Oliver Burkeman

Profile: Full name: Oliver Burkeman Area of interest: Current affairs, U.S. affairs, mental health, education, culture, celebrity Journals/Organisation: The Guardian Email: oliver.burkeman@guardian.co.uk Personal website: Website: Guardian.co / Oliver Burkeman Blogs: OliverBurkemanBlog | guardianblogs | theblogbooks Representation: Networks: twitter.com/oliverburkeman

Biography: About: Education: Huntington School, York; Cambridge University: BA (Hons) Social and Political Sciences Career: Guardian and Observer Syndication, writer and sub-editor, 1997/1998; The Observer, sub-editor, 1998/1999; Guardian features, 1999/2001; Guardian correspondent, New York & Washington DC, 2002/2003; Feature Writer, 2004- Current position/role: columnist also writes/has written for: Other roles/Main role: Other activities: Disclosures: Viewpoints/Insight: Broadcast media: Video: Controversy/Criticism: Awards/Honours: Foreign Press Association Young Journalist of the Year, 2002 Scoops: Other:

Books & Debate: Latest work: Speaking/Appearances: Debate:

The Guardian: Column name: This column will change your life Remit/Info: Investigates routes to mental well-being Section: Guardian Weekend pages Role: Columnist Pen-name: Email: oliver.burkeman@guardian.co.uk Website: Guardian.co / This Column Will Change Your Life Commissioning editor: Day published: Saturday Regularity: Weekly Column format: Average length: 500 words see also All the president's emails

Articles: 2011 Rules - Perhaps what we need is some rules for interpreting all these rules... - 30th April Get into the habit of random rewards - Can 'intermittent variable rewards' help you become addicted to more positive behaviours? - 23rd April Let's get physical - Can mental challenges have simple physical fixes - 16th April Spring makeover: decluttering - Does clutter indicate a spiritual burden – or a full life? - 9th April Existential indifference - Am I really bovvered if my life lacks meaning - 2nd April Advice from the dying - Before you go, make a to-do list... - 26th March The calm before the storm - Calmness is over-rated. But then again, being hyper isn't the answer either. Maybe there's a third way… - 19th March The emotional calendar - In a funk? It must be sprin - 12th March Weighty issues - Can a diet plan double as a new life plan - 5th March Donald Rumsfeld does the book tour - The former US defence secretary's appearance on The Daily Show was far from funny – America can't expect comics to hold politicians to account - 2nd March The waiting-for list - Happiness is luxuriating in the satisfaction of knowing you're more organised than others - 26th February Weighty issues - Can a diet plan double as a new life plan - 19th February Mediocrity sucks, but who cares? - Others being lazy and selfish merely gives us a good excuse to behave likewise - 12th February The multitasker's lot is not always a happy one the best - The pros and cons of uni- and multitasking - 5th February Has thinking outside the box had its day? - A rethink can be just as good as a whole new thought-process - 29th January Is Tim Ferriss for real? - Success means people hate what you do… or so many self-help gurus would have us believe - 22nd January Written all over your face? - Can people really see what we are thinking? - 15th January Vaguely familiar - Life's too short to spend chasing specific goals all the time; that would be both exhausting and dispiriting. It pays to vague out every now and then - 8th January Abandon your resolutions. Stop looking for your soulmate. Reject positive thinking - Our new year issue kicks off with advice on how to be a better person in 2011 (and it's not what you think) - 1st January

Articles: 2010 Tis the season to get work done - 'Meetings stop, managers relax, the phone stops ringing, and (in my experience, anyhow) stuff can finally get done' - 18th December With friends like these… - We all know not to judge a book by its cover, so why do we take people we 'meet' on social networking sites at face value? - 12th December The power of persuasion - Is reasoning your way to a decision, or being convinced by others' arguments, any better than trusting your gut? - 27th November Note-taking - There's been a revolution in this alarmingly complex, cognitive affair that has plagued humanity for centuries - 20th November This column will change your life: Watch out for superachievers - They could wear you out - 13th November What's the worst that could happen? - Failure is an inevitable consequence of the human condition. It's how we deal with it that's more important - 6th November The truth about cats and dogs - What do our relationships with pets tell us about ourselves? - 30th October Multiple choice - Our impulses are often contradictory – the shopaholic versus the wise spender, the exercise fiend versus the couch potato – but we can control which one prevails - 23rd October The wit and wisdom of Mark Twain - Today's happiness gurus should follow the master and learn how to laugh - 16th October Sealing off worries - 'This is an old notion, surfacing in the idea of the "worry jar" ' - 9th October The 'cult of less' - Is the decluttering trend simply an exercise in obsession? - 2nd October To be or not to be taken for granted - 'There's something about taking people for granted that's indicative of a good relationship' - 25th September Who cares if Christine O'Donnell's a witch - I'm not sure I'd mind a genuinely Wiccan president just so long as there's a sensible rationalist in charge of America's science policy - 21st September (Comment) Weirdness just got weirder - We're all born Weird, but some are born more weird than others - 18th September The Protestant work ethic - No pain, no gain? Not if you want to get some real work done... - 11th September This column will change your life: Power to the people… or not - 'To be happier you have to turn sad thoughts and feelings into happy ones. Right?' - 4th September Politeness enforcement tactics - Is that your bag on my seat? asks Oliver Burkeman, politely - 28th August Couch potatoes v creators - Is one really better than the other? - 21st August Just the job - Living to work? Working to live? There is another way… - 14th August This column will change your life: The art of remembering - Want a better memory? Here's how - 7th August Forgiveness - If hanging on to old resentments is bad for your health, what's the solution? - 31st July A step in the right direction - A simple walk out in the fresh air often helps focus the mind and clear it of those everyday concerns. But why? - 24th July This column will change your life: What I wish I'd known - Advice based on hindsight is false wisdom - 17th July This column will change your life: How real are your memories? - When it comes to recalling experiences, intensity matters more than duration - 10th July Is it really a case of innovate and die? - Is it better to be a copycat - 3rd July Trailblazing in cognitive therapy - Thirty years ago, a young pyschiatrist published a book called Feeling Good. What happened next? - 26th June This column will change your life: From alief to belief - How does even the rational mind respond to things that are not as they seem? - 19th June Don't look up - Being downbeat – can it really lead to joy - 12th June Why limiting the hours worked will increase output - 5th June This column will change your life: Make a book of your own - Don't know where to store all those random bits of information you scribble on Post-its, then lose? Oliver Burkeman has the answer - 29th May This column will change your life: Can't sleep, don't sleep - Should insomniacs embrace those unhappy sleepless hours and explore their existential possibilities? - 22nd May 2010 Why trivia is so important - 15th May This column will change your life - Are you an Asker or a Guesser? - 8th May Working with your hands: the secret to happiness? - Feel empty and unfulfilled? Tired all the time? Do you sit at your desk wondering what use your job is to anyone? Maybe you should do something practical - 8th May The beauty in imperfection - Take something irregular, rough-hewn, off-kilter, incomplete… and it's all the more desirable for its flaws - 24th April Spam - is email only the start? - We thought we'd dealt with Spam - but is it turning into a way of life? - 17th April Will the man with no head blow your mind? - Totally off-the-planet, but delightfully down-to-earth: Douglas Harding's memoir could be the most ridiculous or wisest thing you've ever read… - 10th April Is self-discipline the key to success? - Even a committed hedonistic life requires plenty of self-discipline: you need it actually to book the flight to Bali or to arrange the circumstances for wild sexual encounters - 3rd April The secret of good leadership - Are leaders simply the ones who decide they've got what it takes to lead? - 27th March What's your problem? - We live in a self-help culture that encourages us to fix ourselves – but are we sure we're really broken? - 20th March A frightening prospect - Why is it that we enjoy being scared half to death by films and books? - 13th March With friends like these… - Are our friends really little more than marketing tools with which we should improve our own lives? - 6th March This column will change your life: Is it really hip to be glum? - The surlier creative types and celebrities appear, the more we seem to revere and imitate them. But is there good reason to do so? - 27th February This column will change your life: Is the easy option simply mental laziness? - If something is easy to think about, we're more likely to think it preferable - 20th February Climate change: calling planet birth - Family size has become the great unmentionable of the campaign for more environmentally friendly lifestyles - 13th February Seven - a magic number? - Why are our lives ruled by this digit - 13th February The insulted and the injured - In former times, insulting someone's honour might lead to getting shot in the head, or sliced by a sword - 6th February Ever wondered why your friends seem so much more popular than you are? There's a reason for that - 30th January Short cuts for taking everyday decisions - We often find everyday decisions the most problematical, so it pays to have a few short cuts to help you reach the right ones - 23rd January To be or not to be… - It's 45 years since David Bourland suggested doing away with the verb "to be". A silly suggestion, one might think, but look a little closer and it makes a weird kind of sense - 16th January Sad Sundays - You couldn't invent a more dispiriting day if you tried, but why is that? - 9th January The number's up - When it comes to visualising huge sums – the distance to the moon, say, or the hole the economy is in – we're pretty useless really - 2nd January

Articles: 2009 Check out checklist - They've saved lives, you know - 19th December This column will change your life: The passion for passions - Is it just a dangerous fiction? - 12th December With friends like these... - We know our best friends almost as well as know ourselves, right? Maybe not... - 5th December Perfect timing - Is there a 'best time' to buy shoes or ask for a pay rise? - 28t November This column will change your life: Terrible analogies - Are our lives a journey, a river or even, perhaps, a pizza? - 21st November Anger - Is it the best fun you can have with your clothes on - 14th November This column will change your life: Hands up who's got a backlog - 7 Nov 2009: There's a perverse comfort in being behind, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't at least try to deal with it - 7th November Sudden exposure - From sunshine to oversleeping, transient, external factors can trigger all manner of reactions - 31st October What's in a name? - Quite a lot, actually, whether you're called David or Moon Unit - 24th October How long does it really take to change a habit? - Self-help culture clings to the fiction of the 28-day rule - 10th October Are some emotions untranslatable? - Oliver Burkeman wonders whether not being able to find the right word for our feelings could be bad news for our emotional lives - 3rd October True masters will rarely give advice about their field - Even when advice comes from an unimpeachable source, there are complications - 26th September It's not easy always being right - Being right all the time can get pretty confusing - 19th September 9-to-5 or free and easy? - There is an alternative to the 9-to-5, but is it a realistic option? - 12th September Sounding off about excessive noise - Can't hear yourself think above the unwanted din of modern life? Join the club - 5th September This column will change your life: - The energy needed to obtain information when required has diminished to almost nothing, so why bother learning stuff? - 29th August Conspicuous consumption - In paying extra for organic vegetables, you may be subconsciously signalling your genetic fitness - 22nd August Fresh starts - Whose life is so perfect they don't think they'd make a better job of it the second time around? - 8th August Can we make ourselves interesting? - Boringness in a conversation partner is much easier to define than interestingness - 1st August Ignorance v knowledge - Is it brainless to champion stupidity? Maybe there's such a thing as healthy ignorance - 25th July Ever been tempted by the call of the perverse - 18th July the case of the disobedient shower - 11th July The worst that could happen? Bring it on - 4th July Goals to achieve? Will telling others hel - 27th June On the strange incidence of coincidence - 20th June Think yourself younger? Really? - 13th June Is it work? Is it play? - the trouble with weisure - 6th June A curious mind is an active mind - 30th May Is it best to be, or not to be, ordinary? - 23rd May Beware the kindness of strangers - 16th May Laugh all you like, index cards are pretty cool - 9th May Is a worst-case scenario really just that? - 2nd May Parenthood ain't all it's cracked up to be - 25th April Habits are bad only if you can't handle them - 18th April Are we too careful with money these days? - 11th April Deepak Chopra's bestselling book on coincidence - 4th April Using personal informatics has obvious benefits as well as subtler ones - 28th March The only way is up - or is it down - 21st March Bad apples or just a rotten barrel? - 14th March We're all too busy, but is it just an excuse? - 7th March It's no joke - frugality can be fun - 28th February If you know your limits, you'll be happier - 21st February Can years of wisdom be boiled down to a slogan? - 14th February You can put in the graft, but can you control the outcome - 7th February Might we end up happier if we hang out with people we don't like? - 31st January Want to make big money telling people how to change their lives? You've got to have a system - 24th January No amount of work by experimenters has dispelled the fundamental weirdness of embarrassment - 17th January It's no accident that companies and governments are filled with bunglers - 10th January There's now plenty of evidence that actively pursuing unfamiliar experiences keeps the brain limber, and makes time pass less fleetingly - 3rd January

Articles: 2008 Exploit the halo effect at Christmas dinner. Food tastes better when attractively presented - 20th December 2008 It's rare to open a self-help book and to know, from page one, that you're in a better state of mind than its author - 13th December The battle to decide what merits your attention at any moment is a constant, low-level war of all against all - 6th December Lonely people get ill more, die sooner and do intellectual tasks less well. One recent study found they even feel, literally, colder - 29th November Try too hard to be happy and you'll find yourself on a misery-inducing treadmill of self-improvement - 22nd November The truly happy aren't locked in constant striving after a single goal - 15th November Queues bring sharply into focus how much of our lives we spend in a queue-like state of mind - 8th November In 1838, Charles Darwin took out his notebook and made two lists that have since become famous. One was headed "Marry", the other "Not Marry" - 1st November Looking at original thinking as 'iconoclastic' turns out to be quite useful - 25th October The word nostalgia conjures images of Queen Mother tea-towels - 18th October When I tried to stop gossiping I had a paralysing insight: almost everything is gossip - 11th October I am astonished afresh each time I'm reminded that there are people who don't use to-do lists - 4th October As everyone knows, a successful self-help book cover must feature three things ... - 27th September Stress was invented in 1936 and defined as 'the non-specific response of the body to any demand for change' - 20th September Some of the most useful psychological insights are also the schmaltziest - 13th September There's a popular subgenre of books about writing known informally as 'writer porn' - 6th September By the end of the 19th century, self-help culture was already well-established in America, and its leading advocates exuded an overbearingly preppy, go-get-'em spirit... - 30th August Accepting things doesn't mean putting up with them; indeed, it seems to be a precondition for real change - 23rd August Almost everyone hates meetings, and yet the idea of doing away with them is seen as revolutionary - 16th August The Secret reveals new depths of forehead-smacking idiocy every time - 9th August We know everything always takes longer than expected; we just seem to forget, again and again - 2nd August You can now buy Chicken Soup For The Chocolate Lover's Soul, which is a gift box containing a book and a bar of chocolate - 26th July There's a slightly less obvious problem with the current vogue for simplicity: a lot of it isn't particularly simple - 19th July One finding that emerges consistently from social psychology is this: some people are just really strange - 12th July The annoying thing about positive emotions - happiness, wonder, love - is that when you pressure yourself into trying to feel them, you can't - 5th July New Age guru Wayne Dyer helps himself to a really, really big piece of introspection - 28th June ...on personal time management - 14th June The word "awesome", it's fair to say, has become devalued through overuse - 7th June "Know thyself", said the Oracle at Delphi, which sounds a good prescription for living wisely and well - 31st May There are - put it this way - numerous self-help gurus... it's easier to like than Napoleon Hill, author of the 1937 classic Think And Grow Rich - 24th May ...on 'being yourself' - 17th May Great people can also be great worriers - 10th May ...on being nudged in the right direction - 3rd May ...the threat of the stereotype - 26th April is your best option to reduce your options? - 19th April the philosophy of clutter - 12th April 2008 the first hour is the rudder of the day... - 5th April utilisation behaviour - 29th March is creativity intrinsically mysterious? - 22nd March This column will change your life - venturing outside thew comfort zone - 9th February The art of zen - 2nd February Anger management - 26th January Strategic incompetence - 19th January Logging on - 12th January This column will change your life - Scepticism and spirituality - 5th January

Articles: 2007 Dealing with the psychodrama that is Christmas - 22nd December Anticipatory regret - 15th December Such a thing as too organised - 8th December A purple wristband - 1st December The game of life - 24th November Delusions of grandeur - 17th November Quick, look busy! - 10th November Taking responsibility - 3rd November Specialists vs the non-specialists - 27th October The "seless emotion" - 20th October Pro-active procrastination - 13th October Why we make the stupid choices we make - 6th October The relativity of time - 29th September Longing for nature - 22nd September Self-help books - 15th September Email junkies - 1st September The artful economist - 25h August Feel good, feel bad - 18th August No laughing matter - 11th August Break the routine - 4th August Is less really the new more? - 28th July 2007 Tricks of the self-improvement - 21st July 2007 Achieving your goals - 14th July Reverse psychology - 7th July Know who you are - 30th June The elusive secret of wealth - 23rd June The rise of the anti-self-help movement - 16th June Names and faces - 9th June Gay abandon - 2nd June The power of writing - 19th May Days that shook the world - 28th April The anti-secret - 21st April Selling sleep - 14th April Does life always have to be about fighting - 7th April Brian teaser - 31st March The happiest village in Britain - 24th March Grey matter - 17th March Mild irritation - 10th March Wealth and happiness - 3rd March Right out of order - 24th February Eradicate interruptions - 17th February Help yourself - 10th February Rise and shine - 3rd February A right mess - 27th January The joy of giving - 20th January Pack up your troubles - 13th January Cheque mate - 6th January

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