Time is our biggest worry: there is too little of it. The award-winning, renowned Guardian columnist Oliver Burkeman offers a lively, entertaining philosophical guide to time and time management, setting aside superficial efficiency solutions in favour of reckoning with and finding joy in the finitude of human life.\nThe average human lifespan is absurdly, insultingly brief. Assuming you live to be eighty, you have just over four thousand weeks.\nNobody 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 struggle against distraction; and we're deluged with advice on becoming more productive and efficient, plus lifehacks to optimize our days. But such techniques often just 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.\nDrawing on the insights of 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 obsession with getting everything done, he introduces readers to tools for constructing a meaningful life, 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.

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

Oliver Burkeman

Allen Lane.

How do you solve the problem of human happiness? It's a subject that has occupied some of the greatest philosophers of all time, from Aristotle to Paul McKenna - but how do we sort the good ideas from the terrible ones? Over the past five years, Oliver Burkeman has travelled to some of the strangest outposts of the 'happiness industry' in an attempt to find out. In Help!, the first collection of his popular Guardian columns, Burkeman presents his findings. It's a witty and thought-provoking exploration that punctures many of self-help's most popular myths, while also offering clear-headed, practical and often counterintuitive advice on a range of subjects, from stress, procrastination and insomnia to wealth, laughter, time management and creativity. It doesn't claim to have solved the problem of human happiness. But it might just bring us one step closer.

Help!: How to Be Slightly Happier, Slightly More Successful and Get a Bit More Done. Oliver Burkeman

Self-Help

Happiness

Canongate Books Ltd.

How do you solve the problem of human happiness? It's a subject that has occupied some of the greatest philosophers of all time, from Aristotle to Paul McKenna. But how do we sort the good ideas from the terrible ones? Over the past five years, Oliver Burkeman has travelled to some of the strangest outposts of the 'happiness industry' in an attempt to find out. Help! is the witty and thought-provoking story of his journey. In it, he tackles: The Secret of Great Leadership How to Be Interesting Why All Meetings Should Be Abolished How to Become a Better Morning Person The Hidden Pleasures of Worry and many other subjects ...

HELP!: How to Become Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More Done

For a civilization so fixated on achieving happiness, we seem remarkably incompetent at the task.
Self-help books don’t seem to work. Few of the many advantages of modern life seem capable of lifting our collective mood. Wealth—even if you can get it—doesn’t lead to happiness. Romance, family life and work often seem to bring stress as much as joy. We can’t even agree on what ‘happiness’ means.
 So are we engaged in a futile pursuit? Or are we just going about it the wrong way?
In this fascinating audiobook, Oliver Burkeman introduces us to an unusual collection of people—experimental psychologists and Buddhists, terrorism experts, spiritual teachers, philosophers and business consultants—who share a single, surprising way of thinking about life. They argue that in our personal lives, and society at large, it’s precisely our constant effort to be happy that is making us miserable. That "positive thinking" isn’t the solution, but part of the problem. And that there is an alternative, "negative path" to happiness and success that involves embracing failure, pessimism, insecurity and uncertainty—those things we spend our lives trying to avoid.
Thought-provoking, counter-intuitive, and ultimately uplifting, The Antidote is a celebration of the power of negative thinking.

Antidote, The

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

BRILLIANCE AUDIO ^

Oliver Burkeman's 2-Book Set (Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals & The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking)

978-0865479418 9780865479418 0865479410 The Antidote

978-0374159122 9780374159122 0374159122 Four Thousand Weeks

Farrar. Straus and Giroux

What if you stopped trying to do everything, so that you could finally get round to what counts?\nWe're obsessed with our lengthening to-do lists, our overfilled inboxes, the struggle against distraction, and the sense that our attention spans are shrivelling. Still, we rarely make the connection between our daily struggles with time and the ultimate time management problem: the question of how best to use our ridiculously brief time on the planet, which amounts on average to about four thousand weeks.\nFour Thousand Weeks is an uplifting, engrossing and deeply realistic exploration of the challenge. Rejecting the futile modern obsession with 'getting everything done,' it introduces readers to tools for constructing a meaningful life by embracing rather than denying their limitations. And it shows how 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. Its many revelations will transform the reader's worldview.\nDrawing on the insights of both ancient and contemporary philosophers, psychologists, and spiritual teachers, Oliver Burkeman sets out to realign our relationship with time - and in doing so, to liberate us from its tyranny.\nEmbrace your limits. Change your life. Make your four thousand weeks count.

Four Thousand Weeks: Embrace your limits. Change your life. Make your four thousand weeks count.

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Vintage

The Antidote is a series of journeys among people who share a single, surprising way of thinking about life. On the surface, they might not seem to share much else: they are philosophers and experimental psychologists, Buddhists and terrorism experts, New Age dreamers and hard-headed business consultants. But what they have in common is a hunch about human psychology: that in our personal lives and the world at large, it's our constant efforts to eliminate the negative - that cause us to feel so anxious, insecure and unhappy. And that there is an alternative negative path to happiness and success that involves embracing the things we spend our lives trying to avoid. Oliver Burkeman's new book is a witty, fascinating and counter-intuitive read that turns decades of self-help advice on its head and forces us to rethink completely our attitudes towards failure, uncertainty and death

The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking. Oliver Burkeman

Personal Transformation

CANONGATE BOOKS *

Is our search for happiness futile? or are we just going about it the wrong way? in this fascinating new book, oliver burkeman argues that 'positive thinking' and relentless optimism aren't the solution to the happiness dilemma, but part of the problem. And that there is, in fact, an alternative path to contentment and success that involves embracing the things we spend our lives trying to avoid - uncertainty, insecurity, pessimism and failure. Thought-provoking, counter-intuitive and ultimately uplifting, "the antidote" is a celebration of the power of negative thinking.

The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking

Four Thousand Weeks

Bodley Head

The average human lifespan is absurdly, outrageously, insultingly brief: if you live to 80, you have about four thousand weeks on earth. How should we use them best?\nOf course, nobody needs telling that there isn't enough time. We're obsessed by our lengthening to-do lists, our overfilled inboxes, the struggle against distraction, and the sense that our attention spans are shrivelling. Yet we rarely make the conscious connection that these problems only trouble us in the first place thanks to the ultimate time-management problem: the challenge of how best to use our four thousand weeks.\nFour Thousand Weeks is an uplifting, engrossing and deeply realistic exploration of this problem. Rejecting the futile modern obsession with 'getting everything done,' it introduces readers to tools for constructing a meaningful life, showing how 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 its many revelations will transform the reader's worldview.\nDrawing on the insights of both ancient and contemporary philosophers, psychologists, and spiritual teachers, Oliver Burkeman sets out to realign our relationship with time - and in doing so, to liberate us from its grasp.

Four Thousand Weeks: Time and How to Use it

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Books by Oliver Burkeman