Key insights from

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

By Oliver Burkeman

Audio available 11 minute read Published Aug 10, 2021

What you'll learn

For the writer Oliver Burkeman, our orientation toward time is flawed. Despite the fact that most people live for only 4,000 weeks, many people regiment their hours, strategize their days, and predict and direct the course of their lives with little thought for their true end. Though it seems that this effortful planning is necessary, it actually catches people in a losing battle. Burkeman exposes this myth in his work Four Thousand Weeks—a provocative, surprisingly uplifting meditation on the nature of time and humanity, and how the two might learn to get along.

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Key insights

  1. • What you'll learn
  2. 1 The concept of time has undergone various changes—from the clockless Middle Ages to our clock-oriented modernity.
  3. 2 Don’t let the “efficiency trap” fool you: Your tasks have no end.
  4. 3 Thinking about finitude is never fun, but it adds greater depth, understanding, and clarity to your life.
  5. 4 Make sure your free time is really free; only then will it be most refreshing.
  6. 5 If you captain your time too closely, your quality of life will sink.

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