I knew Sunday was going to be a travel day, so I carefully prepared and scheduled this week’s FeetNotes on Friday. Except, apparently, I didn’t do the “schedule” part. I just realized this a few moments ago.
So — it’s FeetNotes on Monday. I tell people I send “Every Sunday-ish” — and this would be what puts the “-ish” in Sunday.
I’m considering a new format for these book reviews. But for now — we’re sticking with the old. I hope you find this helpful!
I thought 4000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals (Public Library) was a book of reckoning, with a framework for honest productivity. Be sure to see the 10 tools at the bottom of the FeetNotes. You’ll find this helpful.
If you’ve read 4000 Weeks please let me know your thoughts! If you haven’t, grab a copy and read it. I want to know what you think.
Author: Oliver Burkeman
Full Title: Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
My FeetNotes:
Introduction: In the Long Run, We All Die
Productivity as defined by the disciples and descendants of David Allan will never be a reality.
We have a ridiculously short, defined time to live.
Part 1 - Choosing to Choose
Chapter 1: The Limit Embracing Life
This chapter is making me think about the old astronomical clock in the square in Prague. Clocks (not the steam engine) may well have been the technology that ushered in the industrial revolution.
This is how time became a resource and a commodity.
The paradox of limitation: Time management works best when I understand that my time is not only a limited resource, but it is coming to an end. I can not control or optimize this. The best time management technique is to face this reality. Momento Mori
The same is true with creativity. Unlimited possibility is ultimately about limits.
I'm interested in the German word #Eigenzeit (How people experience the passage of time).
Embracing the limits of this life and this body is to be wholeheartedly human. We are not God -- who is limitless.
Chapter 2: The efficiency Trap
Productivity and efficiency is asking time to expand to a being a bigger container so it can hold more things. That's not how time works. Time is fixed and rigid.
I am definitely guilty of the "clear the decks strategy". This is probably not so much about productivity as it is the "feeling" of productivity, which is a good feeling. Ticking off a line of todos is satisfying. The problem is: I do have a lot of days where I don't get to the things that are most important for me, because I am too busy "clearing the decks".
Try this: What is the most important thing I can do today (or the three most important things?) and don't worry about "the decks".Convenience often drains what we do for others (or even for ourselves) of significance and meaning.
I think of my coffee process every day. It is not convenient. But, for me, it's satisfying (and delicious). It's a moment of focus (Build the bloom. Smell the beans. Don't pour the water too fast.) and presence. It's not about speed and convenience.
Sour dough bread is a similar idea.
Chapter 3: Facing Finitude
Human reality is about the finality of our choices. Every choice we make closes off a thousand other possibilities for our lives -- forever.
So many people refuse to think about the reality of our finite nature through distraction, busyness, a million other things to keep our brains from grappling with making the choices to use this small amount of time we have.
For some, life is more comfortable while avoiding the truth:
I am not guaranteed today, let alone tomorrow.This chapter is really about a mindset. We are finite. So quit expectations of getting more done and embrace what you have chosen to do right now as opposed to the million other things you could be doing. None of us have the right to expect another moment. Gratitude and wonder make a huge difference in perspective.
Chapter 4: Becoming a Better Procrastinator
There are two kinds of procrastination
The Good Kind
Since it's impossible to do everything, choose to do the main things to the exclusion of all other possibilities.
Practical tool: Have three projects and only three projects going at once. In order to add another project, one of the three must either finish or intentionally set aside.
The Bad Kind
A core problem of procrastination is FOMO and perfectionism. You have to settle -- and settling is both a good thing and a liberating thing.
Chapter 5: The Watermelon Problem
Attention economy apps (most social media) is designed to feed us what is most compelling -- not what is most true. Therefore, these apps are distorting the way users view the world. around them. It is confusing and distorting what really matters and replacing that with what grabs and keeps attention.
The comment made by Tristan Harris is absolutely chilling: Every time you open up a social media app there are 'a thousand people on the other side of the screen' paid to keep you there. Why would we be surprised at the resulting addiction and dysfunction.
Chapter 6: The Intimate Interrupter
Distraction is placing my attention on something that is less painful in the moment.
The activity doesn't have to be fun in order to dull the pain of finitude. Simple infinite scroll does the trick just fine.
The inevitability of suffering is inescapable. The author takes a Buddhist view of suffering, but a Christian view of suffering leads to the same conclusion. In this world we have suffering. Don't be surprised. Embrace it. The interesting point here is that I haven't thought of a task like "writing" as suffering. And yet -- sitting with ideas and trying to put them together in a way that is both artful and makes sense is hard. Learn to sit with the hard and don't seek for ways to make the hard easy.
Make the hard easy is something I try to do a lot. Sometimes my distractions on the Internet are about looking for things that make hard easy. Sit with the hard.
Part 2: Beyond Control
Chapter 7: We really Never Have Time
This chapter is really about the words of Jesus in Matthew 6. Don't be anxious about tomorrow because at the end of it all, you can't know what tomorrow will bring. So why be anxious? Anxiety changes nothing.
The struggle for certainty is ultimately a hopeless struggle. So stop trying to do it.
The only portion of time that I have is the one right now. Right now is my business.
I see the problem here not as planning, but in turning our planning into something much bigger and more certain than what it is. It's planning by building bigger barns. Foolishly not recognizing that today my 4000 weeks could be cut short.
Chapter 8: You Are Here
We spend our too much of our lives preoccupied with the future.
Childhood is not a training ground for adulthood. Adulthood is not a training ground for ... sr. adulthood.
We have right now.
Chapter 9: Taking Back Leisure
Industrialization made leisure another form of productivity.
Leisure by definition is meant to be "not productive". This means leisure is about doing something that has no other potential, future value other than what it is right now.
True rest and leisure is a a choice. An act of the will. Like a true sabbath, it takes an element of thought and preparation. Rest rarely happens spontaneously.
Read Sabbath as Resistance by Walter Brueggermann (Public Library) Note: Finished this and found it refreshing.
Atelic activity -- things you do to do them, not to finish them.
There is something about the "freedom to pursue the futile" that is evidence of real leisure.
Chapter 10: The Impatience Spiral
Technological advances make us feel we have transcended out limitations. They haven't. And they never will.
People don't read as much as they used to. The author argues that it's not necessarily because people are too busy or too distracted. People are too impatient. Reading takes the time it takes and a lot of people are too impatient to take that kind of time. There are few shortcuts.
Things take the time they take. None of us can really dictate this universal reality.
Chapter 11: Staying on the Bus
Surrender to the speed of reality.
Three Principles of patience
Develop a taste for for having problems
Embrace radical incrementalism
Originality lies on the far side of unoriginality
Stay on the bus long enough to get to your unique destination. It takes as long as it takes.
Chapter 12: The Loneliness of the Digital Nomad
Autonomy over time without the power of the network effect is time hoarding. Like money hoarding, time hoarding leads to a lonely and miserable existence.
We (humans) are always better together. I've experienced this spontaneous synchrony while playing guitar in a band, instead of playing guitar alone. I play better with a group. There is something magic about humans doing things together.
Even with a schedule I've determined for myself, "work seeps through life like water."
Making time completely "my own" can be a form of selfishness. Time hoarding.
Chapter 13: Cosmic insignificance Therapy
"Making a dent" in the universe isn't going to happen. Of the billions of people who ever lived, only a few dozen are remembered -- and only faintly at that. The universe doesn't spin around me. Lowered expectations about the difference I make is not only realistic, it's liberating.
Chapter 14: The Human Disease
"I am the tiger." We can not separate "time" from our own existence. There is so very little that any of us actually have control of.
Five questions
Where in your life or your work are you pursuing comfort, when what's called for is a little discomfort? (Discomfort and suffering is how we grow)
Are you holding yourself to, and judging yourself by, standards of productivity or performance that are impossible to meet? (having an impossible standard doesn't get you any closer to achieving the impossible)
In what ways have you yet to accept the fact that you are who you are, not the person you think you ought to be? (It's possible to "just be" without the need to justify your existence to anyone around you, including yourself.)
In what areas of your life are you still holding back until you feel like you know what you're doing? (Life is not a dress rehearsal. Life is life right now, whether you know what you're doing or not. And, PSA, most of the people in charge don't know what they're doing either.)
How would you spend your days differently if you didn't care so much about seeing your actions reach fruition? (Life is not completable in our lifetime. Plant trees under whose shade you'll never sit.)
Ten Tools
Keep two lists: One is fixed at 3-10 items. One is infinite. You'll never finish the infinite. You're not allow to move anything from the infinite to the fixed list until something is done.
One project at a time. Finish.
Strategic Underachievement: Decide in advance what you are going to fail at.
Focus on what you've already completed, rather than on what's yet to be done.
Care about the things you care about and not about the things you're told to care about (primarily on social media)
Embrace boring, single purpose technology (e-readers, reMarkable, paper, etc.)
Pay attention. Especially if it's right now.
Be curious about people. Know them.
Practice extemporaneous generosity.
Get good at doing nothing.
That’s all I got this week. I hope it’s helpful as you step into your Monday.
Next week we’ll have book notes and a couple of recommendations. In the meantime:
Go and Make.
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I am a consultant, coach, and trainer with Growability® Consulting, specializing in non-profit and cross-cultural business and leadership. Check out the Growability® Podcast at all your favorite podcast places.