Four Thousand Weeks

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

The instant Sunday Times bestseller

A FINANCIAL TIMES, GUARDIAN AND OBSERVER BOOK OF THE YEAR

ONE OF THE DAILY TELEGRAPH'S 75 BEST BOOKS OF 2021

What if you stopped trying to do everything, so that you could finally get round to what counts?

We'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.

Four 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.

Drawing 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.

Embrace your limits. Change your life. Make your four thousand weeks count.

'Life is finite. You don't have to fit everything in... Read this book and wake up to a new way of thinking and living' EMMA GANNON

'A much-needed reality check on our culture's crazy assumptions around work, productivity and living a meaningful life' MARK MANSON, bestselling author of THE SUBTLE ART OF NOT GIVING A F*CK

'Comforting, fascinating, engaging, inspiring and USEFUL, actually genuinely useful' MARIAN KEYES

© Oliver Burkeman 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Critics Review

  • This book is wonderful. Instead of offering new tips on how to cram more into your day, it questions why we feel the need to … My favourite kind of book is this one … it examines the human struggle with intelligence, wisdom, humour and humility.

    The Times
  • Perfectly pitched somewhere between practical self-help book and philosophical quest … as with all the best quests, its many pleasures don’t require a fast-forward button, but happen along the way

    Observer
  • Life is finite. You don’t have to fit everything in. Enjoy your life. Breathe out. Read this book and wake up to a new way of thinking and living

    Emma Gannon, author of The Multi-Hyphen Method
  • A wonderfully honest book, Four Thousand Weeks is a much-needed reality check on our culture’s crazy assumptions around work, productivity and living a meaningful life

    Mark Manson, bestselling author of Everything is F*cked and The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
  • His book will challenge and amuse you. And it may even spur you on to change your life. At the very least reading it would be a good use of one of your four thousand weeks

    Evening Standard

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