265 - Time, productivity, and purpose: insights from Four Thousand Weeks | Oliver Burkeman

1. 0:00 – 2:16

   Intro

   1. OBOliver Burkeman0:00

      This desire for control over time manifests as a desire for control over the future, for as an antidote to worry. And, uh, as well as being a sort of productivity geek and all the rest of it, I'm certainly a sort of inveterate worrier about the future. And I write in the book about the ways in which a lot of worry and kind of obsessive planning can be understood as an attempt to kind of, from the standpoint of the present, kind of throw a straitjacket over the future, right? To feel like you've got it under your control, you know what's coming. When in fact, another of the aspects of our being finite human beings is like what's been called like our total vulnerability to events, right? Anything could happen at any moment to anyone. That's just the way it, you know, it is to be, uh, human.

   2. PAPeter Attia0:57

      [upbeat music] Hey, everyone, welcome to "The Drive" podcast. I'm your host, Peter Attia. Oliver, thank you so much for making time to speak, uh, in your evening. Uh, it's, uh, I've been looking forward to this for, for quite a, quite a, quite a while. As I was saying earlier when we spoke, um, your book is, is, is one of these four books that kind of fits into, I don't know, call it like books about the quality of one's life that have more to do with the way you live than some of the more physiological and biochemical things that I tend to think of commonly. Uh, of course, so, so in addition to your book, people have not only heard me talk about these books, but interview the authors, uh, Ryan Holiday with, with respect to his book, Stillness Is the Key, Bill Perkins with, uh, Die With Zero, and Arthur Brooks, From Strength to Strength. So to be able to sit here and speak with you today is really exciting because it sort of puts a bow on these, on these four, uh, books. And, and, um, it's a, it's a book I've enjoyed several times now, and I still am not convinced I fully understand it. So I'm really looking forward to speaking.

   3. OBOliver Burkeman2:11

      Oh, thank you. I'm really, really happy to be here. I'm looking forward to getting into it. Absolutely.

2. 2:16 – 5:59

   Oliver’s experience that led him to write the book Four Thousand Weeks

   1. PAPeter Attia2:16

      When I read the book, there was a lot I could relate to because, um, I'm definitely a productivity geek. Uh, I probably have been as long as I can remember. I've always kept lists. I love pens and journals, and I love to organize. And, um, even at a young age and, you know, growing up, it was clear that there, there, there was almost pathological consequences to this because if things were not done, there would be emotional consequences. Um, so tell me a little bit about your experience in this arena. It sounds like, um, this is something that came naturally to you as well.

   2. OBOliver Burkeman2:55

      Uh, that sounds alarmingly similar to me, uh, as a, as a young adult anyway. I don't know about as a kid, but, um, certainly feeling very, very motivated, not realizing at the time, obviously, that it wasn't just the normal way to try to get your homework done and get your college assignments in on, on time. But, but this real sense that there must be a way of kind of getting on top of my time and structuring my time that would, uh, enable me to sort of, yeah, deal with everything that was thrown at me, not have to make difficult decisions and fail to placate certain people who are making demands and not have to make any choices about which direction I was going in because I would be so, I would be so efficient that I would, that I would do it all. And you get, well, in my experience anyway, I don't know about yours, you, you get to this place where you often feel very nearly like you're, you're there, right? You feel like it might only be a month or two of really disciplined work before you're gonna be at the, the sunlit uplands of, uh, effortless productivity. But instead you end up sort of making fresh starts every, uh, you know, introducing a new system, downloading a new app, buying a new notebook every, uh, every, every month or, or two. Um, so yeah, that was, that was definitely me. And then I got into a position professionally where I could write about a lot of this stuff and continue to sort of go deep into it. And I think this book is probably what came from sort of exhausting that, right? Realizing that I'd got to the-- I'd tried like 100 different productivity systems, and they hadn't given me the emotional thing I was seeking. So maybe there was a problem with the, the question I was asking rather than that I just hadn't found the, the right solution.

   3. PAPeter Attia4:46

      Yeah. There's a line in there you, you throw away, and I don't remember who it's attributed to, but it's, um, effectively, we, we teach what we most need to learn, something to that effect.

   4. OBOliver Burkeman4:58

      Right. Yes. Richard Bach, I think-

   5. PAPeter Attia4:59

      Yeah

   6. OBOliver Burkeman4:59

      ... who wrote, uh-

   7. PAPeter Attia5:00

      Yeah. Richard Bach, that's right

   8. OBOliver Burkeman5:00

      ... Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

   9. PAPeter Attia5:02

      Yeah.

   10. OBOliver Burkeman5:02

       Um, yeah. And, and not only that in terms of where the book came from, but e-even in terms of the book itself, right? It's like, it's a whole bunch of advice that I needed to hear and still need to hear. So it's always a little bit funny to me or awkward when I run into people who assume that the book describes the sort of daily state of serenity in which I actually live my life because I, I don't. And I certainly, you know, I, I totally still struggle with, with all of this stuff, but that's what makes it interesting, I think, to, to, to me. Um, it's not, it's not interesting to, to write about, to try to grapple with things that, that come easily to you. So this question of like how you orient yourself inside time in a, in a finite life, I, I, you know, it's endlessly fascinating to me, but I certainly don't feel like I've resolved

3. 5:59 – 10:15

   Human’s relationship with time and the struggle with the finite nature of time

   1. OBOliver Burkeman5:59

      it all.

   2. PAPeter Attia6:00

      You said something a second ago that I think is very important, um, especially for someone who hasn't read the book. Um- I think for those of us who have read it, it makes a lot of sense. And it's, um-- and I'm gonna paraphrase you, but you, you basically said you-- all of this productivity, all of these hacks didn't give you what you were looking for emotionally. And again, to someone who didn't read the book, that's a bit counterintuitive because the whole pur-purpose of productivity is not some emotional thing, it's to get more stuff done, right? It's to-

   3. OBOliver Burkeman6:32

      Right

   4. PAPeter Attia6:32

      ... you know, be more efficient.

   5. OBOliver Burkeman6:34

      Right.

   6. PAPeter Attia6:34

      But I think you're tying it back to something that is much deeper at our root as individuals that really comes down to time and our view of time and whether we consciously think about finitude or not, subconsciously we are all aware of it at all times. So l-let's talk a little bit about that and, and maybe, um-- Well, we can do it in any way that you find it helpful, but I, I, I think that the way you write about it through the lens of evolution is quite helpful in how we go from, you know, an era when we didn't keep time through the Industrial Revolution when all of a sudden timekeeping became essential.

   7. OBOliver Burkeman7:18

      Yeah. Yeah, no, I think that historical lens is, is really, uh, illuminating. On some level, it's my working hypothesis, my working thesis that, that everyone has always struggled with being finite. W-we are these sort of unique creatures as humans who are both fully material animals and at the same time can, can think about and know about the fact that we're going to, that we're going to die one day. So we're in this kind of unique, anguished situation. Uh, but we haven't always had a p- had the kind of ideas about time that enable us to then try to use time management or productivity or planning or scheduling to try to, you know, engage in emotional avoidance of that scary issue of our finitude, right? So all the way back through the record of philosophy back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, there are people grappling with the fact that there is death. But it's only in a widespread way, uh, with m-maybe not the Industrial Revolution, but running up to that and certainly beyond, after it, that most people would, were, were thinking I think about time as a resource, right? So it's not just the medium in which your life unfolds. It's like this-- It, it's almost like there's you and there's time, and it's your job somehow to try to handle time in the right way. You feel like you have an adversarial relationship with time, right? Most people feel either hounded by all the stuff they've got to do in the time available, or some people might feel that there's not enough to fill their time with. But all of these things kind of imply a relationship between you and your time, which is actually quite an odd notion once you really start to think about it, the idea that it should be something separate. So I guess at the root of my argument is, yeah, the idea that m-most of the stress and the trouble and the anxiety and the lack of meaning and the things that we encounter in our relationship with time come from sort of pathological versions of this idea that it's something for us to try to use as well as we can or handle or manage or master. And most of our deepest experiences as humans of, of truly meaningful and fulfilling moments seem to involve a kind of falling away of those concepts and a falling back into just presence in this one moment that we, that we have. Of course, you need to think about time as a resource in order to do all sorts of things that we do in, in, in modern society. But I think, um, a lot of the problems arise from thinking that that is all time is and that there is some place in the future we can get to where we have finally nailed our relationship with it. Does that make sense?

4. 10:15 – 17:45

   How productivity can be a trap

   1. PAPeter Attia10:15

      Yeah, it really does. I mean, I, I think the idea that productivity is a trap is, is very interesting. The idea that it's a distraction from something else is even more interesting. And the idea that it can never be fully attained is, anybody who's tried, uh, is sadly true. Um, we're not born this way. I mean, those of us that have kids clearly observe young children playing in a way that is untethered from time as a separate entity.

   2. OBOliver Burkeman10:51

      Mm-hmm.

   3. PAPeter Attia10:51

      And yet somewhere along the way we, we become inculcated with, and maybe it's to varying degrees, you and I probably more than others-

   4. OBOliver Burkeman11:00

      Mm-hmm

   5. PAPeter Attia11:00

      ... um, with this sense of time mastery being important. How, how and when do you think that transition occurs?

   6. OBOliver Burkeman11:09

      I mean, my, my assumption is that it occurs in all different ways at different stages, and my son is six, but I absolutely have seen some glimmers of, uh, you know, his father's, uh, unhelpful attitudes to time. So maybe it's passed on in the, in, in the, in the genes or in sort of subtle ways that I can't clearly, uh, uh, control. So he sometimes gets into this place of wanting to be sort of, uh, wanting to know exactly what's happening over the next twenty-four, forty-eight, seventy-two hours. Um, I think here it's most useful though just to, just to look at the, at a perspective that much kind of, um, psychotherapy and depth psychology would, would, would point to, which is that, you know, in various different ways as we grow up and as we are raised, even when we're raised by basically excellent parents, there are things that are missing from our sense of-- things that- Give us less than a sort of completely comfortable, secure sense of, of self-worth, um, and of everything being absolutely fine in the world. There are people who have this much more extremely than, than others. But there's some- some- something that you're trying to fill, right? By the time you're, by the time you're a young adult, there's something that isn't quite ideal there, and I think that we use all sorts of things. And obviously, some people use substance abuse and all sorts of other things to, to try to grapple with these things that feel like they're missing. And I think that productivity, uh, is especially, you know, people who for one reason or another have ended up with the idea that their, that their value as people, that their, um, their right to exist on the planet or to feel that they are, you know, enough as human beings is somehow dependent on their, on their output, uh, and on attaining certain, certain levels of, um, accomplishment. The people David Brooks calls insecure overachievers, right? Um, which is a, a, I think a great phrase and sums it up well. Um, I think they're the ones who are naturally drawn to this idea that they've really got to, um, uh, try to double down on the technologies of time control to try to get as efficient as they can and, and process as much as they can. There are, of course, other people, we know them, right, who for some reason are deeply psychologically invested in, in not, um, accomplishing things, in, in making themselves feel that they're not part of that whole, you know, uh, process of accomplishment, of becoming sort of a, a slacker in a very sort of proactive and deliberate way. So I think in all sorts of different ways, we're just trying to kind of-- W- we're just trying to sort of-- trying to plug in a, in a, in a lax. And, um, uh, you know, uh, then, then the problems with that are gonna manifest in, in different ways. The, the obvious problem with productivity as a way to get to that kind of state of peace of mind is just that there's a complete baked-in mismatch between being a finite human being and, uh, existing in a world of effectively infinite possibilities, right? Infinite emails you could answer, infinite ambitions you could have, infinite places you could, you could go. If you're trying-- If your job, if your self-worth is staked on trying to get your arms around all of that, but it's actually, uh, an infinite quantity, then that's just a-- that's just gonna be a, uh, an unending struggle.

   7. PAPeter Attia14:58

      So what would you say to somebody who says, "No, no, no, it's different. I, I can actually do this. Like, I can juggle these five projects, and I can get my inbox to zero. Um, I just need a little more time. Like, I'm right on the cusp of doing it."

   8. OBOliver Burkeman15:17

      Mm-hmm.

   9. PAPeter Attia15:18

      "Um, and if I just put my head down for the next six months, like it's, it's, it's gonna be okay." How, how would you explain to them that that's kind of a fallacy?

   10. OBOliver Burkeman15:31

       I mean, there are two ways into that, aren't there? I feel like one is to say that the, one of the greatest questions in terms of self-change and self-knowledge, which is just, um, how's that working out for you so far, you know? Um, and I think to some extent, these are kind of revelations of the middle of life because you have to have, uh, you have to have tried this out for, uh-

   11. PAPeter Attia15:56

       Mm-hmm

   12. OBOliver Burkeman15:56

       ... quite a while. And you know, if you're 20, telling yourself that the real part of life is still coming makes a certain amount of sense. When you're in your 40s and you're still telling yourself that the real part of life is, is coming later and this is still a dress rehearsal for that moment, it might begin to strike you as, as no longer quite so, quite so credible. The other way of getting into that is just to say that, um, there seems to be this pretty much universal law that, um, if all you do is become more efficient, uh, in any system is made more, just more efficient with, with nothing else being done in terms of it, how you select your priorities. If all you're doing is trying to process more stuff, then all else being equal, that will attract more and more stuff to do into your life. So getting, getting better at processing email at a faster tempo just basically attracts more email into your life for fairly straightforward reasons. You, you reply to more people, and they reply to your replies, and you have to reply to those replies, and you get a reputation in your organization or wherever it is for being very responsive on email, so more people email you. So there's this kind of unending, uh, aspect to it, um, that occurs in lots of other domains, uh, uh, bes- besides email. And, and so you can't ever actually-- You're not gonna get through an effectively infinite supply of something by, by processing it more efficiently. In fact, the opposite is gonna happen. Um, and so I think that's why this, it always feels like this, um, like this moment of, of mastery is, is just over the, just over the horizon, but it's never quite, it's never quite where you are.

5. 17:45 – 25:14

   The fallacy that being more efficient will open up more time and bring a feeling of control

   1. PAPeter Attia17:46

      It, it is a very, um, deceitful feeling, uh, for anyone who's struggled with it. I'll j-- I think just maybe the word struggled is the right word, right? It's because you really do feel at times you're so close to just nailing it, and then it will be different

   2. OBOliver Burkeman18:07

      Yeah.

   3. PAPeter Attia18:08

      Tell me about your, your journeys here. I mean, there's a whole-- I, I'm kind of one of these guys who tries to inbox to zero, never successfully. Um, what, what is the, is it called the Pomodoro Technique? You, you briefly touched on your dabbling in that. What, what's that technique and, and what are some of the others, the other techniques that people are exploring as ways to defy the gravitational inevitability of, uh, of what we're talking about?

   4. OBOliver Burkeman18:35

      Well, this is a really interesting point, actually. I, I think it's, uh, one worth emphasizing. The Pomodoro Technique, as many people will know, I'm sure, is this, is this approach where you, you divide up your work time into twenty-five minute periods interspersed with five-minute breaks, and then after you've done four of those, you take a longer break. And it's just a way of sort of boxing up your time. Other approaches to the sort of classic approach of time boxing that involves, you know, giving every segment of your calendar a specific job. Uh, and there are, you know, a hundred other of these kinds of techniques. And many, many of them, including the Pomodoro Technique, are to- like, totally great. Like, there's absolutely nothing intrinsically wrong, I don't think, with, with them, you know, u- using this or that protocol for-

   5. PAPeter Attia19:24

      W- when you say great-

   6. OBOliver Burkeman19:25

      ... thinking through

   7. PAPeter Attia19:26

      ... meaning they will increase an individual's productivity?

   8. OBOliver Burkeman19:29

      I mean, yeah, ri- I mean, they're, well, they are fine as a way of structuring your day that might well help you make the right choices, uh, understand how much time you have available, and therefore decide that certain things are more important uses of that time than, than not. And if you read the writing of the guy who invented the Pomodoro Technique, he's very on board with this idea that it's about turning time from being an, an adversary to an ally by just sort of seeing that your, in some sense, your time already is made up of twenty-five minute periods, right? [chuckles] And you could look at it that way. So it's just a question of, uh, uh, being explicit about that and making choices about what you're gonna put in those times and taking appropriate rests. All of these techniques are, when I say great, I mean all of these techniques are, like, fine if they, if they work as a way of g- lending order to the day. I think the real problem that you see again and again, and I certainly had for, for a long time, is that people see them as they throw themselves on them as kind of, you know, paths to this salvation that I think we are talking about in some implicit way, 'cause it is a very sort of religious feeling, uh, in, in some ways. Uh, they, they think that they can ride this approach to life to that point of finally feeling like they're doing enough, finally feeling like they're like the air traffic controller of their, of their lives. Um, and that's the problem, right? So, you know, I, I mentioned in the book, um, my early experiments with, with David Allen's Getting Things Done, um, a big sort of, you know, which kickstarted the modern, uh, phase of, of productivity writing. And there's so much great stuff in that, in that book, uh, some of which I still in some ways practice today. But I completely, I was so fixated in this idea that I was somehow going to be able to do everything that I, I completely missed what he says very clearly early in that book, which is that it's, it's about having too much to do and staying calm in the middle of having too much to do. And I totally took it as a way that was gonna help me not have too much to do, because I would've done ev- I would've been managing to do everything. And, um, and we're just a certain kind of person anyway, I think, really drawn to just, we just take anything and co-opt it into this psychological project of, uh, trying to feel like we're fully in, in, fully in control of our lives in a way that we, that we can't be. Um, uh, I'm fascinated to talk to you about this because it seems that a lot of, I think you could easily see that a lot of the, that a lot of the more physiological, physical, biological stuff could easily be dragooned into a similar kind of, kind of project of feeling in total, total control of our situation. Um, I don't know if you s- if you see that happening.

   9. PAPeter Attia22:24

      I, I do. And, and-

   10. OBOliver Burkeman22:25

       In yourself maybe. I don't know. [chuckles]

   11. PAPeter Attia22:26

       No, a- absolutely. And, and, um, you know, I, I, I sort of write about this in the epilogue of my book where I, I sort of say, you know, I think when, when my obsession with this topic began about a decade ago, I mean, maybe fifteen years ago in one way, but, but really in earnest a decade ago, um, there's zero question in my mind with, with the, you know, with the benefit of the retrospectoscope I have today-

   12. OBOliver Burkeman22:57

       Mm

   13. PAPeter Attia22:57

       ... that it was one hundred percent a how do I run from death? Basically, it was just this is, this is just a I'm gonna put my head in the sand and, and march my way towards something that deep, deep, deep down I know is impossible, which is immortality, but I'm gonna focus so much on this thing that, you know, I, I'm not gonna confront my fear of death, or I'm going to confront my fear of death by shouting louder at that fear with this thing.

   14. OBOliver Burkeman23:29

       Mm-hmm.

   15. PAPeter Attia23:30

       This thing, and this thing is-

   16. OBOliver Burkeman23:31

       Wow

   17. PAPeter Attia23:32

       ... all the things I'm going to do to live longer. Um, I think a lot of people can relate to that, and I think people have different reasons for it. I talk about what my reasons were for that, but, um, but I can f- I can say now that I realize that completely. I have a slightly different take today, but it, but like you, I still struggle.

   18. OBOliver Burkeman23:59

       Mm.

   19. PAPeter Attia23:59

       Meaning, I still watch people die and get very sad. Uh, just, uh, recently, someone who I actually had on the podcast died. Uh, and he was, you know- In his early 80s. So-

   20. OBOliver Burkeman24:15

       Mm-hmm

   21. PAPeter Attia24:15

       ... but, you know, by most people's standards, hey, he, he lived-

   22. OBOliver Burkeman24:19

       Right

   23. PAPeter Attia24:19

       ... to and maybe slightly beyond normal life expectancy. But I don't know. It, it just, it always bothers me when, when someone dies, you know? It, it still does. And it, and I, intellectually I know that that's a very bizarre way to feel, that, you know, he, he, th- he had his 4,000 weeks. He did a lot with those 4,000 weeks. Um, he, he, he had a wonderful family. Like, you have all of these thi- like, there's nothing to mourn other than the fact that he's not here, and yet I still have a sense of sadness about that. And I understand that, that part of that produces a distraction from what's happening today. Like, if you dwell on that too much, you miss out-

   24. OBOliver Burkeman25:04

       Mm

   25. PAPeter Attia25:04

       ... on the fact that, well, the best thing you can do to honor the legacy or the memory or whatever is to, to do your thing today. Um, but you know,

6. 25:14 – 30:33

   The paradoxical nature of trying too hard to be present in the current moment

   1. PAPeter Attia25:14

      you wr- another thing you write about that I love is the, [chuckles] the challenge of trying too hard to be present, right? This, this has also-

   2. OBOliver Burkeman25:23

      Right, right

   3. PAPeter Attia25:23

      ... this has equally become kind of cult-like, which is-

   4. OBOliver Burkeman25:26

      Yeah

   5. PAPeter Attia25:26

      ... I am going to be the most present person ever.

   6. OBOliver Burkeman25:30

      [laughs]

   7. PAPeter Attia25:30

      And, like, I'm going to will myself into that. Uh, so, so, so say a bit about that.

   8. OBOliver Burkeman25:38

      Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it feels like it's the natural reaction at first when you sort of begin to realize that you've been running into the future for so long through these kinds of, uh, techniques and this approach. Um, it's like, oh, well, I, surely, uh, what I have to do is the opposite of that, and that's, like, be really, really present. And then you read books on mindfulness that say, you know, uh, when you're washing the dishes, when you're loading the dishwasher, just, just do that thing. Be present in that moment. And then you find, right, y- there's something, uh, sort of paradoxical about how the mind works in those contexts. As soon as you're self-consciously trying to will yourself into the moment, then you're not doing it, because what you're actually doing is, is thinking about, um, whether you're in the moment enough. And so yeah, I tell this absurd story in the, in the book about, um, getting to witness the, the northern lights when I was in, uh, northern Canada and having been sort of, like, getting excited about it for several days of my trip. And, and, um, and when it finally happened and I was sort of dragged out of the place I was asleep in [chuckles] by some neighboring guests at sort of 2:00 in the morning, um, uh, to, to see this, um, just finding myself thinking, like, firstly trying really hard to be there and being very much aware that as a result I was, I was not. And then just having stray thoughts like that it looked like an old PC screensaver-

   9. PAPeter Attia27:13

      [laughs]

   10. OBOliver Burkeman27:13

       ... and all these kind of, like, these terrible thoughts that just totally, totally ruined the kind of sacredness of the moment because I had been, uh, so sort of cognitively engaged with trying to be there. And by contrast, you know, we can all point, I think, to moments in life that, sort of perfect afternoons and things like this that were not planned. They were not because we set out to, um, have a perfect, a perfect day. Um, so there's kind of a theme that runs through all this, I think. It comes up thinking about rest and recreation and leisure as well. That y- you do sort of, to make... There's a sense, it just sounds like a sort of annoying paradox, but there's a, there's a sense in which you do have to be willing to waste time to, to make the most of time. You do have to be willing to, um, to just sort of care a bit less about whether a given afternoon, given weekend is, is spent in a deeply meaningful way in order to maximize the, the chances of it, of sort of lucking out into one of those deeply meaningful times, because y- you need to not be fixated on, on trying to, on trying to force the, force the matter.

   11. PAPeter Attia28:36

       And, and what do you think that means? I mean, is that something that can only be appreciated in, in retrospect? Or is that something that will also be appreciated in the moment?

   12. OBOliver Burkeman28:47

       Meaning? You mean the, you mean the sense of meaning? Is that what you're talking about?

   13. PAPeter Attia28:49

       Yeah.

   14. OBOliver Burkeman28:50

       Right.

   15. PAPeter Attia28:50

       This experience that, that I, I think w- we're acknowledging we want, right?

   16. OBOliver Burkeman28:55

       Mm-hmm. Yeah.

   17. PAPeter Attia28:55

       We're acknowledging that we, we want to feel a certain way.

   18. OBOliver Burkeman28:59

       Yeah.

   19. PAPeter Attia28:59

       And I think w- you're doing a pretty good job establishing, especially for anybody who's tried, you're not going to achieve that sense of meaning by achieving. Like-

   20. OBOliver Burkeman29:11

       Right

   21. PAPeter Attia29:12

       ... d- getting more things done on the to-do list is not going to be the path to make that happen. Um-

   22. OBOliver Burkeman29:20

       Right

   23. PAPeter Attia29:21

       ... and so there's, what, what is that thing that we're trying to make happen, and do we know it when it's happening?

   24. OBOliver Burkeman29:28

       Huh. That's a really good question that I don't know that I really know what I think about. Um, certainly just in my immediate direct experience, the, the, the best times in life are either best in, in, in recollection, in hindsight, or they are, you know, flow states in the moment, which, and, and, and it, as we know from flow states, right? It's like it's, can you be aware that you're in them? I think to s- in some bodily sense you can be aware that you're in them, but you can't, you're not in them once you're thinking too hard about them in a-

   25. PAPeter Attia30:07

       Mm

   26. OBOliver Burkeman30:07

       ... in a, in a, in a, in a verbal way. Um, I don't know if it's quite the same point, but maybe it connects. I think that one of the strangest parts of this is that- Um, uh, y- is that happiness feels like sort of the wrong, the wrong framing for, for what we're, what we're talking about here. I'm, I'm,

7. 30:33 – 42:09

   The value of relationships in meaningful experiences and fulfillment, and how time gets its value from being shared

   1. OBOliver Burkeman30:33

      I'm always really, really, um, fascinated by those moments in people's lives, and I've had a couple of them myself, where somebody close to you is going through some sort of immediate serious crisis. There's, there's nothing good about what's happening. You, you wouldn't want it... If you could've chosen for it not to be happening, it wouldn't be happening. And then in the middle of this emergency, you, it's just obvious that you've got some, like, your job is to like, I don't know, do their dry cleaning. It might not be being a shoulder to cry on. It depends. You know, it might be, it might be your job is something very mundane to just keep someone, do your con- make your contribution to somebody, uh, weathering this crisis. And that sense of knowing that you're in exactly the right place, that, like, there is no question, there's no, um... It makes you realize how... See, I, I feel among my friends I have a good reputation of being quite good in a crisis, which feels very flattering until you think about it. What it really means is you're just incredibly ambivalent [chuckles] and indecisive in all other times, right? 'Cause it's, it's when you have a, when you have a choice about what you should be doing, there is this great sense of sort of second-guessing and fretting and being indecisive. And yet I think we all have these experiences when there isn't really a choice, when choice is taken away, when it's incredibly obvious what you should be doing to help in that moment, which are in some sense deeply fulfilling even though they're not happy. Um, and I think there's a clue there to what we're looking for in other times of, of life. It is this sense that there's not really any option of manipulating our experience, fitting a few more things in, worrying whether we're missing out on something else. All that sort of goes away in those times. I don't know if it's the same point, but it does seem really important to me.

   2. PAPeter Attia32:26

      Do you think what you're describing can exist, um, or is at least... Well, let's just start with that. Can that exist without some interaction with another person? Because the example you gave requires another person, right?

   3. OBOliver Burkeman32:42

      Mm-hmm.

   4. PAPeter Attia32:42

      In this sense, uh, it, in this case, it requires that you are there to help another person.

   5. OBOliver Burkeman32:50

      Mm-hmm.

   6. PAPeter Attia32:50

      So which we're gonna, I wanna talk much more about the use of time as a good versus sort of a, a, a shared good, but, but-

   7. OBOliver Burkeman32:58

      Yeah. Yeah

   8. PAPeter Attia32:58

      ... we'll, we'll come to that 'cause I think that's one of the most important points of the book, and there are many. Um, but as I sort of rack my brain to think about the most joyful moments, and I say this as a 10 out of 10 introvert.

   9. OBOliver Burkeman33:16

      Mm-hmm.

   10. PAPeter Attia33:16

       I mean, I need endless amounts of time by myself, uh, to function. If I don't have that, I come off the rails.

   11. OBOliver Burkeman33:28

       Yeah.

   12. PAPeter Attia33:28

       But the truest joy I have, even as a 10 out of 10 introvert, is with others.

   13. OBOliver Burkeman33:34

       Mm-hmm.

   14. PAPeter Attia33:35

       And it makes me wonder, is what we're talking about here so much about the relationship of not just time, but time with others? Um, I- I'll give you an example. So-

   15. OBOliver Burkeman33:48

       Yeah. Yeah

   16. PAPeter Attia33:48

       ... I, I play this game with, with, with patients where I sort of say like, "You know, if you could be in perfect health indefinitely, so you, we're gonna grant you eternal life-

   17. OBOliver Burkeman34:02

       Mm-hmm

   18. PAPeter Attia34:02

       ... but you have to do it on a desert island. Now it's a great desert island because you don't have to f- find your own coconuts. Like, everything you want is there.

   19. OBOliver Burkeman34:11

       Mm-hmm.

   20. PAPeter Attia34:12

       Right? So we've somehow solved every problem, and away from the island there are robots churning away, giving you everything you need. So you've got your Netflix, you've got your food, you've got your whatever. To your heart's content, you can have anything. The only thing you can't have is another human being. Are you happy?" And most people, when they think about this for just a few minutes, come to the conclusion, "No, it would be very difficult to be happy."

   21. OBOliver Burkeman34:39

       Right.

   22. PAPeter Attia34:39

       Whatever, whatever we define happiness as. That's such a sloppy word. But, but you, you, you know, fill in the blank, your positive valence, very difficult.

   23. OBOliver Burkeman34:46

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   24. PAPeter Attia34:47

       I mean, what do you think of that, and what does that tell us here?

   25. OBOliver Burkeman34:50

       Yeah, it's super interesting. I think it's, I think it's basically right. I think that, I think that we're talking about things that can only happen in some form of relationship. I would say that there probably can be such a thing as, you know, your relationship with parts of yourself. Um, you know, that I think when people are journaling, for example, they are maybe in a relation with unconscious parts of themselves. I think you can be in relationship with, with the natural world in certain ways. Um, but by and large, I think it's, I think you're right that, you know, the, the, the deepest ways in which we're in relationship are with, with other people. And I mean, there's a million different angles to, to, to sort of endorse that point. Uh, stated like that it, it, it doesn't sound super controversial. I think where it connects to what I'm so interested in and I'm writing about in the book is that, um, it's... There's a sense in which other, other people, other consciousnesses are kind of, um, th- th- in some way they're sort of an affront to any idea that we can use our intellect to control our world, right? Because as soon as you're in any kind of even slightly intimate relationship or friendship with somebody else, it's like people have their own agendas. You have to, you, you're brought into an encounter with your, your limits because you, you can't just like- Uh, make the rhythms of family life go exactly as you, uh, uh, want them to do. If you manage that, you find everyone else is very miserable, and that's not what you wanted. So, um, we're sort of brought into this encounter with the fact that we, that we are these finite, uh, beings. And I think that's really important and edifying for us somehow because part of what is going wrong, at least for me in my personal experience, with the whole mastery of time, uh, approach, is it- it's some notion that I ought to be able to solve the, the problem of life with, with my intellect, right? That I ought to be able to figure out the, the workflow and the scheme and the s- goal-setting system and, like, and, and work life out. And other people are at once, you know, a constant reminder that y- you can't use your own intellect to work out life because everyone else is living their own lives and has their own agendas. Um, and also that huge numbers of just very practical things that mean anything to us just can't be done except in some form of relationship. So whether what you care about is, uh, raising a family, making music, uh, playing sports, uh, being, pursuing a sort of a religious faith or, you know, building a business or, um, being a political activist. Like, it, a million different kinds of things that, that, that, uh, energize people, but they all have that in common, that n- need to collaborate and that, uh, that understanding that, like, you, you don't get to run life in the way that I think we often feel that we, that, that we want to. Um, and actually, I give some examples in the book, right, of people who sort of get into the position where they do have an extraordinary amount of control over how time unfolds in their own lives and then find themselves kind of lonely and, and miserable, uh, as a result of that.

   26. PAPeter Attia38:28

       Yeah. Let's, let's talk about, uh, Mario. Uh, I mean, I don't know if that's who you're referring to in the moment, but it's an interesting story. I hadn't heard of this, this character. Uh, it's kind of bizarre.

   27. OBOliver Burkeman38:39

       Yeah, and I feel like I shouldn't, uh, I shouldn't, uh, defame him. He may be, I suppose, as I say in the book, he may be happy. All I'm saying is I know that I would not be happy if I had designed, uh-

   28. PAPeter Attia38:52

       Yeah, yeah. I, I think that's a fair point. I, I, let, let's do it through the lens of I agree with you. I would be-

   29. OBOliver Burkeman38:57

       Right

   30. PAPeter Attia38:57

       ... I would be-
8. 42:09 – 48:07

   The importance of time synchronicity

   1. PAPeter Attia42:09

      No, I, I, I, I think this point about regular goods versus network goods is, is important. Let's, let's even continue to expand on that, right? So, you know, classic regular good is money.

   2. OBOliver Burkeman42:20

      Right.

   3. PAPeter Attia42:20

      All things equal, more of it is better than less of it.

   4. OBOliver Burkeman42:23

      Yeah.

   5. PAPeter Attia42:23

      Um, so in other words, there's some, even though you could argue you could hoard all the money in the world, it's not gonna make you happy, but, but- If you could choose between having more or less, it's logical why you would choose more.

   6. OBOliver Burkeman42:34

      Right.

   7. PAPeter Attia42:34

      Um, but I think, you know, the great example of, uh, cell phones, right? Telephones. Like, uh-

   8. OBOliver Burkeman42:41

      Right. You don't want to have all the cell phones.

   9. PAPeter Attia42:43

      Yeah.

   10. OBOliver Burkeman42:43

       You just need one, and you want everyone else to have one of them.

   11. PAPeter Attia42:46

       Right.

   12. OBOliver Burkeman42:46

       That's, so that's what makes the network work.

   13. PAPeter Attia42:47

       Such a great point. That's a network good.

   14. OBOliver Burkeman42:48

       Yeah. Yeah.

   15. PAPeter Attia42:49

       And to think of time as money is missing the point a little bit. You need to think of time as cell phones. It's-

   16. OBOliver Burkeman42:56

       [laughs]

   17. PAPeter Attia42:56

       You have to have time that everyone else has. And to your point, let's-- maybe this would be a great time to kind of talk about "The Great Soviet Experiment," about the, uh, asynchronicity of time. I, I thought that was so fascinating. I never really considered that before.

   18. OBOliver Burkeman43:13

       So yeah, there was this extraordinary attempt in the, uh, early decades of the Soviet Union to kind of leapfrog, uh, the state of economic development of the West, uh, by eliminating the, the seven-day week, five days of work, two days of weekend, and replacing it with a, with a five-day system so that it would be five days through the year, four days of work, one day of rest, four days of work, one day of rest. And the sort of, uh, allegedly ingenious idea here was that it wouldn't be the same four days on, one day off for everybody. Instead, the, the, the population was divided into cohorts, color-coded cohorts, and depending on which one you belonged to, your four days and one day would be different. So they were all kind of staggered through the year. And the idea was that this would enable, um, the factory machines to run every single day of the year and never need to stop, and, uh, this would result in extraordinary economic gains. Um, what it did very quickly, among other unintended consequences, was to sort of, um, desynchronize the whole, um, population, right? Because if you had a friend or even a spouse, and spouses were supposed to be, um, assigned to the same cohorts, but it often didn't happen, I think. If you had somebody you wanted to spend time with and they were in a different cohort, then you were never free-- you never ha- you never had the same weekend to, to, um, to spend time. Um, it hugely disrupted, therefore, the family, and it disrupted the church, and as others have pointed out, right, both of these were kind of features rather than bugs from the point of view of the, the Soviet leadership, that you're sort of undermining these, these other centers of power, uh, in the, in the society. But you've got... There's an amazing, uh, letter to, to Pravda, kind of amazing that it was written at all, but somebody complaining that, um, you know, a holiday isn't a holiday at all if nobody else in your life is available to spend the holiday with, and you've just got to, like, go to the cafe and, and, uh, drink a cup of coffee on your own. Um, so it's a sort of extreme example of how, uh, how damaging it is to our quality of life to be put in a situation where our time is not properly synchronized with other peoples. But as various people, including the, the writer Judith Shulevitz, uh, who I quote in the book, has pointed out, like, we, we've kind of done something like that to ourselves in, in, uh, the twenty-first century US and, and UK, because although we do not have that kind of, um, deliberate top-down government, uh, messing with our attempts to, uh, synchronize our time, pretty much everybody, for one reason or another, both the kind of people who are sort of called into work irregular shifts in retail, but also the more privileged people who set their own hours and, you know, work on their laptops or whatever, all of us are all at different, on different schedules than, than everybody else. And this is, helps explain this kind of notorious problem that everyone talks about, especially in big cities, where it's just so difficult to find a time when, like, three of your, you and two friends can, can meet up for a, for a beer. It's not that you don't have any time. It might be that you feel very busy as well, but it, it's just that it's not the same, it's not the same time. Uh, and I think this is, it's, it's a real and, like, sort of a growing problem, the way we've sort of completely fallen out of sync with each other, because almost anything you do, and I write in the book about how much I've got out of singing in amateur choirs over the years, you know, but anything like that, you, you all need to agree that it's gonna be at the same time of the day on the same day of the week. Otherwise, it's, it's not happening. Um, so I think there's a kind of a deep point there that has quite a few sort of low-level practical ramifications as well.

   19. PAPeter Attia47:24

       Well, and that's the interesting thing, right? Without time, you couldn't do these things. We couldn't synchronize, and synchronization is so important for civilization, and yet it's potentially the thing that gets us back to this root problem, which is we now think we can master this thing called time. And as I think we're learning, if you try to master time, time will master you.

   20. OBOliver Burkeman47:51

       Right.

   21. PAPeter Attia47:51

       So we need time to have a civilization. We can't really synchronize it because of the success of civilization, ergo we try to gain control over it by mastering it, some of us more than others, and we end up feeling like we can't.

9. 48:07 – 55:37

   Identifying your biggest priorities and the paradox of wanting to do more than you have time for

   1. PAPeter Attia48:07

      And y- you know, y- I, I love the, um, I love the way you point out the flaw in the logic of the, the story about the rocks, the pebbles, and the sand-

   2. OBOliver Burkeman48:18

      Yes. Yes

   3. PAPeter Attia48:18

      ... which, I, I mean, I'm, I've always thought I lived by that thing. I know my rocks. I know my pebbles. I know my sand. Uh, m- maybe explain to folks what that is and, and, and why that might be a fallacy.

   4. OBOliver Burkeman48:34

      Sure, yeah. Right, if there's anyone on the planet who hasn't heard the original story, which is I, I think probably reproduced in a thousand time management books, it is this, this anecdote, has different versions, but it's basically, you know, in the one I know, a, a, I think a professor arrives in a classroom one day with a rocks, some, some large rocks, some pebbles, some sand, and a big glass jar. And he challenges the students to fit all of this stuff into the jar, and the students, who have to be kind of dumb for the purposes of the story, right, start putting in the, the sand first and then the pebbles, but then the rocks don't fit. The pebbles first, then the sand, the rocks don't fit. And then he very smugly points out, "No, no. Look, if you put the big rocks in first, then the pebbles and the sand nestle in the spaces in between." The moral of the story is, if you make time for your biggest priorities, uh, then you'll get them done and you'll have other time for other things. But if you don't first of all make time for your biggest priorities, um, you won't find time for them because all this other stuff will, will fill up the finite space. And it's actually tr- true so far as it goes, right? You, you know, there are, there are kind of decisions to be made between, between things that really matter and things that don't really matter. But, uh, I think much more importantly is that it's a whole, it's a scam, right? It's a rigged, it's a rigged, uh, demonstration because he has only brought into the classroom the number of big rocks that he knows can be made to fit into this jar. And I argue in the book that, uh, I think the problem that we have as humans, but especially as humans in the modern world, the real problem that we have is that there are just far too many big rocks. There are far too many things that legitimately matter or could be said to matter. So there are certainly marginal benefits to around the edges, you know, to kind of, um, how you're arranging your day and making sure that you're, um, putting in the, the important stuff and not spending too much time on stuff that doesn't matter. But the, but the really big challenge, I think, um, is seeing that there will always be more big rocks than we'll have time for, and having the, the courage really to, to neglect a whole lot of them in order to focus on a few of them. Being willing-- I think Elizabeth Gilbert says this, right? She has this great line about how we think that saying no is so important because if we say no to all the stuff we don't want to do, we'll have time for the things that we do want to do. But actually, the true art of saying no is saying no to things you do want to do in order to do some other things that you do want to do. Because deep, deep, deep in our minds, there seems to be this assumption that, uh, of some sort of natural law that says, well, like we're only gonna feel that, we're only going to feel that a, an, a, the number of things we're gonna feel like they matter has ultimately got to match up to the time that we have. And it's just, you know, it just isn't the case. We can feel that vastly more matters than we're gonna have time for. And so I think that really goes to the heart of this idea that like figuring out what to neglect, being willing to let things go, waving goodbye to possibilities, this sort of very dark, [chuckles] uh, kind of disappointment that's baked into, to any life. That, it's, it's sort of handling that is the big, is the big challenge, I think.

   5. PAPeter Attia52:08

      Well, I love the story that you tell, whether it's apocryphal or not, about, uh, Warren Buffett speaking with his pilot. Uh, the, the, I think you describe it as the lure of, uh, uh, the allure of middling priorities. Um, I, I think-

   6. OBOliver Burkeman52:22

      Yeah

   7. PAPeter Attia52:22

      ... that actually captures the essence of what you just said, which is a far more realistic version of the, the rock problem. Do you wanna share that?

   8. OBOliver Burkeman52:32

      Yeah, sure. And I think it, I think it's pretty established now that it wasn't W- Warren Buffett, or that Warren Buffett denies it, and I make this clear in the book. But it, it, you know, if people say wise stuff-

   9. PAPeter Attia52:43

      It's irrelevant who says it

   10. OBOliver Burkeman52:44

       ... they're always quoting.

   11. PAPeter Attia52:44

       I think the story is-

   12. OBOliver Burkeman52:45

       Right, right

   13. PAPeter Attia52:45

       ... yeah.

   14. OBOliver Burkeman52:46

       Yeah. And when people come up with like wise sayings, it's either Confucius or the Buddha or Warren Buffett-

   15. PAPeter Attia52:51

       [chuckles]

   16. OBOliver Burkeman52:52

       ... basically who gets, uh, gets them attributed to them. Um, right. He's allegedly asked, "How, how should I sort of set my priorities in life?" Uh, and he replies, "You sh-- that you should make a list of the 25, uh, things that matter to you most in your life, goals, priorities. Uh, rank them in order from, from one to 25, and the f- top five are the ones that you should sort of pour your time and energy and attention into." But the next 20, and this is where most of us might come to a different conclusion, right? Many people might say, "Well, the next 20, those are kind of pretty important, so whenever you get a little corner of time, do something on one of those." Um, and he says, "No, those 20 are the ones you should avoid at all costs because they're the ones that, um, matter to you enough to lure you away from the top five, but don't matter to you enough to be, uh, the top five." Um, even in this story, there is a little bit of, um, not quite facing the, the truth of the matter, I think, because, um, it could simply be that there are many, many things that all belong in the top five. More than five things, right? I mean, you're still implying that you can do that ranking. But I think what's so important about it as a way of approaching life is that it, it doesn't ask you to believe that, uh, everything you're going to decide to, to not do, to, the, the, all the things you're going to, to neglect, you have to convince yourself didn't really matter in the first place. It's like, no, they did really matter. It would've been good to do those things. Um- But finitude, our state as humans demands that we make some choices anyway. And actually, I think it's very comforting in the end, right? Because if you feel that you want to not only, you know, be great in your work and be a great parent and, and pursue a couple of like leisure activities, but also do these other 20 things, and you feel that there ought, there must be a way of doing it, that's a very tormenting way to live. When you see that like, "Oh, right, there's just always gonna be more that I want to be doing than that I can be doing," I think that actually allows you to let go of, of some of those other things, to see that it's just our job as human beings to like pick a handful of the things that really compel us and focus on them rather than to somehow make, you know, infinity fit into a finite, into a finite container.

10. 55:37 – 59:25

    Oliver’s moment of clarity in 2014

    1. PAPeter Attia55:38

       What is it that you sort of realized circa 2014? You write about this sort of moment of clarity. I think you were sitting on a bench somewhere in Brooklyn, presumably when you, when you-

    2. OBOliver Burkeman55:49

       Oh, yeah, yeah. Prospect Park. Yeah.

    3. PAPeter Attia55:50

       Yeah, yeah.

    4. OBOliver Burkeman55:50

       Yeah.

    5. PAPeter Attia55:51

       W- H- How did this sort of coalesce for you then?

    6. OBOliver Burkeman55:55

       Well, this was very much, this was very much on the sort of productivity and work side of this, of this whole thing, and it was a kind of an intellectual epiphany. I don't know, you might resonate with this, right? You can sometimes figure things out in your, in an intellectual level, and then it takes kind of years to live into them in a-

    7. PAPeter Attia56:17

       Yeah

    8. OBOliver Burkeman56:17

       ... in a real way. So it wasn't like my life changed that moment. But it was a, it was a winter morning in the middle of the week. I had like a huge, even more number of, larger number of things I felt like I had to do, um, by the end of that week than normal. And I was on my way to my, uh, co-working space where I worked then in Brooklyn. And, um, sitting on this bench, like trying to game it out, trying to figure out like what combination of scheduling and what order I could do things in, and how I could make it work to really power through and, and actually get to the end of all these things that felt like obligations for that week. Um, and just suddenly being struck by the thought, the understanding that like, "Oh, it's impossible. Oh, I see. I'm trying to do something impossible." Um, and, and feeling that as a sort of like a burden being lifted, right? In that moment it's like, "Oh, right, I can't be expected to find a way to do all this. I've, I've taken on more things than I can do, uh, in the time that I felt I had to do them. And maybe there are gonna be some downsides to having to renegotiate things or fail to meet some deadlines. But then I'm gonna have to deal with those downsides 'cause, you know, there's no alternative." And I find this to be, I think it runs through a lot of what we're talking about here and a lot of what I've written maybe, th-this move where you sort of see that your problem is worse than you thought it was, and that is incredibly liberating, [chuckles] uh, because you go from thinking that you face an incredibly hard challenge to seeing that actually it's not really hard, it's impossible. And the shift from really hard to impossible is actually quite important because you can stop beating yourself up for n-not being able to do something impossible. And I'm thinking now just in terms of what you were saying before about the initial motivations for your interest in the, in, in all the, the physical stuff, like I think there's a similar liberation to go through, right? In seeing like finding a way to live forever, that's impossible. Then you drop through into the ground of, okay, we can work on, certainly one can maximize one's chances of a longer life. You can certainly maximize the quality of the life that you have, but you sort of drop away from that, um, kind of me against the universe thing that you can throw years of energy into, but you're never actually going to win. And then there's something much more engaged with the world about being in the, the realm of the possible, right? 'Cause then you're like getting stuck in. I don't know if that... Do people say getting stuck in in America? I don't know. But in-

    9. PAPeter Attia59:18

       Yeah

    10. OBOliver Burkeman59:18

        ... in Britain, that's the idiom, right? It's like you're getting actually into the activity of

11. 59:25 – 1:10:36

    The role of a sense of purpose in fulfillment

    1. OBOliver Burkeman59:25

       doing real things in the world.

    2. PAPeter Attia59:27

       You know, one of the things that I'm struck by in reading your book, and, uh, you and I were speaking about this earlier, but, but your book is, as I said, kind of one of these four books that I've read many times, but, um, I've, I've tried and failed many times to come up with a unifying theory of them. And, uh, as I was saying, I, um, I set it as a goal to do this before I turned 50. So, you know, 18 months before I turned 50, I had sort of set this goal of by my 50th birthday, I will come up with a unifying theory on this aspect of life as it-

    3. OBOliver Burkeman1:00:07

       Right

    4. PAPeter Attia1:00:07

       ... ties into what these four authors have said. You know, what you've written, what Bill Perkins has written, Arthur Brooks, Ryan Holiday. And, and no, no doubt there are others out there who are-

    5. OBOliver Burkeman1:00:18

       Right. Sure

    6. PAPeter Attia1:00:19

       ... who are writing in this-

    7. OBOliver Burkeman1:00:19

       Sure

    8. PAPeter Attia1:00:19

       ... in this area as well. But, but I was just, I wanted to limit myself to just these four things. I thought, "This can't be that hard." Well, that birthday came and went. There was just another thing I failed at, [both chuckling] right? And, and I'll tell you one area where I'm really struggling, right, is sense of purpose.

    9. OBOliver Burkeman1:00:39

       Mm-hmm.

    10. PAPeter Attia1:00:39

        What is the role of sense of purpose? Now- I have vacillated in my life on this. There have been times when I had such a grandiose view of my role that I felt everyone should have a legacy. I mean, it was a bit of an inside joke. So, you know, my wife and I, who met in Baltimore, where you met your wife, um, uh, when I was in residency, which was a, you know, kind of a slog, right? This was, you know, you're working 110 to 120 hours a week. Um, and talk about asynchronous time, right? Like, I, you know, my wife is working two jobs. I'm working one job that might as well be three.

    11. OBOliver Burkeman1:01:22

        Right.

    12. PAPeter Attia1:01:22

        I mean, we're virtually never together.

    13. OBOliver Burkeman1:01:24

        Right.

    14. PAPeter Attia1:01:25

        Um, and when we are, I was just working, right? So I was either swimming or working on this surgical manual I wanted to write.

    15. OBOliver Burkeman1:01:35

        Mm-hmm.

    16. PAPeter Attia1:01:35

        Uh, I wanted to write, like, the all-singing, all-dancing bible for surgical residents. And she's sort of like-

    17. OBOliver Burkeman1:01:42

        Oh, gosh

    18. PAPeter Attia1:01:42

        ... "What the hell are you doing?" Like, "Why don't we just chill out?" And I was like, "No, no, no, like, this thing's gonna be my legacy."

    19. OBOliver Burkeman1:01:52

        Mm-hmm.

    20. PAPeter Attia1:01:52

        And she thought it was so funny that she actually got me a T-shirt that said, "What's your legacy?" But it said, like, PA. It was my initials, colon, quotes, "What's your legacy?" Like, she's just mocking me with this T-shirt. Um, and then I think about where I am now, where I, I, I'm so far at the other end of the spectrum that I also worry it's problematic, which is I don't think there's any such thing as legacy. Like-

    21. OBOliver Burkeman1:02:17

        Mm-hmm

    22. PAPeter Attia1:02:17

        ... we're all gonna die. None of it matters. If I died tomorrow, nothing changes. The Earth will continue to move on its axis with the exact same precision as if I live to 100. Like, nothing will change. And if I live another 40 years, no matter what I do in those 40 years, it won't matter.

    23. OBOliver Burkeman1:02:38

        Mm-hmm.

    24. PAPeter Attia1:02:38

        Nothing will change in the universe. And, uh, you write about this idea of cosmic insignificance therapy.

    25. OBOliver Burkeman1:02:45

        Mm-hmm.

    26. PAPeter Attia1:02:48

        Both of these seem problematic, right?

    27. OBOliver Burkeman1:02:51

        Yeah, yeah.

    28. PAPeter Attia1:02:52

        Like, the, the total lack of sense of purpose, which I'm not saying I don't have a sense of purpose. I'm just saying I feel so insignificant that it, it-

    29. OBOliver Burkeman1:03:00

        Mm

    30. PAPeter Attia1:03:00

        ... it, it, I flirt with the idea of being so insignificant that I think it... There are days I struggle with doing things because I'm like, "Well..." I do them because I'm, I'm good at sort of doing things.
12. 1:10:36 – 1:18:58

    Reconciling the finite nature of time and letting go of trying to master your time

    1. PAPeter Attia1:10:36

       friends, and that's the focus. Which then brings us back full circle to the trap of productivity. Because at least for me, this is maybe, uh, I don't know if you struggle with it in this warped way. I then say, "Well, gosh, I have this real sense of urgency. I'm back to now wanting to control time because I know the statistics. Once my kids are 18-

    2. OBOliver Burkeman1:11:03

       Mm-hmm

    3. PAPeter Attia1:11:03

       ... I have virtually no time left with them," right? You'll, you-

    4. OBOliver Burkeman1:11:06

       Right

    5. PAPeter Attia1:11:07

       ... they say on average you have 19 years with your children.

    6. OBOliver Burkeman1:11:10

       Mm-hmm.

    7. PAPeter Attia1:11:11

       18 of them occur in the first 18 years of their life.

    8. OBOliver Burkeman1:11:15

       Mm-hmm.

    9. PAPeter Attia1:11:15

       One year of total time with them occurs once they go off to college.

    10. OBOliver Burkeman1:11:20

        Right.

    11. PAPeter Attia1:11:20

        That's it. A cumulative time. So-

    12. OBOliver Burkeman1:11:22

        Right

    13. PAPeter Attia1:11:22

        ... I then think, "Oh my gosh, I have to master my time because I have such a... It's not just the finitude of my life, it's an even-

    14. OBOliver Burkeman1:11:31

        Mm-hmm

    15. PAPeter Attia1:11:31

        ... greater finitude of the time I have with my kids."

    16. OBOliver Burkeman1:11:35

        Yeah.

    17. PAPeter Attia1:11:35

        Now, now I'm doubly whipping myself to make the most of my time. And, and, you know, my wife and I have this discussion all the time, which is like, "God, I wish I didn't have to do anything. Like I wish I could do nothing until-

    18. OBOliver Burkeman1:11:49

        Yeah

    19. PAPeter Attia1:11:49

        ... our kids were all gone. And I wish-

    20. OBOliver Burkeman1:11:51

        Yeah

    21. PAPeter Attia1:11:51

        ... I could do a reverse retirement. I wish I could retire for the next 15 years-

    22. OBOliver Burkeman1:11:56

        Yeah

    23. PAPeter Attia1:11:56

        ... and then I'll work the remaining decades of my life when they're gone anyway." I mean, again-

    24. OBOliver Burkeman1:12:02

        Yeah

    25. PAPeter Attia1:12:02

        ... all of these things are irrational thoughts, but this is, this is the psychosis, neurosis that-

    26. OBOliver Burkeman1:12:07

        Yeah

    27. PAPeter Attia1:12:07

        ... that, that kind of fuels it.

    28. OBOliver Burkeman1:12:10

        Yeah, no, absolutely. And I-- It's funny, the format of conversation like this is such that you say that and then it's like I feel like now I'm going to offer the solution, but I'm just like, "Yeah, I totally get it, [chuckles] and I think that, and I totally feel it too. And I'm not sure that there is, uh, a solution." But I think that, um, a lot of what we're talking about is the... I think there's a shift from doing things unconsciously to doing things consciously that is really important and that, um, you know, knowing and seeing that there is this trade-off- Is in some ways the, the best that we can hope for, that trying to solve the problem through, through time mastery is not gonna make things better, 'cause that's going to be undertaken in the unconscious belief that there's a way of maximizing your capacity so much that, you know, you can spend all the time that feels like it matters with your kids, and you can spend all the time that feels like it matters on the work. And it's like, actually, if the starting point is, if the starting point is that that isn't possible, then I, I think firstly you make wiser decisions around the edges, right? So maybe you do backpedal a little bit on certain work things in order to maximize a bit more time with kids. Maybe you do organize your time in certain strategic ways to sort of make those gains around the edges and free up capacity. But more fundamentally, I feel like you can just sort of see like, yeah, it's like, it's a, it's a sad truth about being who we are and being fortunate enough to have these different domains of our lives that we, that we value people. Uh, if, if people do, if pe- people who are parents and people who have work that gives them meaning or whatever other things might be competing in their, in their lives. Um, and so this comes back before actually, I wanted to say in response to you talking about the, the person you were talking about who, who died and, and the sort of, um, the fact that one doesn't stop feeling sad about those things or struggling with these things. Y- you sort of, um, uh... The person who thinks they're gonna find a way to master their time and make enough time for everything is, is trapped in this kind of future-oriented anxiety. The person who sort of sees the truth about trade-offs and the truth about finitude doesn't suddenly become happy and reconciled to it all, but it's a different kind of, um, feeling. It's a, it's a kind of poignancy, right? There's a sort of t- sad, sad tinge to life that, um, uh, you don't get away from. But, you know, I'm sort of struggling to articulate this, but it's, but it's, but it's part of living a meaningful life is to, is to just sort of be consciously in that fact that, yeah, we don't get all the time we would, we would wish to have. [chuckles] I don't know if that made sense.

    29. PAPeter Attia1:15:37

        No, it, it does. And I, and I, I think going back to what we talked about earlier, I think that's why I have yet to construct this unifying theory-

    30. OBOliver Burkeman1:15:49

        Mm-hmm
13. 1:18:58 – 1:27:36

    Why we tend to have a future-focused attitude and how to combat that with atelic activities

    1. PAPeter Attia1:18:59

       There's so much I learned from, from, from, from your book and, and again, as I said, I think there are places where it overlaps so, so much with, with others, and it reinforces things that I've already seen the value in. And one of the most important is what Ryan Holiday writes about as stillness and what you write about as atelic activities.

    2. OBOliver Burkeman1:19:17

       Hmm.

    3. PAPeter Attia1:19:19

       My reading of, of this, 'cause I take notes when I'm reading a book-

    4. OBOliver Burkeman1:19:23

       Right

    5. PAPeter Attia1:19:23

       ... so, so what I wrote at, at the bottom of that page was, "Atelic activity is the antidote." That was my note in red pen.

    6. OBOliver Burkeman1:19:32

       Mm.

    7. PAPeter Attia1:19:32

       Why is that such an import- the, the antidote meaning, uh, what I was referring to, I think, was, um, the aversion we have to being, uh, y- you know, to being still. [laughs] Uh-

    8. OBOliver Burkeman1:19:46

       Right

    9. PAPeter Attia1:19:46

       ... the aversion we have to being alone with ourselves, you know, with our thoughts and things like that. Um, say, say more about this. Why, why is-

    10. OBOliver Burkeman1:19:53

        Sure. Yeah, yeah

    11. PAPeter Attia1:19:54

        ... you know, you have so many great examples in the book. You could draw from any of them. But, but just broadly speaking, why is, why are, why are you and Ryan coming at this same conclusion from totally different... You know, Ryan is coming at it purely through a stoic philosophy lens.

    12. OBOliver Burkeman1:20:08

        Yeah.

    13. PAPeter Attia1:20:08

        You're coming at it, frankly, through the lens of observation and empiricism.

    14. OBOliver Burkeman1:20:14

        Yeah. Yeah, so, um, I think, sort of start at any, any part of this, but the idea of an atelic activity, which is coined by, uh, a philosopher called Kieran Setiya, um, is this, the notion that, of an activity that is, th- that is done for itself alone, not to get somewhere, not to get something else, uh, th- that it's not the kinda thing that you will ever have done enough of. And so the example I use in the book, just because it's something I enjoy a lot, is hiking, right? I mean, you, you can't make hiking in any meaningful sense m- m- more efficient because you're just, like, it, it, it... I'm sure you can walk in more efficient ways than others. But the point is simply that the reason that people are drawn to an activity like that is for the experience itself. Sure, there are some ancillary health benefits, absolutely, but you're not trying to get somewhere either, uh, in terms of training or in terms of geographically trying to get somewhere. It's just, it's done for itself alone. A lot of kind of activities around arts, music, dance, uh, can be pursued in a more sort of, uh, in a way that culminates in something, but they don't have to be. And a lot of the enjoyment people get is in, in itself alone. And yeah, I think what Ryan means by stillness, um, is also something that almost by definition can't be inst- an instrumental use of time. And so I think the unifying idea here is that there is something wrong with pursuing a life in which time is considered in exclusively instrumentally, so that you're always assessing the value of how you're using your time by where it's leading you and how well it's getting you to that goal. Because of course, you, a- at some point, like, either this has to cash out in a present moment of meaning, or you're always postponing. It, it has the effect of sort of always postponing the, the, the moment of truth, uh, into the future. And there's a great, uh, quote that I use in the book as well from, from John Maynard Keynes, the economist, who, who, who I think gets at the point of why we do this, why we want to live for future activities, even though it's a kind of anxious way to live, even though we're never quite at the moment of fulfillment. It's because, um, by projecting our, um, our interests in what we're doing constantly into the future, you're sort of securing what Keynes calls a spurious immortality for them, right? So he's got this quote where he says, um, "The purposive man, uh, does not love h- his cat but only the cat's kittens, nor in truth, the kittens but only the kittens' kittens," and so on forward forever to the end of catdom, uh, as he puts it. And it's kind of a terrible way to live because you never get to actually love your pet or, you know, plug in there whatever the other, uh, benefit or value of an activity would be. But it has this great advantage on a subconscious level that, like, it's all because of somewhere you're getting. And as long as you're still getting somewhere, then you don't have to fully kind of face the pain of the fact that, like, no, this is it, that it's not a dress rehearsal, that, that this is the time you have to use meaningfully if you're gonna have a meaningful life. And I, I fall into this trap all the time, you know, of sort of catching myself seeing that I'm really thinking about two days' time when this stuff's out of the way, when this other stuff has been completed, when I've figured out how to do something, like, then I'll start, you know, living in a present way and, and really, like, getting the value of life. Um, but what we're really doing, I think I agree with Keynes about this, is, is sort of constantly projecting that moment forwards because it s- kind of feels like, um, we don't have to die.

    15. PAPeter Attia1:24:27

        Again, I, I think it's worth saying that again, Oliver, 'cause it's so profound, right? I, this is... I, I think this is the jugular issue. I think it is this connection to our mortality and our finitude that is underpinning all of this difficulty. Because on the one hand, it just shouldn't be this hard. Like, I, I, I, I, I sometimes laugh at my struggle with this, where I'll have a number of things, you know, over the next month that ostensibly all are enjoyable Right? Like, "Oh, I'm doing this thing with my kids on this day," and, and, "We're gonna go camping on this day," and, "Oh, I've got a day set aside to go racing my car on the track." I mean, these are all things that are just pure bliss to me. And when I look back at the month after the fact, I realize every time you were in one of those moments, you were thinking about the next one.

    16. OBOliver Burkeman1:25:21

        Right, right, right.

    17. PAPeter Attia1:25:22

        I mean, it's just, it's just-

    18. OBOliver Burkeman1:25:23

        Yeah

    19. PAPeter Attia1:25:23

        ... it's tragic. And, and I think this point of, am I doing that because subconsciously I need to do that to avoid confronting the finite nature of time?

    20. OBOliver Burkeman1:25:40

        Hmm.

    21. PAPeter Attia1:25:41

        I, I, I, I don't know if that makes sense, but, but that-

    22. OBOliver Burkeman1:25:43

        No, it makes to- yeah

    23. PAPeter Attia1:25:44

        ... that's kind of how I'm hearing-

    24. OBOliver Burkeman1:25:45

        Yeah

    25. PAPeter Attia1:25:45

        ... and processing this.

    26. OBOliver Burkeman1:25:47

        Yeah, it makes total sense, and I think, you know, certainly in my experience, but I'm, but I take solace from the fact that in, you know, I don't think the great philosophers of history found any alternative to this. It's not that we need to aim to leave that mindset behind in favor of a kind of total perfect reconciliation to mortality. It's just that you shift from this kind of avoidant stance which triggers so much, kind of saps the meaning from life, to a stance that kind of looks it in the face and feels kind of sad about it, right? It's like it's not that you don't want to get tripped up on the idea that you're supposed to become, you know, totally zen about this awful human fate. You can sort of just kind of integrate, to some extent, only to some extent in my case, but you can sort of integrate that poignancy into the experience, and then you do sort of land. You know, you do sort of fall back into the, the moment that you're in. Um, yeah, it's tricky 'cause I think that, you know, those of us in this kind of productivity mindset have spent a lot of time kind of beating ourselves up for not doing enough yet or not getting to a certain point, and it's very easy to take that same stance towards the challenge of, uh, reconciling yourself to it all, right? And then feeling that, like, you're somehow falling short because, uh, you don't feel completely zen about, uh, mortality. I don't, I don't think there's any reason to believe anyone ever does.

14. 1:27:36 – 1:36:54

    The power of shifting your perspective about time and your experiences

    1. PAPeter Attia1:27:36

       You know, I took some comfort in knowing there was at least one other person who did the math, which I forget who it was you were referring to in your book. You're referring to someone, though, who had basically done the math on how improbable each of our existences is. Um-

    2. OBOliver Burkeman1:27:51

       Right.

    3. PAPeter Attia1:27:52

       I, I, y- y- you know, anybody who I guess has thought through embryology can't help but, but think about that, which is what's the probability that that sperm on that day hit that egg on that month-

    4. OBOliver Burkeman1:28:03

       Right. Yeah, yeah

    5. PAPeter Attia1:28:03

       ... to result in me being here? And, and-

    6. OBOliver Burkeman1:28:06

       Yeah

    7. PAPeter Attia1:28:06

       ... you only need to think about this through the lens of siblings. Like, you have siblings that are, you know, they're genetically similar, but they're completely different people.

    8. OBOliver Burkeman1:28:14

       Right.

    9. PAPeter Attia1:28:14

       And so therefore, you know, there's a, you know, sub-trillion probability event that I even exist. And one of the things you point out that can be, again, I'm, I'm sort of thinking about this through the lens of partial antidotes, right? No s- there's no solution-

    10. OBOliver Burkeman1:28:30

        Mm-hmm

    11. PAPeter Attia1:28:30

        ... to this problem. As you said, it's palliative care. But what are some-

    12. OBOliver Burkeman1:28:33

        Right

    13. PAPeter Attia1:28:33

        ... partial antidotes? Another one might be flipping the problem statement from not, "Oh, I can't believe I only have four thousand weeks. How am I gonna make the most of them?" To, "I can't believe I even get one week." Like-

    14. OBOliver Burkeman1:28:50

        Right. Yeah. Absolutely. Hundred percent

    15. PAPeter Attia1:28:52

        ... it's, it's just a miracle we're here.

    16. OBOliver Burkeman1:28:54

        Yeah. Yeah, I think, I mean, yeah, f- from, going from, going to that idea of, of getting to have the, the time, I think is, um, is such a powerful transition. Partly because, and this is kind of Heidegger and all sorts of stuff I grappled with in trying to write this book and don't, don't recommend anyone else grapples with, with Heidegger. But, um, it, partly because it, it shifts the attention from the specific content of experience to the fact of there being experience. Um, and that is really helpful because it means that actually you don't need to spend quite so much time worrying about whether you're doing the right things because you just get that sense that it's a miracle that you're doing anything. It makes kind of, you know, potentially makes sitting in a traffic jam, at least if not pleasurable, then less enraging because it's like experience is happening. Like, what are the chances? And that's kind of amazing, uh, even if, um, e- even if you're doing something that we would normally characterize as, uh, as really frustrating. I mentioned somebody in the book who, who had this experience after a, a friend of his, um, died unexpectedly and young and finding himself in sort of, yeah, traffic jams or supermarket queues or sitting on stand, waiting on hold on phone lines, whatever, and, and having that thought like, "What would my friend have given to be in this, to be in this traffic jam now? To be waiting in this queue now?" And there's a way of, yeah, just really dialing into an appreciation of the fact that, that, that there is experience, uh, as opposed to exactly what it is you're experiencing.

    17. PAPeter Attia1:30:57

        Yeah. Uh, one of my friends, um- said, said something very similar, and I, I thought this was just such a, such a great thought, which is we all sort of lament getting older. Um, and it's not... Let's put aside the number, right? It's the birthday-

    18. OBOliver Burkeman1:31:14

        Mm-hmm

    19. PAPeter Attia1:31:14

        ... but just the changes that occur. Like, it's, it's not fun to experience more pain. It's not fun to have a little more ache. It's not fun to have less pep in your step, and, and at some point, we're all experiencing that. And she said very wisely, "Well, consider the alternative-

    20. OBOliver Burkeman1:31:32

        Right [laughs]

    21. PAPeter Attia1:31:32

        ... being dead," right? Like-

    22. OBOliver Burkeman1:31:34

        Right

    23. PAPeter Attia1:31:34

        ... y- yeah, maybe it sucks to turn 65 and look in the mirror and not see the face that you saw when you were 25.

    24. OBOliver Burkeman1:31:42

        Mm-hmm.

    25. PAPeter Attia1:31:42

        But isn't this better than having died when you were 25? I mean, it, it's another way-

    26. OBOliver Burkeman1:31:48

        Mm

    27. PAPeter Attia1:31:48

        ... to sort of think about this problem. Um-

    28. OBOliver Burkeman1:31:51

        Yeah

    29. PAPeter Attia1:31:51

        ... but let- let's go back to Martin Heidegger because, uh, I'm gonna take your word for it because after you read a little bit of his writing, I realized I'm not going to be smart enough to interpret what he writes. It was way too obtuse for me. Um, but-

    30. OBOliver Burkeman1:32:07

        I'm not sure it's a question of smarts. It's a very, very impenetrable and endlessly debated question, what on, what on earth he means. Yeah. But anyway. Yeah.
15. 1:36:54 – 1:46:05

    How to operationalize the three principles for the dilemma of finite time

    1. PAPeter Attia1:36:54

       How do you think about or how, how should one think about almost doing what we're kind of suggesting not to do, but for a different purpose, right? So, so I think what- What we're sort of saying is, look, if you jump into the productivity hack space, it's a fallacy. It's-- You're, you're gonna chase your tail, and you're never going to be made whole.

    2. OBOliver Burkeman1:37:21

       Mm-hmm.

    3. PAPeter Attia1:37:22

       Um, just as, and you use this example, just as the alcoholic can never quench their thirst fully, right?

    4. OBOliver Burkeman1:37:30

       Mm-hmm.

    5. PAPeter Attia1:37:30

       Just as no amount of alcohol can numb the pain that is at the root of that addiction, no amount of productivity can numb what is gnawing away at the need to achieve and be productive.

    6. OBOliver Burkeman1:37:46

       Mm-hmm.

    7. PAPeter Attia1:37:46

       And, um, I know that for people out there who can't relate to extreme [chuckles] appetites for either alcohol or productivity, they might not have a clue what the hell we're talking about.

    8. OBOliver Burkeman1:37:56

       [laughs]

    9. PAPeter Attia1:37:57

       But, um, they're gonna have to take it on a leap of faith that, that-

    10. OBOliver Burkeman1:38:01

        Right

    11. PAPeter Attia1:38:02

        ... those st- th-those are very true statements. Um-

    12. OBOliver Burkeman1:38:07

        Yeah.

    13. PAPeter Attia1:38:07

        But nevertheless, I think as humans, we work with tools. We work with-

    14. OBOliver Burkeman1:38:12

        Mm

    15. PAPeter Attia1:38:12

        ... protocols, we work with procedures, we work with tactics, and, and we try to make the best of the situation. We try to palliate.

    16. OBOliver Burkeman1:38:22

        Yeah.

    17. PAPeter Attia1:38:22

        You write about several of these. I, I think, you know, we should talk about some of these things 'cause I, I think they make a lot of sense, right? So let's, l-let's talk about these three principles of paying yourself first, limiting work in progress, uh, and of course, we already a-addressed, but it's worth revisiting, you know, resisting the allure of middling priorities. The-- I like those three. Let's talk about how to operationalize them.

    18. OBOliver Burkeman1:38:47

        Sure, yeah. Um, and I think you're right, right? We're getting at, we're getting at this question of like, what is the role of a technique or a method or a productivity system? Once you have begun a little bit to go through this process of kind of disenchantment with the, with the lure of, of sort of total productivity and infinite capacity. Um, and yeah, I think that's the moment at which to use these kinds of techniques, right? It's once you're sort of no longer thinking that they're going to save your soul. They're just u-useful things to do. And specific ones, like the ones you mentioned, I'll talk about, you know, ha-have this... are well-- they're well attuned to the, to the job of kind of embracing limitation and finitude. They're not the kind of techniques that are going to lead you astray back onto that, back onto that, um, treadmill. To paying yourself first, um, very well-known concept in, in personal finance that, uh, you know, when you get paid, you should take some money out of your paycheck and put it into savings and investments right away. [clears throat] And then your regular expenses come out of what's left, rather than spending what you need to spend and hoping that there'll be some left over, uh, at the, at the end, um, because there isn't, because we live up to our means. And the same thing, uh, is, is true of time. If you, if you think that i-if you take the approach of like clearing the decks, gonna get through all the stuff that I need to get through so that I get to this time when I can finally put real focused attention onto the things I care about, that's never gonna happen for some of the reasons we've discussed. The decks will never be, never be clear. So paying yourself first is just the act of taking that important thing and doing like at least a little bit on it now, first thing in the morning, uh, right away, you know. In other words, not, not, um, not trying to clear the space for it, but just claiming the time for it and learning to tolerate the anxiety of the fact that while you do that, more emails will be coming in, more things will be filling up the decks, um, asking for your, asking for your attention. And this can be, you know, it, it can be work-related, but it could be something else. Like if there's a project you wanna work on, a creative pursuit, a relationship you want to nurture, like it's just the acceptance that at some point you're gonna have to do that in a, in a present moment. Um, and it's not gonna feel like it's the right time. It's not gonna feel like everything else is out of the way because everything isn't g- is never gonna be out of the way. Um, so you could operationalize that as, you know, spending the first hour of the workday doing your most important priority, something like that. There are lots and lots of different ways to make that concrete. Uh, limiting your work in progress, uh, is, is, again, is one of these, um, methods that just acknowledges upfront that your bandwidth is incredibly limited, that your time is incredibly limited and says, "Well, okay, now what?" And, um, there are, again, lots of ways to do this, but this is just the idea of, of, of setting an upper limit, uh, of the, to the number of tasks or projects that you're going to allow to sort of be on your plate at once. So I illustrate this in the book using this idea of two to-do lists. This is an extremely simple way of doing this, right? You could, in principle, have two to-do lists. O-One, an open list where you put absolutely anything and everything that's on your plate. It could have like four hundred items on it. The other is a closed list. It might only have five slots on it, and the, the rule is that you feed tasks from the long list to the short list until those five slots are full, and then you can't add any more until you've freed up a slot by, by completing one of those tasks. So it's just a sort of artificial bottleneck that you're placing on your workflow. And all that's happening here is you're taking a fact that is already true, uh, for all of us, which is that we can only give our attention to a, a handful of things, uh, on a given day, in a given week, and you're just making it conscious, and you're saying, "Okay, I'm going to make myself I'm gonna make all these other things wait outside the door until these things have been, have been done. There are lots of other ways of implementing this. Anyone who's familiar with Kanban methods of project management will, will recognize the, the resonances here. It's just a way of, um, making, of articulating and making conscious the limitations that we work with as humans. And the extraordinary thing is that when you do this, you actually find you, you do get more productive, right? You, by, by being willing to make the other things wait, you do end up processing more, more tasks, more projects than if you, than if you didn't. And then yes, finally, the middling priorities idea was just that there are lots of things that really feel like they matter, and those are the ones you have to be aware of if they are not the ones that really matter the most, uh, because the, the urge to try to find a way to, um, make time for all of them and end up, uh, you know, uh, going, not doing any of them well is, is really strong.

    19. PAPeter Attia1:44:12

        And, and, and you made a point before, but I wanna reiterate it 'cause I think it's so important, which is, you know, there's two types of saying no, right? There's saying no to things you don't actually wanna do that, you know, maybe on the surface might look like they're worth doing, but deep down you don't wanna do them, so you're kinda happy to say no. But then there's saying no to things that you do wanna do, but you know are not top five. And, you know, about three years ago, I really started to take that seriously.

    20. OBOliver Burkeman1:44:41

        Mm-hmm.

    21. PAPeter Attia1:44:42

        So seriously, in fact, that that became the source of or the, the, the substrate for my journaling was-

    22. OBOliver Burkeman1:44:48

        Right

    23. PAPeter Attia1:44:48

        ... I kept a no journal.

    24. OBOliver Burkeman1:44:51

        Mm.

    25. PAPeter Attia1:44:51

        All the things I said no to with an emphasis on things that I actually wanted to do.

    26. OBOliver Burkeman1:44:57

        Mm.

    27. PAPeter Attia1:44:57

        You know, I, I think we're all FOMO machines, but, but I have some strong FOMO genes. And, uh-

    28. OBOliver Burkeman1:45:05

        [laughs]

    29. PAPeter Attia1:45:06

        ... boy, it was, it was really difficult to do that. And to, and I created a system of accountability where I had a person that I would show up with to discuss my no list.

    30. OBOliver Burkeman1:45:17

        Hmm.
16. 1:46:05 – 1:53:58

    Harnessing the power of patience in the face of a problem or experience

    1. OBOliver Burkeman1:46:05

       I think. Yeah.

    2. PAPeter Attia1:46:06

       Yeah. We didn't talk much about it, but I, I think you, part and parcel with this 'cause we've touched on it, is this idleness aversion, and the flip side of that is the need to be patient and how impatient-

    3. OBOliver Burkeman1:46:21

       Yeah

    4. PAPeter Attia1:46:21

       ... we are.

    5. OBOliver Burkeman1:46:23

       Yeah.

    6. PAPeter Attia1:46:24

       M-m-tell the story of the, uh, I forget the name of the professor at Harvard, but the, she has a, a class, an art class, and the, the students going through it have to do this painful experience, which you yourself undertook.

    7. OBOliver Burkeman1:46:38

       Yeah, uh, Jennifer Roberts. Uh, she, she has her, um, incoming art history students at Harvard, uh, choose a painting or a sculpture in the area. There are many, many venues to do that in the Harvard area. And then go and, uh, look at it for three hours straight. Um, and I did this, yeah, with a, with a painting by Degas in the Harvard Art Museums. Um, and, and the idea here is that... Well, I mean, the, the motivation for her came from, um, seeing that, seeing the students who were, who were coming into her course and, and, and, and feeling that their, their whole lives were so geared to speed, both just generally because of the way the technological culture works, but also because of the pressures of a highly competitive university, right? There's all these kind of incentives to get stuff done as fast as you can. That they were a- that it was actually her job, she felt, to kind of try to influence the tempo of what they were, of what they were doing to slow them down. And she did it herself, and I did it, and, and the, the really fascinating thing that, that you learn in this context, in the art case, and I'll, I'll explain why it's relevant beyond that, but the, in the art case is that, like, if you can sit with the intense discomfort that is involved in looking at a painting for such an obviously absurd amount of time, right? She knows it's an outrageous length of time. That's the point. Um, after the first sort of hour or whenever it happens for you, when the discomfort begins to fall away a bit and you really just sort of get into a different zone, you literally see things in the painting that you hadn't noticed before. And I don't mean you come up with, like, smart, fancy-sounding new interpretations of what you're seeing. I mean, like, literal objects in paintings that, that, that you, that you apparently didn't see for sort of forty-five minutes of looking and looking at that, at that painting. Um, and so the reward for kind of... What you're doing there is you're, you're sort of, you're, you're, you're giving the experience the time that it takes instead of trying to dictate the, the time that it takes, which is extremely tempting for us in all sorts of, of, of contexts. Um, and so I'm sort of using that in the book as, as one example of, um, the benefits of sort of- Being willing to take experiences at the speed that, that they need. Reading is another really classic e-example. You can sort of do a certain amount to read faster and to train yourself to read more efficiently, but it's very small really before you start losing the, the experience, especially with kind of creative writing fiction. And I think that a lot of the time when people say that they don't have time to read or that they don't like reading anymore or so whatever, they, what they mean is that they, they really hate that it needs them to slow down. That a sort of mind conditioned to speed and to going faster has to kind of surrender to the fact that, like, reading, especially if it's like a good novel or something, is just going to take a certain amount of, of time that you just have to, to, to let it take. Um, and it's really striking how uncomfortable that, that feels. Um, how, how deeply unpleasant it is to n- to sort of give up control over the pace of something like that. 'Cause like it doesn't feel like it, it doesn't make any sense that it should be as painful as it is, but it is. And then I think that on the other side of that, there are huge rewards.

    8. PAPeter Attia1:50:34

       What do you think problems that we encounter tell us about how to become more patient? In other words, what does our relationship with a problem have to do with becoming more patient?

    9. OBOliver Burkeman1:50:48

       Wow, I could go in so many different directions. What's coming to mind is that, um, I think there's a patience that's involved in allowing a problem to be unresolved until, uh, a solution presents itself, and being willing to not hurry forward to resolutions just to get rid of the feeling of having a problem. Um, I've, I've found this myself. It, I mean, it was... I got it from this book, "The Road Less Traveled" by Scott Peck. But I found this myself in really mundane contexts, but it's so interesting and sort of edu- it's such an education, um, to when something sort of goes wrong in the house, like, you know, when there's some problem with the... I, I remember this happening very vividly when there was a problem with the, the water supply to the dishwasher. This kind of comes out from, I don't know anything about plumbing, but like comes out from, it's under the s- in the cupboard under the sink, and then it connects to the, to the dishwasher. And, um, the urge that we have, and Scott Peck writes about this in the context of fixing a car with no knowledge of how to fix cars. The urge that we have in those contexts is so often to just sort of like, like fiddle around in the hope that almost by chance you would like fix the, fix the problem, and never works, you know. Because it takes expertise to, or, or sort of take some sort of understanding of what's going on anyway to, to be able to fix, fix the problem. And instead learning, and I have, and this, I do l- literally do this now with things that, that like involve, you know, appliances and things like that, to just be willing to look at the situation, to trace where the pipes go and where they connect and what the joins are and like, you know. You don't learn how to be a plumber in this process, but you just see the situation and the solution becomes clear, right? It becomes obvious that, "Oh, I see. Right. That should go there and it's come loose from there, so I can just tighten that and now it'll work." And, you know, that's a really mundane example, but I think the, the point there applies in all sorts of other kinds of, of problems that we hurry to solutions because we want to feel like we're in control of the process, uh, even if it leads to some terrible outcome. And to sort of stay in that space of, of not knowing, uh, takes, you know, takes that skill, uh, John Keats, the poet, called negative capability, which I think is just so, such a, such an extraordinary phrase, right? The, the ability to stay in uncertainty and not having a resolution, and not always to be kinda like fidgety, restlessly trying to get things all, you know, uh, tied up with a bow. So yeah, that's what that makes me think about.

17. 1:53:58 – 1:58:34

    The value of incrementalism for being productive

    1. PAPeter Attia1:53:58

       And let's think about incrementalism, 'cause I loved this idea, right? Which is that, you know, it's a bit of a tortoise and hare thing. You write about the, um, the, the professor who... or the study, I think, that looks at more productive versus less productive academics and, uh, just from a writing perspective.

    2. OBOliver Burkeman1:54:19

       Yeah.

    3. PAPeter Attia1:54:19

       And the amount of writing done by the more productive people on any given day is rather unimpressive, right?

    4. OBOliver Burkeman1:54:27

       Yeah. This is just, I mean, I feel like this is something that, that y- you, I'm sure, can speak to in the sort of physiological side of things because it is something to do with like the nature of writing as, as an athletic activity or something. But Robert Boice, the professor you're talking about, found that the most consistently productive writers were the ones who made their writing work only a modest, a moderate part of their, of their days and their weeks. Um, because it sort of didn't, it, it, this meant that it didn't become something, um, intimidating. There weren't these sort of huge psychodramas with having your life dominated by these tasks. You didn't start to, they didn't start to resent it or to procrastinate on it for that reason. It was just this kind of modest thing. And then the- Consistently applied over, over days and days and days and weeks, the, the output really built up, uh, much, much more rapidly than the people who would sort of swing wildly back and forth between putting in huge numbers of hours and exhausting themselves and then not being able to do it for, uh, for, for days after that because they were, because they were too tired. And where this has really made a difference to me, just literally in my writing practice, is, is the, in the power of stopping, right? 'Cause this is the part of, part of what he emphasized was that, um, he actually advocated that if you, that, that if you find yourself on a roll, right? If you say, "Well, I'm only going to write for an hour or two because I'm gonna keep it this modest thing in my, in my life," if you find yourself on a roll at the end of that time, it's incredibly tempting to just, like, wanna keep going and ride that wave of motivation. And he was a proponent of stopping at that point.

    5. PAPeter Attia1:56:15

       Yeah.

    6. OBOliver Burkeman1:56:15

       Like, making yourself stop being as important as making yourself start. Um, and I don't know, you may have a better explanation of what's going on here, but I've found it in all sorts of contexts, right? If you, if you stop the thing that you're doing kind of, sort of sooner than you want to, um, it, it does something very helpful to motivation. Like, it makes you want to come back to it the next day, uh, in a way that is not the case if you, if you sort of let yourself get, get spent. And Boyce makes the point that that's actually, you know, wanting to s- to ride the wave of motivation is actually a kind of impatience very often. It's a kind of, um, uh, belief that you've got to grab the inspiration while you've got it now, grab the energy while you've got it now because you might not get it again. And it's actually very, it's a very act of great confidence to be able to say, "No, I'm gonna stop now, like I said I would, and return to it tomorrow."

    7. PAPeter Attia1:57:14

       I, I think it makes a ton of sense, and, and I would even say that, that physically I've transitioned more to that type of a relationship with exercise-

    8. OBOliver Burkeman1:57:23

       Right

    9. PAPeter Attia1:57:23

       ... in my, uh, older age, call it. Uh, I, my philosophy used to be the exact opposite, right? And, and maybe there was a bunch of other reasons for that, but, but it was clearly a sense of every day you had to burn every match. That was, that was really how I felt about it. Um, and today, and I think it's a healthier approach, it's I will always leave matches in the matchbox at the end of the workout.

    10. OBOliver Burkeman1:57:49

        Mm-hmm.

    11. PAPeter Attia1:57:49

        I'm never gonna burn every single match. Um, now, there's an exception here and there. You know, some days you just really want to go for it and really see what your limit truly is.

    12. OBOliver Burkeman1:57:59

        Right.

    13. PAPeter Attia1:57:59

        But, but, but it is actually better, I think, from a l- from a longevity standpoint, and I say that physiologically but just as much psychologically-

    14. OBOliver Burkeman1:58:08

        Mm-hmm

    15. PAPeter Attia1:58:09

        ... to leave the workout with a little bit more, with a little bit of, "I could do, I could do a little bit more and I can't wait to get back and do it again." And, and I think part of that is just preserving the drive to be back in there. Because I think if you're burning every match every day, it gets awfully hard to, to show up. And in reality, you're probably not actually doing as much good physically.

    16. OBOliver Burkeman1:58:31

        Right. Right. Right. Yeah, no, that makes a

18. 1:58:34 – 2:02:10

    Embracing your finitude with curiosity

    1. OBOliver Burkeman1:58:34

       lot of sense.

    2. PAPeter Attia1:58:34

       Oliver, you close the book with sort of 10 steps, uh, you know, 10, I think you called them tools or steps for embracing our finitude. We won't go through them now because c- you know, I want people to get the book. If they haven't already done so, I want them to read the book. I want them to, to kind of go through this in the, in the, in the way that, that, that, that I've done it, with a highlighter and, you know, really tried to, tried to learn what, what can be done. But are there any of those 10 that you think we haven't at least somewhat peripherally touched on that, that you wanna dive into?

    3. OBOliver Burkeman1:59:09

       I think we haven't spoken so much in general about the degree to which this, this desire for control over time manifests as a desire for control over the future-

    4. PAPeter Attia1:59:24

       Yeah

    5. OBOliver Burkeman1:59:25

       ... for, as a antidote to worry. And, uh, as well as being a sort of productivity geek and all the rest of it, I'm certainly a sort of inveterate worrier about the future. And I write in the book about the ways in which a lot of worry and kind of obsessive planning can be understood as an attempt to kind of, from the standpoint of the present, kind of throw a straitjacket over the future, right? To feel like you've got it under your control and you know what's coming. When in fact, another of the aspects of our being finite human beings is, like, what's been called, like, our total vulnerability to events, right? Anything could happen at any moment to anyone. That's just the way it, you know, it is to be, uh, human. And so one of the things that I, we haven't talked about that's one of those, one of those, um, items in the, in the appendix is this, this idea of, um, a, a quite precise idea about curiosity as a, as a stance to take towards life. And in the context of that I'm talking about being a, I'm borrowing the advice of somebody else about being a researcher in relationships, right? This stance where your attitude towards any kind of interpersonal relationship, although it comes from how to sort of relate best to small children as a parent, uh, or caregiver. But i-i-is this idea of, like, instead of trying to get things to go in a certain way or hoping that they'll go in a certain way, taking the stance of, like, wondering how they're gonna go. Seeing if what you can f- taking the stance that, of trying to sort of find out what you can about, um, another person. Having that sort of open stance that says, like, "I wonder what's gonna happen. I wonder what could-" This other person is like rather than that kind of attempt, that background attempt to kind of see if they're gonna line up with what you feel you need to happen or how you feel you need people to be. So I think that sort of, that sort of idea of being sort of, uh, curious, it's a bit of a cliche these days, right? You should be curious in life. But, but it's, but it's, it's specifically that kind of stance that is agnostic within limits about what happens next or how a relationship with somebody turns out to be. I think that's a really re- sort of resilient and helpful attitude to have in life. It's probably one of the least specific of those 10 at the back of the books, but it seemed like the one to mention here.

19. 2:02:10 – 2:08:50

    Acting on an idea in the moment rather than letting the idea be the obstacle

    1. PAPeter Attia2:02:11

       You know, there's another one, Oliver, that's sort of on this list that I think about a lot. It actually kind of overlaps with, with Bill Perkins' ethos i- in Die With Zero, and it's the idea of being instantaneously generous, um-

    2. OBOliver Burkeman2:02:25

       Right. Yeah

    3. PAPeter Attia2:02:25

       ... and not sort of punting generosity until another day. Uh, and this is w- you know, again, I, I think, I think you'll enjoy, uh, reading Die With Zero. Uh, and that's really, that was-

    4. OBOliver Burkeman2:02:37

       Yeah

    5. PAPeter Attia2:02:38

       ... certainly one of the three most important things I took away from that book is we have all these plans to do things tomorrow. It's like, "God, this person has been so great in my life, and I can't wait to show them in 10 years how great they've been."

    6. OBOliver Burkeman2:02:51

       [laughs]

    7. PAPeter Attia2:02:51

       It's like, w- w- what the hell does that... W- how about you show them today, uh-

    8. OBOliver Burkeman2:02:55

       Right

    9. PAPeter Attia2:02:55

       ... you know, how much they've mattered to you? Uh, so, uh, tell me for you how this came on that list. What was, what brought, what brought this on the list for you?

    10. OBOliver Burkeman2:03:05

        Well, I just came across this extraordinary line from the meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein about how his personal practice is if a generous thought arises in his mind that sort of implies some action, right? Donating to a charity, sending a note to somebody to say you appreciate them. His practice is to try to do that thing immediately rather than later. What really resonated with me about this is I've always had a lot of difficulty with stuff, especially coming out of mindfulness and Buddhism, that says, that implies to me that we should be more generous or we should be more grateful or kind. It's quite hard to will that kind of situation. But what this is is a way of saying, "Well, look, actually a lot of these urges in most decent people do arise all the time," right? You already think that a certain friend, you appreciate that they're in your life. You s- you do al- you already feel like actually it would be really good to make a donation to that particular philanthropic cause. The problem [laughs] is that you just then like say, "Well, I'll do it later when I'm, got all these other things out of the way." It's, it, the problem is acting on it, not generating the, the warm feeling. It's hard to generate the warm feeling originally. So I really took this on board from, from reading about it and try to do it. But it's also, I think it goes beyond just this one example of generosity, though I think it's really important to, to, to put it, to do it in that context. Time and again, you find yourself in this situation, or I find myself in the situation of wanting to become the kind of person who does things in a different way, who is always, sends lots of generous notes to friends or who, I don't know. Could be lots of other use- good habits in life. And the desire to become that kind of person actually ends up as an obstacle to just doing that thing, because you tell yourself like, "Okay, well, that's gonna take a whole, like, reorganization of my schedule," or like, you know, "I'm just a bit busy today to start being that kind of person." I heard from somebody who said that, like, he'd, he'd, um, he, he'd, um, made a deal with himself that he was gonna send, like, three appreciative notes a week or something to people in his, in his world, or maybe even it was ev- a day. And catching himself, like, as a result of this plan, not just sending an appreciative note-

    11. PAPeter Attia2:05:29

        [laughs]

    12. OBOliver Burkeman2:05:29

        ... because, like, he, he was on track to becoming the kind of person who did it all the time. Um, and I think it's one of the downsides of the otherwise, you know, very laudable aim of trying to develop good habits, is you can really let the kind of idea of development of a habit stand in the way of doing the, the thing. It's daunting to f- consider that you might spend 20 minutes a day from now on meditating every day. So, and that can get in the way of just, like, just doing it once now, and then deal with tomorrow, tomorrow. Um, so the instantaneous part of that I think is really, is really important. It's like, it's like, yeah, y- you'll find a way and a reason to, to postpone that thing, but it's really powerful to try to make it your actual, make the explicit practice be, "I will do that kind of thing when the thought arises."

    13. PAPeter Attia2:06:26

        Well, there are eight other, uh, great points there, which again aren't... I, I just wanna make sure we're not overselling this. They're not the solution to this problem. You're not gonna-

    14. OBOliver Burkeman2:06:38

        Right

    15. PAPeter Attia2:06:38

        ... you're not gonna go and adopt these 10, uh, ideas or behaviors and somehow, at least if you're me, and p- presumably for you, uh, be at complete peace with the duration of your life.

    16. OBOliver Burkeman2:06:53

        Right.

    17. PAPeter Attia2:06:54

        Never struggle again with trying to achieve something, never again, uh, struggle with trying to be productive. I mean, none of, none of these things. But boy, if we can move the needle a little bit and focus on these experiences and, and enjoy the experiences that do define those 4,000 weeks more-

    18. OBOliver Burkeman2:07:14

        Mm-hmm

    19. PAPeter Attia2:07:14

        ... than the abil- you know, the, the trying to grasp water, which is effectively what it's like-

    20. OBOliver Burkeman2:07:20

        Yeah, yeah

    21. PAPeter Attia2:07:20

        ... when you're trying to master your productivity, um, I, I, I think there's something there. And for me, I think just coming to grips with getting a little bit better as opposed to-

    22. OBOliver Burkeman2:07:32

        Mm-hmm, mm-hmm

    23. PAPeter Attia2:07:33

        ... being perfect is the, is the best step I can take.

    24. OBOliver Burkeman2:07:36

        Right. Right. Yeah, no, completely. And, you know, m- the only defense I make for the book not containing the solution to all of this is that no other book contains it either, right?

    25. PAPeter Attia2:07:49

        [laughs]

    26. OBOliver Burkeman2:07:49

        And that, that, that moving the needle, that's, that's our job, right? That's, that's, that's the, th- th- that's the thing that we can do. Um, and so, uh, yeah, that, that's the thing that's, that's available to us as finite humans. Yeah.

    27. PAPeter Attia2:08:07

        Well, Oliver, thank you very much for not just making the time today, but obviously more importantly, putting, putting the years into, uh, the, this work here, which a- as, as I've said before and as f- you know, we've said now, uh, this is kind of one of those books that is, is on a, is on a growing list of books for me that speaks to another piece of a life well-lived, uh, both in quantity, but more importantly in quality.

    28. OBOliver Burkeman2:08:35

        Yeah. Well, thank you so much. It's been such a privilege to have this conversation. Um, I've really appreciated it. Thank you. [upbeat music]

Episode duration: 2:08:51