The Productivity Myth: Oliver Burkeman On Our Broken Relationship With Time, Embracing Our Limitations & Why More Isn’t Always Better

Everyone feels like they've got too much to do. So you try to find ways to do more of it which is either clever systems or extra self discipline. Technologies kind of hold out this amazing promise. With this device or with this system, you know, you're gonna be able to do more and more of it. You're constantly chasing it and you never get to the point of being able to do all the things. Of course, we're pursuing long term goals. Of course, there are things we're creating in the hopes that at a later point we reap the rewards in this way or that. But there's gotta be some role for finding meaning in the doing of it. You start to feel that it's only if you kind of do enough stuff that you get to feel good about yourself. And ultimately, that can't be the definition of a meaningful life. One of the great illnesses of today's world is busyness without satisfaction. And by this, I mean, the proliferation of jobs and careers that fail to provide those who pursue and hold them with much social meaning beyond what they pay, which according to Rucker Bregman, who I happen to have just recorded a podcast with today, twenty five percent of people in modern economies. But this malady extends further than that to a broader crisis of meaning that undermines our ability to live our lives more meaningfully in the day to day, which is this epidemic that is fueling chronic states of anxiety, irritability, impatience, exhaustion, and just general discontentment. Now, I don't know about you, but, I can certainly relate to this. And despite the fact that I derive tremendous meaning from what I do for a living, from my family, and from many things that I involve myself in outside, the strictures of what anyone would reasonably consider work, I still find it difficult to just simply relax and enjoy this incredible life that I've built for myself. Because there's always way more to do than I can possibly get done, which leaves me more anxious, more distracted, more prone to lower emotions than is reasonable given my circumstances, which, you know, is confusing at times and tremendously confounding. So I was pretty enthusiastic about sitting down with today's guest because this is a conundrum that Oliver Burkeman has spent a lot of time thinking deeply about and also somebody who has devoted the better part of his attention to solving a solution that revolves around repairing our dysfunctional relationship with time. You may know Oliver Burkeman as the productivity guy, a journalist and the author behind the landmark book, 4,000, Time Management for Mortals, which challenges conventional notions of efficiency. Oliver has written extensively for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, as well as The Guardian, and currently publishes a twice monthly in demand newsletter called The Imperfectionist, in which he shares insights on productivity, mortality, the power of …