Book notes for Four Thousand Weeks
I’ve heard about Four Thousand Weeks: Embrace your limits. Change your life. by Oliver Burkeman everywhere. So I now decided to listen to it. I’ve experimented with listening to a new book directly as an audiobook.
Notes
When I first heard the concept of the book, I felt defeated. Four thousand weeks sounds like such a small number. But I think it is still an important concept and helps put things into perspective.
I liked the explanation of how we come to the current situation. Time is looked at as a resource now. This is a new concept starting with the industrial revolution. And due to this thinking, you now feel that you need to optimize it to earn more or do more. Without this change, there would be no reason for this at all. I certainly never looked at this topic from that perspective.
The author concluded that when he was known as the “getting things done” guy, the task he finished the best were usually the unimportant ones. It led to doing the minor task - to clear the desk, which took the whole day, not leaving any time for the bigger, more complex tasks.
The writer’s conclusion is to change your mindset to not see a day as a need to clear the desk. Focus your energy on what is essential at that moment. And tolerate that you don’t get everything done. I like his idea about this very much.
Regarding my experiment of listening to the book instead of reading it, I must conclude that it was a failure. It is undoubtedly convenient to “read” a book in such away. But for getting good notes and a deep understanding of the text, I need to have the words in written form. Perhaps it would work with a fiction story but certainly not for non-fiction.
Comments
@frostedechoes yep, it is everywhere. Was also the reason I looked at it. And I was curious about the 4000 weeks after I got over my shock that an average life has "only" 4000 weeks in it Oo
by V_ on
How to respond
Write your comment on your on page and link it to this page with the following link:
https://vmac.ch/posts/2021-12-16-four-thousand-weeks-review/
Then insert the permalink to your post into the form below and submit it.
Alternatively you can reach me by email to: comment@vmac.ch
@V_ It seems like everyone is reading this right now. @odd convinced me to put it at the top of my queue and I'm enjoying it.
by frostedechoes on