Four Thousand Weeks - Time and How to Use It

First question. Why 4000 weeks? That's the average human lifespan. If you're reading this you've probably used up 1000 already. If you're a bit older you may have only 2000 left. Maybe just 1000. That can be a startling thought - given how quickly each week goes by.

There's so much wisdom in this book, it's hard to summarise it briefly. But I'll give it a go....

Face the Finitude

If time was infinite, we could work for 40 years and not miss out on anything. We could spend frivolously as we could always earn more money later. But in the real world there are time limits.

Even if we have enough money to escape the nine-to-five, our time (though more plentiful) is finite. Just like money, we will run out if we fritter it away on low-value options.

"Face the Finitude" has become one of my internal phrases now. It's my reminder that I don't have infinite time to waste. It may be helpful to think of it like money. eg. I might like something, but do I like it enough to spend this much on it.

The rock-jar problem

You may have heard the time-management analogy of time being a jar and tasks being rocks. Put the big rocks in first, then the small rocks, then the pebbles. Then everything fits. But it's rigged. What happens when there's more rocks than there is jar space.

We need to focus less on doing things efficiently, and focus more on being efficient at working out what to do. (ie. more of what lights us up, less of jobs we don't enjoy)

One suggestion is to list the 25 most important priorities and rank them. Then avoid 6-25 at all costs. Why? Because they are alluring enough to distract us from the top five - the really important stuff.

The Efficiency trap

Do your work at amazing speed and you'll be given more (your boss is not stupid - he gives it to the fastest worker). Find enough time for work and kids, you'll feel pressure to join the P&C or exercise more. Parkinson's law says work expands to fill the time available. In fact it's the definition of what needs doing that expands.

There's no end. There's always more money to earn, tasks to do, destinations to visit, things to achieve. (Like the infinity pools in Make Time). At some point we have to decide when enough is enough.

Experience the joy of now

There are lots of "last times" but we don't know it at the time - eg. the last time the author picks up his son. Perhaps we should treat more moments with the reverence they would have if they were the last time.

Developing economies tend to enjoy life better than we do. Possibly because of our concept of the "billable hour" - that an hour not sold is an hour wasted. The author contrasts this idea with the perspective of the parable of the Mexican fisherman.

Wonderful wisdom

The book contains so many little eloquent sentences and astute observations. Here are some rapid-fire excerpts..

On the imbalance of things and time...

Time management gives tips for doing more in less time (eg batch cooking on Sunday) but few books address the "outrageous brevity" of life.
Busyness - the "pressure to fit ever-increasing quantities of activity into a stubbornly non-increasing quantity of daily time"
Time feels like an unstoppable conveyor belt bringing us new tasks. Being 'more productive' just causes the belt to speed up.
In 1930 John Maynard Keynes predicted the 15-hour workweek, but we found more things to want, hence more things to do.
As a finite human we have to make hard choices - to do one thing instead of another. It's a positive commitment to spend a portion of time doing this instead of that, because this is what matters.

On mindset

Midlife crises happen at midlife because we realise our mortality and that living for the future isn't as valuable when there's not much future.
Our addiction to speed is a bit like alcoholism. In AA success comes from the person admitting the they are powerless over alcohol. Perhaps we have to admit that we are powerless over time. Things just take the time they take.

On common time

Time is not a regular good, it's a network good. Only useful to the extent that others have it (like social media, fax machine etc)
To do countless important things with time - socialise, go on dates, raise kids, launch businesses, build political movements, make technological advances- it has to be synchronised with other people's time.
Unemployed people are happier on weekends despite not escaping a job, because they have people to socialise with. Workers happier when everyone else is on leave too (eg Christmas and new year) because they are not getting behind in work.

A final quote on being busy

Our limitations and finitude (the human disease) is only unbearable as long as you're under the impressions that there might be a cure.

In short

This is a fascinating and original book. Rather than jam more into our already-busy lives, Let's actually decide what's important and focus on that. It's probably a lot less than we think :)

But wait... there's less!

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