How is Your Time Management? Breaking Down the Facade of Productivity | Oliver Burkeman

Oliver Burkeman (0:00)

We put a huge amount of effort into a kind of emotional avoidance, right? We think what we want to do, we may tell ourselves that what we want to do is live accomplished lives, and do meaningful things, and help people. But a lot of the time, what we want to do is kind of not feel the anxiety and stress that comes from acknowledging our limits and our finite nature.

Michael Gervais (0:31)

All right, welcome back, or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. I'm Michael Gervais, and by trade and training, I am a sport and performance psychologist. And the whole idea behind this podcast, behind these conversations, is to learn, is to pull back the curtain from some of the most extraordinary thinkers and doers across the planet, to better understand how they have committed to mastering both their craft and their minds. And the whole effort underneath of it is to become their very best so that they can help others become their very best.

I want to take a minute here to announce a really exciting event that we have coming up. As you continue to navigate the challenges and opportunities of 2024, I want to pose a question. What are you doing right now to be great with stress? How are you working with stress on your pursuit towards your most important ambitions and goals? And I just want to get right to the heart of the key elements, one in particular, for what it takes to excel in today's high heat, high stakes world. Because stress is not the problem that we think it is. Stress is a synonym for change, and our ability to be agile with change, that is the real opportunity at hand. So if you're wanting to unlock extraordinary results and sustainable performance in your life, it's not about avoiding or reducing stress. And as simple as that sounds, it's very tricky to do, but it is about fundamentally changing your relationship with it.

And that's why I'm so thrilled to invite you to a special event. It's a free virtual event that we're offering, and it's called The Power of Embracing Stress. It's on Wednesday, March 6th at 2 p.m. Pacific. So to sign up, just head over to findingmastery.com/training. Whether it's advancing in your career or improving your health or cultivating stronger relationships, I think a new approach to stress can be one of the most powerful unlocks for you in your life. So join us for this free virtual training, The Power of Embracing Stress, on Wednesday, March 6th at 2 p.m. Pacific. Go to findingmastery.com/training to sign up. Once again, that's findingmastery.com/training. And I'm really excited to see you there.

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Now, this week's conversation is with Oliver Burkeman, a British author and journalist who really enjoyed his writings on productivity, mortality, the power of limits, and thoughts on building a meaningful life in an age of distraction.

So Oliver is the winner of the Foreign Press Association's Young Journalists of the Year Award and for many years wrote a hit weekly column for The Guardian called This Column Will Change Your Life.

And in this conversation, we dive into his newest book, Four Thousand Weeks, where he uses the average number of weeks that humans live, 4,000, as a reference point to help us examine how we are living, especially in a world of impossible demands and infinite choice and countless productivity techniques that mainly just leave us feeling busier and likely less fulfilled. Oliver's perspective and insights were a breath of fresh air for me. And I hope you'll leave this conversation inspired to do the internal work, to get clear on your values and your first principles, and to prioritize your time based on things that really matter to you, so that ultimately you too can make the most of the remaining weeks that you have in your life. And with that, this jump right into this week's conversation with Oliver Burkeman. Oliver, how are you?