Free Four Thousand Weeks Book Summary by Oliver Burkeman

Takeaways

• Try to step away from the hustle culture.
• Don't dwell on how limited time we have.
• Make the best of the time we have.
• Live for the present.
• Learn to prioritize worthwhile activities.
• Get a hobby and enjoy your time with others.

Key Insights

Humans have always obsessed about time. Since human life is limited and usually ends after around 80 to 85 years, it’s no wonder that people put emphasis on how they spend their time.

Nowadays, people are haunted by becoming productive and always making the most of their time. Of course, the saying “time is gold” wouldn’t become so popular if we didn’t value our time so much. However, with counting each and every second and focusing so much on efficiency, many may feel stressed and empty in their journey in life. Time management shouldn’t be so difficult and it should also be enjoyed. In the book, Four Thousand Weeks written by Oliver Burkeman, we learn how to manage our time well without making our lives feel timed.

Accept that time will keep ticking.

For us humans, we try our hardest to become so successful that we start working multiple jobs. Especially nowadays that the “hustle” culture has become such a hit. However, there have been multiple studies that show that wealth doesn’t necessarily equate into an enjoyable and peaceful life.

Essentially, the “hustle” culture was born out of capitalism. Spending years trying to organize one’s day like scheduling it into 15-minute blocks or even planning ahead can make us anxious instead of productive. Until one day, the author realized that optimizing time is futile because it will just keep ticking. More tasks will keep springing up and the to-do list will never run out of pages. Due to this, the author highlighted that the more we conquer time, the more frustrated, empty, and anxious we feel. This is what the author calls the paradox of limitation. In essence, this means that we’ll never be able to accomplish everything we’d want to. And through acknowledging this, we can start living our lives by spending our time meaningfully.

Another way to accept that time will keep ticking is to not dwell on how limited time we have left. While we have the present, there will always be tomorrow. In premodern times, people weren’t as worried about time as we are now. Farmers rose whenever the sun did and slept whenever the moon came. This thinking only did change when wagers started paying laborers based on their time. If we were paid by the hour, then we had to keep track of the hour. Additionally, we should also face our finitude positively and accept it as motivation to live our lives to the fullest.

In the work of German philosopher Martin Heidegger Being and Time, Heidegger argues that our finite time defines our existence. This means that our time on Earth shouldn’t be lived unhappily and shouldn’t be based solely on productivity. Another philosopher, Martin Hagglund enjoys spending his summer vacations in the Baltic coast of Sweden. This is because he acknowledges that he won’t have forever to go to summer vacations and should make the best of the time that he has now. Embracing our finitude means acknowledging our mortality. Additionally, it pushes us to start living a life that matters and to make everything we do something worthwhile.

It's also important to live for the present instead of doing things in the present for the future. Although it’s good to sacrifice for the future, one shouldn’t let go of all that makes him happy just for the future. The author states that a lot of people are susceptible to the “when-I-finally” mindset. This is when someone states that they’ll finally do a certain activity if and only if they reach a certain goal. For instance, some would say that they’ll finally go on vacation once they get a hundred thousand dollars in the bank. If our present moment is always striving toward an idealized future state, then we will never live in the present. In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the author—Robert Pirsig—remembers when he took a picture of Oregon’s Crater Lake. When he did this, the author recounted that he felt distant from the moment because the beauty of the site was eclipsed by the fact that it is just another tourist attraction.

Instead of telling ourselves how we should spend our time and obsessing about every second of the day, we should learn to take our time and savor the moment we have in the present. It’s not always that we’ll have the moment we have right now.

Start prioritizing limited goals.

Many see procrastination as a bad practice. However, we can’t really escape procrastination since this is already innate in us humans. But when we do learn how to control our procrastination then we can start learning how to prioritize certain activities more than others.

To do this, the author advises the readers to start paying ourselves with our own time. For instance, if we have an activity that we’re excited to do, instead of waiting or having to do something to achieve this, it’s better to spend a lot of time in the day doing the said activity. According to the author, another way to procrastinate better is through not working on so many activities. Multiple works in progress can make us feel unproductive since we never finish a single type of project. The last principle laid down by the author is to avoid second-tier priorities. These are things that we should learn to avoid and say no to. It’s not wrong to categorize something as not worth our time.

Another thing that can hamper us from achieving our limited goals are distractions. An example highlighted by the author are digital technologies. However, these distractions are just ways for us to look away from doing what matters. Let’s face it, it’s not always comfortable to do work we enjoy since it forces us to sometimes face our limitations. For instance, we think that we’d want to write a book but never do because we’re afraid to fall short of our expectations of ourselves.

Lastly, it’s important to establish hobbies or to spend time with people that matter. If we put “reading a book” or “spending time with a loved one” into our schedules then life can become a little better. Hobbies can enrich our experience in life. Whenever we’re asked what hobbies we enjoy, some of us tend to lag a bit because it becomes difficult remembering our hobbies—since we don’t do them very often. There are even times when hobbies are seen as amateur or something that people can’t make profit out of. Once again, this is the hustle culture speaking. However, when something is done for the sake of pleasure, it relieves all pressure that may surround it. There is no need to be the best at a hobby. A hobby also isn’t a competition nor is it something that should meet someone else’s standards. An example made by the author was British rockstar Rod Steward who enjoyed building model railways so much that he even hired someone to do the electrical wiring. Again, this wasn’t done to impress anyone but as a simple hobby to spend time leisurely.

Additionally, it may even be better to spend leisure time with the people we love. The author recalled a study in Sweden which found that antidepressant sales were the lowest when people are on holiday. Thus, the study concluded that depression and spending time with others are inversely proportional. In a book entitled The Decline of Pleasure, critic, Walter Kerr, noted that filling our free time with productive activities can eventually exhaust us. This is because leisure time is turning into a luxury nowadays, which should not be the case. Finding time for our hobbies and to allow ourselves to relax can turn our lives into lives worth living and not rushing through.

The Main Take-Away

Time is one of the most important resources we have. And like other resources, time eventually runs out. The clock is always ticking and there is always something we can do and should be doing. Because of this, many people overthink about how they can manage their time most effectively and efficiently. However, by doing this, many are left tired, stressed, and unhappy with their lives.

In Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman, we learn how to manage our time without feeling stressed and tired. The book will teach us how to effectively spend our time without feeling rushed and hampered by a world that constantly keeps track of it. He teaches us the art of accepting that time will tick away and being okay with it. By basing on various works by classic and modern philosophers, writers, and thinkers, Oliver Burkeman shows his readers the path towards living a fulfilled life while acknowledging its limitations.

About the Author

Oliver Burkeman is a well known author of self-help books such which focus on living a happier and fulfilled life. He was also a columnist for The Guardian from 2006 to 2020. Currently, he writes and publishes twice every month a newsletter called The Imperfectionist. He previously won the Foreign Press Association’s Young Journalist Award and was also shortlisted for the Orwell Prize.