The average human lifespan, Oliver Burkeman begins his 2021 megabest seller, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, is absurdly, terrifyingly, insultingly short. In that relatively brief period, he does not want you to maximize your output at work or optimize your leisure activities for supreme enjoyment. He does not want you to wake up at 5 a.m. or block out your schedule in a strictly labeled timeline. What he does want you to do is remind yourself, regularly, that the human life span is finite that someday your heart will stop pumping, your neurons will stop firing, and this three-dimensional ride we call consciousness will just... end. He also wants you to know that he's aware of how elusive those reminders can feel-how hard their meaning is to internalize.
Burkeman's opening sentence, with its cascade of unexpected adjectives, is the prelude to his countercultural message that no one can hustle or bullet journal or inbox-zero their way to mastering time. Such control, and the sense of completion and command it implies, is literally impossible, Burkeman argues. In fact, impossible is one of the words he uses most frequently, though it sounds oddly hopeful when he says it. He is perhaps best known for the idea that "productivity is a trap" that leaves strivers spinning in circles when they race to get ahead. In Burkeman's telling, once you abandon the "depressingly narrow-minded affair" that is the modern discipline of time management, you can do justice to our real situation: to the outrageous brevity and shimmering possibilities of our four thousand weeks. That is, you will find that an average 80-year life span is about far more than getting stuff done.
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Denne historien er fra November 2024-utgaven av The Atlantic.
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You Are Going to Die - Oliver Burkeman has become an unlikely self-help guru by reminding everyone of their mortality.
"The average human lifespan," Oliver Burkeman begins his 2021 megabest seller, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, "is absurdly, terrifyingly, insultingly short." In that relatively brief period, he does not want you to maximize your output at work or optimize your leisure activities for supreme enjoyment. He does not want you to wake up at 5 a.m. or block out your schedule in a strictly labeled timeline.
Washington's Nightmare - Donald Trump is the tyrant the first president feared.
Last November, during a symposium at Mount Vernon on democracy, John Kelly, the retired Marine Corps general who served as Donald Trump's second chief of staff, spoke about George Washington's historic accomplishments— his leadership and victory in the Revolutionary War, his vision of what an American president should be. And then Kelly offered a simple, three-word summary of Washington's most important contribution to the nation he liberated.
The Elite College Students Who Can't Read Books - To read a book in college, it helps to have read a book in high school.
Nicholas Dames has taught Literature Humanities, Columbia University's required greatbooks course, since 1988. He loves the job, but it has changed. Over the past decade, students have become overwhelmed by the reading, College kids have never read everything they're assigned, of course, but this feels different. Dames's students now seem bewildered by the thought of finishing multiple books a semester. His colleagues have noticed the same problem.
What Zoya Sees
Long a fearless critic of Israeli society, since October 7 Zoya Cherkassky-Nnadi has made wrenching portraits of her nation's sufferingand become a target of protest.
Malcolm Gladwell, Meet Mark Zuckerberg
The writer’ insistence on ignoring the web is an even bigger blind spot today than it was when The Tipping Point came out.
Alan Hollinghurst's Lost England
In his new novel, the present isnt much better than the past—and its a lot less sexy.
Scent of a Man
In a new memoir, Al Pacino promises to reveal the person behind the actor. But is he holding something back?
CATCHING THE CARJACKERS
ON THE ROAD WITH AN ELITE POLICE UNIT AS IT COMBATS A CRIME WAVE
THE RIGHT-WING PLAN TO MAKE EVERYONE AN INFORMANT
In Texas and elsewhere, new laws and policies have encouraged neighbors to report neighbors to the government.
The Playwright in the Age of AI
In his new play, McNeal, Ayad Akhtar confronts, and subverts, the idea that artificial intelligence threatens human ingenuity.
