Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

Productivity, or the science of getting the most out of one’s time, has been a Western preoccupation since the Calvinist Protestant work ethic took over from the Ancient Greek philosophy that leisure and time for contemplation was the highest good. While the aristocrats of the Classical world sought to maximize time away from work and duty, the 16th-century Northern European Calvinist Christians, many of whom emigrated to America, strove to prove their elect status (the fact that they were destined to go to heaven) through “relentless hard work” (149). However, the Calvinists’ attitude toward work really became mainstream after the Industrial Revolution of the early 19th century, which prescribed long, fixed labor hours and a slim slice of leisure time. While, as Oliver Burkeman shows, workers wanted to relax in their time off, the social reformers who negotiated the two-day weekend opined that they should be using their spare time for acts of self-improvement, such as visiting museums and learning new skills. This was only exacerbated in the early 20th century, where the cult of personality aided by technologies such as film and radio left many people eager to emerge above the crowd and do something eminent with their lives.

Arguably, Arnold Bennett’s 1908 manual How to Live on 24 Hours a Day emerged out of the anxiety that the standardized workday was taking too much out of people, leaving them scant time and energy for their personal projects. Bennett addressed his book to male urban professionals for whom “time was starting to feel like a container too small for all it was required to hold” (39). Bennett’s advice contained a stern admonition against complaints of tiredness and the command to either wake up early in the morning before work, for the projects that mattered most, or to do them after work, presumably while a wife or servants took care of practical matters such as feeding or childrearing. Aside from his assumption of male, middle-class exemption from time-consuming domestic chores, Bennett’s formula for squeezing more activity into each day is not that different from contemporary productivity advice. However, while Bennett and those who follow his philosophy today think that this will be enough to “reach the serene and commanding status of finally having ‘enough time’” (40), Burkeman contends with the reality that we will never feel on top of things, no matter what productivity strategy we employ. This is because the demands on the things we or others feel we ought to accomplish simply grows, leaving us with an insurmountable pile.

Burkeman maintains that much contemporary productivity advice stems from Stephen Covey’s 1994 book First Things First and the theory of rocks, pebbles and sand in the jar. The rocks stand for the most important tasks, the pebbles for those of middling importance, and the sand for the least important ones. Covey’s theory is that if you put the rocks in the jar first, then you will definitely have time for the pebbles and sand. Burkeman feels that this experiment is “rigged” because the experimenter already knows that a limited number of rocks fit into a jar (73). Real life is not like this because there are far too many “rocks”—important things—and most “are not making it anywhere near that jar” (73). In Burkeman’s view, the critical question is “what to do when far too many things feel at least somewhat important and therefore […] qualify as big rocks” (73). While Burkeman is scathing about Covey’s optimism, thinking that it flies in the face of the limited hours we have alive versus the increasing number of important things to do, his practical advice also comes down on the side of prioritizing the things we think are most important of all and not allowing ourselves to take up new projects until we complete them. The distinction between him and those without such awareness of our temporal limits is a question of scale. He is far less optimistic about the number of competing priorities we can have at one time, or even in one lifetime.

Perhaps the most striking thing about literature and content that centers on productivity is its ubiquity. Virtually every self-development coach with a public platform or social media influencer has content on daily routines or productivity. This enhances their relatability because we are all granted the same 24-hour day and have important tasks we want to accomplish in it. Moreover, those who have still not accepted Burkeman’s premise that there will never be enough time to do all the things that are important are on an elusive quest for the time-management hack that will turn this reality on its head.

Still, these sources are normally aspirational in tone, as most people lack the wealth and resources of the self-development expert or influencer. For example, New York Magazine’s The Cut’s popular segment “How I Get it Done” features the daily routines of high-profile women, who in many cases juggle the demands of an illustrious career and motherhood. Readers are meant to find inspiration in these women’s drive to do it all and their employment of Arnold Bennett–style early waking practices and utilization of baby nap times for creativity. However, lacking the social or economic capital of the profiled women, most readers will not be able to employ the same strategies to keep their work and home running smoothly.

For Burkeman, failing to live up to an ideal is not a problem. In his chapter “Cosmic Insignificance Therapy,” he takes issue with the contemporary drive to be great and emerge above the masses, by drawing attention to the insignificance of our individual lifetimes in the grand scheme of the universe. All our striving to be better than, he argues, is therefore useless, and how we employ our time in the service of our individual improvement is far lower stakes than we imagine.

Another key difference between Burkeman and his contemporaries is that while the others are focused on how we can use our days to enhance our personal success and happiness, he draws attention to a more communal view of success. This ranges from ensuring that we make time to collaborate and engage with the people who matter most, to doing our part to reverse the crises that are currently engulfing our world, such as climate change. Thus, he suggests that we might organize our time so that some of our most important priorities include serving a social cause even if that means taking some personal aspirations off the list, potentially accepting that we will never get round to them. In doing so, he points to evidence that socially determined uses of time make us happier and more valuable citizens than having a flexible schedule. While many personal development authorities advocate pursuing growth over comfort, Burkeman advises that we do so less in the spirit of personal ambition and more in that of challenging ourselves to give up control over our time to enhance the wellbeing of others and the planet as a whole.