Four Thousand Weeks [Atlas Book Club]

I really thought I was going to love this book. And I did. For about 50 pages. And then I didn’t.

Before I share why, please know that you do not need to share the same opinion as me. Maybe this is the first book you’ve read on time or productivity and you thought it was excellent. Wonderful! Seriously. We can have two totally different opinions and be okay. I promise. Maybe you’ve read all the productivity books and this one hit a chord the others haven’t. I love that too. We do not need to agree to respect each other’s opinions.

Now onto mine.

Like I mentioned, I loved the beginning of this book. I give 5 stars to the first 49 pages. It was around chapter 5 where he lost me. Toward the end of the book, I ended up skimming some of the chapters because I felt like I was reading the same thing over and over again. It felt a little like reading the author’s journal on his own battle with his mindset about time and productivity. And one that maybe he still hasn’t fully won.

Let’s talk about what I liked –

My main takeaway from the book is to consider how you think about productivity. What’s your mindset around it? Are you constantly using what you get done or accomplish or what’s on your calendar or your plans to determine the quality of your life?

One of the things that Burkeman shared was this visual of containers to think about your time. Imagine a conveyor belt and that has various containers moving down it. As those containers pass by, we look at them like things to fill with our time. For example you may have a work container or a fun container. When the container is overfilled we are overwhelmed or if the container has margin we feel as though we’re not doing enough and wasting time. It’s only when things fit just right in the container that we feel like we’re using our time well. This visual of the passing conveyer belt made an impact on how I think about time.

Something else that stuck with me was his perspective on time as a resource to be used. He shared some history on how people worked and were paid a few hundred years ago and how that’s changed over time. He says, “Before, time was just the medium in which life unfolded, the stuff that life was made of. Afterward, once “time” and “life” had been separated in most people’s minds, time became a thing that you used – and it’s this shift that serves as the precondition for all the uniquely modern ways in which we struggle with time today. Once time is a resource to be used, you start to feel pressure, whether from external forces or from yourself, to use it. 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.”

This passage stuck with me as I’m definitely someone who’s had this mindset. For the first 3-4 years of my career outside of college, I didn’t take vacation days. I would wait till the end of the year and take them because they didn’t roll over. Then I started to take off a day here or there, but didn’t really have much planned with my days. I took them sporadically to just have a Friday or there.

I was trying to find ways to find more time in the day, first was hours then minutes, and then even things that would save a few seconds. While I think some of those things are incredibly helpful like learning to be more organized and to prioritize, the purpose of doing this shouldn’t be so I can just add more into the day, but to do things that matter with the time and margin I have.

A few years ago, I read a quote that said, “Build a life you don’t need a vacation from.” As soon as I read it, I knew that that was how I wanted to live. I didn’t want to live for the holidays or the weekends, but to truly live. I wanted to life a life now that mattered rather than wait for retirement. Retirement isn’t guaranteed. It wasn’t for my mom, step mom, uncle, and other friends and family members. And it’s not for me either.

This is around the time I started to dig into some deeper self reflection and think about how then I wanted to use my time. What would it look like to live with the recognition that time isn’t just a thing to be used, but instead a way of life. I’m still on my own journey in this, but what I’ve found so far is that when I am intentional (planning, organizing, prioritizing), what I do with that “extra time” or “margin” is to live life. It means spending time in the mornings on the couch with my 103 pound lab in my lap while I read and soaking in his cuddles and sighs, it’s going for hikes with Teddy on the weekends, it’s traveling to new places and exploring and learning about different places and cultures, and it’s about resting and enjoying naps, and sunsets, and bonfires, and books. For me, this is what I want my life to be made of. It’s not just work and it’s not just rest. But work from a place of rest and I am mindful about how I think about time. I invest it well rather than feeling like I’m spending it or wasting it.

My worth is not determined by my productivity. I am worthy before I ever did anything. And that’s something I have to continue to remind myself when I feel like I should have gotten more done or that my long winter’s nap was not productive. I try to recognize how I’m feeling, ask myself if it’s true, kind, and helpful, adjust the narrative and move forward.

So while this wasn’t my favorite book, it still had some good nuggets. Again, first 50 pages are well worth it. The rest just wasn’t as impactful for me.

If you’ve read the book or joined along in reading in our Atlas Book Club, what did you think? What were your takeaways? I’ve love to hear them below.