4 Books That Have Radically Changed The Way I Manage My Time

And the lessons from each one that have shaped my daily practices

Katie E. Lawrence
4 min readAug 6, 2024
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It’s funny to me how much of our life we spend trying to manage it. Ever since I started high school, I’ve been fascinated with how to best spend my time — oftentimes to a neurotic level.

At fourteen years old, I was already obsessed with planners, self-help books, calendar systems, and how to get my work done efficiently.

“You may delay, but time will not.” — Benjamin Franklin

But these four books, which I’m about to list, stopped me in my tracks. They didn’t just help me manage my time; they helped me understand time better and grasp it as my own as I shaped my life into what I wanted it to be.

Here they are:

#1: Four Thousand Weeks

In his book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, Oliver Burkeman paints a beautiful picture of how little precious time we have.

He’s a journalist with a passion for getting comfortable with mortality and helps you gain the same by the end of this book.

“The world is bursting with wonder, and yet it’s the rare…

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Katie E. Lawrence

Soon to be B.S. in Human Development & Family Science. I write about life, love, stories, psychology, family, technology, and how to do life better together.