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Sep 2024
21m 9s

Why you can’t ‘hack’ your way to product...

Financial Times
About this episode

Lots of productivity advice tells you how you can cram more into your day, but accepting you can only do so much might be the only productivity “hack” that works. Oliver Burkeman, author of the smash-hit 2021 book Four Thousand Weeks, talks to Isabel Berwick about his new book, Meditations for Mortals, which lays out practical steps to living a less frantic life. Oliver tells Isabel why delaying our professional gratification can become a trap, how we should deal with our monstrous email backlogs and why pragmatism beats idealism every time.


Want more? Free links:


How can you manage your time in 2024?


Why I’m not tidying up before guests come over


Endless to-do list? Here’s how not to waste your life


FT subscriber? Sign up to get Isabel’s free Working It newsletter in your inbox every Wednesday: ft.com/newsletters


Presented by Isabel Berwick, produced by Mischa Frankl-Duval, mixed by Simon Panayi. The executive producer is Manuela Saragosa. Cheryl Brumley is the FT’s head of audio.


Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com



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