#four thousand weeks

[luxe-pauvre]

The good procrastinator accepts the fact that she can’t get everything done, then decides as wisely as possible what tasks to focus on and what to neglect. By contrast, the bad procrastinator finds himself paralysed precisely because he can’t bear the thought of confronting his limitations. For him, procrastination is a strategy of emotional avoidance — a way of trying not to feel the psychological distress that comes with acknowledging that he’s a finite human being. The limitations we’re trying to avoid when we engage in this self-defeating sort of procrastination frequently don’t have anything to do with how much we’ll be able to get done in the time available; usually, it’s a matter of worrying that we won’t have the talent to produce work of sufficient quality, or that others won’t respond to it as we’d like them to, or that in some other way things won’t turn out as we want. The philosopher Costica Bradatan illustrates the point by means of a fable about an architect from Shiraz in Persia who designed the world’s most beautiful mosque: a breathtaking structure, dazzlingly original yet classically well proportioned, awe-inspiring in its grandeur yet wholly unpretentious. All those who saw the architectural plans wanted to buy them, or steal them; famous builders begged him to let them take on the job. But the architect locked himself in his study and stared at the plans for three days and nights — then burned them all. He might have been a genius, but he was also a perfectionist: the mosque of his imagination was perfect, and it agonised him to contemplate the compromises that would be involved in making it real. Even the greatest of builders would inevitably fail to reproduce his plans absolutely faithfully; nor would he be able to protect his creation from the ravages of time — from the physical decay or marauding armies that would eventually reduce it to dust. Stepping into the world of finitude, by actually building the mosque, would mean confronting all that he couldn’t do. Better to cherish an ideal fantasy than to resign himself to reality, with all its limitations and unpredictability. Bradatan argues that when we find ourselves procrastinating on something important to us, we’re usually in some version of this same mindset. We fail to see, or refuse to accept, that any attempt to bring our ideas into concrete reality must inevitably fall short of our dreams, no matter how brilliantly we succeed in carrying things off — because reality, unlike fantasy, is a realm in which we don’t have limitless control, and can’t possibly hope to meet our perfectionist standards. Something — our limited talents, our limited time, our limited control over events, and over the actions of other people — will always render our creation less than perfect. Dispiriting as this might sound at first, it contains a liberating message: if you’re procrastinating on something because you’re worried you won’t do a good enough job, you can relax — because judged by the flawless standards of your imagination, you definitely won’t do a good enough job. So you might as well make a start.

Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks

[siomae]

12/100 days of productivity 🐣 10/06/23

started the day with work in the morning. i finished a lot of tasks for an upcoming work event that i'm really excited about. then, i went to class — woohoo! no more skipping for me. i really don't want to make skipping a habit, so i'm feeling determined to properly maintain my attendance from now on. the day actually ended pretty short for me. i left campus right after my class and visited the bookstore for some reading time, then i went home around an hour later. i wasn't very productive when i got home, though. i didn't even realize how long i was scrolling reels until i saw it was already dark out 🙃 i really have to avoid opening instagram if the purpose isn't for communication

[remindmetoreed]

Just finished Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman and I really enjoyed this. He discusses embracing your finitude and how you will essentially never be able to master time management...and that's okay, because its a myth. highly recommend and it was a great book to start the new semester with!

[landunderthewave]

'Many people say they hope the dominant culture stops destroying the world,' as [Derrick] Jensen [the environmentalist who co-founded the radical group Deep Green Resistance] puts it, but by saying that, 'they've assumed the destruction will continue, at least in the short term, and they've stepped away from their own ability to participate in stopping it'. To give up hope, by contrast, is to reinhabit the power that you actually have. At that point, Jensen goes on, 'we no longer have to "hope" at all. We simply do the work. We make sure salmon survive. We make sure prairie dogs survive. We make sure grizzlies survive... When we stop hoping that the awful situation we're in will somehow resolve itself, when we stop hoping the situation will somehow not get worse, then we are finally free – truly free – to honestly start working to resolve it.'

Oliver Burkeman in Four Thousand Weeks

[whosebob]

Every time you reply to an email, there’s a good chance of provoking a reply to that email, which itself may require another reply, and so on and so on, until the heat death of the universe

Life Is Short. What Are You Going to Do About That? - The New York Times

[tldrselfhelp]

The core challenge of managing our limited time is not about how to get everything done -- that's never going to happen -- but how to decide most wisely what *not* to do, and how to feel at peace not doing it.

-- Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

[kjmckendry]

Book Review: Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman

I've been reading a lot more this year than I have in a while and I thought I'd share some of my favorite books every now and then.

Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman is an eye opening look at how we really think about what we do each day and how we end up spending most of our time. The average person lives approximately 4,000 weeks and that of course is if you're lucky to live into your 80s. That doesn't really seem like very many weeks. For me, that means I'm more than half done. I only have about 1296 weeks left.

My task is to think about how I really want to spend those. Maybe some days I still want to sit back and watch some football with my husband or take a nice long nap, but for me the point is that I want to be consciously making those decisions. I want to be present and choose what is important to me each moment.

[krysmcscience]

Call this the Whoopsie AU (it's barely an AU)

I mean. Narinder never explicitly SAID the Lamb would stay dead... :3c He probably should have been more specific. >:3c

Part Two:

Well. The Lamb tried, but...sorry, Nari, the crown hates you now. Shouldn't have been so quick to lend it out, I guess. :D

Aaaand Part Three:

'Isn't he just adorable?' -The Lamb, probably, while their followers smile and nod and internally scream at the brand new hellcat they now have to share living space with...

Anyway, nothing says 'Dead To Me' like following a person around to loudly remind them of how dead they are to you. Right? Right. Narinder's got this all figured out. <:]

[foxandcatlibrary]

15th Book I Read in 2023

Title: Four Thousand Weeks

Author: Oliver Burkeman

Notes: Not as life-changingly amazing as the old man who recommended it to me made it out to be, but definitely a good read.

[avandelay20]

“

Plunge into the life you already have with twice the intensity and your life will feel twice as full and will be remembered as lasting twice as long. Meditation, going on unplanned walks, photography, journaling, anything that draws your attention more fully to the present.

“

[luxe-pauvre]

The universal truth behind my specific issues is that most of us invest a lot of energy, one way or another, in trying to avoid fully experiencing the reality in which we find ourselves. We don’t want to feel the anxiety that might arise if we were to ask ourselves whether we’re on the right path, or what ideas about ourselves it could be time to give up. We don’t want to risk getting hurt in relationships or failing professionally; we don’t want to accept that we might never succeed in pleasing our parents or in changing certain things we don’t like about ourselves — and we certainly don’t want to get sick and die. The details differ from person to person, but the kernel is the same. We recoil from the notion that this is it - that this life, with all its flaws and inescapable vulnerabilities, its extreme brevity, and out limited influence over how it unfolds, is the only one we’ll get a shot at. Instead, we mentally fight against the way things are — so that, in the words of the psychotherapist Bruce Tift, “we don’t have to consciously participate in what it’s like to feel claustrophobic, imprisoned, powerless, and constrained by reality.”

Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks

[emberglowfox]

[forechoes]

Title: See You

Fandom: 내가 키운 S급들 - 근서 | S-Classes that I Raised - Geunseo

Relationship: Han Yoohyun & Han Yoojin

Summary:

An encounter with the filial duty addicts renders Han Yoohyun unable to see Han Yoojin, and Han Yoojin unable to see his brother, no matter how close they are, for an entire week.

Thank you so much for the hosts of this big bang for letting me participate! I can write this out a thousand times, and it'll never be enough, but thank you so so much to @sctir and @butterfirefly for making this piece possible. I wouldn't have made it here without you.

And of course, thank you to @buqbite for partnering up with me! I'm honoured and so grateful for the opportunity to have worked with you. Thank you so much for reaching out first, and I'm sorry if I ever stressed you out with how I work.

[mushroombo]

God, you’re pretty More’s the pity, since you need a man-- --What? Who’s brainy Or witty--

Day 1 // Lies and Secrets Fool’s Mate // The Chess Game

[quicksilversquared]

absolutely fucking incredible how on days when I teach, I make myself a completely doable and really quite short to-do list that I should be able to complete, no problem... and then I never manage to finish it, because I'm just completely drained.

also very fun this semester how I start the week with teaching, and then right away Tuesday have to be ready for my biotech class, which requires finishing the stupid long homework before the start. No time at all to recover from the teaching stuff.

[bingqiv]

love how i decided to read thousand autumns before erha because “by the time i get caught up the last volume of thousand autumns will be out”and instead i read four volumes in just over a week and i now have to wait three weeks.