Burned Out? Start Here.

Burned Out? Start Here.

I like to begin each year with an episode about something I’m working through more personally. And at the end of last year, the thing I needed to work through was a pretty bad case of burnout.

So I picked up Oliver Burkeman’s latest book, “Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts.” Burkeman’s big idea, which he also explores in his best seller “Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals,” is that the desire to be more productive, to squeeze out the most from each day, to try to feel on top of our lives, is ultimately insatiable. He argues that addressing burnout requires a shift in outlook — accepting that our time and energy are finite, and that there will always be something more to do. In other words: What if you began with a deeper appreciation of your own limits? How, then, would you live?

Burkeman’s book is structured as 28 short essays on this question. In this conversation, I ask him to walk me through some of them. We discuss what burnout is; what it means to accept your limitations and let go of control; the messages children absorb about productivity and work; navigating the overwhelm of information and news; and more.

This episode contains strong language.

Mentioned:

How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation” by Anne Helen Petersen

Rest by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang

Stop. Breathe. We Can’t Keep Working Like This.” with Cal Newport on “The Ezra Klein Show”

The Man Who Knew Too Little” by Sam Dolnick

Book Recommendations:

The Uncontrollability of the World by Hartmut Rosa

Fully Alive by Elizabeth Oldfield

Death by Joan Tollifson

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Kristin Lin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Mary Marge Locker. Mixing by Isaac Jones, with Efim Shapiro and Aman Sahota. Our supervising editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Rollin Hu, Elias Isquith and Jack McCordick. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Jaksot(491)

A Top G.O.P. Pollster on Trump 2024, QAnon and What Republicans Really Want

A Top G.O.P. Pollster on Trump 2024, QAnon and What Republicans Really Want

In the aftermath of the Capitol attack, the polling firm Echelon Insights decided to ask voters a simple question: Do they think the goal of politics is more about “enacting good public policy” or “en...

26 Maalis 20211h

An Unusually Optimistic Conversation With Bernie Sanders

An Unusually Optimistic Conversation With Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders didn’t win the 2020 election. But he may have won its aftermath.If you look back at Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders’s careers, the $1.9 trillion stimulus package, the American Rescue Plan,...

23 Maalis 202128min

Andrew Cuomo and the Performance of Power

Andrew Cuomo and the Performance of Power

Six months ago, Andrew Cuomo was on top of the world. He was touted as the anti-Donald Trump — the calm, fact-driven coronavirus leader the country needed. Now, amid allegations of hiding the true num...

19 Maalis 20211h 5min

Mark Bittman Cooked Everything. Now He Wants to Change Everything.

Mark Bittman Cooked Everything. Now He Wants to Change Everything.

Mark Bittman taught me to cook. I read his New York Times cooking column, “The Minimalist,” religiously. I bought “How to Cook Everything,” that red brick of a cookbook, and then, when I gave up meat,...

16 Maalis 202148min

How America’s Covid-19 Nightmare Ends

How America’s Covid-19 Nightmare Ends

On Jan. 28, I published a column that began like this: “I hope, in the end, that this article reads as alarmism. I hope that a year from now it’s a piece people point to as an overreaction.”Today, tha...

12 Maalis 20211h 1min

What Does Toxic Stress Do to Children?

What Does Toxic Stress Do to Children?

Dr. Nadine Burke Harris’s pioneering work on how childhood trauma shapes adult outcomes led to her being named the first surgeon general of California. That was in 2019. And then, of course, the novel...

9 Maalis 20211h 6min

Stop. Breathe. We Can’t Keep Working Like This.

Stop. Breathe. We Can’t Keep Working Like This.

We were promised, with the internet, a productivity revolution. We were told that we’d get more done, in less time, with less stress. Instead, we got always-on communication, the dissolution of the bo...

5 Maalis 202154min

What a More Responsible Republican Party Would Look Like

What a More Responsible Republican Party Would Look Like

If you watched this past weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference, you heard a lot of debunked election conspiracies, dire warnings about “cancel culture” and unwavering fealty to Donald Tru...

2 Maalis 202158min

Suosittua kategoriassa Politiikka ja uutiset

uutiscast
aikalisa
politiikan-puskaradio
rss-ootsa-kuullut-tasta
ootsa-kuullut-tasta-2
tervo-halme
rss-vaalirankkurit-podcast
rss-podme-livebox
otetaan-yhdet
rss-asiastudio
the-ulkopolitist
viisupodi
et-sa-noin-voi-sanoo-esittaa
rikosmyytit
aihe
rss-tasta-on-kyse-ivan-puopolo-verkkouutiset
radio-antro
rss-kaikki-uusiksi
rss-hyvaa-huomenta-bryssel
rss-sanna-ukkola-show-verkkouutiset