Oliver Burkeman
British writer on time, limits and attention, author of Four Thousand Weeks and Meditations for Mortals and formerly a Guardian columnist. He writes the newsletter The Imperfectionist at oliverburkeman.com.
Oliver Burkeman did not write this page.
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Their wordsyou don’t get dragged away against your will. You surrender willingly.
↗The truth about distractionoliverburkeman.com 1st of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsThis is why most anti-distraction hacks – web-blocking apps, noise-canceling headphones, personal rules – never seem to work very well.
↗The truth about distractionoliverburkeman.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Our reading
Work that matters requires tolerating discomfort and boredom rather than escaping into distraction.
Their wordsConsider the possibility that mild discomfort – butterflies in the stomach, a sense of difficulty, a moment of boredom – might simply be the price of doing things you care about.
↗The truth about distractionoliverburkeman.com 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 2 days earlier
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Their wordsthe perfectionist's fantasy of reaching her deathbed with a perfect record of accomplishments under her belt isn't just extremely unlikely, but doomed from the start
↗There's no such thing as a fresh startoliverburkeman.com 1st of 2 in this piece
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Their wordsWhat's true of both the crisis situation and the daily situation is that at any given moment, you can only ever actually be doing one thing.
↗List one task, do it, cross it outoliverburkeman.com 1st of 2 in this piece
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Their wordsThe trouble is that human beings can't really function, let alone thrive, when their primary psychological identification is with things like "the news cycle" or "history" or "the course of world events."
↗The news is not your lifeoliverburkeman.com 1st of 2 in this piece
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Their wordsThis, in my experience, is the only way personal change ever really happens: by first seeing that it's always a matter of rebuilding the ship mid-ocean, making adjustments to a life you can't ever take back to port or trade for another.
↗There's no such thing as a fresh startoliverburkeman.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
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Their wordsIn the end, the only point of any personal productivity system, goal-setting technique or "life planning" exercise is to help you make a slightly better decision about what to do, right now
↗List one task, do it, cross it outoliverburkeman.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
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Their wordsBut it is an argument for reducing your emotional investment in the world of the news, and reinvesting in your own.
↗The news is not your lifeoliverburkeman.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 1 day earlier
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Their wordsThat’s why you should give up on trying to reach a phase of life that’s problem-free.
↗How to stop trying to escape realityoliverburkeman.com 1st of 2 in this piece
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Their wordsThe reason you’ll never get on top of everything is because you’re inextricably enmeshed in the "everything" you’ve been struggling to get on top of.
↗How to stop trying to escape realityoliverburkeman.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 2 weeks earlier
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Their wordsyou almost certainly can't consistently do the kind of work that demands serious mental focus for more than about three or four hours a day
↗The three-or-four-hours rule for getting creative work doneoliverburkeman.com 1st of 2 in this piece
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Their wordsThe truly valuable skill here isn't the capacity to push yourself harder, but to stop and recuperate despite the discomfort of knowing that work remains unfinished, emails unanswered, other people's demands unfulfilled.
↗The three-or-four-hours rule for getting creative work doneoliverburkeman.com 2nd of 2 in this piece