Four Thousand ADHD Weeks • A Book Talk Episode!
In his provocative book Four Thousand Weeks, author Oliver Burkeman confronts our culture's obsession with productivity and efficiency. He makes the case that with a limited lifespan of around 4,000 weeks, our pursuit of packed schedules and perfect work-life balance is ultimately futile.
Burkeman urges us to embrace the unchangeable reality that our time is finite. Only by accepting our human limitations, he argues, can we focus on what matters most and live with intention. Rather than desperately trying to find more time, we should recognize that time management is impossible. Every moment we gain elsewhere means a sacrifice of something else.
Confronting the brevity of life is daunting but also liberating. It allows us to pare down our priorities, say no to less meaningful activities, and zero in on how we truly want to spend the days we have. Presence becomes more important than productivity. With mortality as a guidepost, we can live each moment more purposefully.
The book is an enlightening take on time, work, and what makes life meaningful. Burkeman blends philosophical insights with practical advice to fundamentally reframe how we approach our use of time. Four Thousand Weeks is a compelling invitation to examine our values and construct daily routines that align with what we cherish most. Though our weeks are limited, we have the power to fill them with intentionality.
Links & Notes
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Pete Wright:
Hello everybody and welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast on TruStory FM. I'm Pete Wright and I'm here with Nikki Kinzer.
Nikki Kinzer:
Hello everyone. Hello, Pete Wright.
Pete Wright:
Oh hi. Fancy seeing you here on the podcast. We are continuing our conversation on time this season. And my goodness, you and I both ran into a book, slightly different times that is a bit mind-blowing.
Nikki Kinzer:
It really is.
Pete Wright:
A bit mind-blowing, wouldn't you say?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, we're talking about Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman, big fan of Oliver Burkeman or the Burke as I call him. We'll find out. [inaudible 00:00:52]. Oh, the Burke. Yeah, we're very tight in my head. I mean, he hasn't met me yet, but we're very close. And so we're going to be talking a little bit about that today and how the book has touched each of us differently, or maybe the same. All I can tell you is I have 1,352 weeks left, and that doesn't feel like a very big number.
Nikki Kinzer:
It doesn't, I know. I am right there with you. I have less weeks than you do.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, I know you have some weeks less than me. Oh boy, that's got to feel terrible.
Nikki Kinzer:
It does.
Pete Wright:
Okay, well, we're going to talk about this today. You should go check out the book. Find it at your local library or local bookseller, and we'll put links to that in the show notes. Before we dig into the conversation proper, you know what to do. Head over to Take Control ADHD, get to know us a little bit better. You can listen to the show right there on the website, subscribe to the mailing list on the homepage, and get an email with the latest episode every single week. You can connect with us, our Facebook, or Instagram, or Pinterest at Take Control ADHD. And you know what else? I have been posting more on both Threads and Mastodon, and so I'm trying it out. If you are on Threads or Mastodon, find me there. On Threads, I think I'm _PeteWright and on Mastodon I'm petewright@mastodon.social. We're going to see if maybe that's a place where some ADHD conversation should happen. I'm talking about all kinds of stuff. So anyway, that's where you can find us for all of the social stuff. And if you really, really want to get to know us where all the really good stuff happens, you got to jump into the ADHD Discord community, that it's super easy to get into the community chat channel.
Just visit takecontroladhd.com/discord, and you will be whisked over to the general invitation page and login. If you're looking for a little more, particularly if this show has ever touched you or helped you to understand your relationship with ADHD in a new way, support us directly through Patreon. Patreon is listener supported podcasting. With a few dollars a month, you help guarantee that we continue to grow the show and add new features and invest more heavily in our community. Just visit patreon.com/theadhdpodcast to learn more.
All right, Nikki.
Nikki Kinzer:
Hi.
Pete Wright:
Here we are, Four Thousand Weeks and counting.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
Now, so it was some months ago for our members. I did a placeholder episode on this book.
Nikki Kinzer:
You did.
Pete Wright:
And then you told me you were reading it, and that made me note that you had not listened to my placeholder episode, so we've got to get you subscribed to that show, Nikki.
Nikki Kinzer:
I know, I'm sorry. I was hoping that maybe you didn't notice that part.
Pete Wright:
Well, it was when you said, "I found this new book that is new to me and everybody that I know," and I was like, "No, it's not. No, it's not. Stop flexing right now."
Nikki Kinzer:
Now is it not new, I've already talked about it somewhere else.
Pete Wright:
We've already done a podcast on it. I thought that was very funny. I am delighted that you have been reading the book. I'm really delighted, because I think it is a fascinating way to look at how we rationalize time on a larger scale. So I would love for you to start-
Nikki Kinzer:
It's changed the way that I look at it for sure.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. How so?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. Well, first of all, I just want to tell you that from not paying attention to placeholder, I admit that I was not paying attention. I've been working in a bookstore, because Eugene, Oregon still has a bookstore, believe it or not. I told a client that I was working in Barnes and Noble and she's like, "You still have one of those?" I'm like, "Yep."
Pete Wright:
You go set up your laptop at Barnes and Noble and work?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, yeah. It's pretty cool with the little coffee area and everything. Anyway, I was going and looking around, because the problem with going to a bookstore to write and work is that you see all the books around you, and you want to look at them. And Four Thousand Weeks stood out this bright yellow book and it says, "Time management for mortals." I'm like, "I wonder what this is." And I started flipping through it and I'm like, "Yeah, okay." And I put it back.
And then not even a day later somebody, it came back to my attention and I thought, "Okay, this is strange. I have to pay attention to this." I'm always looking for signs from the universe. So if this is coming in my universe, I know that I have to pay attention to it. And then I'm talking to you and you're like, "Yeah, hi. Did a podcast about it already." I'm like, "Okay, I really need to pay attention to it."
And once I did buy it did, it blew. It blew me away because what put me in a tailspin is how fast a week goes by in my world. And just in my own little personal world, a week just goes by so fast. And it really just got me to think, "Wow, if we really only have 1,000," and me, I would have 1,300 weeks left or whatever. It really makes you think about, "Well, how am I spending my time and is it the way that I want to spend it?"
And of course I think about my clients, and planning, and the membership, and how does this relate to our to-do lists and our priorities. And it was really just a lot to process, and I'm still processing it. I'm still trying to figure that out.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Yeah, I think so too. And it's an interesting thing. He's done so much good stuff, not only his two books that I have read. The other one is The Antidote, which is Positive Thinking for People who Hate... I always butcher the subtitle. It's a wonderful book as well. It's like Happiness for People Who Hate Positive Thinking or something like that, which is another really wonderfully provocative title, and the book is excellent.
He's also done a number of short form series for the BBC, and one of them is on busyness, and you can find it in Audible. It's on, are we really busier than ever? Because we feel that way.
And the upshot of that is technically no, we're not busier than ever. We've just applied more impossible structure to live underneath the activities that we're doing, and the expectations for those activities are different. And so we're really not any busier than our ancestors. We just feel worse about it, and we assign more emotion to the feeling of busyness than we ever have.
And I just love that message paired with Four Thousand Weeks, the whole idea of understanding finitude. The fact that we're going to die, we're going to die, and the clock is ticking. How are we using the time that we have to do what is most important to us?
Nikki Kinzer:
Well, and even the very first sentence of the book, just caught me. It says, "The real problem isn't our limited time. The real problem is that we've inherited and feel pressure to live by a troublesome set of ideas about how to use limited time." We have this incredible pressure on ourselves if we're doing it right. Are we spending our time right? And then it goes into choices. I mean, this is a big part of what he's talking about.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, for sure. That's the huge takeaway for me is recognizing that our time is limited, which is something we're already doing. But we do it on a micro scale, which is a veil of distraction. The distraction is, "Oh my gosh, my week is so busy. I'm trying to get so much done this week before the holiday, before whatever, that I lose track of the fact of opportunity cost." I'm losing track of the opportunity cost that comes with those decisions to get things done.
And I find myself falling prey to the thing that I felt like I had already solved in my life, which is other people's stress are not my stress. I've said that for years. And when I'm compromised, Pete, I fall prey to that, and I feel the inbox filling up and I realize, "Oh my gosh, I now have to get back on that treadmill and I have to solve all the problems for everyone every time, and I have to do it super, super fast." And this book makes me stop and say, "Why again? Why am I doing that?"
This is what he talks about, the efficiency trap. The pursuit of efficiency for its own sake that leads to a counterproductive outcome and ends up making me less productive by being sucked into trying to do so much and trying to be so rigid in the things that I do. So anyway, I've jumped into lessons. That is the first big one for me, is figuring out how to live with a finite focus.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, it does. It takes you into a tailspin is what I like to say.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, for sure. We talk about the shame that comes with feeling like I'm not doing enough, even though I'm doing all I can. I think that's an interesting one, and it's one that particularly with ADHD, my reflection is yeah, I am often questioning whether or not I'm doing enough. I'm questioning whether or not I'm doing enough, without actually asking the question, what is enough?
Nikki Kinzer:
It does. Not only what is enough, but what is the purpose of everything? Because I think that especially when it comes to prioritizing and figuring out what you want to focus on... And this just isn't work, how do I prioritize work? How do I prioritize my life? We have these big buckets of different areas of our life, and where are we spending the most time? Are we spending time where we want it? And I don't think we do enough reflection to really figure out what it is that we want to really know if it's good enough.
So I think it's taking really an inventory of, "Okay, here I am. This is the stage of my life. What is going good and what am I lacking?" And it just really puts a different perspective on the choices you make.
And I think letting go of the shame. How can you feel at peace for not being able to do everything? Because you can't. We have to make hard choices. That was the thing that really resonated with me is that he's like, "You have to make hard choices," and you're going to have to make choices not only on what not to do, but making choices on the things that you want to do, but you can't do right now, or maybe ever. Right? Yeah. That's hard.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. This is the question for me of, what he talks about is being present. And for me, that's a question of identity. Do you know who you are? When you show up to something, and I'm saying show up in quotes here. When you show up, do you know why you're there? And I think a lot of us don't. We show up and we're busy, and as Burkeman calls it, we're busy for busyness' sake. And that challenge of that is that we lose track of the longer term focus on what we are best at, and what we are happiest doing, and what our sort of purpose is.
And so for his term, asking us to be present whenever we do anything is to say that's where meaning lies in our lives. We talk about it in some really superficial terms, like put down your phone when you're spending time with family, play more board games, whatever it is. I'm just saying in Burkeman's terms, showing up and being present can look like a lot of different things, as long as it looks like meaning to you.
And it's like the old adage looking at a painting of dogs playing poker. I don't know art, but I know what I like. You know it when you feel it, and it's okay sometimes to listen to your gut, and to practice listening to your gut, especially if you have a history of not trusting your gut.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Pete Wright:
Learning to trust your gut is important, and I think we have a hard time doing it. But your gut will tell you when things feel right. And when you are present, you'll feel it. You'll feel it.
Nikki Kinzer:
I think you get a little sense of joy. specially if it's something that you're really engaged in, you get that joy for sure.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. So that's the high level, that sort of mindfulness piece, that mindfulness and acceptance piece is just saying, "Look, here's the premise, and it can be a dark one. Our time is limited." But once you accept that and you recognize it, then you're accepting your first grand limitation, that is real and you cannot change it. It is something we will all have to face. And once you accept that limitation, it makes it easier to accept, I think, other limitations in our lives and look at them as potential strengths. Because again, it goes back to opportunity costs. Once I realize I can't do everything, then I'm also free to do just about anything.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's heavy. I like it.
Pete Wright:
It's not my gig.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, no, but I mean-
Pete Wright:
That's why this stuff is so important.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. It's interesting, because he was talking about at the beginning of the book anyway, this whole concept of, "If you get caught up, don't let that fool you because you're never caught up. More stuff will just come your way."
Pete Wright:
Right. The productivity paradox.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right, yeah. And so I think that what you just said speaks to me in the way of, okay, I can do... I think it's being able to focus and not get so distracted by the other stuff allows you to do more.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. And it allows you to focus on something that I think we all fall prey to, at least from living in our community and feeling like having a handle on what our people say, which is busyness as avoidance, right? This is the veil of productivity that happens when you think just because you're busy, you're productive, when really you are avoiding something important, right? We talk about this all the time. In Burkeman's parlance, we're avoiding facing the existential realities of life. That's a broad statement. I'm just talking about we're avoiding calling the insurance company. That may be the case.
But I think that's the message for me is thinking about how, again, once we accept those limitations and realize what we're capable of doing, how does that play into daily time management? How does that play into accepting the fact that we only have 24 hours in a day, and eight of them are self-care, sleeping hours, whatever that looks like for you? How does that manifest in connecting the here and now, which is where our ADHD brains are focused, and the hereafter now, the remaining 1,352 weeks in my life?
Nikki Kinzer:
What did you think about his take on time management methods and things that have been... The popular things without naming popular things, the methods and strategies around time management in the past?
Pete Wright:
He doesn't think very highly of them.
Nikki Kinzer:
No, he does not.
Pete Wright:
I've been talking too much. What did you think? I mean, this is his whole thing about misguided time management processes. How does it hit you? We're talking about time management all the time.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. And it's my world, right? I mean, I think he's right in a lot of ways. I mean, I think that it depends on how you interpret the message. So if you think that this particular method of time management is going to solve everything and you're going to all of a sudden get more done, you're misguided. Because I think that it's not about getting more done in a shorter period of time. Productivity, I think that that's a loaded word.
And I was talking to someone recently. They were inquiring about coaching services, and one of the things that they had asked or said that they were currently struggling with is the pace of their work. And I said, "Okay, so are you looking for coaching to increase that pace? What exactly are you looking for?" And what I'm listening for him to say is say, "Yeah, I want to do more in that amount of time." He's not going to get that from me.
So it was important for us to have that conversation and be very clear about, what is the end goal? Is it around accepting that this is your pace, and somehow we have to let other people know that? Or is this the right job for you? Is this something that you have... How does this fit with everything else that you're doing? I mean, there's a lot more question around that than just, "Let's do more in a small period of time."
And if you think a planner or a time management system is going to fix you, it does not fix you. It's just a tool. And I catch people in GPS with this all the time where people will say, "I'm so frustrated because I just never get to the things I need to do, I never get to everything. I always stay in urgent."
And the harsh reality is that's not because of your toolbox. That's not because of the tool that is holding this information. That's a different problem. And that all comes down to prioritizing what is the most important, and how do we figure that out?
But the time management stuff is... I mean, I don't want to completely bash it because I think he does a little bit, but I think his point is true is that you have 24 hours in a day. We can't change that. What can you really do? And then there's pieces of things that you can take from experts or leaders in this field that are very helpful, but I think it has to be customized. It has to be for you.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Because really, what we're talking about is not the tool, and it's something you and I were talking about it this weekend. The language that we used to use around organizing and cleaning out your closet. Don't go to the store and buy all your new storage bins until you know what you're working with, what you need to put in it. And this is the same thing with time management tools. You got to know yourself and your own behavior, and you've got to figure out what your work is and how it fits in your life before. Otherwise, you get back into his efficiency trap.
And I love this idea. This is the belief that we can somehow outpace our limitations by being more efficient. We're trying to do more in the same amount of time. It's not really doing more with less, but maybe it feels like that, we have the same 24 hours and we're just trying to jam more in it. And that is an unsustainable cycle.
And so taking a step back, making choices and sacrifices allows you to be productive thoughtfully. Not by just jamming more tasks on your day and celebrating that you can get five things done in a day instead of three. That's not really what it's about. It's about making the choice to say, "Maybe I get one thing done at a day or two, but they're the most meaningful things to me and they're going to move my career, my identity, my family forward in a substantive way." And so that's a problem.
The challenge that I have, and this is one of the major challenges I have with the whole ideology that he's talking about here, is how do you approach this when you work in a world of incoming signal from people who don't read this book, people who don't agree?
I agree that this book forces you to ask a ton of questions about yourself, about how you deal with time, and work, and confronting limitations. And it's all great. But I still have people banging down my door saying, "Get this done, get this done, get this done. I need this by, I need this by, I need this buy." And so how do you relate? How do you set up the proper guardrails? Give you any thoughts?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes. And I think that this is the harsh reality that's hard to face, especially because what we're doing here is we're kind of talking hypothetical. But I'm thinking about that person that I talked to recently, and there's a pace issue.
So the question is, are the expectations flexible at all? So if you've had the expectation of you have to get 10 papers out in a day, right? I'm just making stuff up. And you're only getting five papers out, and you go to your boss and they say, "Nope, you have to do 10," and you can only do maybe six at your best. There's a conflict there.
So either the boss has to say, "All right, we're going to go ahead because your work is good enough and you're a great employee, we're going to go ahead and let you do six." Or the boss is going to say, "Nope, I need 10." You can't do 10, so you have to maybe look for a new job.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, that's the reality. And it feels like a sad reality at the time, but maybe it's not. Maybe it's a great deal.
Nikki Kinzer:
Well, it actually could be a very good reality because then, what you're doing is you're opening up a door for a different opportunity and a much better fit. If you can find another employer or some other kind of industry that actually fits with your ADHD, and your pace, and everything else on how you like to work, you're going to be a heck of a lot happier than trying to be in this one place that says, "Nope, you've got to do 10."
Pete Wright:
Yeah. And Burkeman calls this finitude as liberation, that we can fall into the trap of deep despair when we run into these kinds of conflicts. But his perspective is accepting these limitations. In this case, I can only do six, can be liberating if you choose to experience it that way. Because then you'll be forced to ask yourself, "What's really important? Was it really the six things that I got out, or do I need to let go of that as part of the process and try something new?" Because I appreciate I learned something about myself.
Nikki Kinzer:
And I just want to say with ADHD in particular, not to feel bad about that because-
Pete Wright:
And that's the hardest part.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's the hardest part because you have so much shame around, "I should be able to do 10, everybody else can do 10." And I think that that's the hardest part, to be able to say, "I'm doing the best I can, and this is who I am, and this is what I can deliver." Knowing that you are doing what you can, working through that.
And I hope that you do, because it's not your fault. It's not something to feel bad about, even though I know you do. That shame is so unnecessary, because it's just two different expectations. And theirs could be completely off the rail. I don't know. But that's the part that hurts me is I know that that shame is so hard to get past.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. You made note here of the three main principles that you liked out of this book that hit you home, pay yourself first.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. So I think that a lot of people have seen this probably on the internet, but there's a professor and he's got this jar, right? And it's a whole night time management kind of story. Do you put your big rocks in the jar first, or do you start with the little pebbles and sand and all of this? And the whole theory is that you want your big rocks to go in first, and so everything else kind of falls into place.
And what I thought was interesting is that he says, "The real problem with time management today though isn't that we're bad at prioritizing the big rocks. It's that we have too many big rocks that never even make it near the jar." And I think that that's what really resonated is I thought that's so true, because I always hear about there's just so much to do and they're all important. The rocks just don't fit.
And so he talks about these three principles around these extra rocks. And the first one is pay yourself first. And this really hit, because when I talk about time blocking, one of the very first things that I recommend is that you time block your personal time. Where do you need to exercise? Where do you need to have connection, and what do you need? And time block that first.
And that's exactly what he's saying is that if you have a certain activity that really matters to you, the only way it will happen is to do some today, no matter how little, no matter how many big rocks may be begging for your attention. Accept the consequences, if you don't schedule yourself first, there will never be a time that you'll get to it. There will never be a time when everything is done, and now I have free time to do this. And boy is that the truth.
And that's why we talk about intentional planning, is if you really need something into your life, plan that first. And he goes into more detail about how when you do it that way, the other things, they find their place. But when we do it the opposite way, which is what everybody in my world does, including me, is I schedule everything around work and everything else first. And then I think I'm going to get to my personal time. Then there's no time.
Pete Wright:
There's no personal time.
Nikki Kinzer:
So we have to flip that.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
I think that's really important.
Pete Wright:
I think that's eyeopening for me too, and I think it forces you to really look at, what are the most important things? He talks about the Warren Buffett example, which we've been talking about a little bit over the last few days, which is this whole idea that say you have 25 priorities or goals in your life. In Buffett's parlance, choose five and leave the rest, right? Because as you were just talking about, those are not second tier priorities. It's not a conveyor belt of priorities that you're working through. Like when you finish one, you'll get to another one. Because if you look at it that way, to your point exactly, you'll never turn to yourself. You'll always have another giant rock looming over you.
So I like the idea of facing that as a limitation that says, "There are things in my life that I know I'm not going to have time to do, I'm not going to be able to take on. And they'll just have to exist as potential for someone else, for another life, another day," whatever. They can't be a part of mine, because I can't take care of myself and do all of these things at the same time.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right. And I think when I was reading about that, it's also that they become distractions. And that's so true, because we start seeing everything that we need to do or everything that we want to do, and it's too much. And if he chooses five and he leaves the rest, if you can really leave the rest, they're not distractions anymore. So then all of your focus is on these five things, and you actually make progress. You actually get to see some of the work that you do. That was important for me to think about for sure.
Pete Wright:
This is why I like time blocking, because time blocking treats time as currency, and I already know how to budget my money. I love YNAB. So a calendar is just YNAB for time. A task management system is a YNAB for time.
Nikki Kinzer:
Absolutely.
Pete Wright:
As soon as I make that pivot and look at it that way, then I realize I have line items that are about just me, that aren't about people leaping into my calendar. They're about me eating, and sleeping, and playing board games with my family. And when I'm doing that, because I have that time blocked, I'm liberated, because I don't have to think about the other stuff. I don't have to think about the phone beeping all the time. I can just play a board game.
Nikki Kinzer:
Part of presence too, right?
Pete Wright:
Yeah. It's so hard to do. I say all of this with a giant caveat, that it's hard to build a practice around this, but that doesn't make it less important to at least ask yourself, "How do you relate to this, to these concepts?"
Nikki Kinzer:
I am so glad I found this book, and I'm so glad that you did a podcast on it already. And I can assure you, I'm going to listen to it when I'm on my holiday break. And it will be something that I will continue to talk about, we're going to continue to talk about. I think it's so important.
I really think that he touches something that we probably all know in some way. And we know this, we know we're all going to die. We know that nothing is guaranteed, but I don't know. It just really gets me thinking about, how do I want to spend today? How do I want to spend this week? And if I'm feeling too busy and I'm feeling too overwhelmed, what can I let go of and let that go? I don't know. It just really makes you check yourself.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, it does. Just as my last point, that the idea that so much of what he's talking about in here does align with so much of my kind of internal belief system. Hand to glove, talking about rituals and routines, and the things, the habits that we can build to help us get through our days. He does lean in on that. That stuff gives us structure. It gives us a scaffolding that exists to support our values.
And that's the most important bit to me, is that I already know about the rituals and habits for getting things done. But to realign those rituals and habits around our values, the things that are most important to us, that I think is the bigger question.
And my hunch is that a lot of folks out there listening to this very show might not know, might not be able to say, "I know what my values are. I know what I stand for. I know what I'm working toward in my life and what's most important to me," because there are a bazillion little signals running around in our heads all the time, and they're all important.
And so this is a call to slow down and think about it. Think about what you stand for, and what are the things that you want to do with your precious, precious time that you have left.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's right. I love it. Thank you Pete Wright.
Pete Wright:
Oh, thank you, Nikki. This is great. I'm glad we came back around to it. And thank you everybody for downloading and listening to the show. As always, we appreciate you so, so much. We appreciate your time and your attention. Don't forget if you have something to contribute to the conversation, we'll be in the show talk channel in the Discord server, and you can head over there and join us by becoming a supporting member on patreon.com/theadhdpodcast at the deluxe level or better. On behalf of Nikki Kinzer, I'm Pete Wright, and we'll see you next week right here on Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast.
