Black and White Thinking

May 20, 2024 7:30 AM

Author:Kevin Dutton

A Malcolm Gladwell, Susan Cain, Daniel Pink and Adam Grant NEXT BIG IDEA book club read about how to avoid the pitfalls of too little, and too much, complexity.

'Essential insights into the character of human choice and decision-making.' ROBERT CIALDINI, bestselling author of Influence

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In this groundbreaking exploration of how our brains work, psychologist Professor Kevin Dutton explains that by understanding the nature of our hardwired black and white thinking we are better equipped to negotiate life's grey zones and make subtler and smarter decisions.

Our brains are hardwired to sort, categorize and draw lines. It's how we navigate the kaleidoscope of everyday information. Yet imagine failing an exam by a mere 1 per cent. Or being caught speeding at just 1 mph over the speed limit. We have to draw the line somewhere, we say. But lines can be unhelpful or even dangerous when drawn where they aren't wanted, or in too thick a hand.

By thinking in terms of ' 'them' or 'us' and 'this' or 'that' we isolate ourselves from ideas we don't agree with and people who are not the same as us. We fail to listen to the other side of the argument and beliefs become polarized. Intolerance and extremism flourish. The human race has survived by making binary decisions, but such thinking might also destroy us. We may be programmed to think in black and white but rainbow thinking is the key to our cognitive future.

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'Fascinating, important and entirely convincing.' SIR PHILIP PULLMAN

Reviews

Dutton provides simplifying, clarifying and essential insights into the character of human choice and decision-making. You'll not think about thinking the same way afterwards.

—— Robert Cialdini, author of INFLUENCE and PRE-SUASION

Kevin Dutton has the great gift of being able to see patterns in human behaviour… He talks about his discoveries, and about their implications for all of us, with the flair and clarity of a practised storyteller. Fascinating, important, and entirely convincing.

—— Philip Pullman

Kevin Dutton is a Special Forces style psychologist. Daring. Original. All-action. No nonsense.

—— Sir Ranulph Fiennes

A wonderfully honest book, Four Thousand Weeks is a much-needed reality check on our culture's crazy assumptions around work, productivity and living a meaningful life

—— Mark Manson, bestselling author of Everything is F*cked and The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

His book will challenge and amuse you. And it may even spur you on to change your life. At the very least reading it would be a good use of one of your four thousand weeks

—— Robbie Smith , Evening Standard

I loved this book - it's a celebration of all that is most human: a deep dive into the value and potency of our finitude. Where we might buckle under pressure and uncertainty, Oliver quietly restores our centre of gravity within. You'll emerge from his writing fortified by wonder

—— Derren Brown

A beautiful, uplifting read. Reading Oliver Burkeman, I feel my shoulders relax and my mouth curl into a smile of admiration. Witty, modest and refreshingly sane

—— Robert Webb, author of How Not to Be a Boy

Comforting, fascinating, engaging, inspiring and USEFUL, actually genuinely useful

—— Marian Keyes

Oliver Burkeman provides an important and insightful reassessment of productivity. The drive to get more done can become an excuse to avoid figuring out what we actually want to accomplish. Only by confronting this latter question can we unlock a calmer, more meaningful, more resilient approach to organizing our time

—— Cal Newport, bestselling author of A World Without Email and Deep Work

We all know our time is limited. What we don't know - but what Oliver Burkeman is here to teach us - is that our control over that time is also limited. This profound (and often hilarious) book will prompt you to rethink your worship of efficiency, reject the cult of busyness, and reconfigure your life around what truly matters

—— Daniel H. Pink, author of When, Drive, and To Sell is Human

This is the most important book ever written about time management. Oliver Burkeman offers a searing indictment of productivity hacking and profound insights on how to make the best use of our scarcest, most precious resource. His writing will challenge you to rethink many of your beliefs about getting things done-and you'll be wiser because of it

—— Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and host of WorkLife

I have long loved Oliver Burkeman's wise and witty journalism that both interrogates and elevates the 'self-help' realm-revealing its possibilities for absurdity while honoring the deeper human impulses that it meets. Four Thousand Weeks is a splendid offering in that spirit. This book is at once sobering and refreshing on all that is truly at stake in what we blithely refer to as 'time management.' It invites nothing less than a new relationship with time-and with life itself

—— Krista Tippett, host of On Being

Four Thousand Weeks is a book to read and re-read, to absorb and reflect on. Compassionate, funny and wise, it has not left my mind since I read it. The modern world teaches us to pretend to be immortal-this book is a dip in the cold, clear waters of reality, returning us refreshed and alive

—— Naomi Alderman, author of The Power

Peppered with good stories... Subtle, provocative and multi-layered... Offers many wise pointers to a happier, less stress-filled life, with none of the usual smug banalities of the self-help genre... Happy days!

—— Craig Brown , Mail on Sunday

Four Thousand Weeks is full of such sage and sane advice, delivered with dry wit and a benevolent tone. I didn't wish back any of the time I spent reading it

—— Joe Moran , Guardian

A fantastic, warm, clever book

—— Kate Mosse

Terrific

—— Derren Brown , The Times

Every so often you read a book that so profoundly shifts your thinking that you feel indebted with gratitude to the author. Utterly brilliant

—— Yasmin Khan

So easy to read that I finished it in one sitting... I'll probably never organise my time so well again

—— Henry Mance , Financial Times, *Books of the Year*

I seldom read self-help books, but Oliver Burkeman's Four Thousand Weeks is in a class of its own

—— James Wilsdon , Research Professional News, *Books of the Year*

A compelling argument for why we should be doing less and doing it better... This comforting, calm book is filled with sensible, practical ideas

—— Independent, *Books of the Year*

Burkeman offers practical solutions to problems that might otherwise seem too monolithic to disassemble

—— Emily Watkins , i

Oliver Burkeman's Guardian feature was called "This Column Will Change Your Life". The wisdom of this book could do the same

—— Julia Bueno , Times Literary Supplement

[A] brilliant, comforting time-management guide

—— Stig Abell , Sunday Times

Kind of cool

—— Jeff Bridges

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