Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

Available instantly

Audiobook
$0.00
with membership trial

Hardcover
$15.49

Paperback
$13.99

Your audiobook is waiting!

Click above for unlimited listening to select audiobooks, Audible Originals, and podcasts.
One credit a month to pick any title from our entire premium selection — yours to keep (you'll use your first credit now).
You will get an email reminder before your trial ends.
$14.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel online anytime.

Learn more about membership

Sold and delivered by Audible, an Amazon company

List Price: $14.99

By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible’s Conditions Of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice.

Sold and delivered by Audible, an Amazon company

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Oliver Burkeman (Author, Narrator), Macmillan Audio (Publisher)

4.6 9,476 ratings

Editors' pick Best Nonfiction

See all formats and editions

2021 Financial Times Books of the Year

An Instant New York Times Best Seller

This program is read by the author.

Time is our biggest worry: There is too little of it. The acclaimed Guardian writer Oliver Burkeman offers a lively, entertaining philosophical guide to time and time management, setting aside superficial efficiency solutions in favor of reckoning with and finding joy in the finitude of human life.

The average human lifespan is absurdly, insultingly brief. Assuming you live to be eighty, you have just over four thousand weeks.

Nobody needs telling there isn’t enough time. We’re obsessed with our lengthening to-do lists, our overfilled inboxes, work-life balance, and the ceaseless battle against distraction; and we’re deluged with advice on becoming more productive and efficient, and “life hacks” to optimize our days. But such techniques often end up making things worse. The sense of anxious hurry grows more intense, and still the most meaningful parts of life seem to lie just beyond the horizon. Still, we rarely make the connection between our daily struggles with time and the ultimate time management problem: the challenge of how best to use our four thousand weeks.

Drawing on the insights of both ancient and contemporary philosophers, psychologists, and spiritual teachers, Oliver Burkeman delivers an entertaining, humorous, practical, and ultimately profound guide to time and time management. Rejecting the futile modern fixation on “getting everything done,” Four Thousand Weeks introduces listeners to tools for constructing a meaningful life by embracing finitude, showing how many of the unhelpful ways we’ve come to think about time aren’t inescapable, unchanging truths, but choices we’ve made as individuals and as a society - and that we could do things differently.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Listening Length

5 hours and 54 minutes
Author

Oliver Burkeman
Narrator

Oliver Burkeman
Audible release date

August 10, 2021
Language

English
Publisher

Macmillan Audio
ASIN

B08XZY5ZF7
Version

Unabridged
Program Type

Audiobook
See all details

Report an issue with this product or seller

People who viewed this also viewed

Page 1 of 1Start OverPage 1 of 1

People who bought this also bought

Page 1 of 1Start OverPage 1 of 1

Product details

Listening Length	5 hours and 54 minutes
Author	Oliver Burkeman
Narrator	Oliver Burkeman
Audible.com Release Date	August 10, 2021
Publisher	Macmillan Audio
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B08XZY5ZF7
Best Sellers Rank	#650 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) #4 in Time Management (Audible Books & Originals) #6 in Personal Time Management #11 in Philosophy (Audible Books & Originals)

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5

9,476 global ratings

How customer reviews and ratings work

Reviews with images

See all photos

Sort reviews by

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Beguiled By Books

Great book on productivity and time management

Reviewed in the United States on July 21, 2023

Verified Purchase

As a devoted productivity geek, I immediately got on the waitlist for a Kindle copy at my library. Once I finally got it, I was delighted.

The real measure of any time management technique is whether or not it helps you neglect the right things.

The premise of Four Thousand Weeks is that an average person lives for only four thousand weeks. What will you do with that time? All of human history has taken approximately 310,000 weeks. We are but a blip, and knowing this, Burkeman asks the reader, how will you get everything done?

We don’t. Plain and simple.

Arguably, time management is all life is. Yet the modern discipline known as time management—like its hipper cousin, productivity—is a depressingly narrow-minded affair, focused on how to crank through as many work tasks as possible, or on devising the perfect morning routine, or on cooking all your dinners for the week in one big batch on Sundays.

Burkeman advocates not for Pomodoro techniques, bullet journals, and habit trackers but for actively choosing what you won’t do. He explains how we strive for things like Inbox Zero or crossing things off our to-do lists only for more things to find their way into our email and onto our lists. The key, Burkeman shares, is not eschewing stuff you don’t want to do in favor of what you do want to do but choosing what matters most for your time of all the things you do want to do. For example, you may not want to go to your upcoming reunion, so saying no to that event in favor of going on a vacation might be easy. We must genuinely manage our time when we want to spend time with our partner, write a book, learn to ski, adopt a pet, decorate cakes, and take a vacation. It’s much more challenging to choose what you won’t do when you genuinely want to do the things on your list.

The day will never arrive when you finally have everything under control—when the flood of emails has been contained; when your to-do lists have stopped getting longer; when you’re meeting all your obligations at work and in your home life; when nobody’s angry with you for missing a deadline or dropping the ball; and when the fully optimized person you’ve become can turn, at long last, to the things life is really supposed to be about. Let’s start by admitting defeat: none of this is ever going to happen.

There are dozens of great quotes throughout Four Thousand Weeks. I love the thought that you can only have three things or projects going on at any given time. To take on a new project, you must finish or quit one of your other three. I also appreciated how Burkeman addresses side hustle culture and burnout culture, which seems prevalent in the millennial generation (hi! That’s me!).

…it’s now common to encounter reports, especially from younger adults, of an all-encompassing, bone-deep burnout, characterized by an inability to complete basic daily chores—the paralyzing exhaustion of “a generation of finely honed tools, crafted from embryos to be lean, mean production machines,” in the words of the millennial social critic Malcolm Harris.

He also describes hobbies as critical, but it’s okay if you feel silly talking about them with others because you do them out of pure enjoyment – not with the goal you might one day monetize it.

When an activity can’t be added to the running tally of billable hours, it begins to feel like an indulgence one can’t afford. There may be more of this ethos in most of us—even the nonlawyers—than we’d care to admit.

Four Thousand Weeks is the book everyone must read to get over hustle culture and project mindsets. Sometimes the purpose of life is to enjoy existing.

The world is bursting with wonder, and yet it’s the rare productivity guru who seems to have considered the possibility that the ultimate point of all our frenetic doing might be to experience more of that wonder.

I instantly loved this book, and it will sit at the top of my recommendations for quite some time.

147 people found this helpful

Helpful

Amazon Customer

Simple yet Insightful

Reviewed in the United States on March 30, 2024

Verified Purchase

It is a read that could make you more peaceful. Although “living in the present” is a cliche, there are many principles and mindsets about how you can approach it practically.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

UpstateFarmgirl

Managing Time

Reviewed in the United States on January 26, 2024

Verified Purchase

This book is easy to read, but is a bit slow-going for my taste. The author makes some excellent points about making time for what really matters and not just for all the myriad of events we often schedule. I did disagree with his timeline that equates to 80 years because I'm hoping to live beyond that & still planning. Good examples of the things we schedule and allow to take precedence over the things that should matter more to us. A cautionary book about prioritizing our lives correctly.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Daniel

Truly life altering book

Reviewed in the United States on December 17, 2023

Verified Purchase

Having basically finished and considering a re-read, this book is really thought provoking and an important to those looking to live a successful and worthwhile life.

To start with a caveat, I would not recommend this book to a newcomer to time management. As an example, to a young person first starting to live a more structured life. To a person who has known they waste a lot of time but never has really done anything about it and wishes to seek guidance. Looked at some the negative reviews and think that is the main ingredient of their issues - this is not a how to manual about improving one’s skills in habits and time management. There are plenty of other books for that.

This book is second tier - for those who have attempted to manage and structure their lives and schedules. To those who have read books on habits, time management techniques, started to come to terms with who one really is as a person (shortcomings and all) and have spent time considering what to do with their lives in a serious way. This is a book about facing the reality of time and life. This book is meant to sober us up on reality and existence itself. One can parse here or there on the authors philosophical view or the examples to relate reality as we see it, but the point is irrefutable that we live an extremely short window with finite time and focus - we have to choose to let go of many dreams, unreasonable expectations, and false hopes if we wish to seize what is truly a precious and enjoyable gift we were given of life itself.

42 people found this helpful

Helpful

Manuel Elias Nunez Frechero

How time should be wisely used

Reviewed in the United States on March 9, 2024

Verified Purchase

Recommended for all us who are tired of the eternal mantra of maximization of time by obsessively doing doing doing. The author offers a kinder and more fulfilling alternative.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

some guy

JUST READ IT - one of the few books I recommend to EVERYONE

Reviewed in the United States on February 22, 2024

Verified Purchase

I really enjoyed this book, and recommend it to everyone that asks me for recommendations (my friends/family know I read a lot).

To be clear, this really isn't a "time management" book - if you're looking for someone to tell you how to manage your time, looks elsewhere. Although to be honest I would argue that you're actually wasting your time by doing that - you'd be better off reading this instead and realizing that no matter how many time management books you read or how organized you think you can get, you'll never be able to accomplish everything you want to in life. As soon as you think you've accomplished everything, something else will come up. What we need to do is prioritize what's most important to us, and utilize the finite amount of time that we do have on those things.

This book is well structured, easy to read, and will change the way you look at life. Read it and pass it on!

16 people found this helpful

Helpful

Vince

A great book, marred by political dross.

Reviewed in the United States on April 3, 2024

Verified Purchase

3.5 stars would be more accurate, but I side on the positive. I just finished reading the main portion of this book and the afterword. While it has certainly helped the existential funk I've been in over the last few months, I can't help but believe this book will become incredibly dated within the next few years. The author falls victim to not only assuming the reader aligns with him politically, but uses the limited political views of the time the book was made to make several crucial points which seem naïve in hindsight and mar what could have been a timeless classic.
The book is certainly worth reading, but it can also be alienating. YMMV.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English

Amazon Customer

A cold bath

Reviewed in Brazil on October 2, 2023

Verified Purchase

This book made me anxious, but it was an anxiety I had been postponing to feel. It made me realize what had been knocking the back of my mind for years and yet remained there, ignored, suffocated in the midst of endless chores and an ever accelerating to-do list.

Your time is finit, and what you can do with it is finite. You won't be able to do all that you want, but perhaps all that wanting is actually misguided. To want to much may be a symptom of not really being here, "now".

On the other hand, "being here now", as new age types often promote, is not exactly to be pursued in the same way such spiritual people day that you should. It's an uncomfortable feeling, and there are traps and pitfalls that inhabit this proposition or desire to "be here now". Falling into these traps makes us behave in a way that actually mirrors the productivity meatgrinder that is the attitude towards life pushed by the current culture.

This is not a mumbo jumbo self help "you can do it", nor is it some "lite feel age" book for you to feel good. It's a cold bath and a wake-up call. It will make you feel uncomfortable, not because of some new fact but rather because it will make you pay attention to what you've been avoiding.

One person found this helpful

Aristófanes C.

Excelent reading

Reviewed in Mexico on December 26, 2021

Verified Purchase

Great book, it helps you to deal with everyday life crises. People who struggle with their time will find this very helpful. It talks about accepting your limits and working on your decision making to get through the days. If you're dealing with anxiety, decision making problems or you just feel that the day doesn't have enought time to get everything done, this book is for you. I guarantee that, when your're done reading it, you will be a wiser and more patient person. It helped me a lot and this is one of my favorite books (top 3) I've read this year.

3 people found this helpful

Ankita2020

It's different!

Reviewed in India on May 1, 2024

Verified Purchase

Somehow every topic this book has touched makes sense. Although it's a nonfiction, it didn't feel that heavy to read. Nice read. Would recommend it.

ROCHA LENCASTRE

Read this book before you die. It will give you a new perspective to our overloaded selves.

Reviewed in Germany on April 26, 2024

Verified Purchase

It took me many months to read this book. I found it after listening to a podcast interview of the author. The message can be boiled down to, you'll more or less live 80 years, and most likely 50% of that is already gone, you'll inevitably find yourself wondering where did the time go, and how little is left, you over plan, and you under execute, you are in a constant state of non-presence due to worry about the future and regret about the past. Well... that's just life. Embrace it, and be glad you have health now and be present in the moment you are experiencing right now. The book never struck me as pop-psi nor too self-help, it seemed like an honest conversation to be had, and to question our existence, forgive ourselves and move on.