Four Thousand Weeks

and how to spend them well — top tips from Oliver Burkeman

If time management advice brings more anxiety than relief, it is because most of it focuses on how to get more things done. We’ve all tried this or that method which promised salvation from the overwhelm only to realise it simply doesn’t work. At best, we fall into the efficiency trap — the better we are at spinning the wheel, the faster it spins and, in Hydra-like fashion, each completed task spawns two new to be done. In his Four Thousand Weeks. Time Management for Mortals, Oliver Burkeman recognises exactly that and offers a wonderful digest of ideas which address the core issue in our battle with time. Here are my top five.