The liberation that comes from realizing that you’re never going to get everything done.
Oliver Burkeman is the author of the Sunday Times bestselling Four Thousand Weeks, The Antidote, and most recently, Meditations for Mortals. His work has also appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Psychologies and New Philosopher. He has a devoted following for his writing on productivity, mortality, the power of limits, and building a meaningful life in an age of bewilderment.
Oliver is one of many great teachers featured on Waking Up, a top-notch meditation app with amazing teachers and a ton of courses for all levels. If you subscribe via this link: wakingup.com/tenpercent, you’ll get a 30-day free trial—and you’ll be supporting the 10% Happier team, too. Full and partial scholarships are available.
In this episode we talk about:
- What the term “imperfectionism” means
- The illusion of reaching a point where "everything's done"
- Why there’s liberation in seeing how finite we are
- Why small, imperfect actions are more valuable than perfect plans
- Why overplanning is a kind of avoidance
- How to make decisions
- The importance of finishing things
- Who you should develop a taste for problems
- Why effort doesn't always equal value
- Why we need to stop protecting other people’s feelings
- And the paradox of mattering immensely and not at all
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