Oliver Burkeman on Time Management for Mortals
The One You Feed
Eric Zimmer
4.6 • 2.5K Ratings
🗓️ 3 December 2021
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Oliver Burkeman is a British journalist and writer based in New York. He is well known not only for his amazing books, but he also wrote a popular weekly column on psychology called “This Column will Change Your Life” which was printed weekly between 2006 and 2020.
Oliver joins Eric for a third time on the show, and in this episode, they discuss many things, including his new book, “Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals”
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!
Oliver Burkeman and I Discuss Time Management for Mortals and …
- His book, “Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals”
- How we invest more energy and focus on trying to escape certain feelings
- Finitude and understanding that life is finite
- Time and how we relate to it as something we have and use
- The idea that we are time rather than we have time
- Accepting the truth of your finitude allows you to live more in the present
- Confusing meaningful with extraordinary
- Cosmic insignificance therapy suggests that we reexamine the threshold of what makes a meaningful life
- Our tendency to want to define and measure what is meaningful in life
- How the pursuit of using time well can lead us to live in the future rather than being present
- Asking ourselves if something is expanding or contracting to us
- The modern attention economy and being aware if we are choosing where our attention goes
- How the things that matter most to us can provoke unpleasant emotions that lead to seeking distractions
- The problem isn’t how things are, but rather how we think they should be
- Trying too hard to be present in the moment
- Accepting the impossibility of complete control
Oliver Burkeman Links:
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If you enjoyed this conversation with Oliver Burkeman, you might also enjoy these other episodes:
Oliver Burkeman on Modern Time Management (2019)
Living Between Worlds with James Hollis
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | There are certain things that we definitely cannot change about the human situation, |
| 0:06.3 | and yet we're incredibly prone to sort of staking our self-worth on managing to change them. |
| 0:20.0 | Welcome to the One You Feed. |
| 0:22.0 | Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, |
| 0:26.5 | quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true, and yet for many of us |
| 0:33.6 | our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, |
| 0:40.0 | or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and |
| 0:45.9 | dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, |
| 0:52.0 | consistent, and creative effort to make a life-worth living. This podcast is about how other people |
| 0:57.8 | keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. |
| 1:15.8 | Truth is stranger than fiction, and reality TV stars know this better than anyone, |
| 1:21.6 | but what you may not know about them or even believe is actually criminal behavior. |
| 1:27.0 | I'm Kaelin Miller-Keeze, and on my new podcast True Crime Reality, I will be joined by |
| 1:31.6 | reality TV stars as they dive deep into the details of the crime they have a direct connection to. |
| 1:37.5 | Listen to True Crime Reality on the iHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 1:46.8 | Where were you in 92 bouncing your butt to Sir Mixlot? |
| 1:49.6 | Wondering if you like Billy Ray Cyrus could pull off a moment, now iHard has a podcast all about it. |
| 1:54.8 | I'm Jason Longfee, and on my new show Where Were You in 92, we take a ride through the major hits, |
| 1:58.9 | one hit wonders and shocking scandals that shaped the wildest 12 months in music history. |
| 2:02.7 | You know, the president came after me, everybody in time, Warner was madness. |
| 2:07.4 | Music was magic, and I had completely burned that to the ground. |
| 2:11.6 | I realized I'm the forbidden fruit. |
... |
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