This is Part 1 of a 3-part series reflecting on Oliver Burkeman’s book ‘Four Thousand Weeks’ and how its lessons keep showing up in my everyday life.
My daughter and I have a newfound love for making noodles. We’ve been experimenting with different healthy toppings, and honestly, making a proper bowl takes time. It’s an analogue process that takes exactly as long as it takes. You can’t really “optimise” it.
This simple act of slowing down has been on my mind a lot while reading a book my husband, Nagu, recommended: Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman.
The premise is sobering. If you live to be 80, you have roughly four thousand weeks on this planet. Our modern response to this finitude is to try to master our time, to become so efficient that we never face the prospect of dying without fulfilling our ambitions. But Burkeman argues this pursuit is a delusion.
One lesson that stuck with me is Warren Buffett’s 25/5 Rule. The story goes that Buffett asked his pilot to list the top 25 things he wanted to do in life. He then told him to focus only on the first 5 and actively avoid the other 20 at all costs. Why? Because those 20 are the “moderately appealing” things. They are seductive enough to steal your focus but not relevant enough to change your life. To strive, you must compromise.
I saw this obsession with cramming everything in at a fast-paced networking quiz event I attended a few weeks ago. The questions were great, the speakers were fantastic, and the organisers had clearly put a massive amount of thought into it. But there was one glaring issue: they had packed the schedule so tightly that there was absolutely no time to actually interact with the rest of the cohort. And networking was the whole point!
My hypothesis? I suspect AI was used to help plan the timings. AI has absolutely no clue about the physical friction of reality. It assumes herding 40 people from one activity to the next takes one minute. Anyone who has ever been in a room with other humans knows it takes ten.
I decided to feed this back to the organisers. I tried the “+/- method” (though maybe I should have used a full sandwich?), gently suggesting I would have loved more unstructured time to connect. Let’s just say… that definitely did not go well.
I’m curious: how do you handle giving constructive feedback in these situations? Would you have held your tongue? How would you recommend going about it in the future? Let me know in the comments.
Whether it is over-packing an event schedule or mindlessly scrolling on our phones, we are constantly trying to escape the limits of the present moment. This brings up another concept from Burkeman’s book: the distraction trap.
A few years ago, a video went viral of someone taking 45 minutes to put rubber bands on a watermelon until it finally burst. Why do we watch things like this? We like to blame digital algorithms, but philosophers have worried about distraction since ancient Greece. It’s less about external interruptions and more of a systematic inner failure. The truth is, we are often eager for the slightest excuse to turn away from what we are doing to escape how disagreeable or uncomfortable the present moment feels. It’s not reluctance; it’s relief.
As T.S. Eliot wrote, we are “Distracted from distractions by distractions.”
When you imagine a life filled with flourishing work, hobbies, and perfect family time, it works like a charm in your head. But reality has friction. Burkeman writes that we don’t get time; we are time. Trying to perfectly manage it to avoid life’s realities is a losing game.
Drop the impossible list of things. Pick a few from the rubble that matter the most, carry on, and maybe just enjoy a slow bowl of noodles.
Over to You
Next week in Part 2: What the Oxford Energy Day, echo chambers, and a freezing monk taught me about the danger of seeking comfort.
Have you read Four Thousand Weeks, or is there another book that reshaped how you think about ageing and work-life balance?
I’d love to hear your thoughts and recommendations in the comments below!