Author of Four Thousand Weeks Oliver Burkeman on How To Live Well (Part Two)

Welcome to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet. I'm producer Mia Sorenti. Today's episode is part two of our live conversation with Oliver Berkman, recorded recently at Union Chapel in London. If you haven't listened to part one yet, do just jump back an episode to catch up on the conversation. In this second half, Oliver continues his conversation with Tim Harford, diving deeper into the key ideas of his new book, Meditation for Mortals.

Together, they explore how to find clarity amid chaos, how to stop measuring life by to-do lists, and how to make time for what really matters. Let's return to their conversation now. Just to read a quote from the book, this is you quoting somebody else, by the way. My mum used to get really upset at what she perceived as my half-assing. I'm 48 now, have a PhD and a thriving and influential career, and I still think there is very little that's worthy of applying my whole entire ass.

I'm not interested in burning myself out by whole assing stuff that will be fine if I half or quarter ass it. Being able to achieve maximum economy of ass is an important adult skill. Yeah, that's discuss. It's great. As you say, it's not me.

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