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Comment by charles_f | Hacker News Reader

I'm in the middle of the book, it's very inspirational. This websites great, thanks!

Does the book have any good insights?

From reviews, I kind of perceived it's only about limiting work in progress and adopting a more slow and human approach to things.

I feel these insights were already brought by many industrial production methodologies, e.g. Toyota, in a more rational and less newage-y package. Am I missing something?

Its from the perspective of someone who was obsessed with productivity porn coming to terms with the idea that none of that will ever actually work. He addresses why he thinks that and supports it with different ideas. I don't think anything is new, but he takes disjointed ideas and kind of puts it all together from his perspective. I thought it was interesting and it was a quick read.

I think this is a good description. What I missed from some other comments on HN that were complementary to the book is how personal it is. I think people who are already familiar with Oliver would enjoy it best.

Some sections were so specific to a certain type of guy, but phrased as if everyone will relate to it. I still liked it overall, but it really is for "productivity porn" strivers with a certain background. I mean, I go on HN, I'm familiar with GTD and pomodoro, I'm anxious about my own achievement, I kinda thought I was that guy. But after reading 4000 weeks, I could be like, ok, wow, uh, interesting things to chew on, but these are not really my problems.

(And I am still baffled by the idea that people would look down on you for having hobbies. Is this a British thing? Do I have to ascend a social sphere to get this? Because if I am chatting with some pals, let's say could be a few other engineers, miscellaneous office workers, various retail, service and trades, well... what is going to come up? bowling, maybe model kits, horror movies, booze? Are we going to discourse seriously about public affairs? Maybe someone thinks my motor controller firmware I worked on that day is cool, but I don't really want to talk about it)

This makes me wonder if any books have been written about Toyota’s engineering practices / just in time production / production and logistics in general. I’m sure it would be fascinating.

Yes, there are a few real Toyota method books.

I feel lots of lean and kanban literature misses the point and it's a far cry from the real thing.

Toyota placed a lot of emphasis on producing things without alienating humans. E.g., they tried to remove muri, unreasonable burden on people.

Other lesser known engineering efforts approached the same problem from a different angle. E.g., Volvo attempted to build a plant that departed from Ford-type assemblies to improve worker satisfaction [1]. Volvo's approach was to let small groups build entire cars to give them a sense of connection. It was a success from a quality and cost perspective, but it never caught on.

[1] https://research.engr.oregonstate.edu/gwt/biblio/enriching-p...

This goes much beyond techniques and tools, this is very philosophical, about slowing down, adjusting your expectations, realizing that you live on borrowed time, that future-orientation makes us miserable, that a lot of our issues comes from the finitude of our lives, that we need to embrace it, etc.

I consider it one of the most important non-fiction books I’ve ever read. His thoughts on commitment, efficiency, planning, and distraction changed my perspective on work and life in general in many important ways. I listened to the whole book twice and have it on my nightstand to read again.

Someone mentioned this book recently on HN and I discovered I had already listened to section one of the audio version which I didn’t remember, so I listened to it again. This page seems to be a nice summary including the more practical advice later that I haven’t gotten to either time I started listening to it.

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