What Now? with Trevor Noah - Oliver Burkeman: Give up Control, Save Yourself

Episode Date: August 27, 2026

Are you constantly overwhelmed by your to-do list? Obsessed with productivity hacks? Always feel like you’re falling behind? Trevor and Eugene sit down with author and journalist Oliver Burkeman to rethink our relationship with time, success, and control. They unpack why perfectionism can make us miserable, the surprising value of “good procrastination,” and why choosing what to fail at might actually be a good thing. Along the way, they explore the psychology behind our social media facades, how modern conveniences have made us less patient, and whether the secret to getting more out of life might be accepting that we can’t do everything. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You've probably written, for me personally, I think for many people, but for me personally, one of the most influential and important books of my life. So thank you. Oh, I'm so glad to hear it. Why a book is that? 4,000 weeks. Changed my entire life. It slightly blows my mind.

Changed my entire life on this planet. How and why? This is What Now with Trevor Noah? What airline is this? And New Zealand has, they have a bed section in the back of the plane now, six bunk beds. All right. With like a full mattress closes off for your sleep, total darkness. Right.

And you go and sleep in that pod for like four hours and you just book it. I think it's a great idea. I think so, yeah. So my... You don't think so. My issue is any passenger who's at economy going up there and sleeping for, for four hours. One,

I know that passengers in the economy like taking advantage of situations. I've seen how they abuse the drinks. I like how you say Irish coffee.

Like you do not my man, this guy, making it seem like, you're making it seem if I was to apportion your flights as a pie chart.

Yeah. The portion of your life that's business class and the portion that's economy, we wouldn't even see the slither of business class. And that's enough for me.

It's enough for me. I like how you You say they, not us. It's enough for me to know. Because I've seen flight attendants coming to gossip about economy class passengers at business class. Damn. But is it? When you're at the galley, when you have the seat next to the galley, you hear them complaining about six Irish coffees.

I mean, really? But why is the bed going to be any more or less gross than the seat? I'm glad you asked that question because they like taking advantage of situations. It's going to be four hours is going to be done. They're going to ask passenger whoever to move. Oliver's not going to want to move because it's having such a good time. And what law enforcement do we have up in the sky, Oliver? Well, officially, those cabin crew are basically have the powers of the police.

Doesn't every flight also have an air marshal? No, I think that's a myth. Okay. An air martial story. I don't think it's still a thing. Or maybe I think it is. I think that air martial story is us policing ourselves. You don't think there's an air marshal.

I don't think there isn't any. All you need is for someone to think there is if they're thinking about hijacking the plane. How many videos have you seen of people? fighting inside of plane. Yeah, but that has nothing to do the air marshal. Oh, you must say, what is he there for? Hijackings, always.

Yes, for big things. But what if the fight is a diversion? What if the fight happening at row 17A is giving space for people from row 16 upwards to go into, that's why he doesn't get involved in the fight because it might be a diversion.

That's the exact reason. You seem to have too much. When you woke up this morning, did you think you'd be engaged in the conversation about... A, uh, uh, cabins and beds on planes. No, no.

When I did that flight from, I got so, I was, it was in economy. It was years ago and I've gone to do book festivals in Australia and they flew me, but they flew me on their terms, which was economy. And by the time I got to L.A. I was so sleep deprived that I basically had some kind of like neurological issue in the plane. There's a few things. Yeah, weird things happened because I was so tired. Yeah, your body completely like, it shuts down.

You forget who you're talking to, why you're talking to them. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Especially that flying that way, by the way, the time zone. That switch is maybe the hardest thing I've ever done. I flew from Australia to Hawaii. It was a blur. Really? Yeah, jet lag, like oppressive jet lag.

Your body is just like, I don't know what happened here, man. This doesn't seem right. So not being an economy didn't have much? No, bro, we got the whole day back and it didn't, because you remember, when you're international daylight. Yeah, international daylight. The date line, you go back that way. and then where are you based now by the way

the UK you're on the UK yeah yeah all right it's funny when you read someone's books you don't assume they have an accent yeah because you're reading in your own voice I'm reading it in my voice I've just realized now I read your books in my voice

well I certainly don't have the same accent as you yeah sorry about that no you don't have to be sorry it's just like I had this like in my head you sounded like me yeah and now I'm like wait where you from it's like an interesting

also because you you've probably written for me personally I think for many people but for me personally one of the most influential and important books of my life so thank you oh I'm so glad to hear it why a book is that 4,000 weeks changed my entire life slightly blows my mind

changed my entire life on this planet how and why so I don't even know how I came across 4,000 weeks I don't know if anyone recommended it. I genuinely don't know. All I know is I started reading this book. And the very beginning of the book breaks down the premise and you'll forgive me if I butcher anything

because you are the author. In your own voice. But the book starts to break down our existence on this planet and basically goes, if you are lucky, you have 4,000 weeks to live your life. Yeah, if you're lucky, you have the average 4,000 weeks to live your life. Right? And when you think of it that way,

You know when we think of like decades, years, oh, 90 years, 80 years, all of these things? It feels longer? Yeah, we also think of our time as just being sort of infinite. When you break it down into 4,000 weeks, you go, huh, how many summers, how many winters, how many Christmases, how many birthdays? And then you start thinking about how you actually think of the value of your time. And the reason this book changed my life is because your book was one of the first books that challenged the premise. is that I think a lot of like self-helpie slash, you know, like popular non-fiction books

have come out with over the past few years. And that is that like, you know, your time is money. You got to make it while, hey, while the sun shines. You got to get out there. Come on, bam, bang, smoot a bit again. If you're not doing it, then you're not doing it. Sleep, be it. And then this book came out.

I was like, yo, bro. The biggest part for me that changed my life was it was like, you are always going to be missing something. Just choose what you miss. Hmm. That was literally it. And then I was like, wait, wait, what? And it was like, yeah.

And the greatest thing you can do is know that you're going to miss it, choose to miss it, cut a whole swath of things out, and then you're done when you're making decisions. Yeah. You know, people are like, I don't want to get married because I want to find the right person. Then they spend their whole lives looking for the right person and never get married. Then I, genuinely, it sounds so obvious now, but it's only because I've read your book that I...

that I thought, like, how did you even, how did you stumble into that world? Like, I mean, all your books are about thinking and living, but like, what's your, what's your background? I trained as a journalist, so I worked at the Guardian for a bunch of years. Love the Guardian. I'm glad to hear it. Yep, subscribe to the Guardian. Good, yeah, good.

Yeah, and I guess I, one of the things that, well, one of the things that taught me is, like, it got me over a certain kind of perfectionism in writing, right, because on deadline-driven work like that, you just got to write the story when you've got to write the story. but it also brought me, I guess, right into confrontation with that idea of how much time there is and how much time there isn't because you are constantly trying to, you know, how do I do all the things I'm supposed to do in this job to please my bosses, but also I've got to make time to like advance my career in some other ways. And anyway, shouldn't I be having friends and a relationship, right? So suddenly you're sort of all of that stuff is on the agenda. But I'm totally using all the books I write as kind of like my own therapy as well, right? So the reason that I was able to write this stuff is not because I found it totally trouble-free, but because it was like a big struggle. It was the thing that was struggling. Right, right. I think I spent a lot of my sort of earliest adulthood thinking one day I was going to get the combination of productivity systems and self-discipline and daily routines that was just going to nail everything. And then it would

just be like set it and forget it, you know, plane sailing for the rest of life. My problem is that's what they will sell you. Right. Every second video on YouTube is here's how you optimize your life. Here's the perfect morning routine Here's how you figure out your week Wake up 5 a.m. stretch Do some jumping jacks. Lymphatic drainage Get outside, see the sun

Make your breakfast, smoothie shake Go for you It's like it's so perfect And it's so precise That you constantly feel like you're failing If you aren't able to hit those beats Every single time Yeah

Yeah and the other thing it does In my experience anyway Is that it makes you kind of live in the future the whole time right? You're always just thinking, I'm going to get there soon. Right now, I'm a total mess, but what I'm working on is becoming like a viable human being six months, six years from now. And so the meaning of life is always in the future, right? You're never actually fully present in your own experience.

And then, you know, having a kid was another big reminder of this stuff because that's a whole different layer of lack of control over your time and limiting limits to your time and all that stuff. Of your sleep, of your money, of your urgency, of your controlling how you can keep them healthy and alive. Yeah, exactly. No, and it's all about control, I think, at the end of accepting the limitations of your control, which, yeah, I don't find easy at all. But hopefully mine not finding it easy, you know, is useful for other people. If you were to, because, I mean, I'll do a terrible job because I love it and I remember the pieces. But like, if you were to break down the ethos of 4,000 weeks to somebody, you know, you go like, hey, I can only speak to them for one. minute and I'm trying to explain the philosophy behind it. How would you break it down as the author?

I guess I would say we have really limited time on the planet. We have really limited control over how that time unfolds. And that's just a fact. That's not like I think you should live this way or that way. That's just the truth. Yeah. And I think a lot of our problems with time, as I go through in the book, procrastination, distraction, feeling like you're doing the wrong things, life is meaningless, whatever, often come from not taking account of those limitations and trying to constantly get out from under them or on top of them. And if you instead sort of fall back into them and embrace them, it's not only more relaxing and realistic. I think it's also more productive and fulfilling, right? I don't think this is a book about like doing less. I think it's a book about

doing the right things and actually being more effective, I hope, and more kind of making more of an impact on the world. So it's about embracing instead of constantly trying to outrun our human limitations. Your book was the reason I deleted social media apps regularly. So you're the one. Now my DMs don't get answered. And I'm sorry they don't. Oh, man. You know how many nice videos I sent to him? What have you missed? I'll go back and I'm like, oh, I've got six to reply to. I also seem like a loser because I respond to people in bulk. I'll be like, ha ha, that's crazy. Wow. Oh no. So dope. Nice. And then I'm done. Then it's congratulations. Oh, sorry for the divorce.

I'm like just all of this. No, but so you know what it was. I think it was the line in the book where you basically say, you talk about, so this is what I loved. It's how you frame things. Oliver talks about, it's not about not being on social media or not. It's just are you doing what you want to be doing? So if you want to scroll on social media for 12 hours, do it then. If you want to do it. Do it then.

But if you find yourself going, I can't believe I spent 12 hours on my phone today, you didn't want to do it. Do you know what I mean? Yes. So it wasn't like a book that like, I never felt judged. I never felt like the ideas in it,

don't judge how you're living your life. It just reminds you to actively live your life as opposed to participate in it occasionally. Right. I find that because always, whenever I'm on social media, I'm lucky enough that the outside. algorithm now, maybe it's not luck, maybe it's me training it, shows me what I like. So I don't

feel like me being online all the time is counterproductive. I've heard people saying they want to switch off, but I'm like when I'm switched off as well, sometimes I feel like I've been switched off for too long. So I'll sit at the park and I'll be like, yeah, I've sat here for three hours now, but I also have the same satisfaction when I'm on social media being occupied by what I want to be occupied by. Does that make any sense? Totally. I mean, I think increasingly it seems like you're in a minority if you're someone who feels like that was what you wanted to do. And I'm not judging you. For me, there was always that mismatch.

You can never judge me, Oliver. I wouldn't dream of it. Things I've done. I think a lot of this, and it's not just social media, right? It's lots of other stuff. It's about, it's not about like don't live your life this way, live your life that way. It's more about be conscious about what's actually happening and what human life actually is. And then it's often a lot easier to make those decisions, right?

because you're sort of making them in reality instead of in this kind of weird fantasy world where you might be able to do everything. I mean, that was always my problem. I also think it's the, you know what it's the, it's being okay with failing as well. In what way? That's probably the biggest thing that you changed

in the way I see the world. Just being like, oh, I'm going to fail at this for a while. I've never heard anyone sell that as a concept in my opinion. Just the idea of like, okay, so in your life, you have your friends, your family, yourself. your work, your, you know, your fitness, your home projects that you're working. You've got all these things. And then it'll be like, you know, get your time right.

Put the pieces together. This is the first book that was like, yo, bro, sometimes you can choose which areas of your life to be failing. Oh, yeah. Like, actively choose that, like, I'm going to fail at work for the next few months because I really want to succeed at family. Right, right. So for me, it's seeing that, like, the standard of success that we hold ourselves to is, like, doing more. things than a human can do. It's working 48 hours a day, which don't exist. It's, you know, it's, it's being able to answer as many emails as the world wants to, to send you. So,

so actually any kind of boundary drawing in that situation, any place where you say, this is my focus for this season and this is not, it's going to feel like a failure in some way, because the standard of success is like be omnipotent. Right, right. But if you decide in advance, like you're saying, right, if you say, well, for this season, like, I don't know, Maybe you're at the beginning of a career or you've just had a baby or something. Like, okay, this isn't going to be the season when all my home improvement projects get done because those other things are just going to take up all the time. Well, then when you don't get around to the home improvement projects, you don't feel like a loser, right?

Because you made the decision in advance. You decided that you were going to turn down that dial to turn these dials up. The worst thing is thinking that you're going to do all of it. And then every single day is an experience of how useless you are. If you choose to lose. All of it just Explain trying to fight Jetleg I'm going to do the mall

You know that feeling will kill you bro You know that feeling will humble you quick Feeling will humble you quick I've seen people with JetLag Like you know when they try and fight it They'll get somewhere Then they'd be like get outside

The first thing is you gotta get outside You gotta get moving You gotta live your day as soon as possible Get some coffee in you Get a run going 3pm I just I just need to lie down I just

I just need to like oh yeah I just Jetlag my friend oh man Jet lag will humble you so what was it like what was it about your life that got you down this part

because I mean many people are journalists have state journalists even if people switch into becoming an author, it's like what they write about is still journalistic. Yeah. By its very nature. It feels like you're in a world where

it isn't, how can I put it? It's not like a fact that you're trying to research. It's an opinion that you have on the way we live our lives and the world is. Yeah. That's based around facts. Yeah. And it makes sense for many people.

And then some people would like, I don't know if that makes sense for me. And that's fine. But like, what do you think clicked in your brain that got you thinking like that? I guess I've always been really interesting. interested in sort of big ideas stuff. And I think it is quite journalistic, right? Because it's not like I'm saying, I work in the tradition of Carl Jung, or I work in the in neuroscience. It's like, I'm just taking stuff from everywhere, like very journalistically sort of like, oh, this philosopher had something that made a difference to me and this study seems interesting and haven't you ever noticed how this always happens on social media? So I'm just trying to sort of, so it does feel in that sense like I'm being a reporter in a way. But yeah, I'm reporting on, I guess, what it feels like.

to be in the modern world and how we can reconcile ourselves to that and hopefully be happy and effective and ambitious without constantly feeling insane. Do you think you've succeeded? Not in any sort of final way, no. But I definitely am sort of, I'm way less anxious than I used to be. I'm much more sort of able to take decisions about how to use my time and not be tormented by all the emails I'm supposed to have been answering and all the rest of it. So, yeah, I think I'm gradually sinking into reality in a positive fashion.

You have to ask my wife, really. Yeah, well, that's what I was actually going to ask you. How many people or how many jobs or how many opportunities did you lose by changing your perspective in life? Well, this is a great thing about being a finite human, right? You never know, because you can't ever go back and take the other part and see what happened.

So I feel like my life has been really great since I started sort of living into this way of being, but what do I know? I could have been 10 times as successful the other way or 10 times more miserable. Right, right. And actually that's part of the idea, right? One of the things we don't get to do as people who can only be in one place at a time and live one life out of all the million options is see how it could have been the other way. So it's like regret. It's this fascinating emotion where people think like, well, it would have been better if I'd done this or that, but like you just can't know. And when you really see that you can't know, I think that's quite liberating because it's like

all you ever do in every moment is take what seems like the best decision in that moment and then do it again and do it again, right? I mean, you're never going to be able to get to the end of the finish line and be like, ah, I did the right things because this would have happened if I hadn't done. Who knows? I blame lotteries. Oh, I thought you were going to say, Spider-Man, the multiverse. That too. What a relief. Okay, carry on. I blame, I blame lotteries. You know, you know why.

Yeah. Because they make us feel like there was like a right answer and we could have thought of it and could have got to it. I don't know how to explain this, but like I feel like... There was, there were six... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I know it sounds weird. I know it sounds weird.

And you didn't choose them. Yeah. Yeah. But you... You didn't choose them. They go, we chose them. Yeah. You on the other hand...

You'll show you the person who chose them. You didn't. This was your mistake. And then they'll be like, look at the numbers you did get right. Here's the numbers you should have chosen. I almost wish the lottery didn't tell you the winning numbers. They just like phoned the winner and that was it. But the rest of us, they left us guessing.

They just left everybody guessing. Yeah, and it's just like, uh, the lottery was won this week. Really? Yeah. What were the winning numbers? Ah, bro. You don't even know that. Because you, okay, let me ask you this question.

How does it help us? No, it doesn't, doesn't help us at all. And also it's like, do you see what I'm saying now? No, I do see what you're saying because the numbers, the point of which you choose your lottery numbers, the numbers are not. known, right? So there was not a right answer. There's just moments unfolding. And at one moment you choose some numbers. And at one moment, the people who give out the money choose some numbers. You see? Yeah, but for the fact that they even do a live draw is actually used, because they could

actually choose the numbers pre. You still would get them wrong. Yeah. The people who run lotteries are not out to make your life as good as unfulfilling as it can possibly be. I think that's what we're learning. Yeah, but do you get what I'm saying? So I think those types of things in life, I know I'm being extreme when I say I blame it on that but it's one of those things where you then think oh I made the wrong choice

but if the lottery never told you about the numbers because the numbers now tells you that there was a correct answer the truth is there is no correct answer to the lottery it is just the number that ends up being the one

so there's no correct one so if they just said somebody won and it wasn't you obviously then we just keep on moving and they go we're not going to tell anybody the numbers but we're just going to but it's a human thing

you need proof that you were wrong. People never need proof that they were right. Then they can just do this. Did you take 13? Then you go. No? Yeah, so leave us alone. They can just be like, give us your number.

Let's role play Oliver. You be the prospective person like Eugene who wants to know why I haven't given you proof. And then you're calling in. You are the lotto office. Yeah, I'm the lotto office. Yeah. So what I'm going to ask, will you tell me the numbers? Yeah, so basically you want proof.

You just want proof because I don't tell the numbers. Ring, ring, hello. I need to, you to prove that I didn't win the lottery. Oh, hello. Who am I speaking to? My name's Oliver. Oh, hello, Oliver. Yeah, you didn't win.

All right. Yeah, I like Oliver. You go straight to it. What do I need to know it's like? If Oliver didn't believe me, if you say you don't believe me. I don't know how to trust you. You might be. Okay, that's a very good question, Oliver.

We have many people. Let me put you through to the non-trival. trusting department. Beim, belim, bin, beam, beem, beem,

beem, ah, welcome Oliver to the non-trusting department. Oliver, tell me one of

the numbers you picked? 12. Ah, sorry, we don't have 12. Thanks, thanks for calling.

Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Can I tell you, you're like, this is what I believe genuinely. I know this is a brash,

crazy statement to make. I think it is because of all the signals that we've received in life, whether it's from other people, whether it's from institutions, that there was a correct,

that we constantly feel like we are incorrect. So everyone who posts on their timeline that they found the love of their life makes you feel like you're incorrect. I hate those people. Join the team. Because when they're on the other side and asking for privacy

and respect while they handle their affairs as they're splitting up their divorce, then it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Whoa, now you want privacy. Yeah. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You were all over my timeline writing poems about how when you find the one for you, you realize that there's a half of you that never existed.

And in that, and then now you want privacy. But you were very quick to basically tell me that there was a correct answer, your person. Now in the divorce, why are you not saying that that's the correct answer? So I don't have a problem with people falling in love or saying they found the right person. But what I'm saying is when the world constantly feels like people are finding the answer and you are not, I think it can make you feel more depressed and more like a loser, like you're saying. Oh yeah, and it's also because like you have access to your own internal monologue of self-doubt and self-criticism. You don't have access to anybody else.

No. So it looks from the outside. You only hear the highlights or the low lights. You just made me think of a genius idea. We start a new social media app. Shoot. Right, right. Is it going to be on the phone?

Yeah. Smart phone? Yeah, it'll be full on. Okay, sure. Are you going to have it? Yeah, I'll have it. I'll do what I do now. I'll delete it.

Just checking all of you. I'll come on every few weeks and I'll put, but check this out. Okay, okay, okay. It's going to be like Instagram, right? But what we're going to do is whenever someone posts, they must post the picture, but then they have to post all their doubts and fears that were happening in and around that picture in that moment. But you can't see it instantly. So you've got to go like, wow, what a beautiful picture in the Maldives.

And then they got to post and be like, man, my friends. financial woes have really been crippling me. And I'll be honest, I don't know if I could afford this trip. But who can see that? You only. No, whoever, whoever seeing the picture. Okay, okay. Not the person that they are with on the picture, obviously.

So it kind of blocks you like Tinder does. You and your wife are on Tinder at the same time in the same house, but you guys will never match each other. I actually like this idea. How does Tinder do that? It's a good question, actually. It's a proximity algorithm. It probably is like an IP-based type thing. Yeah, because couples have been on Tinder in the same house, but they've never matched.

That's weird. What's weird is that they're both on Tinder. That's the weirdest part. Yeah, but you get what I'm saying? Just because what you said is so valuable, we always know the realities and the cracks behind the facade. We don't portray that.

So when people... Have you ever complimented somebody on their outfit and been shocked at how doubtful they are about it? You'll be like, damn, you really... This is a great outfit. And they'll be like, oh, thank you. you know, I wasn't sure about these shoes and then you're like, oh, I had this

assumption of you as a human being that you had everything put together and everything was perfect. You're now revealing to me that behind this facade was a whole lot of not sureness and nothing, that doesn't take away from how you look. But had I not said anything to you and had you not been honest back with me, I would have thought that dressing well

comes with like 100% clarity and confidence that you've made the right choice. Right, right. And the crazy part I actually get at this in the other book is that kind of revealing that kind of insecurity and vulnerability is humanizing, right? You feel, you feel closer to that person. We're going through our lives trying to put out these facades and say, like, we just know exactly what we're doing. The moment somebody says, I don't necessarily know what I'm doing, you feel so much

connection to them. Like, you feel like fellow feeling because you know that inside you don't really know what I'm doing. I think we all don't know what we're doing. You know what I've realized? We trust people more as well. Think about how many times you and I have sat with an expert here. The craziest thing, the higher the level of expertise, the more doubt we've seen in people. We've met everyone, you know, biochemists, you know, astrophysicists, you name it. They have doubt. You'll go, what about this? They're like, oh, well, we don't know. And actually, sometimes I wonder, I'll be honest with you, I'm not sure. And you're like, well, but you're the foremost expert. And you realize with expertise comes a humility and an acknowledgement that you don't really know anything

because you start knowing how much you don't know. Absolutely, yeah. You get what I'm saying? But then as like average people, we know everything. But I think it comes with growing up. The older you get, the more you realize that moderation and awareness go hand in hand. So you know that your time is limited, things that you can do and your emotional capacity for things is also very limited. but the awareness is always a helpful thing

to help you realize that the path you didn't choose was maybe not good for you or good for you. For example, like relationships, New York will expose to you or is exposed to me really when in life you really need partnership. I've seen kids being taken to school. Then I'm like, they need this person to take them there. Then you've seen people between their 20s and their 40s

in relationships, but within that spectrum as well, they're in different kind of relationships. So the younger ones are holding. hands being more affectionate than the much older ones in their 40s and their 50s, they're more comfortable with each other. And then you see maybe people in their 60s and 70s who either don't have a partner or have one and their interaction with that partner is very different. So if you're 20-something trying to figure out what do you need in your life, this is the

best place to look at because you'll see different people in different stages of their lives interacting differently in relationships. Yeah, yeah. This is what I love about you. So I haven't read this one. About me? No, meditations for what was... Oh, I thought you were complimenting me.

See how I doubted myself. No, but I love you as a person. You know this. See how am my self-esteem. Wait, did this come up before after? No, after. Oh, I didn't see this. Why doesn't it recommend...

Well, you know, recommendations. They recommend random things to me. Like? Brah, I have the most random recommendations. Tell us more, Trevor. I will actually show you my recommendations. You'd be like, what is going on here? No, haven't you ever had this way?

Like, even your Netflix won't tell you to watch the new season of a show you're already watching. Right. Right. Then you're like, I don't watch Love Island. Yes, because it knows you're not expanding. You're focusing on one thing too much. It wants you to get out.

It's got your best interest at heart. Yeah, moderation. It understands that you've watched enough serial killer. I don't watch those shows. I don't watch those shows, bro. You don't. You watch those shows. Oh, man, I love a mind of a serial kid.

Those people. Listen to this guy. You know, to choose that today is the last day for this person. and I'm going to make a day out of it as well you're too excited by this he really is no but this is like I'm skimming through this

this is what I love about your writing you see like to have a chapter like this this is a book that's going to encourage you in life day one it's worse than you think just like just the idea of like yeah on the liberation of defeat

right what does that even mean like or rather why would you choose choose that to be the starting off point to help somebody feel better about their lives. I'll try to explain. I did want to sort of bring people down to earth with a bump because then you can get started, right? If you're waiting the whole book to like bring them down to a bump it, I don't think it works. You're my kind of guy, Oliver. I'm glad to hear it. The way I was,

the idea I'm trying to get out of there is that a lot of the ways that we stress ourselves out in life come from not quite taking seriously enough the problems that we have. So a really simple example that I start with there is like if you feel like you've got a really terrible to-do list, you've got so many things to do, it's going to take all your time and effort and discipline to get through it. It's really going to dominate your life to get through all these things. Then life becomes a real slog, right? Because you're trying to get to this point where you're through the list. But if you realize that it's worse than that, because there'll actually always be too much to do, because the space of things you feel like you need to do is always

going to be bigger than your time and your abilities. So you're going to die with a long to-do list of things you haven't finished. Well, that's a lot more liberating because then it's like, oh, well, it can't be my job to get to the end of this to-do list. It must just be my job to do a bunch of the things on it that feel important, right? Because you're not, it's that feeling that you might be able to get to the point where you're on top of absolutely everything that is tormenting you, not the fact that you won't get there. Does that make sense? It makes complete as you, you You basically, you've basically come in with, it's almost like people are running a race, like a hundred meter sprint, and they run in their like local municipality or town,

and they're coming forth. And they're like, oh man, I just need to get to first. And you're stepping and going, you're the fourth slowest person or fourth fastest person in your town, but in the world, you are rubbish. You're absolutely trash. So stop stressing yourself about like actually. getting faster because even when you get to first in your town, you're still going to be the slowest person probably in this country.

So just like, this is what I mean. This is liberation. Yeah. I don't love the implication in that analogy that like, there is someone who can do it perfectly, right? Because I want to say, yeah, there's no one who can do it. All in the same boat, ultimately. Yeah. Okay.

With being finite. But no, still, it holds, right? It's like the, once you realize that something that you're trying to do is not really, really difficult, but is impossible, you're freed up. to do loads of really important, bold, cool things with your life. How do we find the balance between that and a complete apathy for life? Because some people sort of have this attitude, but they go like, well, it doesn't matter anyway. Nothing can be perfect.

Nothing can be good. You can't be a good parent, so why I try? You can't be a good partner, so why I try? Work sucks always. How do you stop that from becoming a negative and go into the world of actually inspiring people? You know, there are different ways of addressing this, but I think what I always come down to is, just feel like if you're interested in the stuff in the first place, that's not going to be the risk that you run, right?

Damn, right? It's very unlikely that, like, you know, anyone who's got any level of success, anyone who's kind of stresses about it to some extent, anyone who's buying books about how to feel saner and calmer in the middle of the world we live in is, is, I mean, if they're already just completely a total slacker, they're not going to be in the market for it, right? So there's this idea in psychology of the insecure overachiever, which is whenever I mention this phrase, people are like, oh yeah, that's me, that's me, that's me, right? It's like people who do really well in life, but they kind of do it because they feel like they have to, and they've got to prove themselves. And I think most people in like public life, prominent people, famous people, whatever, like,

and any of, probably many of us in all sorts of walks of life have a big dose of this, right? and so what those people need is a sort of a calming down and an ability to see that you can carry on being super ambitious without that sense of deficit and like void. You can try to do loads of cool things in life as an expression of feeling good about yourself rather than because you feel bad about yourself. And so I think that those are ultimately the kind of people that I'm writing for, people who don't feel any. stress about how they use their time. Don't seek out. This is not for you. Writing about it.

I mean, Oliver's just like, this is not for you. Yo, do you think your life is fine? This is not for you, bro. That's what Oliver said. Now, I do think that there are also, there are people who sort of feel so overwhelmed that they don't sort of give into that kind of nihilistic idea, but they just sort of can't figure out where to start.

And like, there's just so much deluging me. How can I find anything? Those people, I think, I do try to address in this book, right? People who feel like despairing at how much they're burdened by stuff they have to do or feel they need to do. That, I think, is a different thing. But people who are just like, why do anything, it's all pointless. Like, you don't think that. On some level, you want to build a meaningful life, right?

I think. We're going to continue this conversation right after this short break. I think some of the way you think was shaped by the fact that you're English. And what I mean by that is like, I'm trying to think of how to phrase this. I feel like if you were American, your book would be a lot more rosy. But being an optimistic Brit means that you hope and believe in the possibility of a better future. But you're also like, it's going to be raining tomorrow. Do you get what I'm saying?

Definitely is. Yeah, it's a strange. It's almost like you are the, you are what I would. would assume, if someone had like a stereotypical joke, what is a British motivational speaker, an English motivational speaker? I'd be like, oh, it's someone who tells you you can be better, but you're probably not going to be. You know what I'm saying?

I think it's, yeah, it's a great question because I actually lived for a huge chunk of time in New York as well. So I've, and I often feel like I've come to some kind of outlook that combines these two. Or it's maybe like being a Brit pushing against American culture, although that might have been why I felt I wanted to come and live here, right, to find that middle space. So, yeah, I feel like, you know, there's a sort of failure mode, as they say, of American self-help, which is this idea that you can do absolutely anything and everything.

All you need to do is to keep pushing and one day you will be, you know, the president, right? whatever. It's like it's a perfect success and wealth can be yours with enough discipline and it's nothing to do with the society in which you live and it's nothing to do with the circumstances that you start off with or anything. And the fact that time itself is limited to your point. Right, right, exactly. They're not God. But there is a counterpart British, like, bad place to go, which is like, you know, life sucks, why bother? Like, all you can do is get through the day and that's as much to hope for. And I think what I'm constantly trying to do, in my writing is like salvage some idea of ambition.

Like I'm quite an ambitious person, I think, maybe for a British person, especially who knows. But I don't want to have to do that in this kind of endlessly unsatisfied, always very anxiously facing the future kind of way. I'd like to find a way of taking the best of both of those things. And in a sense, you know, we do all die and we don't get to do all the things we want. Like that, some aspect of that British worldview is the, truth. Right. It is very much how it is. But I don't think the bit where you then sort of resign,

I don't think it's about, I think, I want to avoid a resignation. It's acceptance. This is a good way someone put it to me once. It's like acceptance, but it's not resignation. And there is a difference between those two. It's acceptance, but not resignation. So it's like living in reality, but it's not drawing from that the lesson that like we can't have amazing lives. It's an interesting distinction to make, because I'm trying to think of how you really, really pass the acceptance versus resignation. Can I suggest something? I think it might be the difference between accepting that things are as they are.

Yeah. Versus accepting that exactly how they are now is just basically how they're always going to be. It's how they always been and how they always will be. One is a more permanent, would you say it's more permanent or is it more, is one based in optimism? I'm just trying to like grapple with this now and go, like what is? Acceptance? Yes. It means that there probably is another option, but you're choosing, you're not choosing it.

Okay. You're accepting this one. If you're not available to you. If you're resigned to something, it's out of your hands. But if you're accepting it, I could have gone right, but now that I'm left, oh, okay. So at least with accepting, you know that left exists when you're on the right. Okay.

But when you're resigning yourself to it, you're like, these are my circumstance. I'm born on this island. Oh, okay, okay, okay. way out of it. So I've resigned myself to the fact that I am this person from this place. Right. So I guess one has more agency then in some, or it's like the acknowledgement of your agency in it in a way then.

I used to see this when I used to work at the mall as a teenager. Oh man, this guy loves bragging about working at the mall. It was my greatest achievement. It loves it. For those of us who didn't work at malls. When malls were, you worked at a mall, you had never worked at a mall in your whole life. The empire of the world where traders would come and peddle their wares and exchange toys. I'll say that because I'm jealous.

And gold bullion. And spices. Sometimes leave their children. They're acting like it was a mistake. Your malls were fire, bro. At the mall, we used to have this tradition. So there was two times of the year where promises would be made. Then you would see that people have accepted or resigned themselves to the fate of working at the store.

Around Easter, people would say, next Easter, I won't be here, man. I'm going to be somewhere else. Yeah. Christmas time. Because we hated those two seasons. Right. People would be like, next Christmas, I won't be here. Three years at the mall at the same.

store went by with people saying the same thing until I resigned. And two years later, I came back to the mall and the same people were still there. Oh, okay. So those people had resigned themselves to the fact that this is their reality. The mall was their universe. If they were ever going to leave the store, it was to go to another store, not the mall. But whenever I left the mall, I was like, this place here is a choice. I'm choosing to be here. Huh. So I left and I never looked back. When you went back, what was the vibe when you saw the people? They were still the same. What were they like with you?

They were like, it's only a matter of time before you go to another mall. Wow, really? Yeah, yeah. They mall cursed you. In their world, it was well wishing. Oh, damn. They were like, you'll find stability again in a community again. I thought you were saying it like they were like, you might be out for now, Eugene.

But it's only a matter of time before you find yourself in another mall. Being in a mall is almost like being on those Star Trek spaceships. Yeah. Where they're traveling across the galaxy and there's different types of aliens. that kind of live together. The mall is like that. There's different types of levels. People who work at the body shop

smell nice all the time and they think they're better. People who work at the luggage shop know about the world, but they've never been to the world. People who work at the music store know a lot about artists and art, but they've never produced a single thing in their life.

People who work at the grocery store know about... That's almost like this multiverse that exists in one building. And as a shopper, you go in there to get your goods, but as the people that work there, they live in this universe. And after a while, you become scared to leave the universe. Well, the thing that that makes me think of is that, like, this idea is another way of talking

about this stuff, I think, that, like, we are actually always choosing. It's just that we're either choosing consciously or unconsciously. This is a big point, like, the existentialist philosophers were really big on, right? This idea that, like, to stay somewhere because you think you just have to stay there is a choice. And once you're making it more consciously, like, maybe it is the best thing for you to do, right? That's not ruled out. It could be that there's something empowering about knowing that it is a choice. There is a sense in which you always have a choice,

not meaning in that sort of worst version of the American ethos way that it doesn't matter that you were born into poverty or it doesn't matter that you've got this or that disadvantage, but that within those frames, you're making choices every moment. The analogy I like to use for that is I always go, think of it like a board game. we all started a different place on the board game. But from that point onwards, you're choosing. And you really are rolling a dice because, but you're choosing to roll the dice. Some people, because I'm not going to roll the dice because look where I started.

Yeah, yeah, you started in a terrible place, but you can choose to roll the dice. And then the dice is going to determine some parts of your life. Right. And it's going to not determine. But then when you land on certain squares, you can choose to do things or not do things. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. And it's this weird balance of knowing that in every situation, Victor Frankel had the most famous one.

Yeah, Victor Frankel for me. What do you say? It was in the Holocaust and he was like in a concentration camp. And he was just like, he just chose. He was like, no, I'm happy. He said, I'm not happy about this situation. I'm not choosing this to be in the situation. But the one thing I won't let them do is take away my ability to be like enjoying like my life as a person and the ideas that I have of myself.

And that idea, I mean, you can imagine how many people butt up against it. They're like, no, but you can't. You're in a terrible, terrible situation. He's like, yes, the situation. I mean is terrible, but I myself will choose to perceive my life a certain way without being delusional. And I will choose to maintain my mental state

in a certain way. And I mean, obviously, he was, you know, that's why he birthed a certain way of thinking. To do it under such extreme circumstances is quite special. But it does remind you that you can always choose. But would you say he accepted or he resigned himself to the situation? No, he accepted.

That's what I mean to your point. because he had his agency in it. This is how I think of it. I was saying this to my brother the one day we're like waiting in a line somewhere for something and he's like, ah man, I can't believe how long we have to wait. And then I said to him, not even like chastising. I was like, man, it's crazy to me that you consider this waiting

because back in my day, I was like, we just had to wait. Do you remember going to the post office? Yes. Do you remember going to the post office? There's a whole generation who will never know what a post office is what a post office is

the fact that you had to go and stand in a line, a single line that was manned or unmaned there were like six windows and one person and then they would beckon each person and everyone had a different degree of like difficulty that they were coming.

Some person wanted to stamp. Some person wanted to know why the rooting for this package wasn't all you could do was wait in that line. You couldn't pull out your phone and watch a video. You couldn't like read. You couldn't answer emails. You couldn't get on a call even.

When I was first, my first time in a post office, my years in a post office, cell phones weren't even a thing. You just literally just stood there and you just... Yeah. You know what I mean? You literally just stood there. So it's interesting to have that idea of like, are you choosing? Right.

And I think on that specific issue, that kind of the boredom and waiting and all that stuff, it's so interesting because the more... we eliminate that from society, the worse it gets when you still have to do it. And that's something that I've written a little bit about. The more things get convenient, the more you can find anything out online in seconds that's happening 4,000 miles away or whatever. And then you're in a traffic jam. That's worse somehow than in the world where that was just what life was.

Because now it feels like – one example I've given before is like it's actually more frustrating to wait for food in the microwave than it is for food in the oven, right? Because like those three minutes are just like, because they're so close to being zero, right? It's like it's so near to I can just click my fingers and the food be warm. Do you wait for it to get to zero? No, everyone stops at like seven seconds. Yeah, how many, what's your time? I mean, I wait for the command.

You hit zero. Yeah, yeah. Legend. Like you stand. I'm asking the wait. Do you stand and wait? No, I don't stand and wait. So you leave.

I pretend I've got other things to do. Okay, okay, no, no. No, no. Then you're normal. Then you're normal. Yeah. Oh, okay. I don't know a single person.

who puts the microwave on, watches the numbers, and then, like, watches it countdown and actually stands there. And I'm saying, like, reasonable, like, even one minutes. Yeah. Right. You'll stop it at, like, one second.

Yeah. Ah, that's enough. You know that scene in Avengers, Dr. Strange punches the Hulk. Yeah. And then the other body of the Hulk leaves and then... Yeah, yeah, when his spirit leaves the... Yeah, that's how I am whenever I use the microwave.

Okay. And I leave the other part of me then. Yeah, no, it's true. and anyone who works in like a shared office, you come to the microwave to use it, and it's always stopped at seven or eight seconds, right? And you've got to cancel it because I think people really find it very difficult

to surrender, for the surrender of control that is involved in waiting. Because on some really deep level, we want to be able to determine how our day unfolds, and we want it more now that we can do it in so many ways so that technology allows so much of this. And then we run up against these moments where you do just sort of have to wait.

And it's really a feeling of, I mean, people talk about boredom, like it's a really sort of passive or low-grade feeling, but it can be really quite aggravating, right, to be bored. And I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that you're being asked to surrender control for a little while to just wait for something to happen, wait for the microwave, wait for the traffic, the cars ahead to move. In New York, this is always striking to me, right?

everybody's honking their horns when they're caught in traffic jams, famously for decades, doesn't do anything, right? It's an expression of frustration. So clearly there's something else going on there than now I will do the most effective thing to move the car in front of me. It's just like, why do I have to run up against finite reality in this way and push against it?

And it won't just do what I want it to do. Is that British optimism? Yeah, yeah, right up against finite. Yeah, you know what? You just made me really. as well is the more control we get, the less comfortable we have not having it. Hmm. It's addictive.

When you would order a pizza that was going to be delivered, when you, when pizza delivery first sort of started, the pizza just had, would just be the, you'd have a conversation with a person. They would tell you the pizza's on its way. And then the pizza was on its way. Yeah. Then they started saying, we deliver within. Yes.

They give you a time. Then you're like, okay, now you're. you're looking at the time. Then they gave you a map to track it on a phone. And now you sit there watching this person. And then you're like, what is, what's happened? What's, what's going on here? Why, why are they, you know what I mean?

Like you've become, even though they, they keep giving you more and more. And more control. Pay more. And you'll be first on the list. Ah, that's even, you know, the worst one that's gotten me now is on the app. It'll say your food has been delivered. And then I'm like, but where is? it. And then you find

the person just got there, so they've registered that they've just arrived. But that delay in that moment in time I'm more panicked than I was for the 30 minutes prior. I have a cheeky question I'd like to ask actually which is another place where this happens famously is like when people get kind of like

high profile and celebrity-ish, right? What are you doing? I'll ask you both. But like this is kind of like a famous phenomenon where you move ever more into a world where things are provided for you and you don't think about them

because you have a team and then very famously right you have certain people just engaging in like meltdown or they become assholes they become full on yeah but I've seen people like that I've seen I think it's more prevalent with like musicians

but I've seen like a few like A list actors who are so sheltered from reality that they don't know that anything comes with any time or opportunity cost they are not familiar with that concept at all. So food is just available all the time. And what they want. Yeah. And then like, just food. And clothing, clothing is at their hotel. You know there's people who haven't been to

a clothing store in decades. They, they don't even think of that as a concept. The clothing is just in their closets and then they wear it or they don't wear it. And then there's more clothing and they wear it or they don't wear it. When they travel, the vehicles are just there that pick them up, they take them to a plane that just flies them somewhere. They don't think of the waiting in between. Someone takes their luggage. Someone sometimes flies ahead of them with their luggage to leave the luggage and put the clothes in their hotel room.

And then when they get there, the clothes are just there. And so you remove so much of the time and opportunity cost that you are completely shattered by it when it comes into your world. You know what? I've just, Oliver, I'm sorry, I can't be part of this anymore. I feel like I know someone

who's not using their high profile status enough. I feel like some of it is wasted on other people. One mentioned names. No one flies ahead of him. No one packs his wardrobe. I've always thought of doing that. I won't lie.

But it seems ridiculous. There's time for a week. There's a service you can pay that actually that you pay. In New York, they do that. They will pack your luggage. They pack your clothes. They'll fly your luggage to the country you're going to on vacation. and then they'll hang all your clothes, steam them,

put everything up in the hotel. So when you get there, everything's just ready. And then when you check out, you just leave and then they'll come to the hotel, take the clothes, put them back in a bag, and then ship them back to you. But my brain, I don't know why. I haven't...

Tell me more. I'm here for you. Because if those services are transferable to friends and family, I mean, Oliver and I won't say no. Yeah, but you're paying for all of these things. No, do relax, go ahead. Are you saying transferable like it's not a... If it's going to happen...

Here's what my issue is. I always believe that you should not become comfortable with things that may not be permanent. Life is such... No, no, but because what I mean is like if you are unable to accept it when it like shifts the other way...

No, I'll accept it. You think you can go backwards? Nah, bro, let me tell you something. You'll go crazy. Do you know something about me that you think Oliver should know? Let me tell you something, my friend. You'll go crazy.

I don't care who you are in life. There's going to be one thing you get to that you can't let go of. Okay, maybe right. Warren Buffett was, like, famous for that. He's, like, simple dude. Has, like, a McDonald's burger and a Coke, like, every day of his life. And he lives in the same house, and he drives the same Honda and all these things. But try and take his private jet.

Oh, boy, oh, boy. That old man will, yo. Warren Buffett, everyone's like, he's such a, simple guy and yes but go look at what he has said about his private jet. He's like I don't need to change anything in my life and you know private jet!

Yeah, yes, yes, yes, yes! Yo, he has said it himself. He's like, I can't go back. No way. Yeah, he's like, this is the only thing in my life that I can't. I can't. All this other stuff.

The car, the house, the I can live as simply as you want. I don't care about any of it. But the private jet, please, please, please, please, please, please please please let's just keep that and this is i mean this is a phenomenon you see at every level of of income right it's called hedonic adaptation i think right and and anyone who is at any level except like really serious poverty as soon as you have the ability to you know buy a certain brand of coffee or like anything it doesn't need to be private jets or within a million miles

of private jets takes a few weeks and then that feels like it's gone from being a uh a perk to being a the minimum baseline. It's a new baseline. You're like Oliver is up tweeting me, yes. It's a new baseline. Mr. heirloom tomatoes. Erlum tomatoes. And I've become a macha connoisseur.

Listen to this guy. Macha. I have sped out marchas right outside the shop. Because they weren't perfect. Because they were not. Yeah. First time I had a matcher, I was like, this is nice. And then now...

Six weeks in, I even know the best spots for Macha. You're right. At some point, What was normal is now not normal anymore. Right. And this is a very New York thing as well, isn't it? That everyone always has like, there's the one place that they've got to go and get their thing.

And everything else is rubbish, even if actually some of the best in the world, right? Yeah, that feels like a particular new York. Don't press anything. We've got more. What now after this? This is the, before I forget, this is the chapter that I wanted to chat to you about,

becoming a better procrastinator. that like just like Sounds like an oxymoron Yeah exactly Just like the idea behind this Blew my mind But Help us understand what you mean by become a

Because everyone goes Procrastination is the worst thing Right Putting or rather delaying What you should be doing Yeah Criples most people out They should have done

They haven't done the law Haven't done it But you say become a bitter procrastinator What do you mean by that I guess what I mean is There's sort of I talk about good procrastination And bad procrastination

So there is a bad kind, right? And that is wanting to do everything so perfectly that you sort of never get started. Because if you want to really feel in control of a project, the number one best way to feel in control is just never to do anything. Right? Because then you're like you can think. And we all know people like this, right? They've got their dream, the band they're going to start, the novel they're going to write.

And they love the dream. So they never take action because then the dream would come into contact with reality. And it would be painful. And it is painful, right? If you do anything creative or pretty much anything, you're always going through that process of like, this is good enough, but it wasn't what I thought it could be at the beginning. But then I think good procrastination is really just the acceptance of that truth that like, given that we are finite, given that we have 24 hours in a day and have to be asleep for a chunk of them, you're almost always going to be not taking action on almost everything, right? Especially on almost everything you care about. you make a list of the things you really care about in life

in the next hour you're going to do one maybe two of them and all the others are not going to get done so making progress and staying sane and being focused in that context I think is is not about finding a way of that not being the case because that's life it's actually a kind of anxiety management right it's the ability to say I know there are all these things that really count that are not happening

I'm going to make them wait outside the door because right now I'm doing this thing. I talk in the book about this idea. Lots of us have, and I had for ages, right, of clearing the decks, this idea that if you want to really get down to something important, first of all, you have to clear the decks. You have to deal with all the little stuff

that's dragging your attention, answer all the emails, and then you get down to this stuff. But you never clear the decks, because there's an infinite amount of stuff on the decks. And actually, the act of clearing them makes them fill up again faster as well. So the whole thing is a nightmare. The only way to make time for the things you care about is to say, okay, there's all this stuff waiting, but I'm going to make it wait a bit longer.

I'm going to first of all take an hour, take a couple of hours to make progress on this thing that I care about or to nurture this relationship that I care about, whatever it is. And then, sure, I'll get a certain amount of time for all that other stuff as well. But it won't be this kind of like, first of all, I'm going to get my life under control, and then I'll start doing the things that count because that is a recipe for bad procrastination. So good procrastination is just acknowledging. that things are going to have to wait if you're going to do, if you're going to do one thing, lots of other things are going to have to wait.

And that's just unavoidable. And once you see it's not avoidable, that's just such a relief because then you don't need to fight that battle all day long. You can just be apportioning your time and attention to stuff that really moves the needle for you or that you feel you really want to do or really need to do to keep your job, whatever your priorities are in the moment. But you're just doing those things in sequence. And that's a day well spent. Oh, innocent moderation.

I think one thing that adults don't do enough is make a list. I think making a list is very powerful. Writing down the things that you think you want and the things that you think you want to achieve will quickly challenge every notion you've had about the single thing that you think you want. What do you mean? If you write, I want to do one.

I want to start renovating the garage. I want to start fixing my car. I want to start, once you write it down, while you're writing it down, you ask yourself, do I really want to do this? Oh. But when ideas are just filled up in your head, they all feel urgent at the same time. Yeah, that's a really good point.

Yeah. When you're making a grocery list, it's the same thing. You start with the things that you like. Okay. Chocolate, biscuits, blah, blah. And then you get to the real things. Yeah. The meat, the what, and the what they go, oh, okay.

These other things, yeah, but these ones, yeah. So these are achievable and these are nice to have. But as adults, we don't make lists enough, but we tell kids all the time. Yeah. You want everything, everything. You want the Christmas, you want Christmas gifts? Yeah, but make a list. Make a list for Santa.

Okay, puzzle or a mountain bike. a puzzle or a mountain. Adults don't do that. We think we've got it all figured out. Then it ends up becoming this maze that we traverse throughout our lives of wants and needs and actually nice to halves. And then the lines get blurred

and next thing you know we never get anything done. You also talk about it with like the choosing of it, which I found really interesting. So it's similar to what you're saying with the list. But you talk about like sort of limiting how many things you can be doing at any particular time, right?

Yeah, yeah, right. So I don't know, there's a couple of bits in the book that you might be thinking of, but I think there's a really good, like one really simple, if you want like a productivity hack, if anyone does, right? I think one really simple approach is to keep two lists, right? To make one list that is open-ended, could have all the things you want to do that are on your plate that you feel you should do, admin, whatever, could be hundreds of items wrong. And then another list that has maybe some fixed number of slots on it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like this idea a lot. Yeah. And the practice here, this is very simple way, there are lots of other more complicated ways of doing this, but you just take 10 things from the big list, move them through, and you start, and you don't let anything else come on from the big list of the short list until you've freed up a slot by doing it. So you're sort of creating a deliberate bottleneck. You're not really creating a bottleneck. You're acknowledging that you as a human being are a bottleneck.

You actually only ever can do a certain number of things at one time. Thank you. It's been my favorite thing. So, yeah, that also... So I only remove one from the 10 when a space opens up from that 5. Wait, no, say you have 5, say you have an infinite, open list,

open list, and then say have 5. Yes, I bring over 10 to the 5. No, forget 10. I made a mistake by using 10 as an example and 5 in example. Yeah, forget 10. Stick with the 5. You move 5 from the very, very long list. And then maybe you do one of them.

Okay, now if you want, you can move another one, but you can't just keep adding... Yeah, you can't add things to your list. So the way I remember reading it was like, you're doing a house renovation. Yes. You are also in the process, you're on this big fitness journey, whatever thing. You're going to be running a marathon. And, you know, you're studying for MBA.

Yeah, whatever, let's, whatever these things are. Great. Want to write a book. But that's all your wish list. Yeah. What Oliver, like, what your book really showed me was like, no, no, no. You have sort of like your, like, you know, speaking or walking. We have a finite amount of things that we can.

can be doing at any particular time, or we can infinitely think of things to do. But we have a capacity, right? And so the idea was, no, create your capacity and make it really limited. So, like, three things even, three, like, big things that you're doing in your life. Yeah.

Three big, like, and I mean like the big things that you're doing in your life. Yeah. That's on your list. You cannot put a new thing on the list without eliminating one of these things on the list. So, for example, if you want to... And you can't, and the cheat,

you can't, like, switch them back and forth. because you're just going to like cheat yourself like every day. You're just going to be like, no, no, no, no, no. You could abandon one of them. That's what I mean. They have to go off the list. Or you could complete it. Yeah.

But all it is, again, all these things are, it's just ways of becoming conscious of the reality. That's very smart. Yeah. And then what's great about it is you're always looking at three things only. So you go, am I doing this? Am I doing this? Am I doing this? Yes.

Then I'm actively living the life that I wish to be living. I know there's a whole list in my backpack. It exists. Climb Kilimanjaro. Right. Yeah, yeah. Like an entrepreneur, florist, you know. Starting an affair.

Starting an affair. All of those things are there. Secondary list. Right. And you're not saying that any of the things on that list are automatically less good because they're on that list. You're just saying, I'm limited. Even starting an affair.

Yeah, right now. Well, very specific things may be good or bad, right? You have marriage. You have marriage on your main list. And kids. You see? So until those things are knocked off, serial killer documentaries. Yeah.

It's like you, who needs whistleblowers? It's an important use of your time. What would you say you've changed in your life since you stumbled upon? Because you've shared it with people, but you said you do it to teach yourself. What were the biggest things you let go of? Specific things?

Yeah, I mean... If someone remembers the old Oliver, what would they say he let go of? What would they say he changed? What did he put less importance on? I mean, the big one, which isn't quite the answer that you're looking for, I think,

is just the worry. right? Like spending actual large amounts of time just stressing and fretting and feeling anxious, which is its own use of time. Right. It's not an activity that anyone would choose to do, I suppose, is what I mean. So there is that. And then I think I've probably been more conscious, and again, this parenting will do this too as well, I've been a bit more conscious about friendships and social life, right, because it really matters to me to have good friends and to nurture those friendships. But there's always that layer of social life. where like nobody involved is particularly super wanting to do it,

but it's all sort of going along with it. Pickleball. Well, if you like Pickleboy, you like Pickleball. You know what I mean? There's that kind of, there's that kind of. The way you just phrased it, everyone's going along with it, but no one really, those friend groups are the worst. Because it's like, you just keep meeting for like quarterly reports.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. And you miss out on enough to not really care so much, but you still have to, yeah. No, absolutely. And, you know, Not to diss the serial killer documentaries, but there is a certain kind of, I do find there's a certain kind of content consumption that pretty quickly falls out when you think about this in these ways. Not never going on social media, not never veging out with some like fun thing on TV. Absolutely not, but you're doing it a little bit more consciously than you were. And you're not sort of watching stuff that on some level, even when you're watching it, you know you don't want to be watching. So I know this may sound crazy. but how this changed my consumption, I started making a decision,

like making decisions to watch a movie that I wanted to watch that I've already watched versus just watching a new movie that's come out just because it's a new movie that's come out. And I know that seems like a stupid thing to say, but like for a long time, I would consume going,

oh, there's a new thing I should watch it. Oh, there's another thing I should watch it. But the only reason I consumed it was because it was the only new thing that was available. Like the time you made us watch Mortal Concelling. bad. Uh-uh. That was for fun.

That was one of the fun ones. That was one of the fun one. That was, where was the fun there? Where was the fun there? When we were talking about how bad the background was. Oh yeah, that was fine.

Come on. Yeah. Okay, okay. Like, come on. Everything in that. So what I'll do is I will, when I have my friends gathered, I enjoy making them watch terrible things.

And then complaining about it with them. Yeah. But we all, I go, have you seen this movie? Then they go, no. And I go, it's the worst movie I've ever seen. And then I go put it on. They love that. And then we'll,

We put it on together. And then they go, why are we watching this? Then I go, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait, the worst part hasn't come yet. And then we watch the movie together. And I think this shared pain. I can well imagine it. Because they keep saying, why are we still watching this?

And I go, no, no, no, no. It's going to get worse. It's going to get worse. How did they make this movie? It's going to get worse. And then they go home, Oliver. And then they scratch me off their list. I need to move him off my list.

They've made a conscious decision about their first. friendship. And you make a good point about new movies as well, right? There's a strong pressure to see new stuff because of all the advertising and because of that sort of, this applies to everything else. The rest of the world will try to make your choices for you. And that's going to happen anyway. So all we're talking about here is like having enough pushback to keep focusing on some of the things you want to do, right? In any day, loads of other people's agendas are going to have some role to play in it. That's okay. It's like you're not going to get rid of that. It's just that you're going to have, you're going to be going

into it with some sense of direction about what you care about. And I think that's an important. You're making me realize that we, we left, society has left the word peer pressure in our teens. Hmm. But we, it's persistent. It's persistent. It's throughout our lives. The food we eat, the content we consume. No, not yet. Are you missing out, bro? See, I just did it to you now. No, I. the motor combat. No, but what you're saying, honestly, like, I joke, but carry on. Because what you're saying is really profound.

It's true. Absolutely. So we, as adults, we don't think about, you made me aware of this, the food that we eat and when we eat it and why we eat it. It's also just peer pressure. The adverts look good. The packaging looks nice. The cars that we aspire to have.

I'm now watching how a 10-year-old 9-11 Porsche is actually better than a 20-26. those cars are coming up in the market now. People are going, it's actually not so bad. It was actually great. But when it was there at the time, it was not the thing. But now in hindsight, the peer pressure is driven up. But also the appreciation for that has driven up the prices for those cars because that's peer pressure. If someone that you look up to says this thing is great, they have it.

Now those cars are hard to find in the market. But if you look at the market from two years ago and even a year ago, during COVID as well, those cars were dead cheap. But now because of peer pressure and it's so subliminal now. and hidden in so many things and comes in so many packages. It's not that kid at school who's smoking and says, do you want to puff? It's the cool guy that goes, do you want to invest your, do you want to be wealthy when you retire? Do you want to invest your money here? Maybe buy this thing.

Have you ever thought about paintings? Maybe have a six-pack. Maybe have you seasonal tickets to this thing? You never have to worry about it again. And again, it's not that you're going to become perfectly free of all that, right? You're not going to be the perfectly independent human. That doesn't exist. But if you have some conscious sense of what your main projects,

are at the moment, what your focus areas are, what you're willing to fail at at the moment, that's like a filter that you can bring to the world of all the things that you're impression. I don't even argue that we need a, what you're trying to provide here is a, a mental and a life, GLP1 to block, to block those desires. Oh, I like that. I like that. Yeah, I'll settle for that.

I actually like that a lot. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, figuring out like how to boost your, what is it, sati, say, say, say, Satiation. Sati. How do you say it? I'm not sure. Does it end in IETY?

Yes. Satiati. Satiati is something like that. I've never heard that word said out loud. I always read it. Has anyone ever said it actually? I've never heard anyone say it out loud actually. Yeah, because the list, all of us list makes sense.

Yeah, it's completely that. I'm satiant with these five. Yes. And what you're doing is and you're limiting how quickly your your stomach empties out. Right. You're not like, it's exactly that. You have invented. to the GLP1 for, that's what you're providing people, the GLP 1 for life.

I love it and I love the analogy. It had not occurred to me. So that's brilliant. You know what had also not occurred to me? Was when Mortal Kombat started. My Swiss-German side of my friend came out. Do you have, the Freud and Scheider? What is it called?

Schadenfreude. But do you have a core memory for life? Oh, I do. That's what I've learned, Oliver. If you watch a movie with your friends, nine times out of ten, they won't remember it. Because most movies are not memorable at all. They have to be like, I mean, we're talking like peak.

Gladiator. You know, gladiator, dark night. Like, it's got to be like an extremely special film for everyone to remember it. Make your friends watch a terrible film with you. That moment will stick in your memory forever. It also bonds you, right? It does. It's like you're prisoners together.

We've both suffered. The only difference is I was the prisoner and the warden. I invited you in, locked the door, and then we spent 20 years with me also complaining with you being like, Man, when do we get it out? When do we get it out of here, man? They're treating us like animals. And then after 20 years, I was like, all right, this has been fun. All right, man, let's go do something else.

Oh, man. But, yo, Oliver, I just want to say thank you, man. Thank you for writing the books. Thank you for thinking the way you do. And thank you. You genuinely changed my life. I don't mean that. No, that's lovely to hear.

I genuinely don't say there's a platitude. No, it's really lovely to hear. I'm like I say, I find it a little hard to, like, it always amazes me that anything I'm working through in this form helps other people, but it's really completely, completely changed my life. I can't wait to get started. It's the reason I'll tell anyone to read the book is because for me, 4,000 weeks, here's the best way to put it. It didn't make me more efficient. It didn't make me more productive.

It didn't make me, none of those things. You know what it made me, though? More relaxed. It freed me in a way. And that's the thing that I think we sometimes take for granted when it comes to self-help books or productivity or all of these things. They always help you figure out how to do more. They don't help you figure out how to want less. And both achieve the same outcome, but one is way less stressful.

One is less painful. It's way less painful. So you're going, it's not wanting less in like a give-up way. It's just going like, no, no, no, I'm fine with these things. I'm accepting it. That's all I want. That's what I want. That's what I need.

That's what I'm trying to do. And then someone goes, why aren't you doing that? Ah, just because I don't want to and I don't want to have that capacity. Oh, but you could. It's like, yeah, you could. You could do a little bit of everything. But choosing the things that you want to do a lot more of completely freeze up your life in a different way.

So thank you, man. Thank you very. What are you going to work on next? What's the next book? I'm working on the book. Yeah, I'm trying to write a book that is about sort of staying sane and functional and getting stuff done in specifically the kind of crazy making times that we're that we're living in at the moment. And I'm sort of like how to not be paralyzed. Yeah. And I'm sort of tracking this idea

of aliveness, which is the working title for the book, right? This idea of this idea that that's the thing we need. It's the thing that is threatened by so much of the world in which we live and that really kind of building your life around aliveness is in some ways I feel like it's the question that is not answered by these books, right? Which is like, well, okay, you take a saner attitude to not trying to do everything. What direction do you go in then, right? And for me, that's been a really sort of important piece of the puzzle. Yeah. It's almost like once the human has freed themselves from the constraints that they've sort of like, you know, succumb to in society, what does that human now do? We talked about this the other day in a little, in a small way. We, we, we, we

We talked about like an addiction and we're saying people take for granted that one of the things an addiction will give you in life is something to do. It's purpose. Yeah. Yeah. And when you remove the addiction, sometimes what we don't do is then like find a way for people to have. To replace it. Yeah. The replacement that's not, it's not an addiction, but it's like your time and your purpose were filled up by something.

Right. And I think that especially today, I mean, this is the big difference with this book I'm working on is that it's written like now instead of a few years ago. Yeah. And so much stuff. I mean, we haven't talked about AI, and I'm kind of glad that we haven't talked about AI. But that's just one example of something that is like it's changing the fabric of how people interact with the world so much, not all in good ways. And it really bringing up this issue of like, okay, what actually makes you feel alive as opposed to sort of trudging through your day towards some future moment of like everything being okay? What makes you alive right in the middle of all this crazy chaos that we live in so many ways?

I'm looking forward to it. This has been great. Thank you. Thank you so much for inviting me. I've really enjoyed it. It's been great. A lot of fun. People, we need to talk about it.

Mondays need better PR. Because let's be honest, nobody likes Mondays. Mondays come with alarms. Mondays come with calendars. Mondays come with emails from coworkers who are definitely productive all weekend. Thanks, John. Friday is a celebration. Saturday is a lifestyle.

Sunday has brunch. Monday has meetings. And that's kind of the problem, right? Monday didn't even get a fair shot. It got assigned a personality and nobody ever checked if it was accurate. So yeah, Monday's a due for an overhaul. And what if we didn't just fix Monday's reputation?

What if we completely reimagine what a Monday can be? Like instead of where, waking up thinking, what do I have to survive today? You wake up thinking, yo, what do I get to do today? And not in a small way, my friends, no, I'm talking about Monday being the day someone hits you up and says, yo, pack a bag. We're going somewhere. Not later, not sometime this summer, not when we finally find time, Monday. You're going somewhere you've never been. You're going somewhere you've never been, doing something you've always talked about, but never actually booked. That experience you keep saying one day two. Monday says, actually, today is that day.

Suddenly, Monday changes shape. Monday changes how you see it. It's not just emails and meetings anymore. It's possibility. It's movement. Is the day something unexpectedly shows up on your calendar in a good way? The alarm hits different when you know it might be leading you somewhere that you didn't plan. That's the feeling we're looking for. John's emails are still there, obviously. I mean, we're not miracle workers. But even John might wait until Tuesday if Monday's out here offering you once in a lifetime experiences. And that's why, my friends, I like what Verizon is doing here. Because maybe Monday doesn't need better PR. Maybe it just needs better things to happen on Mondays. This segment is brought to you by Verizon.

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Who? What Now with Trevor Noah is produced by Day Zero Productions in partnership with Sirius XM. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaziamin, and Jess Hackle. Rebecca Chain is our producer. Our development researcher is Marcia Robiou. Music, mixing and mastering by Hannes Brown. Random Other Stuff by Ryan Parduth. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next week for another episode of What Now.