Four Thousand Weeks
About a month ago, my husband referred me to an episode of The Ezra Klein Show titled “Burned out? Start here.” Of course, my interest was piqued. He knows I’m into this topic, having spent a good part of the last year recovering from burnout.
In fact, in September 2023, I found myself in such a desperate state of exhaustion and misalignment with my professional role that I convinced Kaiser to pay for a therapist. It was not easy, but I was determined to get the sort of help to which I believe everyone is entitled. I feel that mental health is just as important as physical health. With the support of a therapist, and later also a coach, I got myself to the other side of burnout. It really is like recovering from an illness, a mental illness—and it truly is something from which one can recover.
A few months into this process, I was laid off from my job and identified the need for a career change, which led me to professional coaching. It seemed natural, given my unusual background. I had been trained in an early form of coaching as a teenager prior to spending 18 years as a monk in a Hindu monastery. After I left the monastery in 2015, I fell into technology work by default, having decades of experience and some professional connections in the field. I also needed a way to afford living in 21st century San Francisco, a prospect which had become significantly more expensive than it had been in the mid 90s. After a decade excelling in IT leadership, I realized it really wasn’t for me, and I got out. Not without some cuts and scrapes.
Whether you call it burnout or overwhelm, the term preferred in the UK, this condition of exhaustion and exasperation really sucks. I had always thought it was caused by the unrealistic expectations of a given professional role. That is certainly a factor for many of us, along with the addictive distractions of smartphones, social media, the 24-hour news cycle, political and cultural disarray, and myriad other societal dilemmas. When I was honest, however, I realized that I had been dipping in and out of burnout for at least 15 years: there it was, over and over again, lurking in one job after another, going back years before I decided to leave the monastery. How can a monk living a serene life in a Hindu monastery in Hawaii possibly become burned out, you ask? It turns out to be a complex blend of mental habits and the distractions we allow to steal our attention.
Nearly all of us find ourselves, to some measure, in a state of overwhelm about all the things we have to do. I was an avid keeper of to-do lists and spreadsheets, forever organizing, reorganizing, trying out exciting new productivity systems, all while taking on more and more tasks and responsibilities as I leveled up in life and career. I proudly and cheekily called myself a “productivity whore.” I was certain that, one day, I would get it all under control, be on top of everything, strike a balance, and finally find that moment when I would allow myself to truly relax. The problem was that horizon never seemed to get closer, and I could no longer stand living in the increasingly frenzied, frazzled state this lie left me in.
Therapy and coaching helped me get centered again and find clarity about what really matters to me, but I was still anxious and distracted by the growing multitude of things I thought I wanted or needed to get done. Action on my priorities was becoming more common, but it was still a slog. At best, from my vantage point well into mid-life, I was keeping burnout at bay, ever protective of my time and energy, clinging to the idea that I had to carefully construct my my third career so that I would never get lost in that abyss again.
It was in this somewhat tenuous state that I dove into Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, by Oliver Burkeman, Klein’s podcast guest. In his book, Burkeman argues that we are frustrated because we refuse to accept our finitude, that, in fact, there is no possible way we are going to get everything done that we think we want and need to get done in our relatively brief lifetimes. We might as well accept that and move on. Drawing from history, philosophy, religion, and science, Burkeman takes us on a tour of how we got to this place. In this context, he offers a different perspective, one in which we can embrace our limitations honestly and allow ourselves to make time for what really matters. The relevance to modern life, to the predicament we all seem to find ourselves in today, pours off of page after page.
Four Thousand Weeks was the key that unlocked the door to consistently approaching life differently than how I had been for the first half of my life. Embracing and trying out its perspectives and strategies, I’m clearer about what truly matters to me, more focused than ever on actually doing it, and perhaps most importantly, free from anxiety about the vast list of things I’m not getting done. This revelation—that we are limited and will never have the capacity and time to do all the things we and our modern social pressures want for us—is incredibly freeing. Upon lowering my expectations and choosing just a few things that are really important to me, I’m making substantial progress on them every day, and I’m so much more relaxed.
I can’t recommend this book highly enough. Buy it, borrow it from the library, or listen to the audiobook, and see for yourself. If you want to have a conversation about it, schedule some time with me. The topics covered in this book often make it into sessions with my coaching clients, and I love nothing more than standing for people identifying what is really true for them and prioritizing living that truth authentically.
