Lately, I’ve been thinking of the Four Burners theory a lot. I don’t remember where I read it first, but the more I try to avoid it, the more it resurfaces. 

The Four Burners theory talks about work-life balance; and how, as much as we’d like to deny it, life is about tradeoffs.

Let’s understand the theory and delve deeper. Imagine a gas stove with four burners.

Each burner on this gas stove represents one division of your life, namely:

Burner 1: Family

Burner 2: Friends

Burner 3: Health

Burner 4: Work 

Now, the New Yorker article where this theory was first mentioned states that:

“In order to be successful you have to cut off one of your burners. And in order to be really successful you have to cut off two.”

Your first instinct after reading this might be: ‘That’s complete bullshit. It depends on how I prioritize my time after all.’

Exactly, that’s what I thought too. But lately, with increasing workload, responsibilities, and expectations, I see why someone must’ve conjured this theory up.

For instance, do you remember the time you skipped lunch and neglected your health for work? Or how you wanted to go out with friends and lost your weekend family time? 

The Four Burners theory stings because it’s… low-key true. Maybe we don’t need to cut off burners completely, but truly excelling in any of these areas in life requires slowing down the other burners. As an example, I asked a young working mother how she feels about this theory. Here’s what she said:

Look, as much as I’d like to focus on my career right now, I feel extremely overwhelmed. My baby is 2 months old, and they need me the most. My family burner is at an all-time high; I love spending time with them. But at the same time, my work burner is really, really dim. So in a way, it is about making choices and trading one thing off for another at the moment. But that doesn’t mean I have to sacrifice the other burners. Maybe 6 months down the line, I’ll get back to working and try to balance these burners in moderation. It’s like they say, “You can do it all, just not all at once.”

However, theories like these are rather generalized. Our individual metrics of success differ largely, and that’s best summarised by this Reddit user in a thread:

James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, has widely talked about this theory. He suggests a few options to deal with this, as paraphrased below:

1. Outsource the burners. Save your time by allotting work to someone else if you can afford it. You don’t have to do it all by yourself. This option does have its own consequences though- like receiving shoddy, low-quality work, or your kid being traumatized for life by an evil nanny. 

2. Embrace the limitations and focus on making the time you have highly efficient. Essentially, it’s about figuring out work-life satisfaction rather than work-life balance. 

3. Divide life into seasons, excelling in your division of choice one at a time. 

4. Be content with being a jack of all trades, master of none. Leave all the burners on an average setting, just like our Reddit friend BaronSharktooth.

Regardless of who we are, life needs a lot of picking and choosing. Somehow, this theory helps ward off the myth of work-life balance; and the idea of chasing perfection in every division all at once.

So let’s try not to burn the whole house down.