Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - BITESIZE | How to Enjoy Your Life More (Without Getting Everything Done) | Oliver Burkeman #642

Episode Date: March 27, 2026

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. Thanks to our sponsor ⁠⁠⁠https://thewayapp.com/livemore  Show notes and the full podcast are available at https://drchatterjee.com/580 Support the podcast and enjoy Ad-Free episodes. Try FREE for 7 days on Apple Podcasts ⁠⁠https://apple.co/feelbetterlivemore⁠⁠ For other podcast platforms go to ⁠⁠https://fblm.supercast.com. DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website

Today's bite-size episode is sponsored by The Way. I have tried so many meditation apps over the years, but I've never come across one as good or as effective as The Way. I find it a fantastic way to start off each day, and it has really helped me feel calmer, relaxed and more present. In fact, I love this app so much that I recently decided to invest in the company and join them in their mission to get more people meditating. meditation has been shown to have all kinds of benefits, reducing stress, increasing calm,

improving focus, and over time has even been shown to result in positive structural changes in the brain in areas linked to memory, focus and emotional regulation. But of course, you only get those benefits if you actually do it. And that's one of the main reasons I love the way so much. It makes it really easy to establish a... meditation practice that sticks. The Way are offering my podcast listeners an incredible 30 free meditation sessions to get you started with your practice. To take advantage, all you have to do is go to the way app.com forward slash live more. 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 journalists and author, The Brilliant Oliver Birkman. Many of us feel under constant pressure to optimize 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 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.

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 does so many people struggle to lead that kind of life? And secondly, how are you getting on in your quest to do so? 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 parenting, 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 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 approach, as opposed to seeing it as something that you can actually claim for yourself right here in the moment. And of course, that doesn't get away from the fact. 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 partial, is because I've found ways to sort of step into it now instead of reinforcing this notion that it's always in the future that I've always got to do more until I can get to it.

Yeah, it's interesting. Through the lens of health, I think about what you just said in the context of weight loss and something I've realized over my career is for people who are looking for sustainable weight loss, for whatever reason that might be, 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? And then I think you'll find that the weight loss, obviously you have to do some things, are going to come quite, nicely as a, almost like a second order effect of that rather than the other way around.

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 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.

Yeah, there's also a compassion to yourself in living this way. I know you do tackle that on one of the chapters and you also acknowledge how self-compassion can be, a difficult term for British people to get our heads rounds. Right? But through the lens of weight loss, often people want to beat themselves up, deprive themselves, restrict themselves until they've reached the goal off 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.

All you're doing then, right, is, yeah, you're reinforcing this notion that you're bad. Exactly. You need fixing. You can't really fully participate in life until you have, achieved that fixing. I mean, I had such 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 my days, often sort of berating myself internally in ways I would just never, like I would just never dream of doing that to it. 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 try, 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. And you answered 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 whirring in my brain since then. So my question is, is that really true? Are there always going to be too many things to do in too many emails, or perhaps could it be the way that we're framing those things to do and those emails? 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 doesn't. 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 a war that you can win as a finite human being. So there's a quote that I really like that says, I'm going to 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. Yeah. And of course, this is a lot harder for some people and 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 the things. And so there have been a lot of the history of sort of time management advice

is like if you follow my system and you really try hard, then you're going to 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 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, 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 just sort of relax into reality 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

like 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 going to get wet It's like, okay, I'm going to be finite in this ocean of infinite possibilities. And it's fine. And it's fine, right? Yes.

The problem is when you resist it. Exactly. There is nothing wrong. Oh my God, I don't want it. You know, I didn't get the right clothes. That's where the stress comes. And then you're just soaking wet. Okay.

Yeah. That's life. I would agree. I think the idea that you can't do everything, I think it particularly resists 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 for Morsors 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

because I think it really, embraces the 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 spend 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 of time with my friends and family. I want to have had time to pursue my own passions.

And I will thirdly want to have done something that improves the lives of other people. 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 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 vid and the kids, when I'm not thinking about work, if I keep doing that week after

week, come my deathbeds, I will have ticks off number one. 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 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 lines of others. And why it's been so helpful for me is because it embraces this concept that your to-do list is a 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 with the other self. 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, you only had one meal within 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? I think it really does. I think one of the other things I love about that is that it sort of takes 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 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 just living, just like getting dressed and like, you know, whatever, 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 fantastic. Yeah, no, that's very inspiring.

I mean, you write about abusefully 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. I think it has to be, yeah. And 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 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. This is for now, exactly. You know, it's not like when I'm 60, I'm going to beat myself. You said you were going to do that. You put it down in 2023 on your list. You're not doing it now in 2040, whatever. All you can ever do is make a decision in the moment now. 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. Yeah, the idea of embracing our limitations, yes, I think it helps us be, you know, calmer, less anxious. you know, enjoy our lives more, which I think is one of these core messages that you talk about. But it kind of 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 and I'm like, those limitations that we impose on ourselves and frankly life imposes on us, that's what leads to creativity. That's what leads to a

meaningful life. You know, acknowledging that you can't do everything, gives you the license to go, yeah, so what do I want to do? Yeah. No, and I think it's true. I think it's worth doing just as a thought experiment that philosophers have debated this, right? But like, if you were actually going to live forever, I think very possibly it would be terrible, right? It would be the question, because the question, like, what should I do with my day would always be like, it doesn't matter, right? There's always, 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 like 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 I'm 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 sort of misunderstood and thought what I'm saying is like, you can't do very much. Like just settle for mediocrity. Like 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 capable. Is that because, though, you acknowledge that, I can't do everything. I'm a finite human with a set 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? 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. And it would be terrible if I made the wrong choices and I've got to watch myself like a hawk every minute of the day to make sure I'm doing really cool and important things. 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 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 don't know if I'm expressing this properly, but it sort of imbues more things with mattering, I think, to live in this way that's truer to. our real situation. So 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? 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 to make things worse. 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. 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, Giu 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 that we have to do them will leave us feeling wiped out.

But it's not just true, it's like so true, but 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? Yeah, absolutely love it. Hope you enjoyed that bite-sized clip. I hope you have a wonderful weekend. I'll be back next week with my long-form conversation on Wednesday and the latest episode of Bitescience next Friday.