Are you ready for a writing masterclass from one of the best self-help writers in the world?
After graduating from Cambridge, Oliver Burkeman wrote the popular column “This Column Will Change Your Life” in ‘The Guardian’ for over 15 years sharing his real-world, real-time poetic exploration of the self-help universe. In 2021 he published 'Four Thousand Weeks,' a literary examination of how we live today. Mark Manson (our guest in Chapter 28) called it “a reality check on our culture’s crazy assumptions around work, productivity and living a meaningful life” and Adam Grant (our guest in Chapter 72) called it “the most important book ever written about time management."
Oliver's work is much more about how to live a good life in the limited time we have than the system and hacks you find in other popular productivity books, and he’s just released a wonderful follow-up called 'Meditations For Mortals.' This book offers the reader 28 short chapters meant to be read one a day for 28 days, a quiet evening ritual with Oliver's potent words.
Naturally with such a talented guest, this Chapter dives deep into writing craft. How does a productivity writer focus on meaningful work? What does Oliver always have in his pocket on a walk to help him write? And what is his dream writing schedule?
But we also mine Oliver's brilliant mind in wide conversations that ask: What are the signs of living in a totalitarian state? What is Jungian analysis? Is promotion offensive? And why does Oliver wear earplugs even in silence?
Oliver Burkeman is my favorite self-help writer so it was a great pleasure that he joined me on 3 Books. Join me to learn how Oliver manages his writing projects, his 3 most formative books, the best question to ask before making big decisions, why mess is necessary, and much, much more.
Let’s flip the page to Chapter 142 now...
Chapter 142: Oliver Burkeman relishes reflection and reveals writing rituals
View full transcript here
CONNECT with OLIVER BURKEMAN
Oliver’s 3 Books
First book (19:21)
Second book (37:57)
Third book (1:16:23)
WORDCLOUD OF THE CHAPTER
Quotes
On launching a book “What I love at this stage is hearing from individual people who are making their way through it. It’s very self-selecting because you don’t really hear from anyone who hates it.” — Oliver Burkeman | 3 Books Podcast
“You’ve got to sort of have the right level of internal non-attachment to it, right? You can’t make it that how well the book does is the sole and final judgment on whether it was worth writing. — Oliver Burkeman | 3 Books Podcast
“I’m not in the mindset of a sort of maybe previous generation of writers who thought it was sort of somehow offensive that it’s their job to spread the word about a book.” — Oliver Burkeman | 3 Books Podcast
“What really marks out totalitarianism from other concepts like facism, dictatorship, tyranny, all the rest of it, is the notion that there’s no part of your inner soul that is beyond the reach of the central authority.” — Oliver Burkeman | 3 Books Podcast
“There are ways to choose not to be part of this kind of surveillance world today.” — Oliver Burkeman | 3 Books Podcast
“Success for a writer is not the same thing as success for a movie studio.” — Oliver Burkeman | 3 Books Podcast
“On some level, it’s self-help, right? I’m drawn to the ideas I think might help me.” — Oliver Burkeman | 3 Books Podcast
“I'm very sort of eclectic. This is what I think is part of what sort of British journalism experience means to me. It's the ability to sort of go out very quickly and find like a huge variety of little morsels that you can build into something.” — Oliver Burkeman | 3 Books Podcast
“If there are a lot of people out there who really want to make the case that perfectionism is an extremely good and motivating and wonderful value to live your life by, then I'm not going to be spending an awful lot of time with them.” — Oliver Burkeman | 3 Books Podcast
“Jotting things down I do on scraps and on index cards because something weird in my still recovering perfectionist psyche doesn't like just jotting things down in a very nice notebook.” — Oliver Burkeman | 3 Books Podcast
“I think I prefer writing books, but the way that I approach them is as partly as sequences of articles that then need to be sort of molded into a coherent whole. Yeah, I think ultimately I'm sort of proudest of books and there's a chance, it feels like there's a chance to really sort of burnish and polish a book that there often isn't with an article.” — Oliver Burkeman | 3 Books Podcast
“Some degree of huge mess is actually essential for me.” — Oliver Burkeman | 3 Books Podcast
“You can definitely be led into the misunderstanding of thinking that rigidity is your friend, that there's a way of doing, I think the sort of appeal that a lot of these very rigorous approaches have is it's the same as any kind of productivity technique or life rule, right? We want something that will do the living or the thinking or the writing for us. And there isn't such a thing.” — Oliver Burkeman | 3 Books Podcast
“The whole act of growth is seeing more and more of yourself.” — Oliver Burkeman | 3 Books Podcast
Show Notes
‘Meditations for Mortals’ by Oliver Burkeman
‘4000 Weeks’ by Oliver Burkeman
‘Why Buddhism is True’ by Robert Wright
‘The Lives of Others’ (movie)
‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’ by Shoshana Zuboff
‘This Column Will Change Your Life’ Oliver’s column in The Guardian
‘Into the Wild’ by Jon Krakauer
‘Into Thin Air’ by Jon Krakauer
‘The Artist’s Way’ by Julia Cameron
‘The Second Mountain’ by David Brooks
‘How to Change Your Mind’ by Michael Pollan
Just William books by Richmill Crompton
‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’ by Lemony Snicket
