The Three-or-Four-Hours Rule | Oliver Burkeman

The other, arguably more important lesson isn't so much a time management tactic as an internal psychological move: to give up demanding more of yourself than three or four hours of daily high-quality mental work. That's an emphasis that gets missed, I think, in the current conversation about overwork and post-pandemic burnout. Yes, it's true we live in a system that demands too much of us, leaves no time for rest, and makes many feel as though their survival depends on working impossible hours. But it's also true that we're increasingly the kind of people who don't want to rest – who get antsy and anxious if we don't feel we're being productive. The usual result is that we push ourselves beyond the sane limits of daily activity, when doing less would have been more productive in the long run.