We can’t do everything -- and that’s OK

Plus, how to spend our time on what matters most

View this email online Illustration by Minnie Phan for NPR Friends, We’re all seeking more control of the clock, aren’t we?  We steal an extra 10 minutes of sleep in the morning, we ask our co-worker if we can borrow five minutes to chat, or we fight off bedtime for an extra hour of streaming. We obsess about the future, plan our days down to the second and schedule our calendars out three years deep because we think of our time as a valuable resource to be hoarded and protected at all costs. In aiming for time mastery, we seek a little more control over our lives.  But this week at Life Kit, we learned that actually, time isn’t ours at all. “We think of time as something we can possess, when in fact you never really possess time in the way that you might possess a dollar or a pair of shoes,” says author Oliver Burkeman. “You get a moment and then another moment, and it’s the same for absolutely everybody.”  Burkeman’s book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, is all about how and why to reevaluate your relationship with time — starting with the startling brevity of the average human lifespan, which gave the book its title. Burkeman doesn’t pull any punches from there.  “Any degree to which you can see the truth that our time is limited, that we can’t do everything, that you can imagine far more goals than you could ever achieve but be OK with it, that is another degree you know you have taken ownership of your life and started to build a meaningful one,” says Burkeman. Because the more actively we can accept and embrace our limited time on Earth, the easier it becomes to spend our time on what matters most to us: Less email (err, except this one, of course), more time with loved ones. Less perfectionism, more joy. Newsletter continues after sponsor message Here are some tips and highlights from the interview to help you rethink your relationship with time:  Keep a done list: Oftentimes, says Burkeman, we wake up and automatically feel like we’re in a “productivity debt.” Rather than making a to-do list that may or may not get done, crafting a done list is “a way of keeping some of the focus on the fact that you are accomplishing a whole bunch of things,” says Burkeman. Brushed my teeth — done!  Got the kids out the door — done! Finished another double shift at work — done and done!  Practice strategic underachievement: This one might be a harder pill for perfectionists to swallow, but a great tool for your toolbox nonetheless! Burkeman suggests deciding on a cyclical basis to “choose what to fail at” — maybe that means not keeping a squeaky clean home for six months or doing the minimum amount of exercise — so you can focus on the most important things to you. “Instead of constantly feeling bad about yourself when you fail to do an impossible amount,” says Burkeman, giving yourself some conscious grace and room for other things in your life “is a lot more pleasant because [...] you don't have to then keep beating yourself up for not doing something humans can’t do.” Guard your attention: We think of our attention as a limited resource, but Burkeman says it’s much bigger than that. “When you get to the end of your life, the sum total of all the things you paid attention to will have been your life,” he says.  Think about all the people and things you consider most important in your life — your friends, your interests, your hobbies. Then, think about who and what you spend your time on. Are the lists the same?  Are you using up all your brainpower at the office and checking out as soon as you get home to the kids? Do you keep putting off learning to play that new song because social media won’t stop calling you?  Over time, our attention “just adds up to a life,” he says. So it’s important to make sure you’re spending your time and energy wisely. “Because if you're paying attention to things that on some level, you don't want to be paying attention to, you're just giving away the only precious thing you have, which is the time of your life.”   So we wish you time well-spent this weekend, friends, whatever that looks like for you.   — Andee Tagle, Life Kit producer Thanks for sticking with us! Watch this space for next week's episodes on:     🩺 How to pick health insurance |  👶 Making a birth plan | 📧 The case against inbox zero Stream your local NPR station. Visit NPR.org to find your local station stream. What do you think of today's email? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: LifeKit@npr.org Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here. Looking for more great content? Check out all of our newsletter offerings — including Daily News, Code Switch, Health and more! You received this message because you're subscribed to Life Kit emails. This email was sent by National Public Radio, Inc., 1111 North Capitol Street NE, Washington, DC 20002 Unsubscribe  |  Privacy Policy