Four Thousand Weeks, by Oliver Burkeman – Book Review

Four Thousand Weeks: Embrace your limits. Change your life. Make your four thousand weeks count, is a powerful contribution to the discussion about how to manage your time effectively. Written by British author and journalist Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks underscores the importance of avoiding the temptation to try and “do everything”. Rather, we should focus our limited time on what counts.

At the heart of Four Thousand Weeks, Burkeman argues that it is impossible to achieve every goal we might have. Economists try to solve the impossible problem of satisfying unlimited wants with only limited resources. However, almost all of us try to do this with a particular resource – time. The result, however, is a constant feeling of frustration, with time acting as a kind of “tyranny” over us. Fortunately, there is a way to liberate ourselves.

Four Thousand Weeks draws upon ancient and contemporary philosophers, psychologists and spiritual teachers to show a way forward. The first step is to accept that we are all finite and we cannot possibly do everything. Burkeman accepts that this is a difficult mental step:

“We’re obsessed with our overfilled inboxes and lengthening to-do lists, haunted by the guilty feeling that we ought to be getting more done, or different things done.”

Sadly, many of us think of “time management” in a narrow sense—e.g., how to crank through as many work tasks as possible. Recent book trends about achieving Extreme Productivity or a 4-Hour Work Week do not help. Whilst these apps and “hacks” promise us more control over our lives by shaving seconds off mundane tasks, Burkeman highlights how the opposite often happens. In other words, the more you try to control time, the more it slips from your fingers.

Our efforts to save time often end up just accelerating it. By getting your jobs done more quickly, the newly available time gets filled with more tasks. We become more impatient as we expect greater efficiencies, yet the important things we want to do seem to just get pushed back. As a result, we always seem to “live in the future” rather than embracing the present.

The way out of this trap is not as complex as it might seem. Four Thousand Weeks points out that, if you live to 80 years old, this is roughly how much time you will have on this earth. Do you want your weeks, months and years defined by joyless urgency? If not, then embrace your finitude. Plan each day knowing that you will not achieve absolutely everything on your to-do list, and this is OK. Focus on the tasks and choices that will give you the most meaning, rather than making you the most productive you can be.

Four Thousand Weeks is a vital reminder for us all to “stop” and take stock of our rapid-paced lives in 2024. Advances in technology have made many aspects of daily life easier, yet they can facilitate unhelpful expectations about our productivity and time management. Burkeman’s book is a great call back to rest. We commend this book to you!