oliver burkeman Archives

Everything Else ➤ 6th June 2023

The 4 Books That Shaped My Professional Life

If you're an avid reader like me, there'll have been so many books that they begin to merge and mesh. It's a magical thing when you read a book, and it not only stands out and sticks with you, but it changes your entire trajectory. That's what these four books did for me - they shaped my professional life in ways I couldn't have imagined.

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Writing ➤ 30th May 2023

The Two Reasons I Gave Self-Publishing A Go

My first four books were traditionally published. Between them, they sold over 60,000 copies. It was a dream come true. So, why then give self-publishing a go? There were two reasons.

Everything Else ➤ 26th March 2024

The Reason Why ‘Thinking Positive’ Isn’t Always Easy

The negative stuff tends to shine like a beacon, roar like a lion and refuse to retreat. Positive stuff does happen, and we actively look for it, but it always feels outnumbered by the rough stuff, which starts to make us feel that we're doing something wrong, that we're broken, that we're really unlucky. Or all of the above.

Everything Else ➤ 5th April 2024

Self-Care For When Life Gives You Lemons

We’ve all had ‘those’ days which have rolled into two, maybe three, possibly a week, a month, a year – a stretch of time when it feels as though life is just pelting lemons at us, repeatedly. A chaotic patch of life which tests our resolve to the limit. Everything that could go wrong does go wrong. We’re beyond stressed. We’re at our wits’ end. Kerplunked. Problem-solving takes brainpower, courage and resilience. It’s hard to pick ourselves up again, and again, and again. The knee-jerk reaction is to keep ploughing on but it rarely all goes away without a re-steering of the ship.

Writing ➤ 10th January 2025

I’m A Writer And These Are My (Current) Thoughts On AI

AI, for writers, is a minefield. There’s the plagiarism, the ickiness that someone can so easily mimic our writing style, cadence and tone, the misuse of intellectual property rights, the risk of our jobs being...

DIY Projects + Crafts ➤ 12th October 2023

A Christmas Gift Guide for Pre-Teen Girls

I do not like choosing gifts for people. In fact, it's a huge source of stress for me. Will they like it? Do they already have it? What if they pretend to like it? What if they're disappointed? Thankfully, we have a long-held family tradition of sharing gift lists and I'm really grateful we do. With that in mind, and because this pre-teen age is one I find tricky to buy for, I roped Peggy into helping me craft this gift guide for pre-teen girls in the hope it'll help you in the same way our lists help me.

Writing ➤ 4th April 2023

Getting to Know Yourself: Journal Prompts for Self-Reflection and Growth

Life can be all go-go-go; busy, overwhelming, full to the rafters of responsibilities. All of the doing and showing-up can leave us little time to tune-into ourselves; to reflect on who we are, what we...

DIY Projects + Crafts ➤ 6th December 2024

My ‘With A Little Something-Something’ Christmas Cranberry Sauce

This cranberry sauce recipe of mine has stood the test of time. Born out of a Christmas where we made hampers as gifts and had some vodka and Cointreau lying about. As I was making...

Everything Else ➤ 6th June 2023

How to Make Sure You’re Getting the 7 Types of Rest You Need

Rest doesn’t just occur when we’re asleep. In fact, if we spend our days zipping and zooming from one task to another, multi-tasking and switching between tasks willy-nilly, then when we lay down at night, our brain will probably start swimming through all that happened, might happen, or will happen. Sleep might feel elusive. This is because we haven’t had enough rest during the day or not enough of the right type of rest.

Everything Else ➤ 19th April 2024

Interesting Things I Found On The Internet This Week

Gosh, how lucky we are to live in an age where everything we want to know and learn is available on the internet at the tippity-tap of our fingertips?! When I think of all of the questions I used to ask my mum was I was younger and how difficult it must have been for her to get access to the answers she didn't know compared with how easily we just 'look things up' now... This week, I came across a few really cool and interesting things on the internet. Some of them, sososo helpful, that I couldn't help but want to share. So, here we are!

DIY Projects + Crafts ➤ 1st November 2023

6 Skillshare Workshops for Keen Christmas Crafters

There's something magical about filling your home with your own crafted creations. Building a stash of lovingly made objects which can be kept and re-used year on year. Using existing skills or learning new ones, just brings with it a sense of achievement and sentimentality.

Jayne Hardy

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