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Watch this if you never have enough time

2025-03-18 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 14:34 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Productivity and time (also: Mindset, motivation and happiness) · mode: Explanation and tutorial · tags: Lesson from a book, Sponsor segment present

In a Book Club episode on Oliver Burkeman's Meditations for Mortals, Ali takes three key points: you will never get on top of everything, you don't actually have to do anything but only face the consequences, and life will always bring new problems, so there is no need to be surprised by them.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Never enough time as a reality to accept; Meditations for Mortals in Book Club

  • ★★★ Ali used to think that finding the perfect productivity system or working a little harder would bring everything under control; now he holds that the feeling of never having enough time is a reality to accept rather than a problem to solve. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ This Book Club episode, in the series where Ali has distilled highlights from favourite books for more than five years, discusses Oliver Burkeman's Meditations for Mortals. — 00:00:29 · Book Club

00:00:58 — Key point 1: you will never actually get on top of everything

  • ★★ Oliver Burkeman (quoted): In Meditations for Mortals Burkeman tells of a Zen teacher who made a student's burden so heavy that they would put it down: showing people how irredeemable their situation is can be kinder and more effective, giving them permission to stop struggling. — 00:00:58
  • ★★★ Since reading Oliver Burkeman's Four Thousand Weeks, Ali has tried to internalise the idea that we all have too much to do and can never get on top of everything, which he calls a profoundly liberating insight. — 00:01:27
  • ★★★ Ali thinks a lot of self-help and productivity advice, including his own, often goes amiss by telling you that you can do it all. — 00:02:14
  • ★★ Even with all the systems, Ali says, getting everything done will never feel easy or be finished; accepting that lets you relax, accomplish more and enjoy yourself more, because you are no longer denying the reality of your predicament. — 00:02:43
  • ★★★ Once we recognise we will never be able to do all we try to do, Ali says, we can relax, focus on the things we really want to do and stop worrying about the other balls dropping. — 00:03:13

00:03:50 — Sponsor read for Shopify

00:04:44 — Key point 2: you don't actually have to do anything, you need only face the consequences

  • ★★★ Oliver Burkeman (quoted): Burkeman writes that it is almost never literally the case that you have to meet a deadline, answer an email or fulfil an obligation: you are pretty much free to do whatever you like and need only face the consequences. — 00:05:09

    “The astounding reality is that you're pretty much free to do whatever you like. You need only face the consequences.”

  • ★★★ Ali's takeaway: you don't have to do anything; you just need to pay the price and face the consequences of the decision you choose to make. — 00:05:51

  • ★★ Oliver Burkeman (quoted): Burkeman writes that unless you are physically coerced, feeling you have to do something means you have chosen not to pay the price of refusing, and feeling you can't means you are unwilling to pay the price of doing it. — 00:05:51
  • ★★ Oliver Burkeman (quoted): Burkeman cites the economist Thomas Sowell: there are no solutions, only trade-offs, and the two questions at any choice are what the price is and whether it is worth paying. — 00:06:29
  • ★★★ Ali says we create narratives about what we can and cannot do, such as "I can't just quit my job", when we actually can; usually we make the consequences loom far larger in our minds than they are. — 00:06:56
  • ★★ Oliver Burkeman (quoted): Burkeman cites Laura Vanderkam, who often hears working mothers say they can't relax until the children's toys are tidied away: you can, if you are willing to pay the price of a less than pristine home. — 00:07:32
  • ★★ Oliver Burkeman (quoted): Burkeman writes that if a path is genuinely likely to leave you destitute or seriously harmed you probably shouldn't take it, but most of us exaggerate potential consequences to spare ourselves a bold choice. — 00:08:29

  • ★★ Oliver Burkeman (quoted): Burkeman writes that taking the fact that a choice might be unfeasible for the underprivileged as a reason not to make it yourself is, unless you are underprivileged, an alibi rather than an argument. — 00:08:53

    “unless it's you who's underprivileged, that's an alibi, not an argument.”

  • ★★★ Unless you are on the poverty line, where quitting your job would leave your family starving, Ali says, the fact that some people have no financial safety net does not necessarily mean it is true for you. — 00:09:58

00:10:20 — Key point 3: beyond the mountains, more mountains; life will never be problem free

  • ★★ Oliver Burkeman (quoted): Burkeman tells how a friend asked Sam Harris, complaining about his work problems, whether he really expected to have no more problems at some point, and Harris realised he had been assuming such a time would come. — 00:10:23
  • ★★ Sam Harris (quoted): Sam Harris says life is an unending series of complications, so it makes no sense to be surprised by the arrival of the next one. — 00:11:15
  • ★★ Starting your own business to escape a job you don't like, Ali says, swaps your nine-to-five problems for another set of 24/7 problems. — 00:11:44
  • ★★ With seven figures of payroll, Ali says, a business owner has to make a million pounds a year just to break even; growing a business swaps one series of problems for another, forever. — 00:12:14
  • ★★★ Ali loves the point that life will never be problem free: problems will always arise, so we don't need to be so surprised when they do. — 00:12:14
  • ★★ Oliver Burkeman (quoted): Burkeman writes that facing no problems at all would leave you with nothing worth doing. — 00:12:43

  • ★★ Oliver Burkeman (quoted): Burkeman writes that once you stop fighting the fact of encountering problems, you can dive into the ones you have and aspire to a life of ever more interesting and absorbing problems. — 00:13:12

    “free to aspire not to a life without problems, but to a life of ever more interesting and absorbing ones.”

  • ★★ Oliver Burkeman (quoted): Burkeman writes that beyond the mountains there are always more mountains until the final one at the end of your life, and that meanwhile few things are more exhilarating than mountaineering. — 00:13:12

  • ★★★ When a problem arises, Ali says, there is no need to clench in surprise, since problems were always going to come: lean into the fact that it has arisen and see what you can do about it. — 00:13:54
  • ★★ Ali recommends Oliver Burkeman's Meditations for Mortals, which he calls very good. — 00:13:54
  • ★ Ali says the time-management philosophies he learned as a doctor fit with some of the ideas in Meditations for Mortals and Oliver Burkeman's writing. — 00:13:54

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Meditations for Mortals · Oliver Burkeman

Also: Book Club · Four Thousand Weeks · Laura Vanderkam · Sam Harris · Thomas Sowell · triage system

Also centred on Meditations for Mortals: The Anti-Hustle Book You Need Today

Also centred on Oliver Burkeman: Life Is 4,000 Weeks. You’re Already Burning Through Them. · How I handle 389 unread messages

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