Beyond Busy Episode #98 - Oliver Burkeman
Graham Allcott 0:04
Hello, happy new year. And welcome to the first episode of beyond busy for 2021. This is the show where we talk productivity, work life balance, and how people define happiness and success. All the big questions for work and life. My name is Graham Allcott. I'm your host for the show. And on this episode, I'm talking to Oliver Burkeman. He's the former Guardian columnist with his column, this column will change your life. He's also the author of a couple of brilliant books, including one of my favorite books, The Antidote, which we're going to talk a little bit about, and seeing as he has probably for his sins, read more self help books than anyone else. I just thought he'd be the perfect first guest for 2021. New Year, new you and all that stuff. Although, yeah, it's a new year, same old shit. Isn't the moment. So? Yeah, if you're tuning in, as this goes out, obviously, we've just gone into this new national lockdown the final straight against COVID-19. Yeah, it feels pretty rough. And I think, certainly I came at Christmas feeling like, okay, when was the holiday thing? When am I supposed to feel better and energized. So if you're feeling like that, I totally feel you. And you're not alone, I'm going to be doing a lot more. I'm going to be really, really trying hard with my Sunday emails rev up for the week, which goes out every Sunday to just really keep your spirits up over the next few weeks. So if you're not signed up to that, just go to Grahamallcott.com. And I'm just putting out a positive or productive idea every Sunday to just get you revved up, and just keep your spirits going in this really difficult period that we're in right now. So the first episode for the new year, I'm just getting the office backup to shape and going through some big changes actually in the shed down here at the bottom of my garden, basically turning half of the office into a kind of film set so that I can do so I can record some digital courses. So I can have a really nice background when I'm on zoom calls, and when I'm on webinars and that kind of thing. So yeah, really just kind of embracing the whole, like camera friendly angles, and all that sort of thing. And just putting a bit of thought and design into that. So we're doing that bought lots of film care, which has been a sort of fun, geeky little project. And yeah, we're getting down to some filming over the next few weeks. So excited about that excited just to be back into the sort of day to day work. It's been a few weeks for me to the last couple weeks off before Christmas, and nice to be getting back into things. And also just for us, I want to say thank you if you've bought a copy of how to have the energy, my book with Colette Heneghan, we put an episode out just for Christmas with me and Colette talking about the book, which we'll put a link to in the show notes getbeyondbusy.com. We also put a link in the show notes, obviously to the "How to Have the Energy" book. But yeah, we got off to a really good start with it. Unfortunately, all the book shops are closed now now So yeah, that's not going to be helping our sales. But it's selling pretty well on Amazon. Good rankings on there good reviews on there. And yeah, we're pretty pleased with how we've got off to a good start. So if you haven't bought how to have the energy, please do. These podcasts are free, they'll always be free. We try and keep the advertising and the sponsorship in the plugging to an absolute minimum. And I guess what I'm saying is what i'd love in return is just when I've got a book out, please just go buy the book. That's all I'm asking. So if you get some value from these episodes on a regular basis, then please go to bookshop.org or go to Amazon and buy a copy of how to have the energy that would make me very happy. And please do tag me in it. And let me know on LinkedIn and Instagram that you bought it and that will just help us to spread the word as well. So how to have the energy to buy it. So let's get into this episode's Oliver Burkeman, as I said, if you've not checked out his book, the antidote, it's just really brilliant and really worth a read. And he's someone who really embraces positive thinking, but from a very kind of cynical perspective. So the antidote is happiness for people who can't stand positive thinking, and just really logical and philosophical and I just really enjoyed this conversation so much. So let's get straight into the episode. This was recorded just for Christmas. dandelion on zoom, because Oliver is in the States. So let's get cracking. Here's my conversation with Oliver Burkeman. I'm here with Oliver Burkeman.
Oliver Burkeman 4:35
I'm really good.
Graham Allcott 4:36
Yes, I think this is the first one I've recorded in the dark. Right, which is a symptom of me being in Brighton in the UK and new being in Brooklyn, New York.
Oliver Burkeman 4:45
Yes, it's not going to be long until it gets dark here but it's but it's five hours earlier in the day. So it'll be a while.
Graham Allcott 4:50
Yeah, jealous as the sun streaming through your window there. If you're watching this in visual form, so this recording
sort of catches you at an interesting moment in your working life. Because you've been writing this column for many years I've been a big fan of this column will change your life. Since 2006, right?
Oliver Burkeman 5:12
There's a lot of saying Yes, yeah. People, one or two people have pointed out to me before, and it's it's always a shock to me to realize that they're saying something that you may not be doing over there. But they're generally reading it as a compliment. It's like, wow, it's such a consistent long running thing. The first thing I think, then it's like, oh, my God, how old Can I be? Yeah,
Graham Allcott 5:33
anyway. And so just for anyone who hasn't read the column, I mean, what was quite funny was when I, I just googled, this column will change your life. And the Guardian gets you to the page of the most recent ones. And then at the bottom, it says, we found 669 occurrences of this column, which
Oliver Burkeman 5:52
Shocking yeah, yeah.
Graham Allcott 5:54
I mean, it's just an astonishing just number to see in relation to writing, because each of those pieces is presumably something that, you know, you have to obviously really think about and spend time on like, they're all kind of little, little babies in a way, aren't they? Like, when you write things like that?
Oliver Burkeman 6:11
They are, though I do you also think that like the discipline of, of newspaper deadlines, and the whole newspaper process is, is really a good one. You sort of, you have to try to come up with the right idea if you're trying to come with a really good idea. And then you have to write whatever idea you've come up with, even if it's not a really good idea, you know, it's like, and you discover lots, you know, that's when you discover that actually, the idea is you are much less confident about turned out to be the more popular columns. And, you know, nobody knows anything, as they say.
Graham Allcott 6:41
Vice versa, probably to write the ones that you really confident on.
Oliver Burkeman 6:45
Yeah, like, you know, maybe maybe people don't respond to those as much. Absolutely, yeah. So it's just been a really good, it has its downsides, that kind of discipline and that kind of work. rate. But there's something very useful if you're a sort of a bit of a perfectionist, and a bit of a control freak, like lots of us are and I certainly am. It's slightly pizza to have these kind of very hard and frequent deadlines. Yeah.
Graham Allcott 7:13
Yeah, for the last maybe three or four months, I've been doing a weekly email newsletter, and even just that, as someone who's used to writing sort of longer form, stuff like long blog posts or books, just to put something useful out there every week, I've really valued the discipline of that more than I thought I would actually Yeah, yeah. So that's been really an interesting lesson. But the column itself, so essentially, I mean, one of the things that I really love about it is that you, you analyze the self help industry, and positive thinking and psychology and these kind of areas, sometimes with the lens of a sort of wide eyed student, and more often with the eyes of a kind of cynic. There's a line in help where you talk about being, it's like, you're the foreign correspondent, like reporting back on the self help industry. So I guess my first question was like, why did you start it? Did you feel like you wanted to gain knowledge? Or did you start it from a really cynical place? I'm just like, really interested in how it came about in the first place?
Oliver Burkeman 8:18
I mean, I think I think it was a little cynical. At first, I think I got less cynical. But I think it was a kind of a defensive cynicism, right. I mean, I think this happened, because my editor at the time, on Guardian, weekend magazine, American Mills noticed that I was always reading these kinds of books, you know, certain, more of the sort of, I think, more kind of time management and productivity books than, like, how to deal with your deepest emotional problems, kind of books, but but you know, I don't think anybody really has an interest in anything, unless they, in some sense, struggle with it, and have an investment in it. So I think it would be hard to maintain, you know, a completely jaded attitude towards something like self help if you did that. If your attitude was literally like, this is worthless, like why why would you Why would you do it? And, and certainly what happened is the columns and years progressed was that though it was always fun, and remained fun to sort of tease and mock the worst excesses of this genre. The really interesting part was actually the value in it and and it was more fun in a way to kind of provoke my readers to be like to put aside some of their cynicism than it was to sort of snark at the at the people who sort of deserved some of that cynicism. Because, yeah, I think that, you know, maybe I'm just a little bit older than I was, and that's it, but like, I think, you know, anyone would anyone who claims that they are not interested in, in learning a bit more about happiness or in figuring out how to deal with whichever of their particular, you know, hang ups and neurotic tendencies they have I think, anyone in that who says that just probably hasn't doesn't know themselves well enough yet.
Graham Allcott 10:20
No one's too cool for happiness, are they?
Oliver Burkeman 10:23
Well, I think a lot of people are like, on the outs in their outside bearing, but you're exactly right. No, exactly. It's not it's not a thing that you're sort of that anyone is actually uninterested in, even if their form of being interested in it is, is to be jaded and mocking. So, it came from a slightly strange and a sort of maybe have to face place, in a sense, but I think part of the journey of doing it was, was to become sort of the other thing that happened, you know, much more confident about just writing about this stuff and saying, Yeah, you know, we care about this stuff. And I know, readers care about it, and I care about it. The other thing that sort of happened around me over that time was that was that these genres of advice, writing, and how to stuff in general became, I think, a lot more sort of socially acceptable. And it's, and sort of signed, typically backed in some cases, and, you know, all sorts of kind of publishing genres cropped up that have a sort of self help aspect to them without being the kind of, you know, thinking Grow Rich, kind of kind of classic, original self help books. So, you know, I mean, half the most popular stuff on on online is always practical, tactical information and ways to ways to do things. And that wasn't really the case in like, 2000. Yeah.
Graham Allcott 11:58
Yeah, I suppose 2006. The other way to think about it is it's the era pre Instagram and pre Twitter and pre Facebook, roughly around the time of Facebook, I suppose.
Oliver Burkeman 12:09
Yeah. I don't know. Facebook. Twitter was 2009. I think, wasn't it, though, really sort of the main iteration of it, perhaps?
Graham Allcott 12:15
Yeah. 2008 2009? Yeah, that but like, yeah, that whole sort of culture that, as obviously developed around that, I guess, is a culture of very, very short snippets, little quotes, vignettes being shared all the time on Instagram, and Twitter, and Facebook, and so on. So it becomes a thing that people just have in their psyche, maybe a little bit more than they did just the whole self help kind of world, right.
Oliver Burkeman 12:45
I think another effect of social media, especially, in many ways negatively, but in some ways positively is it is this sort of direct pipeline to people's unedited, quick, impulsive, emotionally driven thoughts? And, you know, there in lies all the trouble of social media and political polarization through social media and all the rest of it. But it is also kind of, you know, it's, I think it's become much more normal to talk about the ordinary psychological challenges that you face through just being human. Yeah. This whole kind of movement about the D stigmatization of mental health and depression and anxiety, and all the rest of it is part of that. But it's also just like, I mean, it would have been unthinkable before social media to have, you know, people with reputations to defend in the world talking in any way, in this kind of intimate way about any kind of struggle, and I don't just mean, you know, the occasional celebrity Who, who, who talks very candidly about really serious mental health issues. I just mean, the ordinary notion of having a very, like being overwhelmed by your to do list, right. I mean, it wouldn't occur to you that the historian you saw talking on a on a TV documentary, or the journalist whose book you were reading, or whatever it was, it wouldn't occur to you that that to think that that person might be as overwhelmed by their to do list as you and now we're all complaining about it all the time in the kind of more intimate forum.
Graham Allcott 14:16
Might have the same kind of struggles as you I mean, that's right. Right. Yeah. Is that just an interesting thing? So I wanted to get into the the last column that you wrote, where you talk about eight secrets to a fairly fulfilled life. Now, just before we do that, though, just back to the beginning. So your interest in productivity, I think maybe was a similar. You had a similar route into it to me, which was David Allen, getting things done and Merlin man and 43 folders like that. Those are themes that and people that come up quite a lot in your work. So is that the starting point for you? Is there anything before that?
Oliver Burkeman 14:51
I mean, I think there were things before that in my life, but I think Yes, that was the sort of wave that was cresting just as I got into it, and so was very influential on my, on my earliest sort of the writing that I was doing it as a grown up. I mean, I think as I think as long back as I can remember, I have always been on the, you know, slightly geeky color coded revision timetable side of the, of the human continuum. And I don't think that all my urges towards, you know, figuring out productivity and getting in control of my workload, et cetera, et cetera, I don't think they're all necessarily that healthy. And part of what I've written about most recently, and you can we can talk about it is like, is partly the sort of coming to terms with the limitations of those kinds of ways of thinking, but but in terms of stuff that really did make a difference. I mean, I think David Allen, and getting things done is retains a sort of extraordinary influence over this whole field, as far as I'm aware of it anyway. Even though I think quite a lot of that original system feels not appropriate to a lot of people's specific contexts, that that sort of basic idea that, you know, in this world of unlimited inputs into your life, you're going to have to have ways of storing them outside your head, you're going to have to be confident that you're capturing everything without needing to sort of keep track of it in your own head and endlessly scroll things on the back of your hand. That kind of things that seem to sort of echo certain aspects, as I understand it, of the stuff coming from computer science, about about the way that information is managed, you know, turning it into a context and personal personal information management. Yeah, obviously had a big
Graham Allcott 16:50
Yeah. And I think for me, it was the, the capturing everything, getting it out of your head. And then the regular review, were probably the two things for me and David Allen's work that, you know, just really stuck with everything else I've done since right, like huge influences this, this could get very geeky.
Oliver Burkeman 17:06
Oh totally and I would go there. So as the if you wanted to start if you wanted to not do you have to, you have to exert some influence.
Graham Allcott 17:14
When I might come back to Merlin man and inbox zero and stuff later. But um, let's talk about this eight secrets to a fairly fulfilled life and the word fairly in brackets. And essentially, what you're doing is boiling down the the eight biggest lessons from from your many years of of reading, you've probably read more self help books than most humans.
Oliver Burkeman 17:38
Another shocking thought, yeah.
Graham Allcott 17:39
That's a really interesting thing in itself.
Oliver Burkeman 17:41
Yeah, I sort of tried a little bit in that piece to back away from the idea that it was a summation of everything that I learned, I think that's kind of almost a crazy task to try to do.
Graham Allcott 17:55
Yeah.
Oliver Burkeman 17:56
Also, like, I've changed completely over the time. So it's very much like my life philosophy. Now, which I hope is better for experience and time and reading. But But who knows, I also wanted to make it tailored to the strange times in which we find ourselves, you know, I think there could be there are different times socially, socially, and economically, what may be different ways of thinking are more helpful. But you know, with all with, you know, gestures at everything, to use the internet terminology. With everything that's going on. I think that what I was trying to pick out a few things that might that might help in that context.
Graham Allcott 18:35
Yeah. So let's talk about those. And then I was also going to ask you, my follow up question was going to be what were the things that after you pass the deadline, and you've sent it off, he thought, I should have said that. And it should have been nine or 10. So let's, I'll give you a chance to fill those ones in afterwards if if your game for that. But let's just quickly rattle through the eight because I think this is just really valuable stuff and just a distillation of so many things. So the first one is that there's always too much to do. Tell us about that?
Oliver Burkeman 19:04
Well, I think this is kind of fundamental. And it's fundamental to the to the book that I've just been finishing up the the main draft of this. I think that an awful lot of productivity advice, this goes beyond productivity, but let's look at it in that context, an awful lot of productivity advice, is guilty of maintaining the illusion that if you follow this advice, if you get the right tactics and techniques, and you put in a hell of a lot of self discipline, you are going to get done everything important that that feels like you ought to be doing it in your life. And I just think there are two sets of reasons why this is just never going to happen. Right? Firstly, it's just that what matters isn't isn't totally malleable category. So there's no reason to believe that everything you want to achieve in your life will be achievable in the time that you have. Or that, you know, all the demands that other people placed on you, you'll necessarily have the capacity to fulfill. Like, why should you You're, you're a finite human with finite time, finite energy and that world is, is infinite. The other part, of course, is that in certain contexts, getting really, really productive and efficient at dealing with things, generates more things to do, and makes you busier by, by sort of creating this hyper efficient machine, that then effectively sucks in more work from the, from the outside environment. You know, this is Parkinson's Law, at its most, the most simple version of this, that that work expands to fill the time available for its completion. I think that, you know, I do try to stay on top of my email. But one thing I have learned about stay on top of your email is that the better you get at replying to email, the more email you get, because you, you generate, you know, replies to your replies, and so on. And so I think it's really important to start from the understanding that both the ambitions you can have and the demands that other people might make of you are liable to greatly exceed anything that you're capable of doing with a single finite life. Precisely because not because you I think people should despair and be resigned and be depressed and give up. But precisely because that I think empowers you to just sort of have the confidence to pick the things that you really want to focus on, and to let a bunch of other stuff fall by the wayside. Because if you're going to definitely be disappointing somebody in your life, then I think it's kind of easier to say, Okay, well, the goal of pleasing everyone is off the table. The goal of getting anything done is off the table. So what actually matters the most? And what trade offs given that I have to make trade offs, what what trade offs Am I going to make, if you don't do that, and you keep pursuing this feeling that you're one day going to get on top of everything. I think one of the things that happens in my experience anyway, is it you spend your whole life kind of like clearing the decks, doing the unimportant stuff, getting little things out of the way. But you don't really get them out of the way, because as previously mentioned, you just get more of them. And, and so you have to sort of, you have to decide what matters most to do and do it and kind of be willing to put up with some of the consequences of that. So it's kind of a that's why I think starting from the idea that there'll be always be too much to do is is really empowering. It also just, you know, cut you some slack, it tells you that the reason that you're overwhelmed is, and I think this is true, is a sort of structural phenomenon of the human situation, and the socio economic situation in which people find themselves not because you're a failure, and you haven't used enough energy and found the right tactics. But I think it is important to stress, you know, it's not just like, and therefore be resigned to your fate. I think it is an empowering message. I think it is the way to start making good decisions about what you're going to neglect, if you see what I mean precisely so you can do the things that matter the most.
Graham Allcott 23:13
Yeah, for sure. My, one of my best friends, when he first read getting things done, probably back around that time, 2006 something, something around there. He started implementing the sort of system part of getting things done, and was just finding himself in his house in the evenings really annoying his girlfriend because he was just trying to tick things off and get through the list. And he was just like, really relentlessly pursuing this end goal of like finishing everything. Yeah, yeah. And just finding himself getting more and more miserable. And I couldn't quite believe it, because I'd read the book too. And it seems to have really taken a lot of my stress away. But he you know, he's an engineer, like he had an engineering and sort of mind approach to it and found it really difficult to, you know, to switch off from the idea of the next thing to be done.
Oliver Burkeman 24:05
I mean, I think it's really interesting in the context, I mean, tell me if you don't want to geek out on David Allen's stuff too much. I really admire that book. And also, they've also said some couple of very nice things about my books, I don't want to be in a position of snarking back. I think that something that I missed, I don't think it's his fault in the writing of the book. But I think something that I missed is that that book is about and he says it right there on the front, you know, it's about functioning calmly, in the midst of having an overwhelming number of things to do. It is not about reaching the situation where you no longer have an overwhelming number of things to do. And, you know, you think you want to get to the point where you have nothing on your to do list, but that would be kind of terrible. No, it would be like gum. What would there be in your life if you have nothing that felt important and urgent to to do? I think the one place where I do sort of fault him a little bit is On this idea of the someday maybe list, which is the thing that you're supposed to put all your sort of grand ambitions that you haven't got time for right now onto it. And in my case anyway, that did sort of function as a, as a way to sort of postpone things that actually mattered, you know, because you say like, Oh, well, I'll get to that someday. In fact, you know, the only the only time it ever is now, really, so you've got to do some of those things that really matter right away.
Graham Allcott 25:28
Yeah, for sure. And I love this one, when stumped by a life choice, choose enlargement over happiness.
Oliver Burkeman 25:36
I'm in danger of this quote, getting attributed to me online, I've noticed they did make very clear in the article, this comes from a union psychotherapist, whose work I read Michael James Hollis, and who have interviewed. And there's a whole way of fitting this inter union psychology that we probably don't need to go into, right here. And now. But the basic idea here, I think, is that, you know, we're kind of terrible at predicting what makes us happy. There's plenty of research that I'm sure you're aware of about, you know, how difficult it is for people to predict what will make them happy, they really think that moving to a different city is going to transform their lives. And then they move and they realize that they brought themselves with them with all their, with all their existing problems or.
Graham Allcott 26:27
Houses is the classic one for me, right? You see so many people on the tube in London, and they're reading the free newspapers with the property porn. Yeah, back. And it's like, I've got three bedrooms, but and I'm miserable. But if I have four bedrooms, it'll all be fine.
Oliver Burkeman 26:41
Right? Right. Right.
Graham Allcott 26:42
People really fall into that trap.
Oliver Burkeman 26:44
Especially if you end up having to commute further to get to that house, which is far greater negative according to most of the research, then then the positive of the extra space. But also, I think maybe there's something a little bit suspect about happiness as the goal in the first place. I wrote about this a little bit in my earlier book. In some sense, by definition, we all want to be happy, because that's what happy means. But But you know, I think that making your life choices in terms of what you think will guarantee the most unbroken, upbeat moods is kind of a little bit strikes many people anyways, a little bit meaningless. And what's so great about this enlargement question, that will this choice enlarge me or diminish me is that what two things Firstly, I think it's very much in favor of growth, it's that idea of like, instead of separating the things that are going to make you feel cheerful from the things that are making to make you feel a bit scared, it separates the things that are going to be challenging, but in a good way, from the things that are just going to like make your soul shrivel. I remember a pointer in my decade or so ago here, when I was sort of vaguely carrying me to stop to go back to the UK from the US and I couldn't I couldn't work out what what made me happiest. But it was very clear after asking this question, that, at that point for me in my life, it would have been a sort of a retreat from things that needed confronting to do that. And I should.
Graham Allcott 28:24
Get back home.
Oliver Burkeman 28:24
Yeah, right at that point. And only for me, and this is not a rule about whether people who are overseas should go back home or not. But but just that you usually know, when you're trying to work out whether to stay in a relationship, leave relationships during a job leaving a job, you may not know which is going to make you happiest, but you do sort of usually know which one would be kind of running away from things and which one would be facing up to things and it can be either in every case, right, it can absolutely be the case that like staying in a marriage is the good challenge. And it can be the case that leaving a marriage is the good challenge, you know. But it's that idea of good challenge that I think you get in that idea of enlargement, but you don't get if you just try and think what's gonna make me happiest a year from now two years from now.
Graham Allcott 29:11
Yeah and sometimes you kind of have to have that. You have to sort of see things as like the vision in like three or four months time and look at that, rather than look at the pain that you might have to go through to get there as well. Right. Like you have to kind of.
Oliver Burkeman 29:25
Yeah, but yeah.
Graham Allcott 29:26
To work out what that gut feeling looks like.
Oliver Burkeman 29:28
Right now. Absolutely. And you also have to sort of separate kinds of pain, right? It's like, there are totally painful relationships that you shouldn't be in because they're painful or abusive, or whatever. And then there are relationships where like the pain is actually you being challenged on your bullshit and it's a really good opportunity to become a more a more mature person. Yeah,
Graham Allcott 29:46
The future will never provide the reassurance that you seek from it. I really like this one as well.
Oliver Burkeman 29:51
This whole thing is just me therapyzing myself, you know, I think that's what most good advice writing is. Anyway, so I think a lot of us take the approach, especially in uncertain times like these, that take the approach to planning that what we're trying to do when we set goals, or try to sort of set the direction of our lives, is we're sort of demanding that the future, we're demanding to know now in the present, but things are gonna turn out a certain way, in the future. And I think that's what worrying basically is, right? worrying is this idea that, like, if you keep, like, throwing a lasso around the future, if you keep like, trying to grab the future, and bring it and get it sort of in line, that at some point, you're gonna be able to relax and be like, okay, it's plain sailing from here. And I think it's really interesting to see that this is not just like, unlikely, but kind of, it's kind of like, systematic is intrinsically impossible, because the future hasn't happened yet. So literally, anything could happen at any moment. And what, and that's very liberating, I think, because it means that you can, you can totally plan, and you can absolutely make investments in the future. I'm not this is not a advice to sort of just like, be totally spontaneous in that annoying way some people have. But that, that you've got to sort of learn to separate the idea of investing in the future, from needing the future to go a certain way. And I am not too good at this. But any of any day that I managed to sort of just be curious about what's going to unfold instead of needing things to unfold a certain way, is, is a way better day. And especially with small children, because, you know, there's nothing guaranteed to make it harder to get a toddler dressed and out of the house than really needing the total to get dressed and on a specific schedule. And I think that's just an extreme case about how the whole world works. Really, you know, like, the less you really need things to go a certain way, the more interesting it is to just be present to the experience of how they how they end up going.
Graham Allcott 32:07
Yeah, kids really force the idea of being present on you.
Oliver Burkeman 32:12
Yes. And not being in control of the world. Yeah.
Graham Allcott 32:16
And it also reminds me of, there's perhaps the world's most stoic bumper sticker is one that I walked past on a camper van down the road from me and Brighton. And it just says, control is just merely an illusion. And whenever I go past that in my car, yeah, just thank you for the reminder, every single time,
Oliver Burkeman 32:36
I just think it's so lovely.
Graham Allcott 32:39
And a lot of people have been talking about imposter syndrome. I've noticed that it's cropped up a few times in, in recent episodes of this podcast, as well. And it feels like it's a very current issue on social media. And you know, people just talking about it a lot in general. And so you talk about it by saying the solution to imposter syndrome is to see that you are one. And did you put that in there? Because you'd noticed that it was a current kind of Zeitgeist II thing?
Oliver Burkeman 33:06
A little bit? Yeah, I'd have actually. I mean, it's also I have something I've thought about for a long time and to some extent, struggled with, although it's actually of these of these pieces of advice. It's slightly more one that I see in other people than my self, I think, but I think it is just incredibly. I've basically never got more positive feedback than a piece than to a piece I wrote very quickly years ago, which had the headline everyone is totally just winging it all the time.
Graham Allcott 33:37
Yeah, yeah.
Oliver Burkeman 33:38
Which was about some very minor mistake that Barack Obama had made. This all seems encrypted possibly long ago now that anyone has to be critical of time. Yes, it will be critical of the Obama administration.
Graham Allcott 33:51
And I remember when Obama used to do like something really minor, and it would be like a major news story for three days. Just getting credit. Everything's great right now. Absolutely, absolutely.
Oliver Burkeman 34:04
But yeah, that was just telling the story of how, like, you know, I feel like my whole process of growing up and becoming an adult was a one of us. Growing up throughout all that was one of realizing that I kept thinking there was somebody somewhere who knew what they were doing, you know, so you I, you grew up with a newspaper coming on the breakfast table every day you and you assume that, like, I found myself assuming that like, whoever puts that together really understands like the world and they know exactly what they're doing. You work in a newspaper office, it's just a constant chaos. Everyone's fighting fires all the time. So then you think, well, maybe it's people in government who know what they're doing. And then you know, you might know I'm sure you do know, one or two. I know one or two people who work in the sort of lower reaches of the civil service, whatever. No, they're just making it up as they go along as well and like, and it goes all the way through now, I think in recent years on both sides, the Atlantic this is a it's become a bit more, it's become a bit harder to ignore that, that, you know, people in positions of high authority can be deeply incompetent. I think it's not just because of the people who've ended up in those positions. I think it's also because of the nature of the challenges. Like, it's kind of absurd to think that anyone would know how to handle a global pandemic, which is not at all to say that many leaders shouldn't have done it much, much better, or defer to the experts much, much more than they did. But I, but there are all sorts of things built into the nature of our times that feel like, yeah, I mean, right, we are all going to be improvising here riffing as we go along.
Graham Allcott 35:42
As they're much easier to be caught out, if every single person that surrounds you has a camera on them, right?
Oliver Burkeman 35:50
Here, thankfully.
Graham Allcott 35:52
For our just reporting, MPs.
Oliver Burkeman 35:54
Knows completely completely. And so what I want to say in this, in this point really is just that, like, you, my imagined reader, you know, don't do anyone any service by thinking that it's just you who's an imposter. It's true that you don't know what you're doing. But this is universally true. And this still surprises me, right? Because I got a, I got a nice email in response to that article, from someone who is a pediatric doctor thing that it had, that it had helped him in various ways. And I was like, I realized then that I had was still guilty of thinking that my son's pediatrician, his doctor, was the last bastion of like, total authority, because I just completely trust, right? If there's any issue, you go to the doctor, and you just like this, I just hope this guy knows exactly what he's doing. This wasn't his doctor who emailed me, but it's just like, Oh, no, even medical professionals, on some level, winging it. And I think it is ultimately, very, very liberating. And I hope it will stop help some people stop beating themselves up for feeling like frauds, not not, because they need to sort of build up their confidence, but because they actually need to see that, you know, we're all we're all doing it.
Graham Allcott 37:11
It's also like, one of the things around COVID-19 is that the narratives have changed over time. And so Originally, it was the most, you know, obvious symptom of COVID is a continuous cough. And then more recently, they've come out and said, Actually, the most obvious symptom of it is if you lose your sense of taste and smell and and then you get people criticizing that and say, well, they don't know what they're doing. And it's like, well, they are winging it by the nature of it's a new virus that the science is new. And so like, we have to wing it when it's such a new, emerging changing thing, anyway.
Oliver Burkeman 37:47
Yes, I actually think if we were a bit more honest about that, it will be easier to see and maybe even to limit some of the effects of the really bad incompetence and irresponsibility that I think there has been, but like, I don't think you, for example, I don't think you helpfully, I don't think it's a helpful way of, of criticizing the president here, for example, were to use this rhetoric of him out of him being responsible for every single death that has happened, because I think that a very great and sort of well functioning president would also presided over a very large number of that. So actually, it's actually better for focusing the political criticism of people doing bad stuff. If we can be honest about the fact that on one level, all of us are just our are improvising. And then you see, there are certain people who are really, you know, improvising and shouldn't be in the roles that they are.
Graham Allcott 38:46
Yeah, I posted something recently, which was talking about our government here. And I was kind of saying, and it's really inspiring when you realize that people can get into positions of power when their their competence does not match their confidence. And then actually, you can take that as well, if Boris Johnson thinks that he can be the Prime Minister, then weak, you know, I can do anything with anything, right? Yes, yeah. qc basically. Yeah. Let's talk about a couple of the other ones. And then I want to talk about some other things as well. And this one really stuck out for me. selflessness is overrated.
Oliver Burkeman 38:46
Yeah. So what I wanted to say, here was that I mean, I mean, I think a little bit provocative and phrasing it in that way, I think, but what I really want to say here was two things. I mean, firstly, that a lot of people, I think, feel that to be a good person. They have to live with a kind of self denial, they have to they have to do things that they sort of find unpleasant to do and that, you know, we live in this world with so much sort of pain and suffering in it that if you're not really sort of sacrifice in a very serious way, you're not really decent. And then there's a bunch of other people who are always endlessly going on on social media about how selfless they are. And they're doing it for personal branding purposes, which isn't selfless at all. And I really just wanted to make the case for the idea that like, things that you deeply enjoy doing, there's like a, there's something, it's almost a little bit of a mystical point, I suppose. But like, there's, there's something meaningful about the fact that you really like, what you really like. And I think it often is a sign that that is something that like contributes to the world, that apart from the else, you'll have the motivation to do, I, I sort of rail against the idea that at a time of, you know, say in a pandemic, I don't think that. I mean, I think plenty of the people working in emergency services are astonishingly courageous and have just amazing stamina. I don't think that if that's not you, that means that you can't sort of make a Crucial Contribution, even if the Crucial Contribution is like busking in your local park, it's a safe social distance for everybody so that they find their so that the, you know, nurse on the way home from work has a slightly more uplifting experience or whatever. And so I i think it can be quite radical. And I'm sort of paraphrasing, as I say, in the piece, I'm paraphrasing Susan Piver, the Buddhist teacher here, but like, it can be quite radical sometimes for some of us to ask him what we would enjoy doing with our discretionary time.
Graham Allcott 39:19
Yeah, that line really stuck with me when I.
Oliver Burkeman 41:50
Interesting because actually, like, you know, I think it manifests in a lot of different ways. I think there's definitely a kind of gendered part of it, there's definitely like, women get the message in our society that like, they're going to make sure everyone else is happy, and, and, and healthy before they look after themselves. But I also think that in the world of productivity, which I think skews, I think it'd be fair to say skews male. There is also this kind of different kind of self denial, which is like, I can't feel good about myself until I'm on top of everything, and everything is done. And that's another reason why it's good to remember that you will never have everything done, because then you see how stupid it is to postpone feeling good about yourself until then. So there's this kind of self denial sneaks its way in, in all sorts of different ways. And I don't think it's usually very helpful, I think it causes people to sort of hate the socially beneficial things they do, and therefore end up doing less of them. And like, you know, do something fun, because because then you're going to keep wanting to do it. And whatever joy it brings to other people, it's gonna keep going and going and going, instead of, instead of taking this kind of enormous effort to try and do it for like, an hour a month.
Graham Allcott 43:10
As you as you're talking, they're just really reminded me of, there's a tweet that you wrote, and I was trying to get up on my screen, and I can't find it. But you you tweet a little while back, then it says something like, I'm reminding everybody, including myself that when you wake up in the morning, you don't start with a productivity deficit, bank account, and then you spend spend the day trying to get back to zero. Can you remember that?
Oliver Burkeman 43:34
No. I mean, actually, I remember that pretty much is that wording and I should have said, deficit is a better word, I think than that. But now I said you you don't start each morning in a sort of productivity debt. And then it's in the desert, and you spend the day like, desperately trying to get back to a zero balance. You might as well start from the thought that you start the day at a zero balance and like everything that you do his credit, in your in your bank account. Now, as a couple of people pointed out, you know, in a sense, if you're in a salary job, you do start the day in a debt like that you have to, you have to do and of course, plenty of people start the day in financial debt of the most literal kind.
Graham Allcott 44:16
And also, if you're freelance and or run a business, right, there's a, there's a need to generate,
Oliver Burkeman 44:22
you have to get things done. But I think that you don't have to. You don't have to add this kind of existential notion that you're not a good person or you haven't earned your place on the planet. If you don't do anything, like every morning, you get out, you could do absolutely nothing. It is true that for most of us that would eventually have some sooner or later, maybe sooner would have some bad consequences. But But I think that there's an important distinction that you still don't have to write, it's like, you're gonna want to, because you are not going to want to default on your rent or your mortgage, you're not going to want to fail to be able to feed your family. But, but there's something empowering about understanding that that is still on some level, a choice. And you did ask, by the way, if there were any like lines, I think they would have added to this that I thought about later, there's just one that springs to mind, because it's that same point, basically, which is a quote from sex therapist, coach, Sheldon cop, who wrote a book a long, long time ago now called if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him after a famous Buddhist saying, and he says, The trick is quit, right, you're free to do whatever you want. Exactly, right. You're free to do whatever you want, you have only to accept the consequences. And I think this is one of those things that like it really bears thinking about at some length, you know, because it's actually an incredibly powerful insight that sort of, I think, links a lot of the other stuff, I'm trying to say here that there is very little that you might feel you can't do in life that you actually can't do. It's just that I mean, there are some things but it's just that, it's just that there's a trade off, and you have to decide which trade offs you you want to make. And anyway, I just think that's a very sort of powerful idea when you find yourself railing against the world, and like the fact that you wish you could do certain things, and you can't just like, well, you maybe can, it's just a question that you have to, like, take full responsibility for what that's going to do to your life. And the changes will make your income or your relationship or to your, how much free time you have or something like that. So, um, I really like that. And.
Graham Allcott 46:51
Yeah, yeah, I definitely feel sometimes I can jump out of bed and already start to feel like, quit Graham, like, you know, to maximize the time, particularly on days, if I'm, you know, getting up earlier, or I know I have a lot on or whatever it's like, there are those days where just feels like a kind of sense of mission. Right?
Oliver Burkeman 47:10
Yeah, and nothing wrong with that. Right. It's just that I think that the mission should be to create some cool stuff in the world.
Graham Allcott 47:16
Yeah.
Oliver Burkeman 47:16
To have them to make people feel a bit happier to generate some income, as opposed to like, Can I just go out.
Graham Allcott 47:24
Or a swaging my own guilt, that's what's going on? Right? Like it is a there's a guilt If I don't take off these things today, or do these things today.
Oliver Burkeman 47:32
Right. And the great thing about remembering that you could have stayed in bed is that you get to feel brilliant about every single thing you actually did do. I think this is probably quite useful. Like even if it's in a really bad rut as well. I suspect like it's a good way to sort of, because you can put like brush teeth on this list. No one needs to see the list. Right. You can add made a cup of coffee, like you did a lot of things.
Graham Allcott 47:51
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. So you started talking about Buddhism there. And I noticed so you wrote this book, the antidote. Which was also want the one that I saw David Allen, speaking very highly of he was on. I think he was on Tim Ferriss podcast, and he was just raving about the antidote. And I thought, Wow, that's pretty cool.
Oliver Burkeman 48:11
Yeah, I'm, I'm, yeah, I'm, I'm aware of this. I've been told about this.
Graham Allcott 48:17
That must feel good, right?
Oliver Burkeman 48:19
Yeah. Yeah, no, absolutely.
Graham Allcott 48:21
That's cool. And so it's happiness for people who can't stand positive thinking. And I noticed that there's a couple of chapters in there where you talk quite a lot about stoicism. Buddhism, like, are those sort of areas where you've investigated and felt like, this is stuff that really sticks for me, like it really just felt like, you know, it was such a big influence on that book in terms of happiness. So those are ideas that in some ways a while they're the, the, the antithesis, the antidote of a lot of other productivity thinking?
Oliver Burkeman 48:54
Yeah, I think so. I mean, in the years since I wrote that book, and I do not claim the credit for this, obviously, stoicism has has got a really high profile. Now there are a ton of sort of accessible books on it. Buddhism was already in that state, I think, in the West, long before I wrote that book. And these ideas, they do all sorts of, they do resonate a lot. I don't think stoicism and Buddhism are kind of identical, but they do have a lot in common. And they do have a lot in common with them. All sorts of ideas that ultimately go back into sort of various spiritual traditions. If you go far enough back and kind of Hinduism or even Christianity, you know, you get to a lot of these same kinds of insights. I think the stoic stuff struck me as so powerful. Just because, well, it has a slightly positive thinking tinge to it. Write it full of stuff about how you know. It's not your circumstances that make you distressed. It's your beliefs you hold about your circumstances. But wherever As a sort of old school stereotypical positive thinker is going to say, and therefore you should change your beliefs so that they're really positive and happy ones. I think the stoic emphasis that I like is to do with like, bringing your beliefs into accordance with, with reality. Right? So it's, it's about sort of seeing the ways in which you have a kind of hysterical level of anxiety about something that doesn't need to be that bad. One of the things I talk about in the book is this idea of negative visualization, you know, really, really thinking through in detail how bad the thing you're worried about could be. And that helped me realize that, you know, I have spent, I had spent so much of my life sort of with a kind of nebulous notion, but total catastrophes were going to happen if I didn't do this, or that or stay on top of this work or excel in this university exam, or whatever the heck it was. And sort of positive thinking approach is to say, No, no, you're going to do well, you're going to get it done, you're going to get a really good grade, just visualize getting an A, and you know, you're going to, but the negative visualization approach is to say, Okay, let's assume it does actually go wrong, and the way that you fare would that be the sort of world ending apocalypse that you're, that you're visiting? And once you see that that's not the case, in almost every context, once you see that, you know, there would be some future for you, the day after you, you know, screwed up that article, or didn't get a great result in that exam. It's much more calming and apart from the nails actually leaves you in a better position to try to perform well, at whatever the challenge is. So that was really helpful to me in in the stoicism. Part of it.
Graham Allcott 51:51
Yeah. And it's like, people, you know, it's a cliche, what's the worst that can happen? But it's actually not a rhetorical question. Is it? Like, if you start to actually visualize that, then it's, it's incredibly freeing?
Oliver Burkeman 52:06
Yeah, no, I think it really is, I mean, there's sort of two levels to it, right? There's the there's the everyday way in which we go around, worrying about some minor thing as if it was equivalent to like an asteroid falling on our house. And then there's the way in which we worry about genuinely terrible things happening. Either on a sort of planetary or political scale, or to people we love. And even there, it's different, because those things really do matter. And it's not sensible to sort of pretend that they're nothing. But even there, I think you there's something really beneficial to be gained from, from sort of understanding that they're not like, nothing is going to kill you, except the thing that kills you. And, and In the latter case, you're not going to be around to worry about it. So so. And, you know, there are just so many stories on sort of what's now called post traumatic growth, you know, people, people thriving, after the most terrible experiences, precisely because they have had to confront things that like none of us would ever reasonably choose to take a front. So that's the sort of extreme version of that is, yeah.
Graham Allcott 53:23
So let's jump to the other extreme of stoicism and Buddhism. So I think is it in the antidote? Or is it in help where you talk about, you read a book by Brian Tracy called goals? And it just, it just really made me laugh.
Oliver Burkeman 53:42
I'm still slightly beating up on him in my new book that I've just done. Nothing ever changed. But I think it feels like punting up you know, I don't I don't want to I don't want to be mean about people who have a smaller profile on me or a smaller fortune, but I think he can cope.
Graham Allcott 53:56
I think I think he's doing all right.
Oliver Burkeman 53:58
Yeah, exactly.
Graham Allcott 53:59
You just you described it as like, it was a book that put knots in your stomach or something like the way you described, it was just like so funny.
Oliver Burkeman 54:09
Yeah, no, it's I mean, he just generally stressed me out with his museum. Personality thing, I guess, but yeah, sorry.
Graham Allcott 54:17
Eat That Frog. Great advice?
Oliver Burkeman 54:20
Yes yeah. Yep. I think it is. I think it is. I'm trying to remember if he has the anyway, never mind. Yeah, yeah. I could just carry on stocking for a while. Let me see. I mean,
Graham Allcott 54:30
I think it's his trademark is it's not his
Oliver Burkeman 54:32
so I was gonna I was gonna say if he has the he doesn't there's there's a there's Well, I think he may mention this thing about the study about writing down your goals. The Yale goals study, which I wrote about in the antidote where they asked, they found something like that, like, the 3% of the graduating class of university, who had written down their goals had more wealth after 20 years than the other 97 percent combined and like a whole bunch of self help authors reference or I don't know, I don't know, I don't want to, I don't want to wrongly accuse him. But it never happened as far as anyone can tell, right? It's a completely it appears to be a complete myth that this study ever took place. And when various self help writers have been asked about where they got it from, they get it, they say they got it from each other, and it goes around in a circle. Now, there is a little bit of evidence since then that, you know, articulating goals that no one's suggesting that there's no role for writing down your goals, but but this particular thing, where the only difference between stupendous wealth and poverty was whether you've written down your goals, as far as we can tell, that's just something people want to be true. But it isn't true.
Graham Allcott 55:49
It's kind of like the productivity version of the Stanford marshmallow experiment, right? That it's all about self control, and then everything will be fine.
Oliver Burkeman 55:56
Yes, now that experiment did happen, and was much more reputable. But, but it's been, but other interpretations have been put on it since that, sort of undermine it.
Graham Allcott 56:04
And we've got a few more minutes left. And one of the things I wanted to touch back because this podcast is called Beyond busy. And we've talked a lot in this episode about some of the the sort of existential challenges that, you know, spawn, productivity thinking and all of that. So I just wanted to ask you, if you think you're addicted to busy and what your relationship with busy has been, like, over the years, like, do you think that's changed? And how do you feel about it now?
Oliver Burkeman 56:35
Yeah, I think I am. in recovery, you know, I think, I think I'm addicted to busy in the same way that I mean, I'm not even kidding about this, actually, I think I'm addicted to busy in a, in a parallel way that people who've been through Alcoholics Anonymous, or alcoholics, the rest of their days, even though they're not drinking, or that's happening.
Graham Allcott 56:56
Right okay.
Oliver Burkeman 56:57
Now, and I don't want to make the comparison on levels of intensity or severity, I don't want to do and struggle with alcoholism, by comparing it to me having a too long to do list. But I do think that like, it is that kind of I am someone who has given half a chance will slide back into that thing of like, trying to achieve such massive efficiency and constant motion and escape velocity that I will suddenly become like, you know, on top of everything, and that you then what actually happens is that you use business as a way to not face the slightly scary effects that you have limited time and resources and you have to sort of make some, some tough decisions and do difficult work and that to things that you really end up being proud of producing. Probably involved some boredom certainly involved some long haul work, and that you know, bouncing off to email, or bouncing off to cross lots of items off your to do list is kind of equivalent, certainly for me psychologically to, you know, bouncing off to social media and reading celebrity gossip, like one of them feel virtuous, the other one feels non virtuous, but they kind of fulfill the same function. So yeah, I think I have to be, I actually think that the, the 12 step thing is, is bizarrely appropriate in certain ways you have to sort of, you have to accept that, like, this is what your personality is, like, to some extent, you have to accept that the world will always be full of like lures to get you back onto that treadmill. And once you've done that, you're actually really empowered to like be okay. Okay, now what I want to do is try to like getting control of every possible task that I could generate or have in my productivity system. But I also know that what I will be pleased that I did was to like, pick the three things that matter the most that I have some time for, and just deal with the fact that that everything else is, at least for now.
Graham Allcott 59:02
And so presumably thinking about that temptation, like it feels like the opposite of busy for you is not going to be staying in bed. So what's the opposite of busy?
Oliver Burkeman 59:13
Well, the opposite of busy, I think that is clear to me is kind of his, his, his calmness and being very productive and doing things amid overwhelm. So it's like not not seeing the fact that there's always too much to do as somehow my problem that has to be dealt with, but just having it. And I see now in many ways that I think that is what Alan meant by you know, a mind like water, he did not mean you're going to get to the point of not having 500 items on your on your to do list, but that you're going to sort of psychologically detach from that fact, in a way that enables you to sort of get a purchase on life and function and do stuff, not chill out and meditate on the top of the mountain that some people want to do that but that's not for me or I suspect for you, but just that, you know, in the middle of this crazy swirl of all the things, you could do all the things, some people wanting you to do all the all the things that would please your parents, or please your friends, or please, you know, anyone else in your life, you know, it's all there. None of it's completely your business, your job is to sort of pick some things and try and do some cool stuff while you're alive. So it's that sort of calm amid the storm, I think is the sort of image that, that that resonates with me there.
Graham Allcott 1:00:35
Yeah, and I guess the mind like water thing is about, if you throw a stone in the water, it reacts to as big as the stone is. So you like the waters reacting? In a huge, you know, wavy like way if it's a huge big rock and in a tiny, Blinky Blinky splash wave, it's a tiny little, you know, little pebble. And so the idea is if you've, if you're not feeling under a huge amount of stress, or dizziness or overwhelm, then you're reacting appropriately to what's coming at you or what's in front of you. Right?
Oliver Burkeman 1:01:09
Yeah. And I would add, I mean, I think that's the particular part of the image he draws out also, like water is kind of, in some sense, like unaffected by there isn't like an impact. I mean, there is, let's not get into the physics of it too much. But you know what I mean, it's like, water isn't water isn't sort of shaken and broken, and, and sort of damaged by things.
Graham Allcott 1:01:34
And it comes back to being still.
Oliver Burkeman 1:01:36
It's a rat. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
Graham Allcott 1:01:38
Nice. I have one other question for you, which is, this isn't another one inspired by your own Twitter feed. So if I went to a cabin in some isolated spot on a mountain, miles away from anywhere, for the next couple of months, with enough food to last me and no internet access, would I be taking a break from the real world or be in the real world,
Oliver Burkeman 1:02:03
I got into lots of lots, I got a little bit of trouble for this tweet, because I am actually aware that it it. It traffics in a distinction about the real world that is kind of probably Bs, right? That they ever whatever one, certain people with, like degrees in philosophy wanted to respond, look, you know, it's all the real world or nothing as a real world, but like, there's nothing more real or less real about life spent on social media or an amount of mountain. I think what I was getting at in that, that thought and I do think about this quite a lot is like, I think we may be making a mistake in in believing that spending all our time thinking about national and international issues, and, and grand social issues and the state of the economy, and who's governing who and etc, etc. I think we sort of do slightly identify with that as being like the real world, and then increasingly, our media, localities and physical environments as somehow not really real. And I think it's partly fueled by this notion that, that because you need a certain amount of privilege to be able to sort of get away from it all, which you do, I agree, that it's there for the decent job of the privileged person to be constantly immersed in, in all the world's pain and suffering. And I don't think that's true. And I think we'd actually do a lot better job of addressing the pain and suffering. If we spent less time sort of identifying with that as our reality, I've been really struck for a lot of this pandemic, how, and you know, touchwood, because it has not directly impacted my immediate sort of circle of family and friends really, at this point, and that that will be totally different if it did. But, like, so much of the impact on my sort of emotions have been has been because of what I'm reading about, right. And if I, if you try to imagine what it would have been like to have no access to any of that, and just to be told, like, you have to wear a mask when you go outside. For a month or two, these businesses are going to close, there's going to be this economic impact that might affect you as well. And then the businesses are going to open and you can get takeout, you know, like you just been told the facts about your locality. It would have been a big deal, but it wouldn't have necessarily required like constantly thinking that the world was going to end in a week's time. And it might have been there might have been better that way. Yeah. So far anyway.
Graham Allcott 1:04:41
So your next job is releasing this book. 4000 weeks time management for mortals. So do you want to, cuz we'll probably put this out in January. I feel like you're the perfect person to be in January for New Year new you New Year's resolution, all that stuff, right. So we'll put this out. Early in the new year, so probably by then people can pre order the book. So do you want to just give a little bit of a flavor of what 4000 weeks is going to be about? And where people can find out more and contact you?
Oliver Burkeman 1:05:12
Yeah, absolutely. The basic idea is it is sort of the challenge of time management as if we took time management really seriously as like, the human problem, right? Not just some little sort of backwater of management speak. But you know, you have this time on Earth, if you live to 80, you'll have about 4000 weeks, not very much. What are the what are some sort of time tested and maybe forgotten about ways of thinking about it. And the idea that I've really pursued through that is that this effort to sort of getting control of our time is really, really unhelpful, and that what that usually is, is an effort to sort of avoid facing the truth. And that actually facing the truth is incredibly empowering. And, and it's the path to peace of mind. But it's also the path to more productivity and meaning and accomplishment and all the rest of it. My website is Oliver burkeman.com b u r k e m a n. By the time you put this out, I will have been for several weeks, putting out a twice monthly email newsletter that I'm calling the perfectionist that people can sign up for their. It's funny because right now, I haven't written any of them. But by January, I'm, I'm, I'm pledged to have begun this month in which we're recording so. And that's also the details of that book. And my previous ones.
Graham Allcott 1:06:48
That's great, and can't wait to read the book. And thank you. I'm sure it's gonna be amazing. So, Oliver, just thank you so much for being on beyond busy. I feel like I could talk all day. And maybe once the book is out, we'll get you back on and talk some more about it.
Oliver Burkeman 1:07:02
That'd be great. If we carried on talking now we get so into the weeds on getting things done, and David Allen.
Graham Allcott 1:07:10
And I missed Matt and Matt as well, like I told you about Madden, man. We'll do it. We'll do that another time. But thanks so much for being on beyond busy. Thank you.
Thanks again to Oliver for being on the show. Thanks also, as ever to Mark Stedman, my producer on the show particular because I sent him the audio for this one very late. So thanks, Mark for getting this out in a really timely fashion. Thanks also to Emily for all of her work behind the scenes on setting these episodes up. And think productive our sponsors for the show. So if you are interested in productivity training and coaching, just go to thinkproductive.co.uk here in the UK, or thinkproductive.com and all the show notes as ever are over at get beyond busy.com. So you can find all the links to everything that we talked about during the episode, links to my book, how to have the energy and lots more. So getbeyondbusy.com for that, and if you want to sign up for my Sunday, rev up for the week email list, it's simply just Grahamallcott.com. And then there's a little form at the bottom of the homepage where you can check that out. So that's it for the episode. I've often just kind of finished my my January planning for the year ahead, which already just feels like I'm sort of planning on a rug that is in the middle of being pulled out from under my feet. So I'm sure you can relate to that and kind of feels like everyone's in the same boat really. But yeah, get it finished by planning and really get into 2021. So looking forward to it. I hope you are too I hope you're surviving keeping safe. Take care Bye for now.