WEBVTT - Time management for mortals, with Oliver Burkeman 0:00:02.960 --> 0:00:09.280 Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning. 0:00:10.039 --> 0:00:14.680 This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:17.159 episode is going to be a longer one part of 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:20.119 the series where I interview fascinating people about how they 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:23.280 take their days from great to awesome and any advice 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:25.920 they have for the rest of us. So today I 0:00:25.960 --> 0:00:29.360 am excited to welcome Oliver Berkman to the show. Oliver 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:32.159 is the author of four thousand Weeks Time Management for 0:00:32.280 --> 0:00:35.600 Mortals and also Meditations for Mortals, which is newly out 0:00:35.640 --> 0:00:38.360 in paperback this month. So Oliver, welcome to the show. 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:39.800 Thank you very much for inviting me. 0:00:40.640 --> 0:00:42.400 Yeah, very glad to have you. Why did you tell 0:00:42.400 --> 0:00:43.920 our listeners a little bit about yourself? 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:49.280 Gosh, well, I wrote them books that you mentioned, so 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:53.600 I won't mention them again. I'm British, as is easy 0:00:53.640 --> 0:00:57.120 to tell. I worked as a journalist at the Guardian 0:00:57.160 --> 0:00:59.880 newspaper for quite a few years and wrote a column 0:00:59.880 --> 0:01:02.720 that sort of got me into all this kind of 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:08.880 personal development, self healthy stuff, although partly by testing a 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:13.040 lot of it out finding it not to deliver. 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:14.440 In the ways that I felt I needed it to. 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:17.920 I lived in Brooklyn, New York for a bunch of years, 0:01:17.959 --> 0:01:22.200 and now our family lives in North Yorkshire. In the 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:25.480 North York Moor was sort of Wuthering Heights territory where 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:27.440 I'm speaking to you from now. 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:31.600 Very literary sort of area, like you inspired to write 0:01:31.600 --> 0:01:34.920 some sort of great British novel just by walking around. 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:36.600 I am sure all my work is going to become 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:38.839 really gothic from now, yes. 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:40.319 Exactly, exactly. 0:01:40.760 --> 0:01:44.600 Well, but your earlier work, when you were a columnist 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:48.720 for The Guardian, you was there a particular reason you 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:50.880 wound up on the self help beat? 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:55.480 I mean, looking back, it seems very obvious to me 0:01:55.520 --> 0:01:59.680 now that I was attempting to find ways personally for 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:04.080 my self, sort of therapeutically, grappling with these questions of 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:08.200 how do you feel more in control than I did, 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:11.640 or how do you feel happier or you know, not 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:15.399 beset by anxiety or feelings of crushing, feelings of duty 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:21.800 and obligation, all the personal hang ups from which I suffered, 0:02:22.040 --> 0:02:25.640 And so it didn't feel particularly like that at the time. 0:02:25.720 --> 0:02:28.040 I think that's probably true. A lot of reasons people 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:31.440 write about a lot of stuff. Maybe in a lot 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:34.280 of your work, you're a bit more sort of transparent 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:37.280 about this fact. And maybe it's more, maybe it's more 0:02:38.440 --> 0:02:41.760 unconscious in other people. But I think I was at 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:45.000 first through a kind of often being quite sarcastic and 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:47.520 critical about self help world, which I still think is 0:02:47.520 --> 0:02:52.360 probably entirely justified at least in some instances. But I 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:56.640 was sort of backing into asking difficult, vulnerable questions with 0:02:56.760 --> 0:03:00.280 this alibi that it was just for work, and I 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:01.680 always just work exactly. 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:04.760 Yeah, Well, there's an interesting thing about productivity. 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:06.200 I mean a lot of it is mental, right. 0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:08.280 I mean, we were we were having a discussion before 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:11.200 we started recording about you had something that happened to 0:03:11.240 --> 0:03:13.640 your day which was not planned, and sort of through 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:15.560 through the day off a little bit. 0:03:16.200 --> 0:03:18.280 And then we're still here talking and I had you 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:20.320 introduced me as someone who's going to share wisdom about 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:23.440 how to how to really make the day go so 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:27.799 fluidly and wonderfully. So I'm I'm I'm really being obliged 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:30.320 to figure out if I walk the talk today. 0:03:30.360 --> 0:03:35.960 But but you know, okay, so productivity is probably how 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:40.080 we feel about it. You had something happened to your 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:42.360 day that you didn't anticipate, not anybody's fault. 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:43.200 It is what it is. 0:03:44.400 --> 0:03:46.720 We're still here having the conversation. At the time, you 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:49.600 weren't late at all, but you said earlier that you 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:50.560 were feeling a little. 0:03:50.320 --> 0:03:52.160 Bit sort of off for the day. 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:55.640 I'm curious why why that is what happens when things 0:03:55.840 --> 0:03:58.880 go awry, that that makes you feel differently about your time. 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:02.440 Well, I think, I mean the first thing, in my defense, 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:05.480 after claim after you know, implying that I'm not at 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:12.000 all the paragon of productivity or calm that I present 0:04:12.040 --> 0:04:15.280 myself as or something like that, I would have been 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:18.760 massively more knocked sideways. And it's not a secret. My 0:04:18.760 --> 0:04:20.200 my son had to come home from school with a 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:22.560 sort of minor illness. It's no big crisis, but it's 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:24.960 enough to sort of sway the day for people who 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:29.479 work from home, and you know, back in the day, 0:04:30.320 --> 0:04:32.640 although before I became a parent, so it's kind of 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:35.520 a bad comparison, but things that happened like that would 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:37.799 sort of knock me completely off course and I would 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:40.040 like feel like I had to call off the whole day. 0:04:40.040 --> 0:04:42.200 And that is a response, I think to this fundamental 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:44.800 issue that manifests for lots of people in different ways 0:04:44.839 --> 0:04:48.240 of control. Right, you want to feel like you're in 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:52.760 control of your stuff and your time, and if something 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:57.599 happens that really challenges that feeling of control, then if 0:04:57.600 --> 0:05:02.400 you have the luxury, as freelance self employed writers do, 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:04.359 and not everyone does, but if you have the luxury 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:08.520 to sort of just kind of be thrown completely of 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:12.200 course and give up on the day, then it's very 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:15.520 tempting to do so, because it's like, well, Okay, I've 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:18.120 lost control of today, but tomorrow will be different. 0:05:18.120 --> 0:05:18.800 Tomorrow I'll be. 0:05:18.760 --> 0:05:21.320 Back in the saddle and I will exert full control 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:23.680 over the day. And I did have a sort of 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:25.600 I still get flickers of that. I did have that 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:29.520 sense today of like, oh, this wasn't planned. I had 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:31.080 to take a couple of hours out from what I 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:34.280 was expecting to be doing, So now like, what's the point? 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:36.760 And then I actually see myself doing that. I think 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:39.520 that's the big thing that's changed for me. I understand 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:42.440 that dynamic, and I say, look, I never really had 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:45.400 that control in the first place. It is absurd to 0:05:45.480 --> 0:05:49.600 think that if I can't do seven hours of effective 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:53.320 work today, then there's no point in doing one or two. 0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:59.360 This just makes no sense at all, and you can 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:01.120 sort of and maybe it changes what I want to 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:03.359 focus on, maybe it changes what I feel able to 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:05.839 focus on. But to be able to more fluidly navigate 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:13.279 among those things, I mean, I've got a lot better 0:06:13.320 --> 0:06:16.720 at that. And it came from realizing that I never 0:06:16.760 --> 0:06:19.760 really had the control I thought I had in the 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:22.080 first place, because actually, long before I became a parent 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:23.960 or even was in a long term relationship or anything, 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:26.240 I would have those days when just turned out my 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:29.520 mood wasn't on board for the day, and it's like, well, okay, 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:33.520 but am I just going to be completely thrown off 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:37.760 course by some sort of internal weather pattern like that? 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:41.320 So I think learning the limits of my own control 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:43.560 over time and learning to sort of work with that 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:46.880 and go with that has been really huge for me. 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:48.239 Yeah. 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:50.359 Well, one of the things you talk about in the 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:55.359 book and Meditations for Mortals is a lot of different 0:06:55.400 --> 0:07:01.760 sort of I guess product of any strategies or mindsets 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:05.120 or things that you know could be helpful. And one 0:07:05.320 --> 0:07:10.440 you mentioned is that we probably only have three to 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:14.680 four hours of good creative energy on any given day, 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:18.280 and that has a couple of different implications. I wonder 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:21.280 if you could talk about that rule a little bit. 0:07:21.800 --> 0:07:24.880 Yeah, and again, this is something where it's really vividly 0:07:24.960 --> 0:07:28.160 clear for people like me and I think you who 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:31.360 have a lot of autonomy over our time, who have 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:33.400 to do the work, like over the long term to 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:38.880 pay the bills, but who you know, can probably choose 0:07:38.880 --> 0:07:40.080 a lot of the time. What we do with a 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:43.320 specific hour of a specific day be different for people 0:07:43.320 --> 0:07:45.560 in other kinds of jobs, but the essence of the 0:07:45.560 --> 0:07:48.720 wisdom of it, I think is universal. There's really good 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:54.480 evidence all through history that the great sort of authors 0:07:54.480 --> 0:07:58.200 and artists, scholars and composers and mathematicians, scientists, all sorts 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:01.440 of people who have that kind of autonomy, the greatest ones, 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:05.280 when you look at their daily routines, they do not 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:08.080 ask of themselves more than three or four hours of 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:14.920 intense focused brain work, depending on who it is and 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:16.880 where in history. You then find that they've got, you know, 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:21.040 twelve servants and a dutiful wife to do all the 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:22.760 other things in life, so they get to just sort 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:24.000 of swan about for the rest of the day. 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:28.160 And this is not how the world works for us 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:28.680 these days. 0:08:28.680 --> 0:08:31.960 But that basic idea that if you're a knowledge worker, 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:35.080 and you have the autonomy to kind of limit the 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:38.720 amount of time that you try to defend for deep, deep, 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:40.920 deep reflection, you should limit it to that amount of time. 0:08:40.960 --> 0:08:44.000 I think is really is really true and important. One 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:46.960 of the ramifications of this, I think is that we should, 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:49.960 to whatever extent we can, try to ring fence try 0:08:50.000 --> 0:08:54.040 to defend that stretch of hours of about that amount 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:56.280 if we can, in the course of a working day. 0:08:56.640 --> 0:09:00.320 But a really important second sort of corollary insight, I 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:03.880 think is that you shouldn't stress too hard about defending 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:06.680 and structuring the rest of the time. So there is 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:09.480 in this kind of three or four hours idea both 0:09:09.480 --> 0:09:11.760 a sense of discipline, like, yeah, try to pick the 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:13.920 hours that work the best for you and be as 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:16.920 uninterrupted as you possibly can and focus on your core projects. 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:21.000 But then don't be yourself up for the fact that 0:09:21.320 --> 0:09:22.800 the rest of that time is going to be the 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:25.600 way life is right, full of interruptions and serendipity and 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:27.200 things that you didn't realize were going to come up 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:30.079 until half an hour ago. And I find this a 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:33.600 much you know, again, not exactly a typical day to day, 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:36.400 but I find this a much happier way to do things. 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:40.320 It doesn't Trying to structure and plan the whole day 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:43.640 for me is often a recipe for a lot of 0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:48.400 in a combat because it feels like reality isn't conforming 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:49.880 to my wishes or something like that. 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:53.559 Yes, reality sometimes does not conform to our wishes, A 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:55.920 deep truth of life. Well, we're going to take a 0:09:55.960 --> 0:09:57.480 quick ad break and then I will be back with 0:09:57.520 --> 0:10:07.120 more from Oliver Berkman. Well, I am back talking with 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:10.080 Oliver Berkman, who is the author of several books, including 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:13.600 four Thousand Weeks and Meditation for Mortals, which is newly 0:10:13.640 --> 0:10:14.960 out in paperback this month. 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:20.840 So, Oliver, another tidbit in Meditation for Mortals. 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:23.960 Is the idea of thinking, well, what if it were easy? 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:29.080 That you know, looking for something that is hard or 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:33.959 difficult is not always necessary. I wonder if you could 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:34.960 talk a little bit about that. 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:37.560 Yeah, yeah, happily. I mean, this was a big deal 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:42.280 for me when I realized how I had been approaching things. 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:46.520 In one sense, making decisions about what to spend your 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:49.439 time on and getting yourself to do that is difficult, 0:10:49.520 --> 0:10:51.439 And that's another theme in my writing right. 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:53.640 The difficulty is that there are. 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:58.320 Far more things than we have time available that we'd 0:10:58.320 --> 0:10:59.720 like to do or feel obliged to do that we 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:02.680 have time to do, we have to make painful choices, 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:06.480 and we don't have the level of control over how 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:09.160 reality unfolds that we would like. So in that sense, 0:11:09.800 --> 0:11:13.880 like being a finite human is difficult, but there's a risk. 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:16.600 I think a lot of us are brought up and 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:19.920 raised and encouraged by the culture to assume that the 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:25.200 actual experience of doing a meaningful action in work or 0:11:25.240 --> 0:11:28.080 in many other context too, sort of probably has to 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:32.520 feel quite grueling. That if it isn't hurting, it isn't working. 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:37.480 As British politicians like to say about sort of economic 0:11:37.520 --> 0:11:38.880 austerity policies. 0:11:38.640 --> 0:11:42.000 Right that somehow, if I'm doing something. 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:45.240 That matters, it's going to feel like a fight, and 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:46.440 I'm going to get to the end of the day 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:50.119 and feel like, wow, that was really painful and exhausting, 0:11:50.240 --> 0:11:53.440 but at least you know I did the thing that matters. 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:54.280 And what that. 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:59.000 Means is we're two things. Firstly, it can trick you 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:01.240 into thinking that just because the day was really exhausting, 0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:04.280 that must therefore have been worthwhile, and a lot of 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:08.400 busy work is exhausting, but actually would be best maybe 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:11.880 delegated or ignored completely or postponed or something like that. 0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:15.960 And most importantly, it means that you don't think to 0:12:16.040 --> 0:12:19.599 ask that question right at the beginning of some difficult 0:12:19.720 --> 0:12:22.720 or seeming or intimidating project, like what if this is 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:26.360 actually easier for me than I'm assuming? What if instead 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:29.360 of like girding myself and bracing myself for it to 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:32.760 be really difficult, I sort of approached it with at 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:36.120 least the possibility that I know how to do this, 0:12:36.400 --> 0:12:39.240 and that you know, the ideas and the energy and 0:12:39.280 --> 0:12:41.400 the focus will come together in the right way, and 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:44.240 it doesn't always happen, but you actually, you know, greatly 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:49.439 enhance the chances of it happening when you move into 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:55.400 projects in that spirit, and so definitely, sort of anything 0:12:55.440 --> 0:13:00.080 that counts as creative, I find that the effect of 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:05.160 going into them expecting difficulty is to sort of bring 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:09.679 down that. It sort of brings difficulty to the experience, 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:13.320 It makes it harder, It squeezes things so that ideas 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:15.880 flow less regularly, less easily. 0:13:15.920 --> 0:13:17.840 So I think that's really important. 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:19.520 If you go into reality as if it's going to 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:22.000 be a fight then you often get a fight that 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:23.319 for that very reason. 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:24.800 Yeah. 0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:28.520 Well, one of the things you talk about, you know, 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:31.920 in terms of changing our mindset about time as well, 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:35.200 is creating a done list, so sort of a reverse 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:39.040 to do list, but things that you have done and accomplished. 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:40.680 How is that helpful? 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:43.960 Again, it's really the perspective shift that counts, and this 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:47.280 is like one of a million ways of executing or 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:50.000 implementing this perspective shift. But what I find really useful 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:53.280 about a done list, which of course people seem to 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:55.440 think I'm saying should be instead of a to do 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:57.280 list and you should throw away all your lists. I mean, 0:13:57.320 --> 0:13:58.800 I think there's an argument for that, but that's not 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:01.040 what I'm saying here. A done list is just an 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:03.679 extra thing, right. It's just a way of recording the 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:07.000 actions that you take as you move through the day, 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:09.800 whether or not they were on an initial plan or 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:13.200 a to do list. And I think what's so important 0:14:13.280 --> 0:14:17.079 about that is it just has this effect of shifting 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:21.480 the kind of internal comparison you're making when you look 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:23.880 at what you've done. Right, It's very simple and very 0:14:23.960 --> 0:14:25.640 natural going through the day to sort of compare what 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:29.000 you've done to the hypothetical list of all the things 0:14:29.000 --> 0:14:31.720 that feel like they need doing today, which is always 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:34.880 going to be longer than time is going to permit, 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:37.280 and in some sense maybe. 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:38.880 Sort of infinitely long, so you're never going to get 0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:39.520 to the end of it. 0:14:40.080 --> 0:14:42.200 But this then to keeping a done list sort of 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:44.920 shifts your focus back because you're looking at these things 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:48.360 that you're adding to the list. It's correct, it's proper 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:50.360 that the list is getting longer as you add more things. 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:52.160 It's not a problem that it's getting longer. You're not 0:14:52.160 --> 0:14:55.920 trying to get rid of it. And you're implicitly comparing 0:14:55.960 --> 0:14:58.120 your output with the day, but on the data what 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:00.600 you would have achieved if you've done nothing thing at all, 0:15:00.640 --> 0:15:03.400 So the comparison is with zero instead of with infinity. 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:08.680 And this is a much better basis for comparing your 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:11.080 for sort of judging your your actions. And I find 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:14.240 it delivers a real sense of kind of self efficacy, 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:16.800 of agency, of like, oh, look like I am actually 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:19.320 doing things in the world. I am actually sort of 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:23.000 contacting reality and doing things with them. And as I 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:27.080 write in the book, if if you're in a particular 0:15:27.200 --> 0:15:30.560 sort of motivational rut, if you're in bad shape and 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:32.760 can't really bring yourself to do anything at all. You 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:34.960 can just really lower the bar for what gets to 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:37.440 get put on the done list, right, nobody needs to 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:39.920 see this. You can put made coffee or took a shower, 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:43.600 walk to the dog, right. You don't only need to 0:15:43.600 --> 0:15:45.520 put the sort of core work. 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:45.960 Project on it. 0:15:46.000 --> 0:15:48.680 And when you do this, you actually find I find 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:51.040 that things snowball quite quickly and you see, oh, just 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:54.200 that feedback evidence of like, yeah, I didn't do nothing 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:57.240 because I made some coffee. I didn't do nothing because I, 0:15:57.320 --> 0:16:00.320 you know, loaded the dishwasher. It can snowball into sort 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:05.080 of more overtly impressive accomplishments than that quite quickly. 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:06.640 Yeah. Absolutely. 0:16:07.760 --> 0:16:10.360 One of the things you talk about in the book 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:14.200 is not being so kind to your future self. And 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:17.000 obviously there's a thing with productivity literature that many of 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:19.880 us are spending a lot of time preparing for say 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:22.280 the upcoming week, you know, preparing all our meals on 0:16:22.360 --> 0:16:25.080 Sunday for the entire rest of the week, putting out 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:28.920 outfits for many days to come. How can we create 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:32.680 the right balance so it's not total chaos, but we're 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:36.040 not spending so much time dwelling on the future that 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:38.400 we're not, you know, living. 0:16:39.880 --> 0:16:41.440 Yeah, I mean, I think it's definitely a balance, and 0:16:41.440 --> 0:16:45.240 it's a matter of introspecting and figuring out, like what 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:48.080 your issue is. Certainly there are people, I think who 0:16:48.120 --> 0:16:51.320 are prone to sort of hedonistically squandering all their time 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:55.840 and their money and their resources sort of on instantaneous 0:16:55.880 --> 0:16:59.680 gratification in a way that means they don't make plans 0:16:59.800 --> 0:17:03.360 for the future. But there is an opposite problem, and 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:07.320 I think it probably is the kind of problem that 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:10.880 people who are interested in all this stuff and productivity 0:17:10.880 --> 0:17:13.120 and time management and conversations like this in the first 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:14.760 place are probably more prone to. 0:17:14.840 --> 0:17:16.840 And that is the yeah, the risk of. 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:21.400 Being so good, as it were, at delayed and deferred 0:17:21.440 --> 0:17:25.560 gratification that you spend your whole life like dutifully doing 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:29.280 the things that will make the future better in a 0:17:29.320 --> 0:17:33.520 way that makes life in the present feel kind of provisional. Right, 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:36.959 everything you're doing is always for some future moment. And 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:40.439 the sort of classic example of that, I suppose is 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:42.639 the person who makes a huge ton of money and 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:45.520 then has to feel psychologically impelled to carry on just 0:17:45.600 --> 0:17:48.760 making grinding to make more and more money. Instead of 0:17:48.840 --> 0:17:51.720 using it for things that you know they would enjoy 0:17:51.800 --> 0:17:52.639 or that would be good. 0:17:52.520 --> 0:17:53.040 For the world. 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:56.240 But I think we do all do that in subtler ways, 0:17:56.320 --> 0:17:58.480 right we get into this mindset a lot of us do. Anyway, 0:17:58.520 --> 0:18:01.560 We get into this mindset of everything is about planning, 0:18:01.640 --> 0:18:04.160 everything is about finishing things for the future, and you 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:09.520 fail to kind of lives as fully as you might. 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:14.480 So the analogy here is the famous mushmallow studies, which 0:18:14.800 --> 0:18:16.600 I'm sure a lot of people listening will know about, 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:19.040 where children were given a marshmallow and told that if 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:20.840 they waited ten minutes without eating it, they could get 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:23.680 a second marshmallow, and the kids who have the self 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:26.520 discipline to wait for the second marshmallows supposedly had all 0:18:26.560 --> 0:18:30.600 sorts of very very much more positive life outcomes as adults. 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:34.200 Those studies have been contested in certain ways, but even 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:36.840 if they're right, like, it's also the case that at 0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:39.800 some point you have to eat a marshmallow if you're 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:42.760 going to gain the benefit of collecting all these mrshmallows. 0:18:43.080 --> 0:18:45.480 Just holding a big pile of marshmallows and then dying, 0:18:46.760 --> 0:18:51.840 it's not a successful way of having used a finite 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:55.080 human life so for me, you know, in terms of 0:18:55.080 --> 0:18:58.280 what this really concretely means, it might be about finding 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:00.119 ways to figure out what it is you want in 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:03.520 your life, or maybe you know this, and then bringing 0:19:03.560 --> 0:19:08.439 them from the future back into the present in little ways. 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:10.679 So instead of just telling yourself you're going to take 0:19:10.680 --> 0:19:12.879 a sabbatical in a year and a half time, so 0:19:13.040 --> 0:19:14.760 right now you're just going to work really hard so 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:17.560 that you're ready for that. Maybe there's a way in 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:20.520 which you could bring that spirit of rest into your 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:25.800 life today for fifteen minutes. If there's some hobby or 0:19:25.840 --> 0:19:29.360 some kind of experience that you're putting off until you've 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:31.120 got all your ducks in a row, as it were, 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:33.840 maybe there's some way in which you could engage in 0:19:33.880 --> 0:19:37.000 that this week a little bit as well. I think 0:19:37.040 --> 0:19:41.760 it's really important to sort of remember that eventually, at 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:47.640 some point, a fulfilling and enjoyable and worthwhile life has 0:19:47.680 --> 0:19:52.080 to be happening in a now, right in a present moment. 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:55.680 Otherwise you do run the risk of spending your whole 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:59.160 life preparing and then there's no more time left. 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:01.560 So we should give the batch cooking? Are we giving 0:20:01.640 --> 0:20:02.359 up the batch cooking? 0:20:02.440 --> 0:20:04.400 Are we well? Again, you know you need to ask 0:20:04.440 --> 0:20:08.280 yourself this question, right, that it's not that, like, firstly, 0:20:08.320 --> 0:20:10.800 it's not that every kind of instance of batch cooking 0:20:10.880 --> 0:20:15.960 or preparation is negative, and like, honestly, it's probably the 0:20:16.000 --> 0:20:19.600 case that as human animals we're just not capable of 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:23.239 not somewhat living in that goal oriented way, even if 0:20:23.280 --> 0:20:25.639 it was a good thing to abandon it, and I 0:20:25.680 --> 0:20:31.720 don't think it is. But yeah, I mean maybe if 0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:33.480 you're the kind of person who is always doing that 0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:38.600 kind of batch preparation, maybe it's worth sort of having 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:40.960 a bit more trust in the person that you'll be 0:20:41.000 --> 0:20:43.240 in the future when you meet that question of like, Okay, 0:20:43.240 --> 0:20:45.359 it's dinner time, what can I do? Maybe you don't 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:49.800 need to have it all planned in advance. Again, if 0:20:49.800 --> 0:20:52.280 one specific thing like batch cooking really works for you, 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:54.399 please don't let me put you off it. But that 0:20:55.000 --> 0:20:57.880 general spirit of like I've got to do it all 0:20:57.960 --> 0:21:02.359 now so that later on everything runs smoothly, it's like, well, 0:21:02.920 --> 0:21:05.520 maybe you can find ways for it to run smoothly 0:21:05.880 --> 0:21:08.000 in the moment when those present moments arrive. 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:10.400 Yeah, I would like to say your future self will 0:21:10.400 --> 0:21:14.520