RD x's Key Ideas from Four Thousand Weeks
by Oliver Burkeman

• We are now cooking food in 10-20 minutes, which used to take 2 hours
• We're just a few seconds away from the information that used to take few days by post.

But why we still don't have time to wait for 2 minutes in a queue and we become impatient if a webpage doesn't load in 10 seconds?

Question- Where did the saved time go?

Answer- We didn't used the saved time for the things we actually need to do, but just filled it with other tasks.

As Parkinson's Law says- Work expands to fill time.

When people make enough money to meet their needs, they finds new things to need and new life style to aspire to. So, they work harder and harder and then get busier and busier.

This busyness becomes the emblem of prestige.

But the completely absurd thing is that for almost whole of the history, the entire point of being rich and wealthy was NOT HAVING TO WORK SO MUCH.

Being More efficient just makes you more rushed and trying to clear all the decks simply makes them fill up again faster. 

Nobody in the history has ever achieved the Work-Life Balance, the day will never arrive when all lights would be green and you have everything in control.

In fact, it is the Paradox of Limitation- more you try to manage time, more stressful, empty and frustrating life gets. But more you confront the facts of finitude, more productive, meaningful and joyful life becomes.

Nobody in the Busytown is idle- or if they're- they're carefully hidden by the authorities, what they are not is OVERWHELMED.

Even the winners and toppers of great universities, who keep highest salaries, they find their reward in the unending pressure to work with crushing intensity in order to maintain the income, status and lifestyle.

Every one of us have gone through the story of a professor with a jar and some big rocks, small stones, pebbles, sand and water, who fill them according to their sizes and telling them the priorities of life.

The story in today's time is a LIE.

Problem is that we are bad at prioritising the big rocks. There are too many rocks and most of them are never making it anywhere near that jar.

1. Pay Yourself First- when it comes to time. There is no moment in future when you'll magically be done with everything and have loads of time for the things you are postponing now.
2. Limit Your Work In progress- Fix a hard upper limit on the number of things that you allow yourself to work on at any given time. No more than 3 tasks, all others can wait.
3. Resist The Allure Of Middling/Ranking Priorities- According to Warren Buffet, Make a list of 25 things you want to do, organise top 5. And avoid remaining 20 at all costs.

Good procrastinator knows what task to focus on and what to neglect.

What we all think that SOCIAL MEDIA is free. But, when something is given free, you yourself are the PRODUCT. And, here the product is your most important thing- Your ATTENTION.

Attention is life, it is your experience of being alive that consists of nothing other than sum of everything to which you pay attention to. Whatever compelled your attention, is your life moment to moment.

This is how this business model works

Tech companies profits from seizing your attention, and then selling it to advertisers, who collect your database and sell/show you the related products, services and content.

Distractions are not the ultimate cause of our being distracted, they are just the places we go to seek relief from the discomfort of confronting limitation.

We check the phone under the dinner table because we find it hard to focus on the conversation because listening and interaction takes effort, patience and a spirit to surrender. but scrolling the phone is easy and pleasant.

Remember- A thousand people on the other side of screen are paid to keep you there.

When I finally get time after retirement or so, then only I can relax and live life according to my choices. 

THAT DAY NEVER ARRIVES.

You are losing everyday every moment for an imaginary tomorrow. The tomorrow will come with its own challenges, problems and requirements.

Enjoy your time here and now (wastefully sometimes) without any thought of future-focused self-improvement.

• Rest for the sake of rest.
• It is fun to have fun, but you have to know how.
• Nothing is more alien to the present age than IDLENESS.
• Technological progress made us fretful but we need to acquire this superpower called PATIENCE.

1. Adopt a 'FIXED VOLUME' Approach to productivity.
2. Focus on one big project at a time.
3. Decide in advance what to fail at (Strategic Underachievement).
4. Focus on what's already completed (Keep a DONE list).
5. Consolidate what you care about (Otherwise media has an unending library of topics).
6. Choose devices with only one purpose to not get distracted (i.e. Kindle reader for reading only).
7. Pay more attention to every moment, however mundane.
8. Be a researcher in relationships.
9. Cultivate instantaneous generosity.
10. Practice 'DOING NOTHING'. (discomfort of doing nothing leads you to make poor choices with time.