Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman
“It is by consciously confronting the certainty of death, and what follows from the certainty of death, that we finally become more present in our lives.”
3 Main Messages:
We spend most of our privileged lives turning a blind eye to our mortality.
Society has us focusing on amassing experiential and economic wealth.
“These are the days, they always were” - Jack Moore
The subtitle of Four Thousand Weeks promises us “Time Management for Mortals.” A lofty goal to achieve! Oliver Burkeman does share his “Ten Tools for Embracing Your Finitude” but not until after the Afterword. Meanwhile the main bulk of the book may well have been named ’Ridiculous Ways We Waste Our Lives.’ And oh there are so many ways in which we do this.
In retrospect it is amusing and ironic that I set out to read this book on a medium haul flight, avoiding the ‘distractions’ of in-flight entertainment. With the prospect of 7 daytime hours without wifi, I had carefully mapped out how to make the most of the time I had: on my list were a podcast, a downloaded documentary and this book. I managed all three and started off feeling mildly smug, as I continue to remain productive, even in this downtime. However, the further I fell into the content of Burkeman’s thinking, the more I wondered if I had somehow got things wrong…
Compared to my snoozing, film watching and gaming travel companions, it would seem I have fallen into one of the many traps described by Oliver Burkman in this book - that of an addiction to busyness. As he points out, the “busyness of the better-off is contagious,” and the old adage of ‘making hay while the sun shines’ is often driven into us from birth, further adding to the gnawing feeling that we need to be constantly doing something useful and productive, and squeezing the most out of everyday.
Burkeman writes about ‘pathological productivity’ and ‘idleness aversion’, where days start to feel like “something you have to get through, en route to some calmer, better, more fulfilling point in the future, which never actually arrives.” We therefore treat our time and tasks simply as groundwork for some mythical time in the future when we get ‘there.’ He suggests that those who film concerts, photograph artifacts and flowers, and record each other walking down the street need to appreciate the beauty of the moment right now, rather than trying to capture it for later. Because right now is all we really have.
A favourite fable of mine is that of the Mexican Fisherman, and Burkeman refers to this alongside a quote from Alan Watts: “They are never here. They never get there. They are never alive.” We live in the time of the glorification of the grind culture, where we are constantly preparing for, saving for, and looking to enjoy life in the future, rather than stopping and appreciating its beauty right in the moment. I know that I am incredibly guilty of this.
That is not, however, to say that we shouldn’t be working hard while we can; rather that we need to turn our attention to now, instead of constantly living for tomorrow.
We have even managed to turn our leisure time into a list of tasks to complete in order to tick off some fictitious list of accomplishments which need to be met in order to have lived a ‘full life’. We have scratch charts and tick lists of the books we need to read before we die, places we should have visited and experiences we ought to have enjoyed. Why? There is no prize at the end of life for ticking the most boxes, or for earning the most money. Living our lives collecting things to count at the end of it means that we risk missing out on the magic of each precious moment.
Burkeman traces the history of our relationship with work and of our changing priorities and values over previous centuries and different cultures. He explores research into the power of rest and expands on the importance of just doing things for pleasure, rather than for some future gain. He focuses on the crisis of attention economy, where our precious time is being manipulated and stolen by social media, doom-scrolling our days away.
The book, for me, was a wake up call. It won’t prevent me from mapping my days and maximising my productivity, but it has shown me where quality is better than quantity, and helped me to decide what to say yes to and what to say no to. I understand the importance of choosing quality work, play or rest and of being intentional and present as much as possible.
On reflection, maybe reading this book on that flight was the best way I could possibly have spent my time!
