[1]Homepage

Accessibility links

    * [2]Skip to content
    * [3]Accessibility Help

  [4]BBC Account
  [5]Notifications
    * [6]Home
    * [7]News
    * [8]Sport
    * [9]Weather
    * [10]iPlayer
    * [11]Sounds
    * [12]CBBC
    * [13]CBeebies
    * [14]Food
    * [15]Bitesize
    * [16]Arts
    * [17]Taster
    * [18]Local
    * [19]Three
    * [20]Menu

  [21]Search
  Search the BBC ____________________ (BUTTON) Search the BBC

  (BUTTON)

  Menu
  Loading
  [22]How we think
  How to escape the 'productivity trap'
  [23]Share using Email
  Share on Twitter
  Share on Facebook[24]Share on Linkedin
  (Image credit: Getty Images)
  (Credit: Getty Images)
  By David Robson
  10th August 2021
  We have a finite amount of time, yet we still strive to accomplish
  infinite goals. Why do we put this pressure on ourselves – and how can
  we stop?
  H

  Here’s a simple question that might provoke a mild existential crisis.
  Without performing the calculation, guess how many weeks the average
  person will live?

  The answer, for an average lifespan of around 80 years old, is 4,000.
  Even centenarians will only live to 5,200.

  If you’re like me, this realisation may trigger a sense of dread,
  followed by a greater determination to make the most of this short time
  on Earth. Surely it makes sense to try to pack as many activities as
  possible into each day, to be sure we meet our goals before we shuffle
  off this mortal coil?

  In reality, this may be the very worst thing we can do to live a happy
  and fulfilling life. In his new book, Four Thousand Weeks, psychology
  writer Oliver Burkeman argues that this only leads to disappointment
  and unhappiness – thanks to a phenomenon known as the “productivity
  trap”. In his view, we would do far better to slow down, rather than
  speed up, if we are to make the most of our short lifespans.

  The tyranny of time

  Anxieties about time’s passing are not exactly unique to modern life.
  In around 29 BC, the Roman poet Virgil, wrote “fugit inreparabile
  tempus” – “time flies irretrievably” – which expresses some anxiety at
  the passing of the days. Similar thoughts about time somehow escaping
  us can be found in [25]Chaucer and [26]Shakespeare.

  Burkeman, however, believes that humankind’s peculiar preoccupation
  with time – and, in particular, whether we spend it “productively” –
  became much greater with the common usage of the clock and the
  emergence of the Industrial Revolution. Before then, the natural
  rhythms of the day guided people: “The cows needed milking when they
  needed milking, and you couldn't decide to sort of do all the milking
  for the month in a couple of days,” he says.
  The rise of the industrial revolution made us acutely aware of
  productivity and output, which turned up the pressure to perform
  (Credit: Getty Images)

  The rise of the industrial revolution made us acutely aware of
  productivity and output, which turned up the pressure to perform
  (Credit: Getty Images)

  Once people started working in mills and factories, however, their
  activities had to be coordinated more precisely – often to optimise the
  use of the machines they were running. This led to a greater focus on
  scheduling and the creation of the timetable – along with the
  realisation that our productivity could be carefully monitored. And the
  resulting pressure, to get more done in less time, seems to have grown
  exponentially in the second half of the 20th Century.

  The self-help industry has catered to these anxieties, with many
  volumes over the last four decades offering tips for better time
  management. “The implication from these books is that, with the right
  technique, you might be able to deal with pretty much any obligation
  that comes your way. You could launch as many of the life ambitions
  that you wanted, with a perfectly optimised daily routine,” says
  Burkeman.

  The ‘productivity trap’

  Unfortunately, it often doesn’t work that way. Burkeman describes the
  drive for efficiency and productivity as a kind of “trap”, since you
  never truly escape the feeling that you should be doing more.

  Consider a basic goal, such as optimising your email correspondence.
  You might think that you could get to a kind of Zen state where you
  have nothing in your inbox at the end of each day, and reply to each
  message as it comes in. Unfortunately, each email you send is likely to
  trigger further replies and tasks to complete, which can lead the
  messages to pile up again.

  The fact that work often begets work means that many efficient
  employees are soon stretched beyond capacity, as their manager keeps
  adding to their responsibilities. As Burkeman writes in Four Thousand
  Weeks: “Your boss isn’t stupid. Why would she give the work to someone
  slower?”

It’s really a recipe for stress – the idea that you can do something
superhuman with your time – Oliver Burkeman

  Productivity hacks may therefore help you to get more done, but that
  increased efficiency won’t relieve your stress and improve your
  wellbeing, or create more free time for the things that really matter
  to you.

  Burkeman compares common time-management techniques to the addition of
  lanes on the motorway. “They’re meant to ease congestion, but they only
  attract more cars,” he said in our conversation.

  The hedonic treadmill

  There are also good psychological reasons why we may never be satisfied
  with our current activities – at work or in our personal life – that
  lead us to put ever increasing pressure on ourselves.

  Humans have an annoying habit of becoming habituated to positive
  changes in our life – a phenomenon known as the “[27]hedonic
  adaptation”. You might expect that a job promotion would be a suitable
  reward for all your toil – but the research shows it often won’t leave
  you much happier than your current position. No matter how productive
  you are, and what you achieve, you’ll always want more for yourself

  Burkeman’s notion of the productivity trap also reminds me of a study
  from Rutgers University, US, and the University of Toronto. Some
  participants were asked to list [28]10 activities that could make them
  feel better in their life – priming them to think of happiness as an
  active pursuit. Afterwards, they scored much lower on a questionnaire
  about their current wellbeing than participants who had instead been
  asked to count their blessings in the present moment.

  Further probing found that the reduced happiness was linked to a sense
  that time was somehow slipping away: rather than leading the
  participants to feel positive and proactive, the thought of all those
  activities had made them even more acutely conscious of how little time
  they actually had to achieve it all.
  If you try to do less with your time and focus on achieving one task,
  you’ll be able to make bigger strides (Credit: Getty Images)

  If you try to do less with your time and focus on achieving one task,
  you’ll be able to make bigger strides (Credit: Getty Images)

  Escaping the trap

  Ultimately, Burkeman thinks that our relentless drive for productivity
  is a futile attempt to escape the harsh truth about our 4,000 weeks on
  Earth. “It’s alluring to try to spend your time improving your routines
  and rituals – but that’s simply helping you to avoid confronting the
  truth about how finite you are,” he says. “And it’s really a recipe for
  stress – the idea that you can do something superhuman with your time.”

  In Burkeman’s view, we could all reduce our anxiety if we simply
  accepted our limited capacity to achieve all that we would like in
  life. He has a few pointers for practical action

  The first may seem obvious, but is all too easy to forget: we need to
  limit the number of goals we pursue at any one time. You might
  prioritise moving house and writing a book, for example – while
  realising that your piano lessons will have to wait. Although it may
  feel disheartening to neglect something that matters dearly to you,
  you’ll be able to make bigger strides towards the goals that you’ve
  actually chosen, than if you were pursuing too many things
  simultaneously.

  You can switch between goals, of course, as your life progresses – once
  you’ve moved house, say, there will be room in your schedule for
  learning the piano. But in general, Burkeman thinks we’ll be much
  happier if make a conscious decision to put certain projects on hold,
  in place of the continuous realisation that we’re not living up to our
  unrealistic expectations. “You're just reconciling yourself with being
  a finite human,” he says.

When you face this reality, it’s actually really liberating – Oliver Burkeman

  For our day-to-day work, Burkeman is also an advocate of the “[29]have
  done list” – a kind of parallel to the “to do list” that starts out
  empty each morning, but fills up with each task that you have
  completed. Importantly, many of those tasks may have been distractions
  that would have never been on your actual to do list, but which were
  nevertheless important to achieve. In this way, the practice helps you
  to reframe your workload so that you feel a greater sense of
  accomplishment, rather than simply stressing about all the things that
  you have yet to finish.

  Burkeman readily admits that he has found it hard to shift his own
  mindset and accept the limits of what he can achieve in his 4,000 weeks
  – but it’s worth the perseverance. “When you face this reality, it’s
  actually really liberating,” he says. “You see that you have been
  fighting a futile battle.

  Oliver Burkeman’s book [30]Four Thousand Weeks is published by Farrar,
  Straus and Giroux in the US, and Bodley Head in the UK. He is
  [31]@oliverburkeman on Twitter.

  [32]David Robson is the author of The Intelligence Trap: Why Smart
  People Make Dumb Mistakes. His next book is The Expectation Effect: How
  Your Mindset Can Change Your World, to be published in early 2022. He
  is [33]@d_a_robson on Twitter.
  [34]Share using Email
  Share on Twitter
  Share on Facebook[35]Share on Linkedin
  (BUTTON) Share

Similar Articles

    * [36]worklife: [37]The dark side of 'toughing it out'
    * [38]worklife: [39]Why you procrastinate on tiny tasks
    * [40]Creativity Collective: [41]How we're duped by the 'creative
      cliff'

  Around the BBC

Explore the BBC

    * [42]Home
    * [43]News
    * [44]Sport
    * [45]Weather
    * [46]iPlayer
    * [47]Sounds
    * [48]CBBC
    * [49]CBeebies
    * [50]Food
    * [51]Bitesize
    * [52]Arts
    * [53]Taster
    * [54]Local
    * [55]Three

    * [56]Terms of Use
    * [57]About the BBC
    * [58]Privacy Policy
    * [59]Cookies
    * [60]Accessibility Help
    * [61]Parental Guidance
    * [62]Contact the BBC
    * [63]Get Personalised Newsletters

  Copyright © 2021 BBC. The BBC is not responsible for the content of
  external sites. [64]Read about our approach to external linking.

  [p?c1=2&c2=17986528&cs_ucfr=0&cv=2.0&cj=1]

References

  Visible links
  1. https://www.bbc.co.uk/
  2. https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210805-how-to-escape-the-productivity-trap#orb-modules
  3. https://www.bbc.co.uk/accessibility/
  4. https://account.bbc.com/account
  5. https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210805-how-to-escape-the-productivity-trap
  6. https://www.bbc.co.uk/
  7. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news
  8. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport
  9. https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather
 10. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer
 11. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds
 12. https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc
 13. https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies
 14. https://www.bbc.co.uk/food
 15. https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize
 16. https://www.bbc.co.uk/arts
 17. https://www.bbc.co.uk/taster
 18. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/localnews
 19. https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree
 20. https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210805-how-to-escape-the-productivity-trap#orb-footer
 21. https://search.bbc.co.uk/search
 22. https://www.bbc.com/worklife/tags/how-we-think
 23. mailto:?subject=Shared from BBC:How to escape the 'productivity trap'&body=https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210805-how-to-escape-the-productivity-trap?ocid=ww.social.link.email
 24. https://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210805-how-to-escape-the-productivity-trap?ocid=ww.social.link.linkedin&title=How to escape the 'productivity trap'
 25. https://sites.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/teachslf/clkt-par.htm
 26. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/37753-i-wasted-time-and-now-doth-time-waste-me-for
 27. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780124114784000047
 28. https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13423-018-1436-7#Sec13
 29. https://www.wired.com/story/productivity-got-done-list/
 30. https://www.oliverburkeman.com/
 31. https://twitter.com/oliverburkeman
 32. http://www.davidrobson.me/the-intelligence-trap
 33. http://www.twitter.com/d_a_robson
 34. mailto:?subject=Shared from BBC:How to escape the 'productivity trap'&body=https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210805-how-to-escape-the-productivity-trap?ocid=ww.social.link.email
 35. https://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210805-how-to-escape-the-productivity-trap?ocid=ww.social.link.linkedin&title=How to escape the 'productivity trap'
 36. https://www.bbc.com/worklife
 37. https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210601-grit-the-dark-side-of-deciding-to-tough-it-out
 38. https://www.bbc.com/worklife
 39. https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210310-why-we-procrastinate-on-the-tiniest-of-tasks
 40. https://www.bbc.com/worklife/creativity-collective
 41. https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210331-how-the-creative-cliff-illusion-limits-our-ideas
 42. https://www.bbc.co.uk/
 43. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news
 44. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport
 45. https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather
 46. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer
 47. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds
 48. https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc
 49. https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies
 50. https://www.bbc.co.uk/food
 51. https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize
 52. https://www.bbc.co.uk/arts
 53. https://www.bbc.co.uk/taster
 54. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/localnews
 55. https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree
 56. https://www.bbc.co.uk/usingthebbc/terms/
 57. https://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc
 58. https://www.bbc.co.uk/usingthebbc/privacy/
 59. https://www.bbc.co.uk/usingthebbc/cookies/
 60. https://www.bbc.co.uk/accessibility/
 61. https://www.bbc.co.uk/guidance
 62. https://www.bbc.co.uk/contact
 63. https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcnewsletter
 64. https://www.bbc.co.uk/editorialguidelines/guidance/feeds-and-links

  Hidden links:
 66. https://www.bbc.com/worklife
 67. https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=How%20to%20escape%20the%20'productivity%20trap'&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fworklife%2Farticle%2F20210805-how-to-escape-the-productivity-trap%3Focid%3Dww.social.link.twitter&via=BBC_Worklife
 68. https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fworklife%2Farticle%2F20210805-how-to-escape-the-productivity-trap%3Focid%3Dww.social.link.facebook&t=How%20to%20escape%20the%20'productivity%20trap'
 69. https://twitter.com/@d_a_robson
 70. https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=How%20to%20escape%20the%20'productivity%20trap'&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fworklife%2Farticle%2F20210805-how-to-escape-the-productivity-trap%3Focid%3Dww.social.link.twitter&via=BBC_Worklife
 71. https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fworklife%2Farticle%2F20210805-how-to-escape-the-productivity-trap%3Focid%3Dww.social.link.facebook&t=How%20to%20escape%20the%20'productivity%20trap'

You are viewing proxied material from 1436.ninja. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.