Four Thousand Weeks - Oliver Burkeman

A really lovely articulation of various problem with “productivity culture”. Some central observations:

• Most productivity books (like Getting Things Done) have the premise that it’s possible to do all the things you want to do—that you really can “catch up” or “feel on top of things”—it’s just that you need a better system. But this is wrong. It’s never going to be possible to do all the things you feel are “on your list.” With that mindset, you’re never going to feel at peace with what you accomplish.
• Finitude is important to meaningness. Your marriage is significant in large part because it means you are not going to look for anyone else. You’re done with that; you’ve made your choice; it’s finite.
• “Pay yourself first” when it comes to time.
• Limit your work in progress. Everything takes longer than you think it will, and context switching is expensive and awareness-draining.
  • A fun specific exercise: list your top 25 priorities; focus on the top 5, and pledge not to attempt the other 20 because they will seduce you away from the most important things.
• Variations on Today is not a dress rehearsal; There are many experiences; Impermanence: “When I finally get my workload under control/get my candidate elected/find the right romantic partner/sort out my psychological issues, then I can relax, and the life I was always meant to be living can begin.”
• Variations on Unskillful attention outside of work hours harms attention during work hours: “As you surface from an hour inadvertently frittered away on Facebook, you’d be forgiven for assuming that the damage, in terms of wasted time, was limited to that single misspent hour. But you’d be wrong. …It systematically distorts the picture of the world we carry in our heads at all times. It influences our sense of what matters.”
• Much of the obsession around perusal productivity is individual-centric. It’s about getting control of your own life, time, attention, etc. But these things only matter if we do it together, if we coordinate. If you manage to arrange a consistent weekend for yourself, but it’s when everyone else is working, that’s not much of a win.
• Echoes of Non-coercive productivity, but with a somewhat different slant. This book isn’t so interested in finding ways to help fall into joyful absorption with meaning-producing work. It’s more about helping you notice that your perceived need for productivity is not going to solve your problems or make you feel fulfilled.

Q. Probably apocryphal story of Buffett, pilot, and priority management?
A. List your top 25 priorities; focus on the top 5, and pledge not to attempt the other 20 because they will seduce you away from the most important things.

Q. What’s the “causal catastrophe”?
A. “the idea that the true value of how we spend our time is always and only to be judged by the results.”

Q. What’s meant by “instantaneous generosity”?
A. When a generous impulse arises (give praise, send a warm note to a friend), act on it immediately.