Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

Productivity, or the science of getting the most out of one’s time, has been a Western preoccupation since the Calvinist Protestant work ethic took over from the Ancient Greek philosophy that leisure and time for contemplation was the highest good. While the aristocrats of the Classical world sought to maximize time away from work and duty, the 16th-century Northern European Calvinist Christians, many of whom emigrated to America, strove to prove their elect status (the fact that they were destined to go to heaven) through “relentless hard work” (149). However, the Calvinists’ attitude toward work really became mainstream after the Industrial Revolution of the early 19th century, which prescribed long, fixed labor hours and a slim slice of leisure time. While, as Oliver Burkeman shows, workers wanted to relax in their time off, the social reformers who negotiated the two-day weekend opined that they should be using their spare time for acts of self-improvement, such as visiting museums and learning new skills. This was only exacerbated in the early 20th century, where the cult of personality aided by technologies such as film and radio left many people eager to emerge above the crowd and do something eminent with their lives.