Dr. No #53 – You Only Have 4,000 Weeks. Use Them Wisely.

Hey lawyer,

Let’s ruin your day (and then save it).

The average human lifespan? About 4,000 weeks.

Not 40,000. Four. Thousand.

That’s the premise of Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, a book Cal Newport (of Deep Work fame) swears by. It’s not your usual “be more efficient” pep talk. It’s a radical reframing of time itself.

One chapter, “Cosmic Insignificance Therapy,” hit me like a legal due diligence report at 3 a.m. The gist: in the grand scheme of the universe, your inbox doesn’t matter. Neither does your meticulously redlined clause 14. And weirdly, that thought is liberating.

1. Food for Thought

If you only had 1,000 weeks left (roughly 19 years), would you keep spending hours chasing the “perfect” version of work that will be forgotten by Friday?

2. Key Ideas for GCs from Four Thousand Weeks

You’ll Never Get It All Done.
Your task list is infinite. Accepting that is the first step to sanity.
GC takeaway: Stop aiming for “complete.” Aim for “impact.”

Choose Fewer, Better Battles.
Every “yes” is 4,000 “no’s.”
GC takeaway: What’s the one project this quarter that moves Legal from cost centre to value driver? Everything else is commentary.

Cosmic Insignificance Therapy.
Relax. You are not the centre of the universe.
GC takeaway: That failed negotiation won’t matter in five years. But how you build your team’s confidence today will.

Attention > Time.
Time is finite. Attention is everything.
GC takeaway: Spend less of it on contracts nobody reads and more on the conversations that actually shape deals.

Burkeman’s hidden punchline?
You don’t need new landscapes, just new eyes (thank you, Proust!).

3. Mental Model – The Buffett “Inner Scorecard”

Warren Buffett says: Live by your own scorecard, not someone else’s.

In time terms: If you live chasing external deadlines and endless approvals, you’ll never win.
But if you judge yourself by your own priorities — the ones aligned with long-term business value — you’ll win twice: less stress, more impact.

4. AI Booster – Ellie

Professional, bespoke emails in your voice, written in seconds.
Perfect for when you want your GC updates to sound polished, clear, and “McKinsey-grade” without burning another Sunday evening polishing a paragraph.

5. Quote to Reflect

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust

P.S.
Want to win back some of your 4,000 weeks? Free your team from corporate admin hell.

Ámbar gives GCs fractional access to corporate law experts who can:

• Act as corporate secretaries, handle bookkeeping, and clean up documentation.

• Review and update governance paperwork.

• Free up 30% of two lawyers’ time every year.

• Step into other high-drain tasks — from massive contract management to complex regulatory filings.

So your team spends less time ticking boxes and more time building business value.

Book a call with Ámbar — and buy back your most valuable asset: time.

Until next week, Savigny.

Dr. No