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The Diminishing Returns of Calendar Culture
The fundamental problem is that this attitude toward time sets up a rigged game in which it’s impossible ever to feel as though you’re doing well enough. Instead of simply living our lives as they unfold in time—instead of just being time, you might say—it becomes difficult not to value each moment primarily according to its usefulness for some fut
... See moreOliver Burkeman • Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
Having combined time scarcity with an efficiency mindset, many people in these circles have developed an anxious urge to pack as much as possible into each remaining box, akin to what Germans call Torschlusspanik, the fear of time running out. When I posted a message asking if any “recovering productivity junkies” would be willing to be interviewed
... See moreAnne-Laure Le Cunff • Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World
This confrontation with limitation also reveals the truth that freedom, sometimes, is to be found not in achieving greater sovereignty over your own schedule but in allowing yourself to be constrained by the rhythms of community—participating in forms of social life where you don’t get to decide exactly what you do or when you do it. And it leads t
... See moreOliver Burkeman • Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
On a work trip to Sweden a few years back, I experienced a micro-level version of the same idea in the form of the fika, the daily moment when everyone in a given workplace gets up from their desks to gather for coffee and cake. The event resembles a well-attended coffee break, except that Swedes are liable to become mildly offended—which is the eq... See more