This week I have decided to write about a popular topic in the form of time management, or productivity. I have been reading “Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management For Mortals” by Oliver Burkeman this week, hence the inspiration.
To those of you who know me, you may assume that this book is about how we humans can squeeze every drop of time available to us each day, so we can become the best versions of ourselves. That would be a fair assumption, as for the last few years of my life, this mindset has been at the forefront of my life. I have, at points, been overwhelmingly consumed with finding the perfect method of time management to optimise my productivity.
Yet, what Oliver does so well in this book is explain that in actuality, productivity, in some sense, is a crippling aspect of our culture that is dead set on ruining our lives. How cheery.
Why are we obsessed with time management?
For so many of us, we are keen to make the most out of our days. Our society is propelled by a rule that those who work harder, and do more, will be the most successful. And to an extent, that is true. But are those people, with their 15 minute allocated slots for each day guzzling coffee while multi-tasking 9 different jobs, going to be fulfilled? Unlikely.
“When you’re faced with too many demands, it’s easy to assume that the only answer must be to make better use of time, by becoming more efficient, driving yourself harder, or working for longer - as if you were a machine in the Industrial Revolution - instead of asking whether the demands themselves might be unreasonable.” - Oliver Burkeman
Fuck me. That one hit a bit too close to home. I felt personally attacked after reading this statement from Oliver. Unfortunately, it stung because of how closely it aligned with my attitude towards life. I have been convincing myself that there is an ‘optimal’ level to achieve, and if I could only reach that level, I would finally be satisfied with my productivity levels.
I have been a stupid Ass following this dangling carrot in front of me (pardon the pun) that I was never going to reach. Perhaps this rings true to you. Each day at work, you have a set ‘to-do list’, and you are adamant you will get to the bottom of the list. You are certain that if you just get your head down, work hard, you will finally reach a point of pure satisfaction that all tasks are finished. But inevitably, the list rarely gets finished. Or if you come close to finishing it, there are more tasks added. This holds even more value within a professional setting. If you work as hard as you possibly can and get to the bottom of the list, your boss or work colleagues will view you as an infinite resource of pure work-power, and guess what, give you more to do.
So the key thing to understand here is that, unfortunately, you will never reach a point of satisfaction with your to do list. There will always be more. We have all been in a position where the to do list, as physical or metaphorical it is, feels endless. It can be quite a draining sensation, and sap a lot of mental energy out of us.
It can feel like the only way to restore a sense of calm to your mental health, is to finish your to do list. But we’ve already established that typically, this isn’t feasible. So instead of being hyper-focused on perfecting your time management, perhaps it is more logical to simply give in to the fact that this list of demands you have set yourself, is unachievable. Only then, can we begin to feel free.
“…you begin to grasp that when there’s too much to do, and there always will be, the only route to psychological freedom is to let go of the limit-denying fantasy of getting it all done, and instead to focus on doing a few things that count.” - Oliver Burkeman
So the next time you are faced with what feels like a crippling to do list, instead of focusing on how you can optimise your time management to work at super human speed, instead accept that you will not get all of it done, and simply do what you can. You may find that you are at a much happier, calmer level - which can in turn make you more productive.
Why are we obsessed with being productive?
Buzz Lightyear can go to hell. Blasphemous, I know - but the ‘to infinity and beyond’ is perpetuating an overwhelming fear of accepting reality.
Ok, perhaps a bit dramatic. But there is some sense behind this melodrama. Oliver B led me to a topic of ‘convenience culture’. Effectively, this is a term to describe how our culture is obsessed with making life as easy as possible. Makes sense really. But there are unfortunately some drawbacks to this idea.
Making our lives more convenient is the way a lot of companies make a shit load of money. Can’t be arsed to research and phone a local taxi company to book a journey? Uber. Can’t be arsed to walk to the shops to buy some groceries? Deliveroo. Can’t be arsed to reach 10cm into your pocket to grab your wallet? Apple pay. Now, I am certainly not sat on a high horse pretending I don’t use these modalities - I certainly do, and they are bloody awesome. My life has been so much easier since the introduction of these businesses.
But is easier always better? As great as these Silicon Valley companies are, it is impossible to make all aspects of life ‘convenient’. Life is messy, hard, complicated and we cannot always be in control. Yet the more time we spend utilising tools to make our life more convenient, the harder it becomes to accept and behave when life is inevitably inconvenient.
How does this link with productivity? Well, we want to be ‘in control’ of our time - to be as productive as possible. But as I’ve just explained, it is impossible to always be in control. If you really want to take a walk down a dark but accurate road, we can see that this desire to 'always make the most of our time’, is based on a fear that are time is indeed, finite. We only get one life, there is no going back, and thus it is paramount that we squeeze every second out of the lemon that is our time on earth.
"We recoil from the notion that this is it - that this life, with all its flaws and inescapable vulnerabilities, its extreme brevity, and our limited influence over how it unfolds, is the only one we’ll get a shot at” - Oliver Burkeman.
Now that’s not to say that every time you use an Uber, you are thinking about how you are scared that life is finite. It is however, worth being aware about this desire to maximise time and make life as convenient as possible within our culture. Although at points being productive can aid our sense of fulfilment, it only goes on for a short period. It is an unsustainable mindset, and if you are serious about trying to be happy, it is worth trying to move away from this fixation.
The sooner we can accept that life is messy, complicated, that we cannot control it, that we cannot always be productive and maximise our time, and that unfortunately life does not go on forever, the sooner we can move toward a sense of calm. Instead of cramming as many tasks as possible onto our to do lists, we start to choose the most important ones - because we are aware that life is finite. The more we work with the constraints of time, instead of against them, the more joyful and meaningful life can become.
So I’m not saying we throw time management and productivity out of the window. We all still have jobs and important tasks to complete. But to improve our relationship with life, and to create a greater sense of happiness, moving away from this idea of perpetual productivity because life cannot be controlled, is a good place to start.