If you’re anything like me, you probably feel like you have too much to do and not enough time to do it. And no matter how efficient you get it doesn’t seem to help.
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. You only need to look at how many books about time management are available to know this is a common struggle.
But Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, takes a different approach than most time management books, and I found it both refreshing and helpful. Here are three tips from the book, in case you’ll also find them helpful.
1: Acknowledge your limitations
Burkeman used to write a column with advice about how people can become more productive, but then he realized something odd. The more productive people tried to become, the harder it was for them to get to the things that really mattered to them.
What he eventually realized is that in a world with so much opportunity to do and experience different things, the only way to get to what actually matters is to accept that you simply can’t do everything. As he explains it, you need an “anti-skill,” the ability to resist the urge to become more productive and efficient. Only then can you stop getting caught up in all the minutiae of daily life – but it’s not always easy to do.
“To approach your days in this fashion means, instead of clearing the decks, declining to clear the decks, focusing on what’s truly of greatest consequence while tolerating the discomfort of knowing that, as you do so, the decks will be filling up further, with emails and errands and other to-dos, many of which you will never get around to at all….” (p. 150)
As someone who tries to get things done, not just on time but in advance, responds promptly to emails, etc., I think this would be hard for me to implement. But I can also recognize how this efficiency can distract me from other things I want to do.
So, I’m going to try not clearing the decks quite as quickly or as thoroughly – we’ll see how I do.
2: Prioritize your efforts
Of course, if you’re going to focus on the most important things, you need to know what the important things are. This means not only prioritizing but being willing to let go of moderately interesting or important items.
To do this, Burkeman offers three principles:
- “Pay yourself first”: In the case of time, this means setting aside time for what matters to you first. It may not be a lot of time, especially to start, but make sure you do something that matters to you before meeting the demands of others. This reminds me of something I heard Patrick Stewart say once, that he starts every day off by reading for pleasure for 30-60 minutes, so no matter what else happens, he’ll have had that enjoyment.
- “Limit your work in progress”: As tempting as it might be to have lots of projects going on, the reality is that when you’re spread too thin, you won’t make progress on any of the projects. So limit how many things you’re working on, and only add something new after completing a prior project.
- “Resist the allure of middling priorities”: I don’t know about you, but I often hear or read about something and think, “Oh, that sounds interesting” or “That’s pretty important.” But if I add up all the things that are even moderately interesting or important, I end up with much more than I could ever do. This is why Burkeman suggests being wary and steering clear of those “middling priorities” – if you don’t, you’ll be distracted from your real priorities, and then overwhelmed.
3: Rest for rest’s sake
And finally, an important part of our finite time is to rest and enjoy the wonders of this world – and to do that for its own sake.
Too often, you hear that people should rest or take time off because it will make them more productive when they go back to work. But that’s not the point of time off. You should rest and relax for no reason but to enjoy it.
Admittedly, that’s become harder to do in our society these days, when leisure time seems to be filled with things that can feel like work or that are part of a goal for the future – think running a marathon or constantly striving for personal growth.
But it wasn’t always this way. “To the philosophers of the ancient world, leisure wasn’t the means to some other end; on the contrary, it was the end to which everything else worth doing was a means.” (p. 144)
Further, as Burkeman points out: “The truth, then, is that spending at least some of your leisure time “wastefully,” focused solely on the pleasure of the experience, is the only way not to waste it – to be truly at leisure, rather than covertly engaged in future-focused self-improvement. In order to most fully inhabit the only life you ever get, you have to refrain from using every spare hour for personal growth. From this perspective, idleness isn’t merely forgivable; it’s practically an obligation.
So, bear that in mind the next time you go on vacation or even have an afternoon off, and try to spend some of it in pure idleness. And if you need inspiration, look to your pets – they’re very good at this.
Time management isn’t what you may think
When you think of time management, your first thought may be trying to find a way to fit everything you want to do into your day. But no matter how productive you become, that never works – and in fact, becoming more productive can actually add more to your days.
Instead, try recognizing and accepting that you can’t do everything, then prioritize what truly matters to you. Focus on those few things, making sure to limit how many projects you have going at once, and also take time to truly rest and enjoy yourself. If you can do that, even if it doesn’t fit traditional time management approaches, you’ll have managed your time well.