Burkeman challenges the common notion of productivity, like striving for ever-empty inboxes and ticking of all the tasks on our to-do lists. He does that by offering paradoxical irritations (or interventions) – so that you, the reader, as a system of beliefs, have to react somehow to make sense of what you read.

Paradoxes capture our attention in a special way. That’s why I expect the insights from the book to linger in my conscious mind for a while, and not disappear into the back of my head as quickly as most productivity topics (which are usually more or less the same all the time anyway).

So how does it work?

The book is structured into four weeks of seven daily “meditations”. The term “meditation” here means that you’ll get some “food for thought” each day and then have plenty of time to evaluate what it means to you. That was a great fit for me in late 2024, as a toddler limits time to read to mere minutes in the first weeks and months. Call it “bite-sized reading” if you will.

What I liked about the book is that each day is thematically cohesive, and there’s a gentle build-up with a weekly theme. Expect to be challenged in your assumptions about what ought to happen in your work life (and life-life) ever so slightly.

To get a glimpse of some ideas, you can check out this 8min video where Burkeman talks about core topics of the book: Why you’ll never “get on top of everything” | Oliver Burkeman for Big Think+. I can imagine it’s not that interesting and/or captivating to watch it before having read the book. I did appreciate the video as a reminder and synopsis of sorts.

In this video, Burkeman mentions two of the paradoxical insights I appreciate from the book:

1. The realization that it can be liberating to accept that completing “all tasks” is not merely difficult, but utterly impossible. There is no tranquil existence awaiting us once we have accomplished everything (because we can’t accomplish everything); there is only ever the present, perpetually filled with something to attend to. Thus, the only choice we have is how we wish to spend our time now. That’s very low-key Zen-ful, or awareness meditation.
2. The notion that blocking out time to declare “now I am completely focused and productive” often exacerbates stress, as each minor interruption – even those that could be delightful – turns into a source of anxiety: “now my focus is lost, the promise broken.”

Working from home with my wife and now my baby child ever present as potential interruptions made me feel a similar insight building up – and then Burkeman delivered concepts and ideas to express this feeling just in time.

It feels natural to talk about “interruptions”, like “I want to work and think about one thing, but I’m prodded to think about something else.”

In some way, it’s necessary to get stuff shipped, paid, and not starve.

In some way, that’s just selfish.

I noticed, gradually, that some time spent at my desk is just a little extra, a little gift, to do something that captures my attention and maybe delight people with the resulting product. When my baby child calls for attention during these moments, her presence is just as much a gift to me.

I can choose to not receive, but if I don’t do this mindfully, I also teach her not to give.

Well, ask me how this gratitude for her calls for attention aged in 5 years :)

In a nutshell, Burkeman’s “Meditations” relaxed me tremendously.

I can get up at 4 a.m., do some mild exercise, start working, and with breaks and a mid-day exercise and a meal, finish my work-day at two in the evening and I don’t need to feel bad about this. Then there’s still hours in the day and daylight in the sky to spend, but I don’t need to spend it at my desk (although sometimes I choose to). I can spend it with my family:

Guilt-free.

That feeling is new.

Burkeman hasn’t erased guilt about not achieving enough, and not doing enough, from my life completely. I’m also pretty certain that the arrival of our first child shifted my life priorities in a fundamental way without my conscious effort, so it’s a happy coincidence, a virtuous amplification. I did take away a notion of “being present” from this book that no other meditation practice offered in the past. I strongly feel that’s exactly because of the paradoxical insights that challenge my strongly held beliefs about Protestant work ethic. That maybe salvation doesn’t lie only wherever work leads one to (possibly burn-out!), and that “more work is more better”, and any work-load reduction is ultimately a sin.

“Meditations for Mortals” came out at a time where I was most receptive to it’s offerings, and I’m happy for the discovery. I utterly enjoyed every page of it (it’s short!), and to Burkeman’s dismay, I will be writing notes in my Zettelkasten about it.

Get the book from Amazon if you still buy from Amazon.

Get it from Oliver Burkeman’s Listed Bookshops or anywhere they sell books.