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.
The Waiter's Pad 