4,000 Ideas: Chapters 7 and 8
Is it really possible to "make the most of our time"?
Welcome back to 4,000 Ideas, the Oliver Burkeman Book Club for Creatives! If you missed any of the earlier posts, you can catch up here. This is a book club where you don’t have to read the book to follow along. You just need a curious spirit and an open mind. The comments are juicy and the people are friendly. I hope you’ll join us!
In Chapters 7 and 8, Oliver Burkeman moves from discussing the limits of our time to the limits of our control. Fun, I know! 😂 Not only do we have a finite amount of time here on Earth, but we are limited in what we can do with it. Despite our best efforts and expectations, the future is NOT in our control, even (maybe even especially) when we try to “get on top of things” and plan for it.
“Worry, at its core, is the repetitious experience of a mind attempting to generate a feeling of security about the future, failing, then trying again and again and again—as if the very effort of worrying might somehow help forestall disaster.”
—Oliver Burkeman
I often counsel my clients to separate the writing process from the publishing process. Writing is a creative act that can bring personal satisfaction, regardless of what comes from it. Publishing is a business that is obscure even to people who have worked in it for decades, and it is largely out of our control. We can write a book, but we cannot force someone to buy it, even if we study, plan, and follow all the rules. 🤷♀️
When I worked in-house as a children’s book editor, I was often treated more like a project manager than a creative visionary. I was paid to keep things on schedule and on budget. I was expected to anticipate problems, make a plan, and execute it. I was too young to know that isn’t possible, in work or life, so when I became a freelancer, it took me a long time to shake off that mindset.
Unfortunately it had already seeped into my personal projects, and as Burkeman says, “The trouble with being so emotionally invested in planning for the future…is that while it may occasionally prevent a catastrophe, the rest of the time it tends to exacerbate the very anxiety it was supposed to allay. The obsessive planner, essentially, is demanding certain reassurances from the future—but the future isn’t the wort of thing that can ever provide the reassurance he craves, for the obvious reason that it’s still in the future.”
Even if you haven’t been trained to plan the life out of a project or you don’t naturally find yourself wanting to assign yourself due dates, you may find that you “want to make the most” of the time you do have. You may feel pressure to choose the right project to work on or to finish something quickly so you can move on to the next milestone. In parenting, we often develop what Kathryn Barbash, PsyD describes as “a strong focus on purposeful actions parents can take to prepare their child for the world and it can be never-ending. With so much time and energy spent getting your child equipped to live, you may just miss out on appreciating them as they are now.” We’ve probably all had that experience, whether we’re raising kids or writing books.
As Burkeman writes, “We treat our plans as though they are a lasso, through from the present around the future, in order to bring it under our command. But a plan is—all it could ever possibly be—is a present-moment statement of intent. It’s an expression of your current thoughts about how you’d ideally like to deploy your modest influence over the future. The future, of course, is under no obligation to comply.”
So how do we choose projects, make progress, and plan for retirement without losing our minds?
If you’re already a paid subscriber…thank you! Keep reading. I can’t wait to chat with you in the comments. If you’re hitting a paywall, you can upgrade to paid so you can continue reading this post, access the journal prompts, and join the discussion on how we can let go of the pressure we feel to “make the most of our time” and find peace in our limited present circumstances. (If I could force my husband to read any chapter, this would be it! 🙊)
