The art of choosing what to do

Summary

TED Radio Hour — "The Art of Choosing What to Do"

Date: October 17, 2025
Host: Manoush Zomorodi
Guests: Ann Laura Selye, Oliver Burkeman, Ayelet Fishbach

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Overview

In this episode, Manoush Zomorodi explores how we shape our days and make choices about what to do with our time. Drawing insights from psychology, behavioral science, and personal experience, the episode challenges traditional notions of productivity, control, and motivation. From structuring time by the clock versus by events, to contemplating the finite nature of life, and uncovering the science of motivation, listeners are invited to reconsider what truly counts and how to live meaningfully.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. How We Experience and Structure Time

Guest: Ann Laura Selye, Professor of Behavioral Sciences, HEC Paris

• Time Styles:
  • Clock Time: Scheduling activities according to the clock; activities are independent and interchangeable.
  • Event Time: Moving from one activity to the next based on events or inner rhythms; activities are interdependent, forming a “necklace” where one leads to another.
• Impact on Psychology:
  • Clock timers tend to externalize control, believing more in fate or chance.
  • Event timers see themselves as more in control, linking their choices to environmental cues and their own agency.
• Consequences for Well-Being:
  • Clock timers are less able to savor positive experiences and feel less happiness than event timers.
  • The rise of clock time in society has made people view the world as more chaotic and disconnected ("Clock timers believe the world is more chaotic than event timers." — Ann Laura Selye, 07:18).
  • The real reason people rely on the clock might be because they're less connected to their internal emotions, using the clock as a crutch.

Quote:
"Clock timers believe the world is more chaotic than event timers. Now, if you think that's bad, there's actually worse. We know that when people locate control externally rather than internally, it tends to make them feel less happy."
— Ann Laura Selye (07:18)

• Practical Takeaway:
  • Both time styles are useful; clock time is better for tasks requiring punctuality, while event time is preferable for enjoyment or creativity, especially with children.
  • Awareness of the two approaches allows for flexibility in choosing what fits each context best.

Quote:
"The takeaway is think that these two things exist and embrace what feels better for you at a given time."
— Ann Laura Selye (13:01)

Timestamps:

• Selye's time style examples: 01:04–03:04
• Implications for happiness and control: 04:39–11:21
• Practical advice on time styles: 11:21–13:03

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2. Facing Finitude and the Fallacy of Perfect Productivity

Guest: Oliver Burkeman, author of "4000 Weeks" and "Meditations for Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts"

• Personal Journey:
  • Started as an anxious journalist fixated on optimizing productivity, only to discover that perpetual methods and systems never provided real satisfaction.
  • The realization: the pursuit of the perfect system is often a distraction from facing life's finite nature.

Quote:
"Our lives are short. Specifically, they're finite, right? ...But we spend a lot of time, a lot of effort trying to avoid it, trying not to think about it, trying to feel less limited than we are."
— Oliver Burkeman (17:49)

• On Making Decisions:
  • Time is fundamentally limited; every decision is an act of embracing one possibility and letting go of countless others, which can be freeing once you accept it.
  • Indecision is a way of postponing the pain of choices, but making decisions is empowering.

Quote (Reading from Book):
"Making a decision is the defining act of the limit embracing life... Indeicision can feel so oddly comfortable. It's a form of postponement, a temporary avoidance of the painful sacrifices involved."
— Oliver Burkeman (21:46)

• Encouraging Conscious Living:
  • Living with openness to risk and embracing the spirit of decisions is more important than their specific outcomes.

Quote:
"It's sort of ultimately most important that you lived with sort of openness to that possibility, that you took the plunge, that you bet on yourself instead of against yourself, and that you sort of stepped into life in its most intense kind of engagement."
— Oliver Burkeman (26:25)

• Society and Technology—AI and Efficiency:
  • AI and convenience culture can push us toward sameness and eliminate the friction that made certain activities meaningful.

Quote:
"Convenience... has this repeating tendency to involve getting rid of not just the effort that we wanted to save, but also the very kinds of friction and engagements that made the thing worth doing in the first place."
— Oliver Burkeman (37:48)

• Aging and Acceptance:
  • With experience, anxiety about doing and having it all tends to decrease, and the peace comes more from acceptance than from control.
  • The problem isn’t failing to achieve perfect mastery over life, but believing it's ever possible.

Quote (Epigraph):
"What makes it unbearable is your mistaken belief that it can be cured."
— Charlotte Joko Beck, quoted by Oliver Burkeman (43:18)

Timestamps:

• Burkeman's backstory and realizations: 16:02–19:49
• Embracing decision-making: 21:22–26:12
• On social pressure, AI, and uniqueness: 31:29–41:39
• Acceptance, Zen, and purposeful limitation: 42:35–44:58

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3. Motivation, Willpower, and Avoiding Burnout

Guest: Ayelet Fishbach, Professor of Behavioral Science and Marketing, University of Chicago

• Core Insight:
  • You don’t "own" motivation; it isn’t about being strong, but about being wise in managing situations and thoughts.
• Practical Strategies:
  • Change your circumstances or your mindset to stimulate motivation.
  • Set goals that are intrinsically motivating, not just obligations.
  • Recognize and shorten the “middle slump”—motivation is high at the beginning and end, but dips in the middle. Creating shorter cycles (weekly/daily) can help maintain motivation.
  • Anticipate temptations and prepare for them in advance.
  • Social connections act as lighthouses for motivation; we hold goals for others and vice versa.

Quote:
"Motivation is not about being strong. It's about being wise... You change the circumstances or the way you think about the circumstances."
— Ayelet Fishbach (45:36)

• The Role of Community:
  • Motivation is supported by those around you — friends, family, colleagues.

Timestamps:

• Fishbach’s TED segment: 45:36–52:34

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• "When people locate control externally rather than internally, it tends to make them feel less happy."
  — Ann Laura Selye (07:18)

• "To make a decision... is to take ownership of the situation. Instead, it takes a little willpower. But the reward is usually an immediate boost of motivation."
  — Oliver Burkeman (21:46–22:55, as he reads from his book)

• "Motivation is not about being strong. It is about being wise, and now we are all wiser. Thank you."
  — Ayelet Fishbach (52:09)

• "The problem is not that you haven't figured everything out, got on top of everything, reached a position of perfect control. The only problem is thinking that it was ever on the cards for you to do that."
  — Oliver Burkeman (43:18)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:26–04:09: Introduction, why time structure matters, event vs. clock time
• 06:35–13:03: Selye on how time styles affect control, causality, and happiness
• 16:02–20:30: Burkeman's personal journey with productivity and realization of finiteness
• 21:22–26:12: Importance of decision-making and permission
• 31:29–41:39: The effect of technology and AI on meaning and uniqueness
• 42:35–44:58: Acceptance and the myth of total control
• 45:36–52:34: Fishbach’s science of motivation, intrinsic goals, middles, and social support
• 52:34–end: Episode close

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Episode Takeaways

• The way we structure and perceive our time implicitly shapes how we view causality, control, and happiness.
• Clock time and event time both have value, but knowing when to use each is key for well-being.
• Embracing the limitations of time — that we cannot do everything — brings richness and meaning to life; indecision is itself a mask for avoidance.
• Making conscious choices and accepting risks is part of a fulfilling life; there’s no way to “opt out” of choosing.
• Motivation isn’t innate or a matter of willpower alone; it’s about designing your environment and mindset wisely. Community plays a crucial role.
• Technology and AI offer convenience but threaten to dull the richness born of human friction, uniqueness, and lived engagement.

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For listeners who want to rethink how they shape their days, this episode encourages a shift away from relentless optimization and toward meaningful, intentional choices — with a healthy appreciation for life’s inherent limits and the relationships and moments that matter most.

Transcript

[Manoush Zamorodi]

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[Manoush Zamorodi]

Delivered at TED conferences to bring about the future we want to see around the world. To understand who we are. From those talks, we bring you speakers and ideas that will surprise you.

[Oliver Burkeman]

You just don't know what you're gonna find challenge you.

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We truly have to ask ourselves, like, why is it noteworthy and even change you?

[Manoush Zamorodi]

I literally feel like I'm a different person.

[Ann Laura Selye]

Yes.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

Do you feel that way? Ideas worth spreading from TED and npr. I'm Minouche Zumarotti. On the show today, how we shape our days.

[Ann Laura Selye]

So when you wake up in the middle of the night, do you look at the clock to know whether it's time to go back to sleep?

[Manoush Zamorodi]

This is psychology professor Ann Laura Selye.

[Ann Laura Selye]

When you wake up in the morning during the weekend and you have the whole day for yourself, do you set an alarm clock?

[Manoush Zamorodi]

Anna Lore has a lot of these questions.

[Ann Laura Selye]

When you do your yoga in the.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

Morning, do you do yoga for a specific amount of time, or do you.

[Ann Laura Selye]

Do it as long as it feels good to do it?

[Manoush Zamorodi]

And then after work, do you prefer.

[Ann Laura Selye]

To shop online or go to a brick and mortar store? When you spend time with friends, do you decide when you meet and when you will leave them?

[Manoush Zamorodi]

When you go to the beach, can you just sit and enjoy the view or do you check your watch? And Laura says depending on your answers, you might experience time one or two different ways and choose to use it in different ways as events or by the clock.

[Ann Laura Selye]

So what are these styles?

[Manoush Zamorodi]

Clock time. People schedule out every moment of their day.

[Ann Laura Selye]

Anna, waking up in the morning, the.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

Classic clock timer, prefers to stick to a schedule that dictates when she wakes.

[Ann Laura Selye]

Up 10 minutes, as she does when she eats. Then she proceeds to having breakfast for 20 minutes.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

You get the idea.

[Ann Laura Selye]

Naturally.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

On the flip side, an event timer moves from one activity to another, stretches when she wants to shower, when it feels like the right time to do so.

[Ann Laura Selye]

It could be a long breakfast, a short breakfast. She'll have breakfast for as long as it feels appropriate.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

Now, of course, these are extremes. Most people fall somewhere in the middle. But as technology has advanced, as people and economies have become more interconnected, as work has become more regimented, and there is an expectation that most of us live by the clock. And you'd think that that would be a good thing, get us all coordinated, right?

[Ann Laura Selye]

We've been measuring time on a clock in increasingly granular units since thousands of years. Think Stonehenge being the farther back we can go. And now we measure time. We wear time on our wrists or on our phones. Actually, we think we're reading time at least 100 times a day in our modern societies, if only because we are stuck to phone screens. So for me, as a psychologist and as a scientist interested in how our thoughts are born and how they are articulated and how our emotions are shaped and are allowed to flow naturally or not, I thought it was fascinating to think, wait a minute. In all this time and this reliance on the clock, no one has looked at what it does to us to keep looking at that thing. That was my research question. And my sense was it cannot be neutral. When is relying on the clock optimal? When is it suboptimal?

[Manoush Zamorodi]

We mark our lives in hours, deadlines, and milestones. But what actually moves us toward creating the life we want? On the show today, rethinking how we shape our days, ideas about how we can stop chasing productivity and and start asking what's worth our time. For Ann Laura Selye, the unconscious ways we approach our everyday tasks says a lot about how we see the world.

[Ann Laura Selye (continued)]

So let's look at how adopting each of these scheduling styles affects how we feel about the world, how we think, and how we behave.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

Here she is on the TED stage.

[Ann Laura Selye (continued)]

So, focusing on clock timers, they slice time into quantifiable independent units that they use to fit their activities into. It's great to function like that because the time units being independent, you can freely rearrange them over time. For instance, if as a clock timer, I know that I take two hours to shop for groceries and two hours to shop for kids clothes, I can go to the supermarket in the morning and shop for kids clothes in the afternoon or do the reverse. And this arrangement of activities has provided a huge advantage to clock timers. They can be flexible in scheduling and rescheduling activities as much as they want. Now, it also comes with two implications, though. Because the time units are independent, it means that they are not correlated, let alone causally related. So my going to lunch with my friend does not cause me to go to the supermarket afterwards. The second implication is that when you rely on the clock, you put control of your schedule outside of yourself. And we know from psychology that when people do that, they tend to believe that things happen in the world as a result of fate, chance, and powerful others.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

More.

[Ann Laura Selye (continued)]

Now, if you look at event timers, we're looking at a very different animal. Events are interdependent, right? They look more like a necklace. If you need to move one of the events, you need to move a whole string of events with it. Just like if you want to move a pearl, you need to move the other pearls with it, right? And that means that it's likely to be associated with a bigger belief, a greater belief that things happen in the environment due to your own doing more.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

Did this surprise you? Any of the things that you found?

[Ann Laura Selye]

What surprised was the extent, the magnitude of the effect. That was remarkable. The feeling of control. It's really important. For instance, I went to an event of entrepreneurs in New York City and then I asked them, to what extent do you think that your companies shape the world, right? And to what extent do you think that if you're successful, it's due to you versus chance? And sure enough, those entrepreneurs who relied on the clock more thought that their success was due to chance more than those entrepreneurs who relied on event time.

[Ann Laura Selye (continued)]

So because of these differences in scheduling between clock timers, and eventually we found actually that clock timers recognize causality in the world at large significantly less than event timers. Now, this is very important because it means that since our event time ancestors were left behind and we increasingly relied on the clock to schedule our activities, we also began to perceive the world as a more and more disconnected place, a more and more random place, a more and more chaotic place. Clock timers believe the world is more chaotic than even timers. Now, if you think that's bad, there's actually worse. We know that when people locate control externally rather than internally, it tends to make them feel less happy. So we wondered, are clock timers less happy than event timers? Well, if you think about it, event timers rely on their emotions. They are very attuned to their emotions because they rely on that all the time to decide when to move from one activity to the next. Clock timers, on the other hand, they don't need to be attuned to their emotions because they surrender to the clock. The problem is, psychologists now know that in order to be happy, we need to be attuned to our emotions, and particularly, we need to be able to savor positive emotions. That is a critical antecedent of happiness. And what we find is that clock timers are less able and even timers to savor positive experiences.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

Tell me, Tell Me more about this when you say that clock timers can't savor positive experiences as much as event.

[Ann Laura Selye]

Timers if you rely more on your internal senses and better when you're even time rather than clock time, you savor more everything. So. And we find that literally with food. So we find that the more clock time you are, the more likely you are to add salt and spices to your food, which we suppose is because you find that the spice free dish is not tasty enough. Even timers, they eat bread, they taste every bit of bread. And we found more generally that all the positive emotions that we feel, even timers, fill them. More. More intensity of every positive emotion and a better ability to sustain that emotion over time. You and I go hiking, we get to the top of that mountain, the view is incredible. We experience awe. The even time, you let's make you the even time. It's the good role. You take it in, you go wow, wow. You just take it in, right? The clock time me goes like, wow, okay, all right. Time to go down. And we find that consistently, we found it repeatedly across emotions, across samples that the more you rely on the clock, the less you're able to savor. And that obviously is extremely sad for well being. Do you think the person who is relying on the clock is in control? Actually, we find precisely the opposite. We find that the reason you rely on the clock is because you're not in control. So it's a bit like a crutch. We think that people who tend to prefer the clock have a harder time maybe to connect with their internal sense. We know that some people are less connected to their inner emotions than others. In contrast to what we think of when we think of the clock time person, we think of that lawyer very much on top of things, right? Punctual and there and like almost anal about time and super in control. Control freak. Actually not that much. They need that external device to monitor themselves.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

Is the takeaway message that you need to listen to your instincts but also be flexible and adaptive to your surroundings when it comes to how you structure your day and perceive time.

[Ann Laura Selye]

The takeaway message is that both clock time and event time are awesome, number one, right? I'm not claiming, we're not claiming that one is better than the other, but indeed one is better than the other at a given moment. If I need to be in class at 9, clock time is better. I'd better leave Paris at 7:30 to be traffic to make sure that I'm in front of that amphitheater on time. Yeah. If I'm on that beach watching that sunset, even time is better. If I'm playing with my child or my child is playing with another child, even time is better. Children function in even time. Little children, until they read time, we teach them to read time. Think of it, right? It always cracks me up when I see parents of very young kids who are like, honey, five minutes and we're leaving and you can see the child looking at them. What does that mean? No clue. Right. So a better answer is, honey, you play a little more and then we're going to go. So you can still signal that you have to go soon. But referring to minutes or to clock time, it makes no sense. The takeaway is think that these two things exist and embrace what feels better for you at a given time.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

That's Ann Laura Sellier. She is a professor of behavioral sciences at HEC Paris. You can watch her full talk at ted.NPR.org today on the show how we Shape Our Days. I'm Anoush Zamorodi, and you're listening to NPR's Ted Radio Hour. Stay with us.

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[Ann Laura Selye]

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[Manoush Zamorodi]

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[Ann Laura Selye]

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[Oliver Burkeman]

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[Manoush Zamorodi]

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[Manoush Zamorodi]

This message comes from NPR sponsor Viking. Committed to exploring the world in comfort. Journey through the heart of Europe on an elegant Viking longship with thoughtful service, destination focused dining and cultural enrichment on board and onshore. And every Viking voyage is all inclusive with no children and no casinos. Discover [e-mail] it's the TED Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Minouche Zumarodi. Today on the show, how we shape our days. Many of us start off our day with a plan, a plan to get through our email, our home repair tasks or that ever growing to do list. And then just as often we fail and we think, you know, I didn't get anything done. I must be doing this all wrong. There must be a better way.

[Oliver Burkeman]

Yeah, I was on some level looking for the silver bullet because I actually was quite interested in learning how to be less anxious and not feel so completely out of control and overwhelmed.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

This is author Oliver Berkman. Back in his 20s, an anxious and ambitious Oliver was a young journalist trying to meet his non stop deadlines.

[Oliver Burkeman]

I was sort of locked into this mindset where it was always after the next deadline that I was going to finally figure out what I was doing and finally stop just subsisting on pizza and soda and finally stop ignoring my social life. And I was thinking that there was going to be one system or philosophy or book or technique or gadget that was going to finally deliver me this sense of being on top of things and in control, and all I had to do was follow that set of rules and life would be smooth sailing from then on.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

Oliver tried method after method, from Inbox zero to Design thinking. And he wrote up his wry critiques of all these methodologies in a weekly dispatch for the Guardian called this column will change your life. The name was Tongue in Cheek. And as the years went by, he came to an existential conclusion.

[Oliver Burkeman]

If you look around for that for many years and you write about it and you read and test things out and you never find it, I think you begin to think maybe the question I'm asking is somehow the wrong, the wrong question here.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

Instead of asking how to optimize every day, he decided to ask, why bother? The answer was profound.

[Oliver Burkeman]

Our lives are short. Specifically, they're finite, right? And that finitude, that basic limitation really courses through, you know, all our lives and everything that we do in our lives. But we spend a lot of time, a lot of effort trying to avoid it, trying not to think about it, trying to feel less limited than we are. And I think a lot of the kind of quote unquote bad self help and productivity advice is ultimately helping in psychological avoidance rather than the job it should be doing, which is bringing the most richness and depth and meaning to the time that we that we do have.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

Confronting his own mortality and giving up on productivity ironically launched Oliver career as a self help writer. His first book, the Antidote, came out in 2012. It critiqued positive thinking and encouraged people to, well, feel badly.

[Oliver Burkeman]

Perhaps one way of putting it is that it's good to experience failure and goallessness and unhappiness and all these things, but I guess more so that a lot of what goes on in classic positive thinking is really to do with shutting out at least half of the human experience and sort of deeming it unacceptable.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

He followed up in 2021 with the best selling 4,000 weeks, the average time he estimated that each one of us gets on this planet. For those maybe who aren't familiar, 4,000 weeks. And I don't say this to be glib, but it is as though the Grim Reaper wrote a productivity book.

[Oliver Burkeman]

Yes, the sort of overarching thesis is that both acknowledging and even embracing our limited time and our limited control over how our time unfolds is actually a path to a much more fulfilling engagement with life. I was trying to sort of synthesize all of that in the context of too many emails, endless to do lists, feeling ever more impatient as the speed of society accelerates, but you're still stuck in a traffic jam or can't get a web page to load, etc. Etc. Etc. So it was really a way of relating differently to our kind of absolutely non negotiable limitations as humans.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

So that brings us to your latest book, which is meditations for four weeks to embrace your limitations and make time for what counts. At first I thought this was going to be literally a meditation, sit down, close your eyes sort of thing, but it's not that. Tell us what the book's about.

[Oliver Burkeman]

Yeah, for me this book is much more about the sort of challenge of actually doing the things that you know you want to do with your finite time on the planet. Right. It's sort of going from the knowing to the. To the doing. And so I really wanted to try to write a book that you could sort of read, not wait to implement until your inbox is under control, because when's that going to happen? But sort of read right in the middle of all of that overwhelm and sort of subtly perhaps influence how you handle life right here and now, instead of, you know, building up this whole perfectionistic notion of total transformation later, which is actually less effective anyway. So it's actually not really transformation at all.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

One of the things in particular that you talk about is this idea of having to make choices. That it feels like, you know, the world is your oyster, as the cliche goes. But actually sometimes you need to sit down and make some hard decisions and ask yourself some hard questions. Would you mind reading us the passage that starts on page 47?

[Oliver Burkeman]

Yeah, absolutely. Looking at things this way, indeed you might argue that making a decision is the defining act of the limit embracing life. As we've already seen, the fact that your time is limited, plus the reality that you can only ever be in one place at any instant, means that in every moment you're opting not to take a thousand alternative paths through life. From each of these paths branch another thousand alternatives. And so endlessly on, like a vast river delta through which you could only follow any one of an immense variety of streams, but only one. That's why indecision can feel so oddly comfortable. It's a form of postponement, a temporary avoidance of the painful sacrifices involved. Put differently, it's a way of trying to dodge the inevitability of the consequences of your actions. To make a decision, any decision, is to take ownership of the situation. Instead, it takes a little willpower. But the reward is usually an immediate boost of motivation. As you withdraw your psychological energies from denial or avoidance and focus them on action, momentum starts to gather and each decision proves easier to take than the last.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

I love that because I am a person who wants it all. I'm incredibly greedy. I want everything in life. And that voraciousness is impossible. It's impossible. And I know you hear a lot from readers about how your thinking and your ideas affect them and how they implement them. What are some of the things you hear about people when it comes to decision making and deciding that productivity might look different than they thought it would?

[Oliver Burkeman]

I mean, one of the things I'm at pains to say in that chapter and elsewhere is that this kind of spirit of facing up to decision and being willing to understand that you're always deciding anyway. So the question is, are you going to do it? You're always gonna. The only question is, are you gonna do it consciously or are you going to pretend that you're not doing it? Like I'm always at pains to emphasize that I. For me, this is very much a kind of moment to moment kind of thing. It's about little decisions, it's about navigating through life in this spirit, not necessarily ever making, you know, grand gesture type type decisions, but, but really about sort of the, the general bearing. Now I guess that, you know, I do hear from people who've, who've found that to be useful just on that day to day level. But I think you some sort of selection bias means that I'm more likely to hear from people who've kind of made big life changes, as they put it, as a result of reading my book. Now maybe this is self protective, but I have a theory that it isn't really just like I came along and changed everything for them. I think that it's. I'm really fascinated actually by this idea of permission. It seems like all of us, definitely me included, are constantly sort of looking for permission from some other source.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

Yes.

[Oliver Burkeman]

In order to sort of acknowledge what you already know. Right. So when I hear from people, and I do hear from people who have left usually certain career paths, but you know, marriages in one time or another and made other big changes or committed to new paths or gone back to university or something like this, I am pretty confident this was a choice that they were very nearly ready to make. This was something that had been sort of happening underneath the radar of consciousness. And I think what I, where I step in there sometimes or where my writing steps in there is kind of takes away one option which was. Or one seeming option which was that there might be a way of kind of just completely avoiding making a decision. I think when you see that you're always choosing anyway, it's very relaxing. Ultimately it's stressful at first, but then it's like, oh, okay, well, there isn't a version of this rest of my life that involves not sacrificing. So the question is, which sacrifice am I prepared to make?

[Manoush Zamorodi]

I mean, there's a risk, right? Like there's a risk inherent in that you may not find a relationship that is better. You may have regrets. What do you tell people about that?

[Oliver Burkeman]

Well, I think that that sort of points to the deepest part of this for me, which is that although it is obviously very important whether you have a happy relationship and a successful career and all of these things, it's sort of ultimately most important that you lived with sort of openness to that possibility, that you took the plunge, that you bet on yourself instead of against yourself, and that you sort of stepped into life in its most intense kind of engagement and that ultimately you would rather have taken that risk and had it not work out than not to have taken the risk at all.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

This is reminding me of my own experience with one of my kids who had to decide which college to go to. And he kept being like, well, how do I know if it's the right decision? And I was like, guess what? No decision is ever right. It's just that it's a decision and it's up to you to make it and then move forward and try to make it positive. You know, we sat down, we wrote the pros and cons of each of these places.

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And.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

And then I asked him, I was like, let's look at each of your options and think of what it could be. Let's envision it. If it goes right, which one is most appealing, then. Yeah. And I think, good job, Mom. I'd like to think that it helped sound.

[Oliver Burkeman]

It sounds like you're a brilliant mom.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

It was hard for me. I was like, God. I was like, is this right? I don't know. Right again, parenting also not right.

[Oliver Burkeman]

Yeah, parenting is a whole. This is a whole domain for all these ideas and dilemmas. Absolutely. I think we're sort of in the terrain here of sort of existentialist philosophy. Right. I'm not a. I'm not an expert, but I think it's. It's this idea that actually another. Another version of what you said, Jokid, I think, could have been that kind of. What makes it the right decision is. Is the spirit in which it's. In which it's taken.

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Which.

[Oliver Burkeman]

Which is. Yeah. That full responsibility is taken for it. That, that as much as one can. That you do it in awareness of what you're giving up. And I would add. Yes, I think you're absolutely right. Like, you do it on the basis of the best, like, reasonably likely case scenario. You don't. You don't just live. Do it on the basis of pure sort of defensiveness against the worst case. So that's been a big thing for me actually, personally, you know, this idea that what. What ultimately matters is that I'm living in a certain way or engaging with life in a certain way. And that does matter ultimately more than any individual result that that comes from that. Although that could be very, very hard wisdom to stomach at many points in life.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

Well, particularly now, when to be a successful author, which you are, requires not just writing books that people like. It's much more than that. It's having a presence. It's creating quote, unquote content. It's audience engagement. There's so many slightly nauseating terms that we can throw around about how you frankly, Make a living as someone who writes about ideas. How do you do that?

[Oliver Burkeman]

Yeah, I mean, stumblingly and imperfectly. And I think I have a better appreciation than I did about the fact that if there were 100 hours in each day and you had a team of 100, you could find work to be done. So the more I feel my way into that, the easier it gets to just sort of be more true to what I'm interested in doing and write and post things that I feel have life in them for me. And what you find, what I've found again and again, is that actually that works better anyway. I think people are really hungry for the human and the real and the alive. And I think what that points to for anyone who's involved in this kind of business is actually towards kind of embracing your idiosyncrasies and doing the things that you feel excited to do and not doing the things you feel less excited to do and less focus on the kind of very strategically designed personal brand or picking one niche and then relentlessly staying in it for fear of diluting your message.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

I'm curious, what is giving you hope right now about how people are rethinking time and where they put their energy? Because I'm also just watching people are saying, oh, this is the end of social media, as they sort of. That there's a. There is a sense of disillusionment, but also a sense that you can't exist without it. Tell me what you're hearing.

[Oliver Burkeman]

Yeah, it's really interesting. I. I think what gives me hope is that there is a kind of a seeing through the kind of greatest, most wild promises of this kind of technological change. Right. There is a healthy awareness that convenience has come with all these costs. I do think, you know, I was so lucky to sort of be coming of age when personal computer technology was at the stage that it was full of promise, but still fundamentally kind of, you know, a machine in the. In one room that you went to use for a while and then. And then stopped. But I feel like there's a new tone. Like even just a while ago, a few years ago, people spoke about, like digital detox, for example, in this spirit of kind of where you've just got to try to defend against total distraction and misery. And now I do feel that people are understanding more, that this is about stepping more fully into life. Right? That, that. I mean, even just to be able to have that feeling that there isn't enough kind of human reality in your day because of the situation that you live in technologically, economically or like. Even that represents a knowing that about what's important. And I think that is hopeful.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

When we come back, more with Oliver Berkman and how he's thinking about the AI siren call to more efficiency. On the show today, how we shape our days. I'm Anoush Zumarodi and you're listening to the TED Radio Hour from npr. We'll be right back. Foreign support for this podcast and the following message come from Recorded Future Every day, millions of cyber threats compete for attention, but only a few truly matter to your business. As a leading threat intelligence company, Recorded Future cuts through the noise with precision intelligence. That's why top banks and governments trust them, because security leaders don't just react, they foresee spotting the signals that others miss and acting before threats become setbacks. Recorded Future Know what matters. Act first Support for NPR and the following message come from UKG UKG is the workforce operating platform that puts workforce understanding to work with a large collection of workforce Insights and People First AI. UKG's HR pay and workforce management tools help business leaders build trust and amplify productivity and empower their people. Because when work works, everything works. Learn [e-mail] work UKG, HR pay and workforce management. This message comes from Square Every business has different goals. Square banking can help you achieve your goals with more control over your cash flow and access to capital built into the same square system where you run your business. Go to square.com goradiohour to learn about how your business can grow with Square Block, Inc. Is not a bank. Banking services provided by Square Financial Services, Inc. Member FDIC Square Checking provided by Sutton Bank Member FDIC Loans are subject to credit approval.

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[Manoush Zamorodi]

It'S the TED Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Minouche Zumarodi. Today on the show, how we shape our days. We were just talking to Oliver Berkman, whose latest book is called Meditations for Four Weeks to Embrace youe Limitations and Make Time for what counts. It's daily thought exercises about mortality and what humans can accomplish. Something that AI is promising, they can overcome.

[Oliver Burkeman]

There's something important about the kind of the effect of generative AI on certainly any industry that involves sort of, you know, writing about things and talking about things. That is, there's something about those large language models that is exerts a Pressure towards the generic in quite a subtle way. Like, I'm not making the argument that the only thing that ChatGPT does is to regurgitate plagiarized sentences. I think there's an argument there too, but that's a sort of simple version of this. There's something about the whole way that those things work, to the extent that I understand how they work, that is sort of exerting a force towards sameness. And that you can, I believe, I hope, I think, make a living setting yourself against that rather than just joining the race to the most generic place.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

So I'm having a very strange experience with it. I'm actually really enjoying it, and it's kind of messing with my head in that I think it might be able to make me more efficient. Oliver. And yet I worry that it's tricking me into thinking that, yeah, I have.

[Oliver Burkeman]

To say, at this point, I do find that I really don't want to be using generative AI for any but a very sort of specific, delineated set of tasks. So I think there is this phenomenon where convenience things that strike us as very convenient have this repeating tendency to involve getting rid of not just the effort that we wanted to save, but also the very kinds of friction and engagements that made the thing worth doing in the first place. So I think that's. I think that's an important distinction. I feel like I can sort of imagine and start to put different AI use cases into those two buckets. Like, well, in this case, I'm just completely happy not to have that task in my life anymore. But in the other case, like, there could be quite a lot going on that I don't realize I. I will miss when I'm. When it's not happening inside my own conscious mind. For a long time there was this sort of debate going on, which on one side had people claiming that, you know, an LLM would never be able to write a novel as to as high a standard as a great human novelist. And on the other side, kind of, you know, AI boosters saying, like, that's ridiculous. And I found myself realizing the really important thing for me in reading a novel written by a human is not that only a human could have written it. It's the fact that a human did write it, and it's the fact that I'm in some kind of relationship with a conscious emoting sensibility. That's what matters the most. And I'm always a bit flummoxed when AI people talk as if sentient. So this Consciousness is kind of beside the point somehow, because it's the thing that gives meaning to everything we do.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

So you're helping me articulate. Not to be devil's advocate, but one of the things I'm starting to think about is, is not that it's sentient, but that it's collective. That actually, when I'm talking to an LLM, that it's, you know, the only thing it's basing its responses on is what humans have put in to begin with. And so it's taking the essence of humanity. That's not to say the best of humanity, but there is something. It's pulling, like the most intense flavors of humanity in some ways and giving them to me. And that's for better or worse. Like, I find that really interesting, that it's almost like I'm not talking to a machine, but I'm talking to everyone.

[Ann Laura Selye (continued)]

Is that.

[Oliver Burkeman]

Does that make any sense? It does make sense, and I can see it. But I guess to me it's kind of an averaging out in a way that I think is different than what you might mean by something collective. Like if 100 people gather in a room and have a really interesting, well structured sequence of conversations and debates. That's one thing. And on the other hand, there is that sense of just sort of averaging out. You know, it's like they. You see things in magazines, whatever, where they've sort of taken the average of 200 faces.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

Yes.

[Oliver Burkeman]

And it's the imaginary person who results from that is always kind of basically good looking because that's how looks and attractiveness and averages work. But also kind of like there's something missing.

[NPR Sponsor Announcer]

Right.

[Oliver Burkeman]

Like no unique identifying characteristics.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

Yes. That spark the weirdness.

[Oliver Burkeman]

Yeah, totally.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

I want to circle back to a lot of these ideas as I read your meditations from mortals. I have to. Not that I've figured it out, but some of these ideas I definitely felt like, oh, that used to bother me when I was younger. How much are some of these questions about just being a young person in the world and trying to figure out how to live a life?

[Oliver Burkeman]

I. I think that's a really. A really good point. Like, do you just have to kind of live for some years in order to come into these insights? Is it something that just comes primarily through sort of amassing experience of being alive with all its sort of failures and frustrations and. And difficulties? I am much less anxious than I was and much less obsessed with trying to find a way to do absolutely everything and much less anguished by sort of people pleasing tendencies, but 100% those things come back in a new form, in a deeper form, so it doesn't stop. And I really like a lot of writing in the Zen Buddhist tradition which focuses on this notion of saying that the problem that we encounter is thinking that there must be a solution to our situation. So one of the quotes I use in the epigraph at the beginning of 4,000 weeks is from the American Zen teacher Charlotte Jocko Beck, who says, what makes it unbearable is your mistaken belief that it can be cured. And I really love the kind of bracing, cold blast of air that is for me encapsulated in that. It's like the problem is not that you haven't figured everything out, got on top of everything, reached a position of perfect control. The only problem is thinking that it was ever on the cards for you to do that. I want to make the case and I deeply want to believe that it's precisely through this kind of acceptance that we are liberated to do the most that we could do and live the most sort of accomplished and interesting and difference making lives that we that we can. So it's not at all about sort of sighing and resigning yourself to the fact that you can't do very much. It's about seeing how vividly you can do a few things when you're no longer chasing these, these mirages of not really being finite.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

That was writer Oliver Berkman. His latest book is called Meditations for four weeks to embrace your limitations and make time for what counts. You can see his [e-mail] we wanted to end our show with a different perspective on how we make decisions about what we do every day. Ayelet Fischbach is a professor of behavioral science who studies motivation and she says learning how to keep yourself going and avoid distractions and temptations, it is something you can teach yourself. Here she is on the TED stage.

[Ayelet Fishbach]

A good friend has recently shared that she's feeling tired. Like really tired. Not I did not get enough sleep tired, but something deeper than that. She said she feels, and I'm quoting, as if I have lost my motivation. She's so clearly dedicated to her job and conducts herself with professionalism and kindness. She's a wonderful parent who cares for her children and she's very responsible when it gets to her finance and health. She is not alone in feeling unmotivated. Millennial and Gen Z employees tell me that they feel uninspired at work. Some admit that they just don't care. All their employees tell me that they can't wait to retire. Did America lose its motivation? Well, the answer is no turnout. You cannot lose your motivation because you never owned it in the first place. Motivation, and that shouldn't surprise you, isn't your car key or wallet. So what is it? Motivation is not about being strong. It's about being wise. Let me explain. To be motivated, you either change the situation or the way you think about the situation. This is the science. In one sentence, you change the circumstances or the way you think about the circumstances. So if you want to be more physically active, there is no point in yelling at yourself. I yell it. You should walk more instead. I got a puppy. She loves long walks. Your journey starts with setting a goal. My friend wanted to be motivated at work, so she identified a project she wanted to complete. That was her goal. And it's a good motivation strategy. Goals pull you the problem. My friend identified a project she wished she had already completed, not something she was looking forward to doing. Have you ever set a goal you wish you had already completed but had less interest in actually completing? In our research, we found that most goals are abandoned not because they are not important. Most goals are abandoned because people don't enjoy pursuing it. Your enjoyment is what predicts whether you will stick with the goal. Okay, so you set a goal that is intrinsically motivated. A couple of weeks passed and you have not been doing much lately. How do you sustain your motivation? How do you get from here to there? Well, motivation is going to be high when we just start on something and toward the end, but it will decline in the middle. We call it the middle problem. My friend might start her project with much enthusiasm. Then her motivation will decline toward the deadline. It will pick up again. She will regain her motivation. A few years ago, we asked people to observe the Hanukkah holy day to let us know whether they were lighting the first candle of the first night, the second on the second night, the third night, so on until the eighth night. Most people admitted to only lighting the candles. On the first and last nights. They were procrastinating in the middle. The solution? Make middles short. A monthly exercise goal, a weekly exercise goal, even a daily exercise goal are easier because as the end is near, it is easier to stay motivated. If only Hanukkah was just two nights. Some goals, let's call them temptations, should take less form on your plate. However, instead of trying to push them out of mind, it might be wise to anticipate them in advance. When you anticipate all the alcohol that will be served here later today, you can better control your consumption. When I anticipate that my colleague is going to be upset, I can better control my emotion in a heated debate at work. In one study, when we reminded employees of all the times they will be tempted to take office supply for personal use, they were less likely to do that compared to those in the control group. Anticipating temptations make you prepared and hence less tempted.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

All right.

[Ayelet Fishbach]

What about the person sitting next to you? Look at them for a second. I will be waiting here. Your friends, your family and other people that you love are critical for your motivation. They are your lighthouse. And you are also important for them in your life. You work with other people. Maybe together. You take care of your pet. You work in the presence of other people. Maybe those are the people in your gym class. So in your booklet, you hold goals for others. They hold goals for you. This might be a good time to say thank you to the person sitting next to you. I will be waiting here. My friend came to me not only because I am a motivation scientist, but also because I am her friend and as such, I wanted her to be successful. You may wonder what happened to her. Well, she stayed at her job. Last time I saw her, her smile seemed bigger. She did not find her motivation. She learned how to motivate yourself. And so, no, America, you did not lose your motivation. Each of you is working hard, pursuing your dreams. Dreams, balancing the different aspects of your life. And it is so important, especially in the world we live in today. So when you feel discouraged, when you feel unmotivated, remember, motivation is not about being strong. It is about being wise. And now we are all wiser. Thank you.

[Manoush Zamorodi]

That was Ayelet Fishbaugh. She's a professor at Bay Behavioral Science and Marketing at the University of Chicago and the author of Get It Done. Surprising Lessons from the Science of Motivation. You can see her full [e-mail] thank you so much for listening to our show today. If you got something out of it, we would love to hear from you. What did you like specifically or not? Leave us a comment on Spotify or email us TED radio [e-mail] we read every comment and we love hearing from you. This episode was produced by Katie Monteleone, James Delahousy and Fiona Guerin. It was edited by Sanaz Meshkinpour and me. Our production staff at NPR also includes Rachel Faulkner White, Matthew Cloutier, Harsha Nahada and Phoebe Lett. Our executive producer is Irene Noguchi. Our audience, Simon Jensen and and David Greenberg. Our theme music was written by Ramtin Arablouei Our partners at TED are Chris Anderson, Roxanne Hylash and Daniela Bellarezzo. I'm Manoush Zamorodi and you've been listening to the TED radio hour from NPR.

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[Manoush Zamorodi]

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