Four Thousand Weeks (book review)

Posted on by MIKE

Likely one of the best books I’ll read this year.

I have soft spots. For movies it’s one last job. For books it’s This is Water.

There’s this thing that everyone talks about but everyone talks about it wrongly. That’s a soft spot.

That’s Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. According to author Oliver Burkeman, we are doing time management all wrong. We are swimming through water without really knowing what it is.

And water is a good analogy because water, like time, isn’t something we can grasp. It’s something we have to accept. We can scoop water. We can vacuum water. We can pour water – but these are on water’s terms. To paraphrase high school science: water does what water does.

That is also how to think about time. We act like we manage time, “time management”, but only in the same way we manage water: creating spaces for it to be.

You should read this book!

It’s difficult to review for the same reasons productivity feels important. We check things off a list. We progressed. We got-things-done. But are these the right metrics or just the easy ones?

Productivity isn’t the goal. Accomplishment isn’t either. Living. L-I-V-I-N (a similar book) is the goal.

How to live is a messy question relative to How to be productive.

But here’s a tip. An honest-to-goodness fact. This is as close to a guarantee as you’ll ever get.

Spend time with people. Optimize community. Aim for togetherness. Move from ‘me’ to unity. Move from ego to love. Less get more done, and more to-get-her.

Be that way. That’s a productivity hack.

3 thoughts on “Four Thousand Weeks (book review)”

  2. ✅ I really appreciated how grounded your review of Four Thousand Weeks was—especially how it centered on valuing time rather than productivity for productivity’s sake. That resonated with me because Atomic Habits taught me about systems, but I struggled to use them in a way that felt meaningful, not just mechanical. After I took a free execution quiz through Archetype6, I discovered I’m a Builder, and that shifted everything.

    Here are 3 takeaways I wouldn’t have reached without that insight:

    1. I realized that habits need to be small enough to honor time’s finiteness—not another to‑do item.
    2. The Builder-style workbook helped me embed micro-actions into life’s natural flow, without turning them into chores.
    3. Seeing how other Builders used gentle consistency to respect time, not force it, gave me room to rethink what progress really means.

    I’m experimenting now with intentionally pairing a tiny ritual with a meaningful pause each day—how do you think about balancing structure with reverence for time’s limits?

    Like

    1. Wow, now that’s a question. Honestly I have no idea.

      Each day is different, so I try to respect that.

      What might help is recentering phrases: no shame no blame, the obstacle is the way, chop wood carry water.

      The whole point of this show is figuring that out! Good luck Khalid!

      >

      Like

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