
Enjoy fast, free delivery, exclusive deals, and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime
Try Prime
and start saving today with fast, free delivery
Amazon Prime includes:
Fast, FREE Delivery is available to Prime members. To join, select "Try Amazon Prime and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery" below the Add to Cart button.
Amazon Prime members enjoy:- Cardmembers earn 5% Back at Amazon.com with a Prime Credit Card.
- Unlimited Free Two-Day Delivery
- Streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows with limited ads on Prime Video.
- A Kindle book to borrow for free each month - with no due dates
- Listen to over 2 million songs and hundreds of playlists
- Unlimited photo storage with anywhere access
Important: Your credit card will NOT be charged when you start your free trial or if you cancel during the trial period. If you're happy with Amazon Prime, do nothing. At the end of the free trial, your membership will automatically upgrade to a monthly membership.
Buy new:
-47% $15.49$15.49
Ships from: Amazon.com Sold by: Amazon.com
Save with Used - Good
$9.80$9.80
Ships from: Amazon Sold by: ZBK Wholesale

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Image Unavailable
Color:
-
-
-
- To view this video download Flash Player
Follow the author
OK
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals Hardcover – August 10, 2021
Purchase options and add-ons
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
"Provocative and appealing . . . well worth your extremely limited time." ―Barbara Spindel, The Wall Street Journal
The average human lifespan is absurdly, insultingly brief. Assuming you live to be eighty, you have just over four thousand weeks.
Nobody needs telling there isn’t enough time. We’re obsessed with our lengthening to-do lists, our overfilled inboxes, work-life balance, and the ceaseless battle against distraction; and we’re deluged with advice on becoming more productive and efficient, and “life hacks” to optimize our days. But such techniques often end up making things worse. The sense of anxious hurry grows more intense, and still the most meaningful parts of life seem to lie just beyond the horizon. Still, we rarely make the connection between our daily struggles with time and the ultimate time management problem: the challenge of how best to use our four thousand weeks.
Drawing on the insights of both ancient and contemporary philosophers, psychologists, and spiritual teachers, Oliver Burkeman delivers an entertaining, humorous, practical, and ultimately profound guide to time and time management. Rejecting the futile modern fixation on “getting everything done,” Four Thousand Weeks introduces readers to tools for constructing a meaningful life by embracing finitude, showing how many of the unhelpful ways we’ve come to think about time aren’t inescapable, unchanging truths, but choices we’ve made as individuals and as a society―and that we could do things differently.
- Print length288 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherFarrar, Straus and Giroux
- Publication dateAugust 10, 2021
- Dimensions5.7 x 0.95 x 8.55 inches
- ISBN-100374159122
- ISBN-13978-0374159122
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.

Explore your book, then jump right back to where you left off with Page Flip.
View high quality images that let you zoom in to take a closer look.
Enjoy features only possible in digital – start reading right away, carry your library with you, adjust the font, create shareable notes and highlights, and more.
Discover additional details about the events, people, and places in your book, with Wikipedia integration.
Frequently bought together

Customers who viewed this item also viewed
- The real measure of any time management technique is whether or not it helps you neglect the right things.Highlighted by 12,910 Kindle readers
- Productivity is a trap. Becoming more efficient just makes you more rushed, and trying to clear the decks simply makes them fill up again faster.Highlighted by 11,699 Kindle readers
- The world is bursting with wonder, and yet it’s the rare productivity guru who seems to have considered the possibility that the ultimate point of all our frenetic doing might be to experience more of that wonder.Highlighted by 8,163 Kindle readers
From the Publisher
Praise for Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman
Editorial Reviews
Review
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
"In addition to whatever help it might offer, Four Thousand Weeks is also just good company; it addresses large, even existential, issues with a sense of humor and an even-keeled perspective. I found that reading it―Burkeman might balk at this particular way of describing it―was a good use of my time." ―John Williams, The New York Times
"Provocative and appealing . . . Well worth your extremely limited time." ―Barbara Spindel,The Wall Street Journal
"Burkeman is the self-help writer for people like me who find self-help books oversold on magical transformations . . . Four Thousand Weeks is full of such sage and sane advice, delivered with dry wit and a benevolent tone." ―Joe Moran, The Guardian (UK)
“Four Thousand Weeks will challenge and amuse you. And it may even spur you on to change your life.” ―Robbie Smith, Evening Standard (UK)
"[Four Thousand Weeks] is perfectly pitched somewhere between practical self-help book and philosophical quest . . . As with all the best quests, its many pleasures don't require a fast-forward button, but happen along the way." ―Tim Adams, The Observer (UK)
"Subtle, provocative, and multi-layered . . . Four Thousand Weeks offers many wise pointers to a happier, less stress-filled life, with none of the usual smug banalities of the self-help genre." ―Craig Brown, The Daily Mail (UK)
"This book is wonderful. Instead of offering new tips on how to cram more into your day, it questions why we feel the need to . . . My favorite kind of book is this one―a book that doesn't offer magic solutions to life because there aren't any. Instead, it examines the human struggle with intelligence, wisdom, humor, and humility . . . Reading this book was time well spent." ―Marianne Power, The Times (UK)
"I have long loved Oliver Burkeman's wise and witty journalism that both interrogates and elevates the 'self-help' realm―revealing its possibilities for absurdity while honoring the deeper human impulses that it meets. Four Thousand Weeks is a splendid offering in that spirit. This book is at once sobering and refreshing on all that is truly at stake in what we blithely refer to as 'time management.' It invites nothing less than a new relationship with time―and with life itself." ―Krista Tippett, host of On Being
"A wonderfully honest book, Four Thousand Weeks is a much-needed reality check on our culture's crazy assumptions around work, productivity and living a meaningful life." ―Mark Manson, bestselling author of Everything is F*cked and The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
“This is the most important book ever written about time management. Oliver Burkeman offers a searing indictment of productivity hacking and profound insights on how to make the best use of our scarcest, most precious resource. His writing will challenge you to rethink many of your beliefs about getting things done―and you’ll be wiser because of it.” ―Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and host of WorkLife
“Four Thousand Weeks is a book to read and re-read, to absorb and reflect on. Compassionate, funny and wise, it has not left my mind since I read it. The modern world teaches us to pretend to be immortal―this book is a dip in the cold, clear waters of reality, returning us refreshed and alive.” ―Naomi Alderman, author of The Power
“We all know our time is limited. What we don’t know―but what Oliver Burkeman is here to teach us―is that our control over that time is also limited. This profound (and often hilarious) book will prompt you to rethink your worship of efficiency, reject the cult of busyness, and reconfigure your life around what truly matters.” ―Daniel H. Pink, author of When, Drive, and To Sell is Human
“Oliver Burkeman provides an important and insightful reassessment of productivity. The drive to get more done can become an excuse to avoid figuring out what we actually want to accomplish. Only by confronting this latter question can we unlock a calmer, more meaningful, more resilient approach to organizing our time.” ―Cal Newport, New York Times bestselling author of A World Without Email and Deep Work
"Insightful . . . Burkeman’s thoughtful, reassuring analysis will be a welcome balm to readers feeling overwhelmed by the (perhaps unrealistic) demands of life." ―Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux (August 10, 2021)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 288 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0374159122
- ISBN-13 : 978-0374159122
- Item Weight : 9.6 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.7 x 0.95 x 8.55 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #8,572 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #39 in Personal Time Management
- #181 in Philosophy (Books)
- #185 in Happiness Self-Help
- Customer Reviews:
Videos
Videos for this product
3:24
Click to play video
4000 Weeks Book is Not About Time Management
Deni Van
About the author

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read book recommendations and more.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the book insightful and thought-provoking, with a refreshing take on productivity and time management. They describe it as compelling and easy to read, with interesting stories and examples. The pacing is described as thoughtful and complex. Opinions differ on the author's quality, with some finding him clever and thoughtful, while others feel he seems miserable about life and overcorrected.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the book insightful and thought-provoking. They appreciate how it breaks down concepts and practices. The book encourages rethinking one's relationship with time and provides nuggets of wisdom that can be applied to one's personal and professional life. Readers describe it as a refreshing take on productivity and time management that will change the way they look at life.
"...The philosophy developed in this work exposes golden nuggets of truth that will make you rethink the way you look at time and life itself...." Read more
"...this book was incredibly refreshing in the way it frames productivity in a far broader way than the typical discussions of to-do lists and well-..." Read more
"...based on insights from history, philosophers, psychologists, and spiritual teachers; current and ancient Oliver offers an alternative way to look at..." Read more
"...The world is bursting with wonder, and yet it’s the rare productivity guru who seems to have considered the possibility that the ultimate point of..." Read more
Customers find the book engaging and thought-provoking. They appreciate its well-researched content and find it easy to read. The book encourages readers to rethink their lives and make the most of their limited time.
"This is a well-written and profound book that is nothing similar to other "time management" books...." Read more
"...As a recovering productivity addict, this book was incredibly refreshing in the way it frames productivity in a far broader way than the typical..." Read more
"...It can be funny, engaging, and at times tedious. The gist is “Finitude.” We have limited time...." Read more
"...Also note to the Author who I am sure reads comments on his books: Great job and I think I would love to get a beer with someone wired so similarly..." Read more
Customers find the book helpful for managing time. It presents an alternative to treating it as a resource. The book offers a positive message about how much time we have and how little we have. They say it helps with time-related anxiety and emphasizes making the most of their time. Readers describe it as a philosophy book masquerading as a time management book, using universal truths on time based on insights from history and philosophers.
"...He uses universal truths on time based on insights from history, philosophers, psychologists, and spiritual teachers; current and ancient Oliver..." Read more
"A refreshing take on productivity and time management!" Read more
"It gives us some atypical ideas about time management...." Read more
"This book is like the anti-time management book. Very good advice for me, who is trying to live each moment." Read more
Customers find the book interesting and well-researched. They find it insightful and humorous, weaving a complex journey through our relationship with time through stories, history, and examples.
"...He does this via many stories, history, and examples in dense sentences. It can be funny, engaging, and at times tedious...." Read more
"...The author’s delivery was personable and interesting as well." Read more
"Excellent read. Every chapter is interesting and rolls into the next while at the same time stacking on top of one another in a profound way...." Read more
"One of the best self help books I have ever read. Intriguing with so many reality checks that we never think of while facing problems and hustling..." Read more
Customers find the book thoughtful and engaging. They appreciate the unique and original approach to time management, including tie-backs to medieval patterns.
"...broader way than the typical discussions of to-do lists and well-groomed calendars...." Read more
"...This one stood out, it takes a profound look at how we can approach time management...." Read more
"..."you're going to die, so do some time management" is so cynical and beautiful and validating, it made me feel okay in a way that no other self-help..." Read more
"This book is very well written, and it examines “time” in a unique, original way...." Read more
Customers have differing views on the author's writing style. Some find it well-written and personable, with excellent points about making time for what matters. Others feel it's a philosophical essay that questions whether life is meaningful and worthwhile, not written from a Christian perspective. They also mention the author seems miserable about life and upset with time management books.
"This is a well-written and profound book that is nothing similar to other "time management" books...." Read more
"...He does this via many stories, history, and examples in dense sentences. It can be funny, engaging, and at times tedious...." Read more
"...But this book is an overcorrection, applying straw men arguments and reheated Epicurean philosophy in a repetitive way that unfortunately makes it..." Read more
"...There are dozens of great quotes throughout Four Thousand Weeks...." Read more
Customers have different views on the humor of the book. Some find it humorous and witty, with a nice British accent. Others feel the tone becomes more political and confusing, turning into a depressing and snobby tone.
"...It can be funny, engaging, and at times tedious. The gist is “Finitude.” We have limited time...." Read more
"...It sounds brutal, but really, it's uplifting." Read more
"...With dry humor and philosophical depth, he dismantles our obsession with control, inviting readers to embrace life's inherent limitations as a..." Read more
"...(author has a lovely British accent and a subtle sense of humor comes through.)..." Read more
Reviews with images

Mind-Lapsing.
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
- Reviewed in the United States on January 24, 2025This is a well-written and profound book that is nothing similar to other "time management" books. The philosophy developed in this work exposes golden nuggets of truth that will make you rethink the way you look at time and life itself. I have implemented many of the strategies outlined, and it has enriched my life. I think the stoic philosophers would give two thumbs up to this creative and insightful book.
- Reviewed in the United States on February 7, 2025Loved this so intensely I felt compelled to devour its ideas far faster than I usually read. As a recovering productivity addict, this book was incredibly refreshing in the way it frames productivity in a far broader way than the typical discussions of to-do lists and well-groomed calendars. Productivity is really about the way we live our lives both on the grandest scale (from birth to death) and the smallest (in each present moment). This book gives you the conceptual frameworks and questions to see it that way.
- Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2023This is one intellectual man’s journey to a more peaceful life. The key is to accept our limited time, unknowns, and uncontrollable to find peace and productivity.
He uses universal truths on time based on insights from history, philosophers, psychologists, and spiritual teachers; current and ancient Oliver offers an alternative way to look at time management. It’s heavily researched and referenced, with 13 notes pages and 8 pages of index.
He does this via many stories, history, and examples in dense sentences. It can be funny, engaging, and at times tedious.
The gist is “Finitude.” We have limited time. Four Thousand weeks if you live to be 80 years old. His premise is that to become empowered; you must accept the limitations and lack of control over your life. . You accomplish more of what matters and is meaningful to you. The book ends with ten tools to help you embrace your Finitude. The rest of the book is a journey to prove it, entertain you, and inspire you.
This is his journey and justification for his life. Much of it I can relate to. I, too, was a productivity junkie and taught project management. I found some places where I disagreed or didn’t have the challenges he had to overcome or differently. I was mentally arguing with him as I was reading. He comes across as a bit of an intellectual snob to me. He doesn’t seem to like “self-help,” yet this is what the book is about. He uses romance novelist Danielle Steele as an unhealthy example of time management and Rod Stewart as a good example. There are long winding sentences. There were a few words I had to look up the meaning.
I used this book for a book group, and there is something for everyone in this book.
- Reviewed in the United States on July 21, 2023As a devoted productivity geek, I immediately got on the waitlist for a Kindle copy at my library. Once I finally got it, I was delighted.
The real measure of any time management technique is whether or not it helps you neglect the right things.
The premise of Four Thousand Weeks is that an average person lives for only four thousand weeks. What will you do with that time? All of human history has taken approximately 310,000 weeks. We are but a blip, and knowing this, Burkeman asks the reader, how will you get everything done?
We don’t. Plain and simple.
Arguably, time management is all life is. Yet the modern discipline known as time management—like its hipper cousin, productivity—is a depressingly narrow-minded affair, focused on how to crank through as many work tasks as possible, or on devising the perfect morning routine, or on cooking all your dinners for the week in one big batch on Sundays.
Burkeman advocates not for Pomodoro techniques, bullet journals, and habit trackers but for actively choosing what you won’t do. He explains how we strive for things like Inbox Zero or crossing things off our to-do lists only for more things to find their way into our email and onto our lists. The key, Burkeman shares, is not eschewing stuff you don’t want to do in favor of what you do want to do but choosing what matters most for your time of all the things you do want to do. For example, you may not want to go to your upcoming reunion, so saying no to that event in favor of going on a vacation might be easy. We must genuinely manage our time when we want to spend time with our partner, write a book, learn to ski, adopt a pet, decorate cakes, and take a vacation. It’s much more challenging to choose what you won’t do when you genuinely want to do the things on your list.
The day will never arrive when you finally have everything under control—when the flood of emails has been contained; when your to-do lists have stopped getting longer; when you’re meeting all your obligations at work and in your home life; when nobody’s angry with you for missing a deadline or dropping the ball; and when the fully optimized person you’ve become can turn, at long last, to the things life is really supposed to be about. Let’s start by admitting defeat: none of this is ever going to happen.
There are dozens of great quotes throughout Four Thousand Weeks. I love the thought that you can only have three things or projects going on at any given time. To take on a new project, you must finish or quit one of your other three. I also appreciated how Burkeman addresses side hustle culture and burnout culture, which seems prevalent in the millennial generation (hi! That’s me!).
…it’s now common to encounter reports, especially from younger adults, of an all-encompassing, bone-deep burnout, characterized by an inability to complete basic daily chores—the paralyzing exhaustion of “a generation of finely honed tools, crafted from embryos to be lean, mean production machines,” in the words of the millennial social critic Malcolm Harris.
He also describes hobbies as critical, but it’s okay if you feel silly talking about them with others because you do them out of pure enjoyment – not with the goal you might one day monetize it.
When an activity can’t be added to the running tally of billable hours, it begins to feel like an indulgence one can’t afford. There may be more of this ethos in most of us—even the nonlawyers—than we’d care to admit.
Four Thousand Weeks is the book everyone must read to get over hustle culture and project mindsets. Sometimes the purpose of life is to enjoy existing.
The world is bursting with wonder, and yet it’s the rare productivity guru who seems to have considered the possibility that the ultimate point of all our frenetic doing might be to experience more of that wonder.
I instantly loved this book, and it will sit at the top of my recommendations for quite some time.
Top reviews from other countries
-
AndreaReviewed in Mexico on June 21, 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars Gran libro
Es un excelente libro que te hace repensar en las cosas a las que les estás invirtiendo tiempo
- Amazon CustomerReviewed in Brazil on October 2, 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars A cold bath
This book made me anxious, but it was an anxiety I had been postponing to feel. It made me realize what had been knocking the back of my mind for years and yet remained there, ignored, suffocated in the midst of endless chores and an ever accelerating to-do list.
Your time is finit, and what you can do with it is finite. You won't be able to do all that you want, but perhaps all that wanting is actually misguided. To want to much may be a symptom of not really being here, "now".
On the other hand, "being here now", as new age types often promote, is not exactly to be pursued in the same way such spiritual people day that you should. It's an uncomfortable feeling, and there are traps and pitfalls that inhabit this proposition or desire to "be here now". Falling into these traps makes us behave in a way that actually mirrors the productivity meatgrinder that is the attitude towards life pushed by the current culture.
This is not a mumbo jumbo self help "you can do it", nor is it some "lite feel age" book for you to feel good. It's a cold bath and a wake-up call. It will make you feel uncomfortable, not because of some new fact but rather because it will make you pay attention to what you've been avoiding.
-
AnthonyReviewed in France on December 25, 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars Très bien!
Très bon produit ! Convient parfaitement à nos attentes. Je recommande !
-
Fer p.Reviewed in Spain on October 24, 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars Buen precio y artículo en buen estado
Buen precio y artículo en buen estado. Poco más que añadir
- AylaReviewed in Belgium on May 24, 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars No time to read this? Then you DEFINITELY need to read it.
If you live by your to-do lists and are in a constant anxious state to get more of it done, you need to read this book. It's not preachy or "self-helpy" at all, it just tells you how it is: you have about 4000 weeks on this planet. Are you going to spend it as a slave to a perfect future that will never exist, or are you going to start living right now?