Stop trying so hard to be productive and start ‘settling,’ says time management researcher: Here’s what he means

Reducing distractions. Obsessing over your checklist. Clearing out your workspace. Chewing gum.

A lot of people swear that these and other productivity hacks will help you get on top of your responsibilities and gain control of your time. They all left author and time management researcher Oliver Burkeman “pretty disillusioned,” he tells CNBC Make It.

If you feel like you’re constantly trying to optimize your life, Burkeman has a counterintuitive piece of advice: Get comfortable with settling instead, he said on a recent episode of LinkedIn’s “Everyday Better with Leah Smart” podcast.

The word “settling” usually has a negative connotation to it, like settling for a job you don’t love because it pays more, or for a relationship you’re lukewarm about because you don’t want to hurt the other person.

But settling can be good when it comes to your time, said Burkeman, author of the New York Times bestselling self-help book, “Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals,” which he worked on throughout his journey for better productivity advice.

“It’s about understanding that everything is a trade-off. Everything has opportunity costs,” he said. “Settling is not really about settling for less. It’s about seeing that we’re always making choices that have upsides and downsides.”

It’s almost impossible to get everything done when you’re overloaded with deadlines at work, commitments at home and tending to your own mental, physical and social health. So instead of beating yourself up, try “embracing limitation,” Burkeman said.

Say you have a time-consuming project that cuts into your weekly coffee chat with your work bestie, or you keep raising your hand for more assignments so your boss will find you valuable. Eventually, you’ll probably have to accept the fact that you need to reschedule your meeting and stop taking on more work. You’re no less of a friend or a professional because of it.

“Anytime we’re choosing to do something, we’re also choosing not to do something, which can feel kind of overwhelming when we have so much we need to get done,” he said. 

That rings true for a large number of workers. Forty-seven percent of employees feel stressed or overwhelmed on the job, according to a March 2024 survey of over 1,200 people by intranet software company Oak Engage. This can lead to decreased job satisfaction and burnout.

For Burkeman, who spent years writing a column for The Guardian about time management and productivity, it took trying a plethora of unsuccessful hacks for him to realize that “maybe the problem is … this quest to achieve total control over the human condition.”

Instead of resisting reality, in other words, try accepting it.

Negative feelings tend to flourish when you attach your self-assurance to unrealistic time-management goals, said Burkeman.

To be truly productive, focus on what’s a high priority and adjust the rest of your to-do list — even if that means dropping some unimportant tasks altogether, he added. Don’t overload yourself, trying to do “300 things at a time.”

Burkeman’s advice echoes that of Tiffany Dufu, president of the Tory Burch Foundation and author of “Drop the Ball,” a memoir describing the constant stress Dufu felt every day trying to overperform at work and in life.

“I felt that dropping the ball meant that I was failing to take timely action and I was being irresponsible,” Dufu told Make It in 2022. “It meant that I was disappointing myself, my family, my community.”

After years of feeling guilty about not being able to uphold her unsustainable schedule, Dufu decided it was OK to not complete everything on her to-do list, and to ask for assistance when needed. She also stopped tying her self-worth to how many things she could do at once, she said.

“It’s about releasing unrealistic expectations in order for us to all create lives that we’re passionate about,” said Dufu.

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