooking for our children? Hey, that's not a bad question.    I am a big fan of Oliver's deeply-informed, highly-thoughtful, and quite funny writing. On his first Crazy Money appearance, we discussed his book, The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking in which he lays out an equally counter-intuitive (well, counter-narrative anyway) that being happy starts with lowering your expectations. And that he argues leaves us with a reasonable expectation of where we actually derive meaning in our lives.     In addition to his books, Oliver wrote the "This Column Will Change Your Life" column for The Guardianfor about 14 years.    Sign up for Oliver's newsletter here. Listen to Monty Python's The Galaxy Song here.  Listen to Oliver's first Crazy Money appearance here.    Click HERE to ✍️ RATE / REVIEW Crazy Money!   CONNECT WITH PAUL:

On today's episode of the podcast, Ryan talks to journalist and author Oliver Burkeman about his new book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals which releases August 10th, practicing the Stoic concept of memento mori, facing the harsh state of the reality that surrounds us, and more. Oliver Burkeman is a British journalist (principally for the British newspaper The Guardian) and writer. Between 2006 and 2020 Burkeman wrote a popular weekly column on psychology, This Column Will Change Your Life, and has reported from London, Washington and New York. He has his own blog and has published several books including The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking and HELP!: How to Become Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More DoneGet the Memento Mori Coin to remind yourself of the shortness of life: https://store.dailystoic.com/products/memento-moriThe Jordan Harbinger Show is one of the most interesting podcasts on the web, with guests like Kobe Bryant, Mark Manson, Eric Schmidt, and more. Listen to one of Ryan's episodes right now (1, 2), and subscribe to the Jordan Harbinger Show today.LMNT is the maker of electrolyte drink mixes that help you stay active at home, work, the gym, or anywhere else. Electrolytes are a key part of a happy, healthy body. As a listener of this show, you can receive a free LMNT Sample Pack for only $5 for shipping. To claim this exclusive deal you must go to drinkLMNT.com/dailystoic. If you don't love it, they will refund your $5 no questions asked.Beekeeper's Naturals is the company that's reinventing your medicine with clean, effective products that actually work. Beekeepers Naturals has great products like Propolis Spray and B.LXR. Visit beekeepersnaturals.com/STOIC or enter code “STOIC” to get 20% off your first order.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookFollow Oliver Burkeman: Homepage, Twitter See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Read the full transcript here. How can we leverage our own limitations? Why does converting the average human lifespan from years to other units (like weeks) give us such a shock? What are the most useful kinds of reactions to contemplating our own mortality? What causes our feeling that time speeds up as we age? What is the "importance trap"? How should we handle the frustration or disappointment caused by our inability to do everything we want or need to do? Why is patience important in the world today? What information sets are available to us in various communication media? Is there — and should there be — a disconnect between the "meatspace" world and the internet world? Which kinds of self-help advice are actually useful?Oliver Burkeman's new book is Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, published in the US on August 10, 2021. He is the author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking, and he wrote a long-running weekly column on psychology, productivity, and self-help culture for The Guardian newspaper called "This Column Will Change Your Life." His writing has also appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and New Philosopher magazine. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. You can pre-order Four Thousand Weeks and sign up for Oliver's email newsletter "The Imperfectionist" at oliverburkeman.com or find him on Twitter at @oliverburkeman. [Read more]

Read the full transcriptHow can we leverage our own limitations? Why does converting the average human lifespan from years to other units (like weeks) give us such a shock? What are the most useful kinds of reactions to contemplating our own mortality? What causes our feeling that time speeds up as we age? What is the "importance trap"? How should we handle the frustration or disappointment caused by our inability to do everything we want or need to do? Why is patience important in the world today? What information sets are available to us in various communication media? Is there — and should there be — a disconnect between the "meatspace" world and the internet world? Which kinds of self-help advice are actually useful?Oliver Burkeman's new book is Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, published in the US on August 10, 2021. He is the author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking, and he wrote a long-running weekly column on psychology, productivity, and self-help culture for The Guardian newspaper called "This Column Will Change Your Life." His writing has also appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and New Philosopher magazine. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. You can pre-order Four Thousand Weeks and sign up for Oliver's email newsletter "The Imperfectionist" at oliverburkeman.com or find him on Twitter at @oliverburkeman.

How can we leverage our own limitations? Why does converting the average human lifespan from years to other units (like weeks) give us such a shock? What are the most useful kinds of reactions to contemplating our own mortality? What causes our feeling that time speeds up as we age? What is the "importance trap"? How should we handle the frustration or disappointment caused by our inability to do everything we want or need to do? Why is patience important in the world today? What information sets are available to us in various communication media? Is there — and should there be — a disconnect between the "meatspace" world and the internet world? Which kinds of self-help advice are actually useful? Oliver Burkeman's new book is Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, published in the US on August 10, 2021. He is the author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking, and he wrote a long-running weekly column on psychology, productivity, and self-help culture for The Guardian newspaper called "This Column Will Change Your Life." His writing has also appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and New Philosopher magazine. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. You can pre-order Four Thousand Weeks and sign up for Oliver's email newsletter "The Imperfectionist" at oliverburkeman.com or find him on Twitter at @oliverburkeman.

How can we leverage our own limitations? Why does converting the average human lifespan from years to other units (like weeks) give us such a shock? What are the most useful kinds of reactions to contemplating our own mortality? What causes our feeling that time speeds up as we age? What is the "importance trap"? How should we handle the frustration or disappointment caused by our inability to do everything we want or need to do? Why is patience important in the world today? What information sets are available to us in various communication media? Is there — and should there be — a disconnect between the "meatspace" world and the internet world? Which kinds of self-help advice are actually useful?Oliver Burkeman's new book is Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, published in the US on August 10, 2021. He is the author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking, and he wrote a long-running weekly column on psychology, productivity, and self-help culture for The Guardian newspaper called "This Column Will Change Your Life." His writing has also appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and New Philosopher magazine. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. You can pre-order Four Thousand Weeks and sign up for Oliver's email newsletter "The Imperfectionist" at oliverburkeman.com or find him on Twitter at @oliverburkeman.

Oliver Burkeman is a Guardian writer based in New York. He writes the weekly psychology-based column This Column Will Change Your Life. He is also the author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking.In this interview, we cover:Oliver’s tips for parenting in the age of COVIDOliver’s personal method for time managementHow Oliver decides which projects to prioritiseOliver’s personal Kanban system to planning his timeHow to overcome procrastination using self-talkStrategies for overcoming writer’s blockHow Oliver trick’s his brain into getting into flowHow Oliver find’s new ideas for his columns every single weekOliver’s go-to sources for inspiration and informationGet Oliver’s book The Antidote, follow him on Twitter @oliverburkeman, and check out Oliver’s column for The Guardian.Visit https://www.amanthaimber.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes. Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work, I write a short monthly newsletter that contains three cool things that I have discovered that help me work better, which range from interesting research findings through to gadgets I am loving. You can sign up for that at http://howiwork.co See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week's guest has spent the last few years delving into the topic of limitations through researching and writing his latest book on time.Oliver Burkeman is a British author and journalist living in Brooklyn. He writes a popular weekly column for The Guardian on social psychology, productivity and the science of happiness, called This Column Will Change Your Life and is the author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking.In this conversation, we delve into how he has moved through a rut from the book writing process, how goals can become redundant very quickly, the Kanban method, self-control and distraction, parenting, shadow working, insomnia, the difficulty of doing nothing and how we can get out of a rut by breaking our own rules. Extraordinary Findings:– The Summer Day by Mary Oliver– David Cain's newsletter Raptitude– Hofstadter's law– Debbie Millman's ten year plan exercise– Already Free by Bruce Tift – Braintoss app– Kanban method– Self Control app– The Moves That Matter by Jonathan Rowson– Why do we feel so busy? It’s all our hidden ‘shadow work’ article by Oliver Burkeman – Notes from my previous conversation with Oliver Burkeman on not having a routine* * *To stay tuned, please subscribe or follow the podcast on your preferred listening platform and leave a review on iTunes.You can also sign up to the Extraordinary Routines newsletter, or follow along at @extraordinary_routines on Instagram.Special thanks to: Nelson Dore for the theme music, Scott from Soundmind Editing for the mixing and Ellen Porteus for the cover art.

Oliver Burkeman is a British journalist based in Brooklyn. He writes a longstanding weekly column for The Guardian - the ironically-titled ‘This Column Will Change Your Life’ - and is also the author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking. In this episode, we discuss:Seneca. Self-Help. Cynicism. Oxbridge. Los Angeles. The microcosm of Brooklyn. Road rage. Getting Things Done. The news cycle. Digital Minimalism. Parenting. What the Amish get right. Alexa. Jung. Matt Groening. Morning Pages. Capitalism. Busyness. The Protestant Work Ethic.Full transcripts are available at i-p.world

Our current productivity culture appears to peddle a false promise: If we can just get better organised, we really can do everything - no tough life choices or trade-offs need to be made! Guardian journalist and author Oliver Burkeman joins Igor and Charles to discuss the ironic effects of the pursuit of productivity, the inbox zero phenomenon, the futile denial of limitations, the Jevons paradox, Keynes’ concerns about a future society drowning in leisure time, Nietzsche’s suspicions regarding our beloved busyness, the social complexities of sending back a poorly made coffee, and the importance of living a life that is larger than politics. Igor wonders if the ‘slow-food’ philosophy can be extended to start a ‘slow-work’ movement in social and medical sciences to help address replication concerns, Oliver explains why he sat on the London underground loudly calling out the names of approaching stations to a carriage full of strangers, and Charles reveals how a ‘free-coffees-for-nice-customers’ policy can badly backfire, particularly if your customers are British. Welcome to Episode 17. Special Guest: Oliver Burkeman.

Oliver Burkeman is an award-winning writer for The Guardian and his book, The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking explores the upsides of failure, difficulty, and imperfection – which we discussed in our first interview with Oliver several hundred episodes ago. Each week in his column in The Guardian, “This Column Will Change Your Life”, he writes about social psychology, self-help culture, productivity, and the science of happiness. In this interview, he discusses his take on time management in today’s world.Need help with completing your goals in 2019? The One You Feed Transformation Program can help you accomplish your goals this year.But wait – there’s more! The episode is not quite over!! We continue the conversation and you can access this exclusive content right in your podcast player feed. Head over to our Patreon page and pledge to donate just $10 a month. It’s that simple and we’ll give you good stuff as a thank you!In This Interview, Oliver Burkeman and I Discuss…His take on the modern time management worldThat technologies of efficiency don’t seem to bring peace of mindHow your to-do list is never going to go awayThat having emails in your inbox is not necessarily a problemTime management whispers of the possibility of true peace of mindThinking of “a simpler time”How processing through your inbox is like climbing up an infinitely long ladderThat tough choices have to be made when deciding what to do with your time – no matter how many productivity assists you haveHow it’s often easier to spend time on trivial stuff than the big projectsDavid Allen’s book, Getting Things DoneHow no one beats them self up for not being able to jump a mile in the air because they never thought they could in the first placeSimilarly, accepting the real limitations in how much time you have and how much you can get done is incredibly liberating Productivity advice from Warren BuffetThe role social media plays in our expectations about how productive we could or should beHow digital distractions help us numb outOliver Burkeman LinksHomepageFacebookTwitter

Oliver Burkeman writes about social psychology, self-help culture, productivity, and the science of happiness in This Column Will Change Your Life for The Guardian. In his writings, he challenges "The Power of Positive Thinking," and in fact argues for the benefits of contemplating worst-case scenarios. His new book, "The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking," explores the benefits of negativity, uncertainty, failure and imperfection. Have a question for Dan? Leave us a voicemail at 646-883-8326. The Plug Zone Twitter: @oliverburkeman Columns: https://www.theguardian.com/profile/oliverburkeman The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can

The Guardian writer, psychology journalist, and author of the critically acclaimed book The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking, Oliver Burkeman, dropped by the program to talk to me about the writer’s journey, turning a weekly column into a book, and rethinking positive thinking. Rainmaker.FM is Brought to You By Discover why more than 80,000 companies in 135 countries choose WP Engine for managed WordPress hosting. Start getting more from your site today! Oliver writes about social psychology, self-help culture, productivity, and the science of happiness for his columns in both The Guardian (based in Brooklyn, New York), and Psychologies magazine. He has also interviewed a laundry list of celebrities ranging from Al Gore to Jerry Seinfeld. In his critically acclaimed book, The Antidote (2012), the author went undercover into the heart of the “happiness industrial complex” to explore why our relentless pursuit of happiness and success often leaves us feeling the opposite. The author looked to academics, psychologists, Buddhists, business consultants, philosophers, and many others in a unique search for an “… alternative path to happiness and success that involves embracing failure, pessimism, insecurity, and uncertainty – the very things we spend our lives trying to avoid.” The Los Angeles Times said of the book, “Burkeman’s tour of the ‘negative path’ to happiness makes for a deeply insightful and entertaining book.” If you’re a fan of The Writer Files, please click subscribe to automatically see new interviews. In Part One of this file Oliver Burkeman and I discuss: The author’s lifetime love of journalism How his own challenges with time management lead to his latest book project Why constraints can improve your productivity Time-tested advice for getting words onto the page Listen to The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience below ... Download MP3 Subscribe by RSS Subscribe in iTunes The Show Notes If you’re ready to see for yourself why over 200,000 website owners trust StudioPress — the industry standard for premium WordPress themes and plugins — just go to StudioPress.com How the Author of ‘The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking’ Oliver Burkeman Writes: Part Two OliverBurkeman.com The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking – Oliver Burkeman This column will change your life – Oliver Burkeman investigates routes to mental wellbeing for The Guardian Why time management is ruining our lives – Oliver Burkeman Oliver Burkeman for Psychologies magazine How Neuroscientist Michael Grybko Defines Writer’s Block How to Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing – Paul J. Silvia Oliver Burkeman on Twitter Kelton Reid on Twitter The Transcript How the Author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can t Stand Positive Thinking Oliver Burkeman Writes: Part One Voiceover: Rainmaker FM. Kelton Reid: And welcome back to The Writer Files. This is your host, Kelton Reid, here to take you on another tour of the habits, habitats, and brains of renowned writers. The Guardian writer, psychology journalist, and author of the acclaimed book, The Antidote: Happiness for People who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking, Oliver Burkeman dropped by the program to talk to me about the writer’s journey, turning a weekly column into a book, and re-thinking positive thinking. Oliver writes about psychology, self-help culture, productivity, and the science of happiness for his columns of both The Guardian and Psychologies Magazine, and he’s also interviewed a laundry list of celebrities, ranging from Al Gore to Jerry Seinfeld. In his critically acclaimed book, The Antidote, the author went undercover into the heart of the happiness-industrial-complex, to explore why our relentless pursuit of happiness and success often leaves us feeling the opposite. The author looked at academics, psychologists, Buddhists, business consultants, philosophers, and many others, in the unique search for an alternative path to happiness and success that involves embracing failure, pessimism, insecurity, and uncertainty: the very things we spend our lives trying to avoid. The LA Times said of the book, “Burkeman’s tour of the negative path to happiness makes for a deeply insightful and entertaining book.” In part one of this file, Oliver and I discuss the author’s lifetime love of journalism, how his challenges with time management led to his latest book project, why constraints can improve your productivity, and time-tested advice for getting words onto the page. The Writer Files is brought to you by the all the new StudioPress Sites, a turnkey solution that combines the ease of an all-in-one website builder with the flexible power of WordPress. It’s perfect for authors, bloggers, podcasters and affiliate marketers, as well as those selling physical products, digital downloads, and membership programs. If you’re ready to take your WordPress site to the next level, see for yourself why over 200,000 website owners trust StudioPress. Go to Rainmaker.FM/StudioPress now. That’s Rainmaker.FM/StudioPress. And if you’re a fan of The Writer Files, please click subscribe to automatically see new interviews as soon as they’re published. And we are rolling, once again, on The Writer Files today, with a special guest. Oliver Burkeman has agreed to join us. Journalist, Guardian writer, columnist extraordinaire, and author of a book I am quite enjoying right now, The Antidote: Happiness for People who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking, probably one of the greatest titles for a self-help book, ever. Thank you for joining us. Oliver Burkeman: It’s my pleasure. Thanks for asking. The Author s Lifetime Love of Journalism Kelton Reid: So, as I noted earlier, you’re probably sick of talking about The Antidote. It has been out for several years now, but it does seem somewhat timely now, for some reason. When I found it, by another great article you wrote for The Guardian, my wife saw the title, it was sitting on the kitchen table. She was like, “Yes!” I was like, “I know. It’s perfect. It’s perfect for right now.” So, anyway. I’d love to talk to you some about that, some about what you’re up to more recently. You write about social psychology, self-help culture, productivity, and the science of happiness, all these great things. Yeah, I’d just love to just kind of get into your process. So, maybe for listeners who aren’t familiar with you or your journey as a writer, you could get us up to speed a little bit on how you got here? Oliver Burkeman: Sure. Yes, I always feel like my story, my personal story rather, is incredibly boring, because I have like …. I’ve been on like one-track mind with regard to this since I was about like, eight, or something. And my parents will embarrass me, if requested, by getting out copies of a little sort of photocopied newsletter I tried to make my, like grade school, whatever the right … it’s not elementary school … primary school in the UK … that people read. And I was sort of doing all that school newspaper stuff, and then student journalism in university, and then as soon as I could, I started hanging around the offices of newspapers doing casual copy editing shifts here and there until I, I don’t know, I guess it was something to get me a job then to get security to escort me from the building. So anyway, I just like, I wanted to be able to say … First of all, I went out and got a ton of life experience, and then I decided it was time to write about it. But actually, I had apparently known from a very, very young age that writing, and sort of journalism specifically, because I still think of the book that I’m working on now as journalism. Some people take that as almost a derogatory term compared to, I don’t know, nonfiction writing or something. Anyway, I sort of wanted to do it all along. Now in that time, I’ve done a lot of very cool things. I have done news reporting, I’ve been reporting from the UK, the US, written about politics, written about … interviewed a bunch of celebrities for movie pages or whatever. So, I have done a bunch of different things in that time. But, looked at from one level higher up, one vantage point higher up, it is just writing stuff since I was old enough to have any thoughts about what I wanted to do. Kelton Reid: Wow, wow. So, that’s cool. So, your life experience has been your … kind of, the journey is the destination for writing. So there wasn’t like a lightning bolt. It was always kind of a part of your life, huh? Oliver Burkeman: Yeah, I thinking one of the things that did sort of happen that was interesting from my perspective, I don’t know about anyone else, was that specifically, coming to write about psychology, psychotherapy, work, productivity, all this kind of area of stuff. That was very much a kind of … that was a sort of fairly sudden realization that I was already obsessed with all this stuff in my personal life and in my work life. And then, actually, it was really good stuff to write about. So, I was sort of geeking out on productivity systems and sort of furtively reading self-help books long before I realized that actually it was a good, interesting, journalistic subject matter, as well. And I hope that the result, in the case of The Antidote, is somewhere between self-help book and a reported work of journalism. And I kind of like going back and forth over that one. How His Own Challenges with Time Management Led to His Latest Book Project Kelton Reid: Yeah, yeah. Well, The Antidote, dubbed as an anti-self-help self-help book, has had some great critical acclaim. It’s described as, kind of that blurb, Success through failure, calm through embracing anxiety, a total original approach to self-help. And, I’m really glad I found it. The time management piece you wrote, Why Time Management is Ruining Our Lives, is actually how I found you. And that was a fantastic piece, also. So as you mentioned, you cover a lot of different bases there with your journalism. But that was a great piece. You were talking about how time is kind of slipping out of our control, and the thousands of productivity apps that we’re faced with every day, and techniques designed to enhance our personal productivity seem to exacerbate those anxieties, which is something that you cover quite extensively as to the reasons behind that. So, that’s cool that the book, it seems, was kind of a culmination of a lot of the things that you write about in your column for The Guardian there, This Column Will Change Your Life. And then, it’s also, as you noted, it’s got great storytelling, fantastic examples from great philosophers, psychologists, a lot of good writerly quotes in there, too, thank you very much. You’ve got like, Edith Wharton and Shakespeare, and you get into pieces on how the Beat Poets kind of all got into meditation, and so on and so forth. So, I am very much enjoying the book, The Antidote. So what are you working on now? There’s lots of places to find your work out there. I’ll link to the column and your website. What’ve you got in the hopper? Oliver Burkeman: Well, I’m continuing to write the column for The Guardian. I’m working on a few long pieces for them. But I guess the biggest thing is I am working on another book, which kind of picks up on some of those themes in the time management piece, because it is about, more generally, time, and how to use time, and our experience of time. And basically trying to look at this question of time management, which tends to be treated in a very sort of superficial way, in my opinion, through a kind of philosophical lens, if that doesn’t sound too grandiose, based on the fact that human life is very short. The average human lifespan is something like 4,000 weeks. So it’s a terrifying thing whenever I think about it. Really, time-management is the ultimate problem in philosophy, right? Because it s like, How do you make the most of this incredibly short period of time? So, you know, it’s kind of a large subject. But, I’m trying to look at that in this book through psychology, different ways in which we experience time, what affects our experience of time, what makes time feel like it’s speeding up as we get older And also, some of the particular challenges that everyone seems to be dealing with a lot these days, which are very much time-related challenges, like distraction and short attention spans, and all this stuff. As ever, I think it’s a really important point to make in anything I’m writing where I’m telling people, giving people advice, this is all just the stuff that I’m agonizing about and grappling with. This is never because I’ve solved all the problems and my life is perfect and now I’m going to tell you how to have a perfect life. It’s always more kind of therapy, and sort of trying to work it through in the form of a book in the hopes that it maybe helps some other people along the way. So that’s the main thing. The main thing is the book. Why Constraints Can Improve Your Productivity Kelton Reid: Yeah. I mean, I’d love to just kind of pick your brain about productivity, and how you fit all the pieces together. You obviously have a weekly column. You do other things on the side, and then you’re working on this new book. How much time are you spending reading, doing research, before you get started? Oliver Burkeman: Wow, I sort of … I so love talking about this topic. It’s almost troubling, because I think it is partly talking about your process is a great way to not get on with your writing process. But anyway, I think that and the other thing to say is that we have a three month old baby at the moment. So, everything I’ve learned about productivity and work processes has kind of been ripped up into small shreds and thrown up in the air, and it’s all kind of resettling a little bit at the moment. I think that’s actually been really useful, from the point of view of my writing. I’m glad to have that kind of earthquake strike the process because you get of all sorts of ruts. And the other thing, of course, is that when you don’t have very much time, because you’re trying to be an active parent as well, turns out to be quite good, actually. If you only have three or four hours in a day to dedicate to your writing, you get a move on. If you have fifteen hours, you risk spending it all on Twitter. I still spend plenty of time on Twitter, but less than I did. I’ve always been someone who very much mixes up the research, reporting, reading, planning, and writing. So it’s really hard for me to put figures on it and say, “Well, if I’m writing a book, first of all, I would spend this many months doing research, and then I’ll move to the writing phase.” There’s as little bit of that. Obviously, towards the end, it’s more writing, and towards the beginning, it’s more research. But, I’ve always sort of jumbled it up. Divided it up into chapters or chunks, and tried to research and write one of them, just to have something, and then you keep the other tracks going simultaneously. I think that’s probably a very, sort of, someone trained in newspapers, like I was. I think that’s probably a very typical thing, as opposed to being, I don’t know, an academic who moved into this kind of writing. It’s all kind of jumbled. And I have quite thought-through ways of keeping the material organized, like, physically, and then Evernote, and Word, and everything, but when it comes actually to how I’m using the time, all those stages are pretty much jumbled up with each other. And I think that’s, partly, I’m unable to do anything more organized, but it’s also because I think it’s also helpful. I think you sort of … One of the things I always get from planning and actually writing long pieces or chapters is then you suddenly see the piece that you’re missing, and the person you’ve got to go and talk to, or the bit of your argument that doesn’t make sense yet. So, you’ve got to go away and walk around the park with a pencil in your mouth for a couple of hours to try to figure out how to make it make sense. And you don’t find that if you don’t get going. If you’re just sort of vacuuming up information waiting for the day when you’re going to start writing. Time-Tested Advice for Getting Words Onto the Page Kelton Reid: Yeah, yeah. Well, it seems like there’s a teaching piece to kind of do what you do, too. It’s almost as if you are like you re in academics with the amount of research that you put into stuff. So, I’m sure that your brain kind of needs those restful periods where you’re doing productive procrastination and focusing on other … or just taking a walk to let your brain kind of incubate some of these bigger ideas, because there’s a lot of big ideas in your writing. So, I mean, it sounds like you sit down every day. Do you find that you’re more productive in the morning or the evening, or again, is it just kind of whenever the inspiration strikes? Oliver Burkeman: No, in the level of the day, I am fairly rhythmic. As I say, thrown up in the air a bit recently. But basically, I am a morning writer, and I sort of try to re-fence really only maybe four hours, occasionally, and maybe five consecutive hours. Usually … it used to be like 7:30 am to half-past mid-day. Now, thanks to my son, it’s more like going to be nine am to one or one thirty or something. But that’s sort of before anything else. On a good day, this does not always work, and anyone listening will probably be able to go on Twitter and find evidence of it not working, but on a good day, I would not check email or Twitter or anything else before those hours are done. I even … I’ve got a MacBook, and I had an old one that I thought was broken, and I replaced it. Then, I realized that I could get that one fixed for a small sum. So, now I’ve got a machine that I try to do the writing on for the book, and it is … it does have the Internet, but it basically has nothing. I deliberately removed the possibility of almost any form of distraction. I can find the browser, because sometimes you need to go back and look at your research or whatever, but that’s a kind of trick that has worked well for me on the book. With more sort of day-to-day journalism I need to be more connected than that, so I don’t try to hide myself away so much in those hours. But, the only thing that has ever really worked for me is the time honored advice to do the most important thing first, and then, if the rest of the day sort of collapses into a mess, at least you’ve done the thing that you really needed to do. Writer s Block as a Fallacy in Explanation Kelton Reid: Right. That’s a good one. Well, both the using a dedicated machine for the bigger writing piece, and then swallowing your frog kind of first thing of the day is … those are good time and tested tricks. All right, so I really want to pick your brain about the writer’s block question. I’ve spoken with … and I know you kind of rub elbows with neuroscience and psychology, and I’ve actually had a neuroscientist on the show to talk to me about some of the causes of writer’s block, or even whether or not it’s a thing. So, do you have some thoughts on the subject? Oliver Burkeman: Yeah, I don’t have much in the way of sort of a scientific explanation, as far as anything I’ve worked on recently in that sense, but I’ve sort of experienced my fair share of it. I really like … there’s a guy called Paul Sylvia who wrote a book called How to Write a Lot, which is aimed at academic psychologists, but it’s actually really useful information for anybody writing, I think. He makes this great point that writer’s block is kind of an example of a certain kind of fallacy in explanation, because you’re using the description of what happens, which is that you’re not getting any writing done, as an explanation. It’s like, “Well, I’m not doing any writing. I must have writer’s block.” It’s just another way of saying “I’m not doing any writing. I must not be doing any writing.” It’s sort of a description of the behavior masquerading as an explanation for that behavior. I don’t know that some distinct thing called writer’s block, in any meaningful sense, exists. I think that procrastination and inactivity and not doing the things you wanted to do definitely exist, and probably we sort of romanticize it a bit more with writing than we do with other things. And, the romanticization helps create the problem, because it becomes this very sort of … this idea that there’s this very grand issue that you’ve got. I’m not the first person to say, but you don’t get “washing machine repairman block” or “plumber block” or “barista block.” When you have to do the job, and we don’t glamorize it in the culture as an amazingly romantic job, you find a way to get on with it even when you might not feel like doing it. Kelton Reid: Thanks so much for joining me for this half of a tour through the writer’s process. If you enjoy The Writer Files podcast, please subscribe to the show, and leave us a rating or a review on iTunes to help other writers find us. For more episodes, or to just leave a comment or a question, you can drop by WriterFiles.FM. And you can always chat with me on Twitter @KeltonReid. Cheers. Talk to you next week.

The Halli Casser-Jayne Show explores The “F” Word, What's So Wonderful About Feeling Good? Joining the discussion on the powerlessness of positive thinking are Oliver Burkeman the author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking and Tina Gilbertson, author of Constructive Wallowing: How to Beat Bad Feelings by Letting Yourself Have Them. Tune in for the answers online at Halli Casser-Jayne dot com.Oliver Burkeman is a British journalist for the British newspaper The Guardian. He is a winner of the Foreign Press Association's Young Journalist of the Year award, and was short listed for the Orwell Prize in 2006. He writes a popular weekly column on psychology, This Column Will Change Your Life, and has reported from London, Washington and New York. He holds a degree from Christ's College, Cambridge.Tina Gilbertson holds a master's degree in Counseling Psychology and is a licensed mental health counselor. In addition to working with adults one-on-one, she teaches assertiveness and self-esteem workshops and classes on goal-setting, decision-making, overcoming anxiety and finding the right career. She has written feature articles on emotional intelligence and health for Portland's Natural Awakenings magazine. She contributes wisdom as a self-esteem expert for online therapist directory GoodTherapy.org.A conversation about The “F” Word: What's So Wonderful About Feeling Good and the powerlessness of positive thinking with Oliver Burkeman and Tina Gilbertson on The Halli Casser-Jayne Show.For more information visit http://bit.ly/hcjblog.

Oliver is the author of [Help! How to Become Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More Done](https://www.amazon.co.uk/HELP-Become-Slightly-Happier-More-ebook/dp/B07BJ187WD/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Oliver+Burkeman&qid=1609839194&sr=8-2), and has been writing his Guardian column about self-help literature, [This Column Will Change Your Life](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/series/thiscolumnwillchangeyourlife) since 2006, so he and Graham begin by discussing the origins of the column, and how it has evolved. > There's always too much to do. Oliver lays out one of the first core principles in his book, and states that we don't have to be resigned to the fact we'll never get everything done, but instead pivot to focusing on the things that are most essential. > Choose enlargement over happiness. Oliver challenges the idea of happiness as a goal, instead choosing to ask the question of whether what we undertake enlarges or diminishes us. > The solution to imposter syndrome is to see that you are one. Using the Covid pandemic as an example, Graham and Oliver discuss the idea that each of us is winging it, and that no-one really has the ultimate answer. > You don't start each morning in a kind of “productivity debt”. On the subject of productivity, Oliver renounces the idea that we're obligated to perform a certain number of tasks at a certain level of efficiency to reach an arbitrary productivity score by the end of the day, presenting instead the notion of accepting the consequences of what we do, or don't do each day. [Graham Allcott](http://www.grahamallcott.com/) is the founder of [time management training](http://thinkproductive.co.uk/ "Link: http://thinkproductive.co.uk/") company [Think Productive](http://thinkproductive.co.uk/). This podcast is produced by [Origin](https://origin.fm/).