Time Management for Mortals with Oliver Burkeman

Being Well with Forrest Hanson and Dr. Rick Hanson

Being Well

Education, Self-improvement, Health & Fitness, Mental Health

4.8 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 26 June 2023

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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: Introduction 0:55: Oliver’s movement towards “anti-productivity” 2:55: Doing fewer things more purposefully 4:55: Looking at your own experience, and the paradoxical notion of perfect efficiency 10:15: The wheel of craving, secondary gains, and grappling with our mortality 15:30: Procrastination and freedom from an ideal result 20:15: The poignancy of limited choice 22:50: Existential crisis, insight, and fulfillment 30:20: Organizing your daily schedule around your top priority 35:55: Frameworks for working within someone else’s schedule 39:45: The allure of middling priorities 41:40: Identifying our wants and needs, and choices that enlarge and diminish us 45:50: Five questions to ask yourself from Oliver’s book 50:00: Suffering from trying to find a solution, and life not being a ‘prologue’ 57:35: Recap Support the Podcast: We're now on Patreon! If you'd like to support the podcast, follow this link. Sponsors: Go to healthycell.com/beingwell and use promo code BEINGWELL to get 20% off your first order. 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 iTunes Follow Forrest on YouTube Follow us on Instagram Follow Forrest on Instagram Follow Rick on Facebook Follow Forrest on Facebook Visit Forrest's website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Being Well, I'm Forest Hanson.
0:10.4	If you're new to the podcast, thanks for listening today, and if you've listened before, welcome
0:14.7	back.
0:15.7	I'm joined today by Oliver Berkman.
0:17.6	Oliver wrote the long-running and somewhat cheekily titled This Column Will Change Your
0:21.8	Life article for the Guardian for many years, and his most recent book is The New York
0:26.2	Times Best Seller, 4,000 Weeks.
0:29.0	Time management for mortals.
0:30.4	I absolutely loved the book, which challenges many of our conventional notions about what
0:35.4	it means to be productive, and is a real invitation to live a more fulfilling and enjoyable
0:40.2	life by actually embracing its finite nature rather than running away from it, which is
0:45.7	certainly a tendency that we can have, and I've been looking forward to this one for
0:49.4	a while.
0:50.4	I just truly adored the book, so Oliver, thanks for joining me today.
0:53.9	Oh, it's a pleasure.
0:54.9	Thank you.
0:55.9	Thanks very much.
0:56.9	I've just been really looking forward to this one, and I'm really curious about your personal
1:01.7	journey with this material.
1:03.3	You wrote the, as I said, the article for The Guardian for a while, which included a fair
1:07.4	amount of productivity content, and then 4,000 weeks in its own way is kind of an anti-productivity
1:13.2	book that focuses on, yeah, kind of like finding more fulfillment and getting away from some
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Being Well, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Being Well and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.