Pod Insights Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee BITESIZE | How to Enjoy Your Life More (Without Getting Everything Done) | Oliver Burkeman #642 About this episode Many of us feel under constant pressure to optimise every moment, to become more efficient, more productive and somehow more worthy. But what if embracing our limits could be the key to living a calmer, more meaningful life?
Feel Better Live More Bitesize is my weekly podcast for your mind, body, and heart. Each week I’ll be featuring inspirational stories and practical tips from some of my former guests.
Today’s clip is from episode 580 of the podcast with journalist and author, the brilliant Oliver Burkeman.
In this clip, Oliver shares why the belief that life will finally feel easier once we clear our to-do list is such a persistent illusion, and why we don’t need to wait for life to feel calm or under control before we start living with more intention.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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1:20 Rangan Chatterjee? See all details at drinkag1.com/livemore. Welcome to Feel Better Live More Bite Size, your weekly dose of positivity and optimism to get you ready for the weekend. Today's clip is from episode 580 of the podcast with journalist and author, the brilliant Oliver Berkman. Many of us feel under constant pressure to optimise every moment, to become more efficient, more productive and somehow more worthy. In this clip, Oliver shares why the belief that life will finally feel easier once we
2:01 Rangan Chatterjee? clear our to-do list is such a persistent illusion, and why we don't need to wait for life to feel calm or under control before we start living with more intention.
2:14 Rangan Chatterjee? In your new book, you talk about the kind of life that you would like to be living, and you describe it as calm and focused, energetic and meaningfully productive, and connected to others, as opposed to anxious, isolated and overwhelmed. I think that's the kind of life, Oliver, that many people would also like to lead. So my question is, why do so many people struggle to lead that kind of life? And secondly, how are you getting on in your quest to do so?
2:50 Speaker 01 Great questions. Yeah, I mean, I think there are so many reasons why it's hard to live that kind of life, right? Reasons to do with the society that we live in, reasons to do with the ways we were parented and the messages we give ourselves. I think the reason I really want to focus in on, and that relates to your second question, is there's a problem with seeing that as something that you're striving towards, something that's off in the future, and that you're going to work really, really hard, and then eventually that's going to be your life. There's a big sort of mistake involved in that, in that approach, as opposed to seeing it as something that you can actually claim for yourself right here in the, in the moment. And of course, that doesn't get away from the fact
3:31 Speaker 01 that there's like, too much to do, and too many emails, and the economic system that we live in exerts all sorts of pressures. But there's something really important, I think, about the idea that we can actually enter into that way of being right here, at least to some degree, instead of seeing it as this thing that we're constantly chasing on the horizon. So yeah, my, to the extent that I have succeeded in living a life like this, which is definitely only, only partial, is because I've found ways to sort of step into it now, instead of sort of reinforcing this notion that it's always in the future, that I've always got to do more until I can, till I can get to it.
4:15 Rangan Chatterjee? Yeah, it's interesting, through, through the lens of health, I think about what you just said, in the context of weight loss. And something I've realised over my career is for people who are looking for sustainable weight loss, for whatever reason that might be.
4:32 Rangan Chatterjee? Too often, it's put off into the future. When I lose weight and get to this weight, I'm going to be happy and go on holiday here and do this or do that hobby, whatever it might be. And I found it much more helpful for people to say, no, no, why don't you do those things now?
4:53 Speaker 01 Right.
4:53 Rangan Chatterjee? And then I think you'll find that the weight loss, obviously you have to do some things.
4:57 Speaker 01 Yeah.
4:58 Rangan Chatterjee? Are going to come quite nicely as a, almost like a second order effects of that, rather than the other way around.
5:03 Speaker 01 Totally. I can totally see how that will work in weight loss. I think of it in the context of like overwhelm, right? I have a huge tendency, I'm letting go of it to a large extent, but I have this huge tendency to say, right, okay, I want my life to be calm and peaceful. It feels incredibly overwhelming, overwhelmed with demands and obligations and emails and everything. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to really, really buckle down and power through and spend much more time on all the overwhelming stuff. And actually have a less peaceful life and a busier life and a more stressed life because I'm going to get through it to this alleged vista of peace and calm on the other side. And I think where that connects to what you were saying is if instead you can see how you show up in the day today
5:46 Speaker 01 as some form of expression of the life that you want to live. Not a perfect one, it's never going to be a perfect one. But if you can sort of, if you say like, okay, I want to get to this point where I've lost enough weight that I can enjoy myself. So what if I took that focus on what I want to enjoy now? And I think it, time and again, yeah, people find that what happens then is like, then you're living, you're living the life you want to live. And so it's exciting and fun to get better at living that life and to lose more weight and to be more calm and to handle more of the demands without sort of spinning off into overwhelm.
6:19 Rangan Chatterjee? Yeah, there's also a compassion to yourself in living this way. I know you do talk about one of the chapters and you also acknowledge how self compassion can be a difficult term for British people.
6:31 Speaker 01 Yes.
6:31 Rangan Chatterjee? To get, to get our heads around.
6:32 Speaker 01 Yeah.
6:33 Rangan Chatterjee? Right? But through the lens of weight loss, you know, often people want to beat themselves up, deprive themselves, restrict themselves until they've reached the goal of a set weight. So that then they're going to start, you know, treating themselves in the right way. And it doesn't work like that.
6:50 Speaker 01 All you're doing then, right, is yeah, you're reinforcing this notion that you're bad.
6:53 Rangan Chatterjee? Exactly.
6:54 Speaker 01 You need fixing. You can't really fully participate in life until you have. Achieve that fixing. And I mean, I had such a struggle with this idea of self compassion, because as you say, there's something about it that invites me to think I'm being told that I have to see myself as super, super special and much more deserving of love and cuddles than anyone. None of that. The thing that really made the change for me was when I came across this idea from a philosopher called Ido Landau, who talks about the reverse golden rule. So not treat other people as you would like to be treated yourself, the famous golden rule, but don't treat yourself worse than you would treat other people. And I think that was such a moment for me when I realized that I sort of went through
7:37 Speaker 01 my days often sort of berating myself internally in ways I would just never, like I would just never dream of doing that to, well, anyone, a friend, a person I met in a day to day business context. It would be utterly outrageous to be that horrible. So all I was asking of myself, even if it gets labeled self compassion and triggers all sorts of cringe responses from Brits, like all I was asking of myself was equal treatment that I was already perfectly good at giving to other people.
8:09 Rangan Chatterjee? In your answer to my first question, you said, it doesn't mean that there's not going to be too many things to do or too many emails. And it's kind of interesting, that really landed and kind of has been worrying in my brain since then. So my question is, is that really true? Are there always going to be too many things to do and too many emails? Or perhaps could it be the way that we're framing those things to do and those emails?
8:37 Speaker 01 The answer is yes. Right, it's totally a question of perspective. And I think this is something that I've tried to find ways to articulate lots of times in my writing. It's like you have an incredibly finite capacity for doing things because you are a human. And you have so much time on the planet and so many hours in the day and so much attention and energy. And so the Amount of things that feel like they need doing is basically infinite, right? There's no reason why your brain can't feel that your obligations to your family, the ambitions you have for your job, whatever it might be, that just keeps on expanding, whereas your finite capacity really, really doesn't.
9:20 Speaker 01 And so, yeah, from that perspective, there's always too much to do. But because there's always too much to do and there's no way around it, that is kind of another way of saying that there isn't too much to do. Because this is not, this is not a war that you can win as a finite human being. So there's a quote that I really like that says, I'm gonna mangle it, but says something like, "The problem is not that we have, don't have enough time to do the things we need to do. It's that we feel the need to do too many things in the time we have."
9:52 Rangan Chatterjee? Yeah.
9:54 Speaker 01 And of course, this is a lot harder for some people than others, right? You can absolutely feel like you have to do an impossible amount just to keep a roof over your head. And that's a very real and acute feeling. But actually, nobody can do an impossible amount. And so, in the end, all you can ever really do with the time in your life is a handful of the things that you might feel you wanted to do with them. And when you see how totally inescapable that is, I think it's really liberating. I think it's like, oh, it's not because I'm a loser that I haven't figured out how to do all these things. It's not because I haven't found the right productivity system. It's because you don't get to do all things. And so, there'd been a lot of, a lot of the history of sort of
10:36 Speaker 01 time management advice is like, if you follow my system and you really try hard, then you're gonna get to the point where you can do everything that needs doing. And then there was a bit of a rebellion that came in the, in the form of saying like, "Well, this is all rubbish anyway. Stop working for the man. Rebel." Like, just chill out, which I don't even necessarily object to, but it's not what a lot of people want to do or can do. And so, I think it was time for someone to say...
11:03 Speaker 01 Look, you can be productive and ambitious and you can do, you can make a difference in the world. What you can't do is get your arms around an infinite number of potential demands, obligations, ambitions. And there's a sort of a, there's a moment there where you can, I went through it myself and I hope that the book has led people through it as well, where you can sort of, oh, just sort of relax into reality.
11:28 Rangan Chatterjee? Yeah.
11:29 Speaker 01 I've compared it in a couple of places to that feeling like you're out in the street and you haven't brought the right waterproofs and it starts raining. And for a while you sort of like keep trying to find ways, almost unconsciously, to keep the water off you. And the rain gets heavier and heavier. And eventually you're just like, okay, I'm gonna get wet. It's like, okay, I'm gonna be finite in this ocean of infinite possibilities.
11:50 Rangan Chatterjee? And it's fine.
11:51 Speaker 01 And it's fine, right? Yes.
11:53 Rangan Chatterjee? The problem is when you resist it.
11:54 Speaker 01 Exactly.
11:55 Rangan Chatterjee? Oh my god, I don't want it, I don't want it. You know, I didn't get the right clothes. That's where the stress comes.
11:59 Speaker 01 Yeah. And then you're just soaking wet. Okay.
12:01 Rangan Chatterjee? Yeah.
12:02 Speaker 01 That's life.
12:03 Rangan Chatterjee? I would agree. I think the idea that you can't do everything, I think it particularly resonates now because of the world in which we live. You know, the amount of information we get exposed to on social media, we see all these incredible things that we could be doing and that some of your friends will be doing, right? But you've only got 24 hours in a day. It's funny, as I've been reading meditations from all sorts over the last couple of days, I thought maybe one of the reasons why, there's an exercise that I call "Write Your Own Happy Ending" that I wrote about in my book on happiness. And it really had a profound impact on me. I wonder if I could put it to you, actually?
12:43 Speaker 01 Totally, yeah.
12:43 Rangan Chatterjee? Because I think it, I think it really embraces limitation and what matters at its heart. So there's two parts of the exercise. Part one is, fast forward to the future. Imagine you're on your deathbed. And look back on your life and imagine, you know, what are three things you will want to have done or spent your time on? We probably know what a lot of these things are because people have written books about the regrets of the dying and what people actually do say on their deathbed. But for us individually, we can imagine. So for me, for example, last time I did this exercise was, I want to have spent quality time with my friends and family. I want to have had time to pursue my own
13:25 Rangan Chatterjee? passions. And I will, thirdly, want to have done something that improves the lives of other people.
13:32 Rangan Chatterjee? So that's part one. Then you go to part two, which is you come back to the present moment. And you come up with three, what I call happiness habits. So these are three things that I can try and commit to each week. That will pretty much guarantee I get the happy ending. I've just defined that I want. So how that worked for me was, you know, I would specify how many undistracted meals with my wife and kids I want a week. And I think the current one is five. Okay. It might be different for someone else, but for me, it's a nice thing. If I can have five undistracted meals with it and the kids, where I'm not thinking about work. If I keep doing that week after week, come my deathbeds, I will have ticks off number one.
14:16 Rangan Chatterjee? If I get a chance to go for a long run each week or play my guitar and write a song and have a sing. I will know that at the end of my life, I will have found time for my passions. And, you know, the third one was if I release an episode a week of this podcast. I know I'm going to be doing something to improve the life of others. And why it's been so helpful for me is because it embraces this concept that your to do list is never done. There's always more you could be doing. But if I just do those three things each week, I'm winning at life. And I have to just let go of the other stuff and it's not there as a stick to beat me with. If I have a busy week where I'm traveling and I don't get to do them, it's just a nice gentle reminder, hey,
14:59 Rangan Chatterjee? you only had one meal with Ben and the kids last week. Don't let that become a pattern where you're doing that for a second week or a third week. So what do you think of that? Do you think that speaks to some of the ideas in your book?
15:10 Speaker 01 No, I think it really does. I think one of the other thing I, one of the other things I love about that is that it sort of takes
15:17 Speaker 01 these goals that you have and brings them forward from the future into like, well, the goal is in doing these things in the present. Now, I'm not saying that I and some people whose minds work like mine wouldn't then be able to turn that into a stick to beat themselves with. It's like, have I done the five? Have I done the five? Whatever. And I think, you know, it's not a, the, the amount of, the proportion of the week that that might take. I mean, a podcast probably takes a lot of your week, but like, that's actually a relatively small number of the hours that you're awake. And that's very good too, because there's a strong tendency, I think, in a lot of sort of goal setting, life visioning approaches to try to account for every minute of the day. And then you get very depressed and frustrated because you realize that an extraordinary amount of the day just seems to go in like.
16:00 Speaker 01 Just the, just, just living, just like getting dressed and like, you know, whatever, just, just stuff that doesn't fulfill you. And so I think if you can take that alternative approach that says, here are a few sort of pinpoints in the course of a week that would express that long-term goal, I think that's, that's fantastic. Yeah.
16:21 Rangan Chatterjee? Yeah, you, I mean, you write about it beautifully in your introduction to Meditations for Mortals. When you give up the unwinnable struggle to do everything, that's when you can start pouring your finite time and attention into a handful of things that truly counts. That's life, isn't it? A handful of things that truly matter.
16:43 Speaker 01 I think it has to be. Yeah. And I think it's, I think that the problem is not that that's the way it is. The problem is just always that we are tormented by the thought that it should be more and it should be more. One of the ways you can think about that, that I've found very helpful is sort of seasonally, right? The fact that you're giving things up for now to focus on these few things, doesn't mean you're giving them up forever, right? So maybe in your focus on these three things, there's something that you don't get to, to do. Maybe you don't get to indulge your passion for some other activity or, you know, something like that. But you can always, like, this is for now.
17:19 Rangan Chatterjee? This is for now. Exactly.
17:20 Speaker 01 Exactly.
17:20 Rangan Chatterjee? You know, it's not like when I'm 60, I'm gonna beat myself. You said you were gonna do that. You put it down and 2023 on your list. You're not doing it now in 2043, whatever. All you can ever do is make a decision in the moment now.
17:33 Speaker 01 And it means that you're approaching the reality of, you know, it's awful for any of us with kids at home to think about. One day, your kids will be out in the world and you won't get so many meals in the course of a week. And that's fine too, because that'll be that season. So instead of trying to optimize everything, you focus on what you have now and how that can give meaning to what you're doing right now.
17:54 Rangan Chatterjee? Yeah. This idea of embracing our limitations.
17:59 Rangan Chatterjee? Yes, I think it helps us be calmer, less anxious, enjoy our lives more, which I think is one of these core messages that you talk about. But it also applies, I think, to other genres as well. I think it helps with creativity. As I've become a creator over the last years, I'm like, those limitations that we impose on ourself, and frankly, life imposes on us, that's what leads to creativity, that's what leads to a meaningful life. Acknowledging that you can't do everything gives you the license to go, yeah, so what do I want to do?
18:38 Speaker 01 Yeah, no, I think it's true. I think it's worth doing, just as a thought experiment, that philosophers have debated this, right? But if you were actually going to live forever, I think very possibly it would be terrible, right? It would be because the question, like, what should I do with my day? Would always be like, it doesn't matter, right? There's always more days. And there's something about the fact that we are in these limited situations that gives value to the choices that we make. I've written before about the joy of missing out, right? It's this sense that it matters more. If you're staying home for bedtime with your kids, it matters more to know that you, in principle, could have been somewhere else and you chose not to be somewhere else. That gives it value. And then the other thing that, just on my mind, when you talked about creativity there is,
19:24 Speaker 01 I am always at pains to try to emphasize. I think this way of embracing the truth about your finitude is completely consistent with being very ambitious for your life. I think I am. And I think occasionally I've run into people who've misunderstood and thought what I'm saying is like, ah, you can't do very much. Just settle for mediocrity. There's no point trying to reach the heights because we're all just too limited. And it's like, no, no, no, it's the exact opposite. It's like, it is by acknowledging the reality of our limitations that that's how you can then focus your life for the most meaningful ambitions that you're.
20:03 Rangan Chatterjee? Is that because, though, you acknowledge that I can't do everything?
20:09 Rangan Chatterjee? I'm a finite human with a certain amount of years on this planet. So therefore, I'm going to choose very intentionally and carefully what it is that's truly important to me. So is it that you're doing less better?
20:23 Speaker 01 It is, but again, there's also a danger there, right? There's a danger which is like this becomes incredibly high stress. It's like, oh, my goodness, time is precious. I've got to make the right choices.
20:34 Speaker 01 And it'd be terrible if I made the wrong choices and I've got to like watch myself like a hawk every minute of the day to make sure I'm doing really cool and important things.
20:43 Speaker 01 I went through a phase of thinking that, but where I have sort of ended up is actually, no, it's a bigger relief than that, right? If you really sort of feel your way in to this limited situation, you get to cut yourself an immense amount of slack because you get to say, okay, like, the fact that something is important or that somebody wants me to do it, or that it would please my parents, or that it would be morally good, that can't be enough to mean I've got to find time to do it because I'm just too limited for that. And something sort of falls away and into that space, you can say, well, okay, almost any choices that I make, as long as they're, you know, if I make them honestly and being
21:28 Speaker 01 in touch with myself, they're going to be meaningful things to do. I don't need to sort of go through life, double checking and being incredibly sort of putting a lot of pressure on myself to make sure that I'm doing exactly the right things or extraordinary things or anything like that. It's like, no, once I really feel where I am, you know, helping a handful of people in your life matters. Cooking a nutritious meal for your kids matters. It's great. Some people change the world in huge ways and invent extraordinary inventions and have sweeping effects on humanity for the better, but that can't be the standard that you have to reach to live a meaningful life. So I find, I don't know if I'm expressing this properly, but it's sort of, it imbues
22:12 Speaker 01 more things with mattering, I think, to live in this way that's truer to our real situation.
22:20 Rangan Chatterjee? So.
22:22 Rangan Chatterjee? For that person who is listening to us right now and feels that actually their life is out of control, they feel close to burnt out, they feel anxious. Given everything you've written about, what are your final words of wisdom to that individual?
22:49 Speaker 01 I mean, first of all, it is just to say that this is the most sort of fundamental, universal, human experience, especially these days. I hope that I can persuade the person in that situation at least not to make things worse by telling themselves that they shouldn't be feeling that way, that it's a sort of personal failure of discipline or character or not having found the right methods yet that have left them feeling that way. No, this is a very, very, very understandable and forgivable response to just the sheer fact of being human, especially today.
23:31 Speaker 01 But then I suppose it would be to suggest that this kind of set of awful feelings, in a sense, it's a portal to something, right? In a sense, it's an invitation to something very powerful. And I keep quoting everywhere the Zen master, Gyu Kennet, who used to say that her approach to teaching Zen students was not to lighten the burden of the student, but to make it so heavy that he or she would put it down. And I just love this, which is why I repeat it endlessly. But you can sort of see, can't you, I think, in like, yes, the attempt to do it all is going to make you feel incredibly anxious and overwhelmed. Yes, the demands that are made on us and the things that feel like they're essential
24:15 Speaker 01 and we have to do them will leave us feeling wiped out. Like, it's not just true, it's like so true, that that is not a war that any of us is ever going to win. And it's in that realization, that sort of relaxing into that situation, that you can then, I hope, begin to feel the first glimmers of a different kind of energy, which is like, okay, that's the way it is. So what would be something I could do with the next 20 minutes that would be one good way to spend 20 minutes of my life on the planet?
24:46 Rangan Chatterjee? Yeah, absolutely love it. Hope you enjoyed that bite-sized clip. I hope you have a wonderful weekend and I'll be back next week with my long-form conversation on Wednesday and the latest episode of Bite Science next Friday.
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