Four Thousand Weeks Book Review
With a subtitle that promises the world (Time Management for Mortals!), the book really starts off with a whimper. Oliver Burkeman is someone who is a self-proclaimed time management junkie, and has all the accouterments to go with that (time management planner, time management software, notebooks etc). So you’d expect a book that’s all about how you should just focus on crushing it and getting that to-do list smaller and smaller, but instead, the author basically tells you “forget about your to-do list, forget about your bucket lists, forget all the lists, just do what makes you happy”.
Its not quite that trite, but that’s the gist I got from the book. The book does start off with a math question, basically asking you how many weeks you think an average human lives. If you’re able to do basic math, you’ll come up with 52 weeks * maybe 70 or 80 years to get roughly 4000 weeks. Take away maybe the first 5 years where you can’t do anything aside survive and its really about 3750 weeks.
At the heart of all time management book is about happiness. we feel happy when we are being productive, doing stuff, and to the author’s credit, he just goes straight for the heart. No thinking about techniques, or polishing your 7 habits or any of that sort. He just tells you that you are NOT going to get everything you want to get done, so you better just prioritize what you really really want to get done and focus on those. surprisingly, it might not be about work. =)
At the end of the day, i feel this is really more of a philosophy book rather than a time management book. It tells you to prioritize the important things in life, your family, your hobbies, things that make you happy. It tells you to do that becuase in the lens of human history, world history, galaxy history, we’re really just a flash of light that comes on and off so quickly no one is apt to pay any attention to what we do, say or perhaps more cogent, don’t do or say. He makes the point that we can probably only really focus on 3 or so big things at any one time, and if you have family, or relationships to take care of, then you have to maybe think about how much work you can really get done at work.
I think this book is quite clever becuase instead of just adding more techniques to manage diminishing time, he starts with the premise that you just dno’t have time, and what you need to do is to start eliminating things that don’t really bring you joy. Kind of a marie kondo but of time management.
In any case, for those people who are really overworked becuase they have to, this book WILL NOT HELP. This book is really for those who have the time to think about time management and can then plan. I feel like for a lot of self help books, its like that. Like the kids who do extra credits assignments (but don’t need it), or the rich who gets richer, time management philosophy books are really for those who don’t really need to be as busy as they are. The real folks who have 3 minimum wage jobs, 2 kids to take care of, 2 parents to also take care of…those are the ones where time management might be useful, but they don’t have time to read it.
All in all, read this for the philosophy, you probably don’t need the other advice. Its well written and short, and so should be easily digested in a couple of hours. Recommended.