Dr. Shahar Madjar, Journal columnist

I want to tell you about the book “Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals” by Oliver Burkeman. It has been a best-seller for a while and the most sold book under the ‘personal time management’ category on Amazon. And because I consider myself a mortal in need to better manage my busy life, I read it with tenacity and thirst for new insights.

The name of the book derives from the fact that humans, on average, live for 4,000 weeks (just shy of 77 years). With such a short life span, Burkeman claims, us, mortals, should reconsider our priorities and the way we divide our time between work, adventure, and leisure.

Rather than offering traditional productivity hacks in the spirit of some self-help books on time management, Burkeman turns philosophical. He advocates for accepting that you will never get everything done. “Becoming more efficient just makes you more rushed,” he claims, “and trying to clear the decks simply makes them fill up again faster.” The core of his advice is to stop trying to master time and instead embrace its finitude.

This idea is best detailed toward the end of the book where Burkeman suggests “tools for embracing your finitude.” Some of these tools feel inviting: “keep two to-do lists,” he suggests, one for everything that’s on your plate, the other for items, ten at the most, which would be your true priority. Or better yet, keep a third list–a “done list,” in which you collect your “small wins.” He recommends focusing on only one big project at a time; adapting a strategic underachievement by deciding in advance what to fail in; embracing uncertainty and choosing curiosity over worry, and, perhaps most enticingly, practicing doing nothing!

I entertained these suggestions with an open mind, but then I asked myself: isn’t the search for productivity and achievements etched in our genes–the secret sauce of success and survival? Where would humanity be if it weren’t for the miserable overachievers, who combat their fear of finite life with endless to-do lists, their minds constantly seeking solutions, optimizing productivity, never at peace? On a more personal level, I was fearful of the brick layers, pilots, and doctors, who would read, adopt, and implement Burkeman’s advice. With such restful minds at play, are buildings destined to collapse, planes to crash, patients to die?

I found special interest in his attitude toward hobbies. He argues that in our “productivity-obsessed” culture, we’ve forgotten how to do things just for the sake of doing them. We feel the need to turn hobbies into “side hustles” or “self-improvement projects,” which ultimately ruins the joy of the activity. He advocates finding a hobby you are really bad at, freeing yourself from the need to prove yourself to yourself or others, promote your skills, or gain anything except joy itself.

The idea of pursuing an activity in which I have no hope of becoming reasonably proficient at, seemed foreign.

My entire life has been one of striving. What good is it to do something–anything–if you aren’t good at it? As a teenager, after five years of playing the piano, I realized I would never be good enough. I compared myself to other students studying under the same stern Hungarian teacher; I heard them perform at recitals, and the conclusion was inescapable: I wasn’t, and would never be, pianist material. And so, guided by ideas of excellence, continuous improvement, and an unattainable mastery, I stopped playing. In search of excellence I found abandonment. The piano in my room–wood, keys, and strings–collected dust and, at night, would occasionally let slip a small, muted thump, as if confiding in me its dreams of future recitals–dreams that would never materialize.

This all changed after reading Burkeman’s book. Why not try? I asked myself. I went down to the basement and sat at my son’s keyboard. I chose a short piece of music I particularly liked, a prelude of The Well Tempered Clavier by Johan Sebastian Bach–easy enough to avoid performance anxiety, challenging enough to be interesting. My surgeon’s fingers, accustomed to tackling tissues and stones had to fight years of musical rusting. I practiced for several minutes a day, my fingers adapting to a new mission, my ears to a new tune. There was no pressure to improve, no fear of failure. I was completely engaged and free from any thoughts. The notes I played turned into steady rhythm. I played it slowly, then a bit faster, never to even come close to mastery, but well enough to play it joyfully.

And still, there were short moments in which I could imagine myself playing like the great masters, in front of an enthusiastic, admiring audience. I fought these images with ferocity. You have only Four Thousand Weeks, I reminded myself. Make the most of it.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Shahar Madjar, MD, MBA, is a urologist and an author. He practices at Schoolcraft Memorial Hospital in Manistique, and in Baraga County Memorial Hospital in L’Anse. Find his books on Amazon or contact him at smadjar@yahoo.com.