“It’s a brilliant title,” said Craig Brown in The Mail on Sunday. Four thousand weeks is the average human lifespan: if you die aged 80, that’s how many weeks you’ll live. Oliver Burkeman’s “subtle, provocative and multi-layered” book begins with this premise – and proceeds to reflect on that intractable conundrum: how to use our allotted time well. Burkeman tells us that he was once a “productivity geek”, forever experimenting with new fixes for making better use of his time, said Marianne Power in The Times. However, he found that dividing his days into 15-minute slots, or striving for “Inbox Zero”, never ushered in the promised “golden era of calm”. He eventually realised that his whole approach was flawed – that time could never be brought under control. There simply wasn’t enough of it, and he wanted to do too many things. In Four Thousand Weeks, he argues that coming to terms with this is a key to finding contentment. It’s “my favourite kind of book”: one that “doesn’t offer magic solutions to life, because there aren’t any”.
Burkeman does, however, propose some useful strategies for coming to terms with life’s “finitude”, said Tim Adams in The Observer. We should acknowledge that “procrastination is unavoidable”. Fomo – fear of missing out – stops being debilitating once you realise that missing out is the “inevitable consequence of one path chosen over another”. We should live in the present, rather than always readying ourselves for a supposedly better future. Burkeman’s tone can be a bit preachy, and he’s rather over-fixated on the evils of email, said Robbie Smith in the London Evening Standard. But overall, his book is an “impressive assault on the crusty canards and pieties” of self-help. Reading it “would be a good use of one of your four thousand weeks”.
Bodley Head 288pp £16.99; The Week Bookshop £13.99
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The Week Bookshop
To order this title or any other book in print, visit theweekbookshop.co.uk, or speak to a bookseller on 020-3176 3835. Opening times: Monday to Saturday 9am-5.30pm and Sunday 10am-4pm.
-
‘Let 2026 be a year of reckoning’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Why is Iran facing its biggest protests in years?TODAY’S BIG QUESTION Iranians are taking to the streets as a growing movement of civic unrest threatens a fragile stability
-
How prediction markets have spread to politicsThe explainer Everything’s a gamble
-
The best food books of 2025The Week Recommends From mouthwatering recipes to insightful essays, these colourful books will both inspire and entertain
-
Art that made the news in 2025The Explainer From a short-lived Banksy mural to an Egyptian statue dating back three millennia
-
Nine best TV shows of the yearThe Week Recommends From Adolescence to Amandaland
-
Winter holidays in the snow and sunThe Week Recommends Escape the dark, cold days with the perfect getaway
-
The best homes of the yearFeature Featuring a former helicopter engine repair workshop in Washington, D.C. and high-rise living in San Francisco
-
Critics’ choice: The year’s top 10 moviesFeature ‘One Battle After Another’ and ‘It Was Just an Accident’ stand out
-
A luxury walking tour in Western AustraliaThe Week Recommends Walk through an ‘ancient forest’ and listen to the ‘gentle hushing’ of the upper canopy
-
Joanna Trollope: novelist who had a No. 1 bestseller with The Rector’s WifeIn the Spotlight Trollope found fame with intelligent novels about the dramas and dilemmas of modern women
