Ella Mills

Do you know what I've been making is a cherry tomato tart tatter.

oh yes you said you were going to make that so it went well yeah so good I'm really into balsamic at the moment that's not a recommendation because everyone likes it but you know when you like not forget about an ingredient but you kind of like bring it back to front of mind I've just been using on salads whereas now I'm like oh I'm really cooking with it front and center like roasted balsamic red onions like really kind of jammy and juicy and stuff

I've just missed that off.

I'm sorry, Julia.

The four burners theory.

Yes.

So thank you for flagging this one, Julia.

Julia said your recent conversation about how doing it all just isn't realistic made me think of the four burners theory.

I don't know if you're aware of this.

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.