How to stop trying to do everything, with Oliver Burkeman

Oliver is the author of Help! How to Become Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More Done, and has been writing his Guardian column about self-help literature, This Column Will Change Your Life since 2006, so he and Graham begin by discussing the origins of the column, and how it has evolved.

'There’s always too much to do.'

Oliver lays out one of the first core principles in his book, and states that we don’t have to be resigned to the fact we’ll never get everything done, but instead pivot to focusing on the things that are most essential.

'Choose enlargement over happiness.'

Oliver challenges the idea of happiness as a goal, instead choosing to ask the question of whether what we undertake enlarges or diminishes us.

'The solution to imposter syndrome is to see that you are one.'

Using the Covid pandemic as an example, Graham and Oliver discuss the idea that each of us is winging it, and that no-one really has the ultimate answer.

'You don’t start each morning in a kind of “productivity debt”.'

On the subject of productivity, Oliver renounces the idea that we're obligated to perform a certain number of tasks at a certain level of efficiency to reach an arbitrary productivity score by the end of the day, presenting instead the notion of accepting the consequences of what we do, or don't do each day.

Graham Allcott is the founder of time management training company Think Productive.

This podcast is produced by Origin.

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