Five Questions for Coming to Grips with Your Life

Source: Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman Where in your life or your work are you currently pursuing comfort, when what’s called for is a little discomfort? Are you holding yourself to, and judging yourself by, standards of productivity or performance that are impossible to meet? In what ways have you yet to accept the fact that you are who you are, not the person you think you ought to be? In which areas of life are you still holding back until you feel like you know what you’re doing? How would you spend your days differently if you didn’t care so much about seeing your actions reach fruition? Want more self-elicitation questions like these? Check out “Questions Worth Asking.” ...

November 13, 2024 · 1 min · joshuapsteele

Ten Tools for Embracing Finitude

Source: Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman Adopt a “fixed volume” approach to productivity Keep two todo lists, one unbounded and one limited to a certain number of items (max 10); you can’t add a task to the second list until you’ve completed a task Might also need an “On Hold” or “Waiting For” todo list Set predetermined boundaries for your daily work Focus on only one big project at a time Decide in advance what to “fail” at (“strategic underachievement”) Focus on what you’ve already completed, not just on what’s left to complete Consolidate your caring (pick your battles!) Embrace boring, single-purpose technology (like the Kindle) Seek out novelty in the mundane Be a “researcher” in relationships (be curious, on purpose) Cultivate instantaneous generosity (act on the impulse to be generous right away) Practice doing nothing

November 13, 2024 · 1 min · joshuapsteele