Have you got a to-do list that's three pages long, and getting longer by the day? Have you ever successfully "finished" all the work you have piled up? Is there some magical formula or trick or tip that'll help everything feel more manageable? 

Well, no, because we have a finite amount of time on our hands and we're not superhuman. Author Oliver Burkeman joined the season premiere of the Visiting Experts podcast to (gently) break it to us that striving for perfection is probably a fool's errand, and there really is not enough time to "do it all."  

Three key takeaways from the episode include:

• Accepting your limits can be liberating. Burkeman calls it the “liberation of defeat” — the moment you stop trying to master your inbox, conquer your to-do list, or control everything around you. There is no productivity hack that will help. Once you realize it’s impossible to “do it all,” you’re free to focus your time and energy on the handful of things that truly matter.
• Perfection can turn into an obsession with getting everything “just right," which can stall progress, paralyze decision-making and ironically put your career at risk.  Embracing “imperfectionism” can actually allow for meaningful work to get done.
• There's no such thing as a consequence-free choice. Every choice involves a trade-off: want to work late tonight to get ahead on a project? That might mean sacrificing time with your family. Want to prioritze work-life balance? That could result in slower career progression. The key is to make those trade-offs consciously, rather than chasing the illusion that you can avoid them altogether.

New episodes of Rotman Visiting Experts are released monthly on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon. Desktop listeners can also tune in on Simplecast.

Prefer to read than listen? Access the full transcript on Simplecast. 

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