Four Thousand Weeks, with Oliver Burkeman

Afford Anything

Paula Pant | Cumulus Podcast Network

Entrepreneurship, Business, Investing

4.6 • 3.4K Ratings

🗓️ 7 August 2021

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

#331: Four thousand weeks. That’s how long we live if we’re lucky enough to celebrate our 80th birthday. We rarely think of our lifespan in terms of weeks. When we do, it seems painfully short. And that’s the point that Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks, wants to drive home. Rather than fight a losing battle against time, Oliver recommends that we embrace our cosmic insignificance, redefine what a meaningful life looks like, choose what to fail at, burn bridges, and ruthlessly limit our works-in-progress. If the financial independence movement is a rebellion against trading the rest of our limited time for pay, Oliver’s unconventional view on time management is a rebellion against trading the rest of our limited time for an illusion of productivity. For more information, visit the show notes at https://affordanything.com/episode331 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You can afford anything but not everything.
0:10.8	Every choice that you make is a trade-off against something else and that doesn't just apply
0:14.4	to your money, that applies to any limited resource you need to manage.
0:18.2	Like your time, your focus, your energy, your attention.
0:22.0	And that opens up two questions.
0:23.8	First, what matters most?
0:25.6	And second, how do you align your daily weekly monthly annual decision making around that
0:31.6	which matters most?
0:33.7	Answering these two questions is a lifetime practice.
0:38.0	And that's what this podcast is here to explore and facilitate.
0:41.4	My name is Paula Pant.
0:42.4	I am the host of the Afford Anything Podcast.
0:45.1	Today, we are going to talk to guest Oliver Berkman about the stark reality of having only
0:52.0	4,000 weeks to live.
0:54.4	Oliver Berkman wrote a bit of a contrarian productivity book.
0:58.3	Rather than tackle your to-do list through a variety of systems and tactics, we begin not
1:04.6	with what we do but with what we cut.
1:08.0	What do we not do?
1:10.6	That is the core message of today's conversation.
1:14.0	Now Oliver Berkman is a British journalist.
1:16.8	And the author of The Antidote, Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking.
1:22.3	He wrote a long-running column for the Guardian and he has a devoted following for his writing
	...

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