Ella Mills

I remember hearing about this a while ago and I loved it.

So I thought it might be an interesting one just to delve into quickly today.

Yeah, I think it's this idea.

So it's generally attributed as a kind of origination to a man called David Sedaris.

And he popularized this metaphor about these four burners, essentially like four stovetop's.

in a piece in 2009 for the new yorker and it was being then really widely shared by um james clear and basically the idea is that as i said it's like four stovetop kind of burners hobs and you've got your four i'm going to call them hobs because that's how i think about them maybe it's a uk word okay you've got your four hobs and you've got family you've got friends you've got health and you've got work

And essentially the idea is that to be successful really in any of these areas, you've got to turn one of the burners down.

Like it's quite hard to put them all on 100% all of the time.

But to be really successful, you might have to turn two down.

And essentially the idea is like life is fast.

filled with trade-offs.

The idea that you can have four stovetops on 100%, it's just not possible.

There's not enough electricity or power to do it.

And so you basically have to choose what it is that's really important to you.

And if you want to divide yourself equally between the four, you've basically got to appreciate, recognize, accept, be okay with the idea that you can't maximize them.

So they'd all be at 50% or whatever it is.

And I think it's a really helpful analogy, I think, actually, which I'm sure is why it's so popular.

If you want to prioritize, say, health and your family, you probably have to dial back a little bit on ambition and career.

Or if you really want to excel in your work, in your marriage, let's say some of your friendships,

or kind of time you can devote to your health may suffer because the time you might go to the gym, you're out with friends.