The Atlantic launches the fifth season of its How To podcast with How to Keep Time, hosted by Becca Rashid and Ian Bogost

The Atlantic is today launching the fifth season of its popular How To podcast series with How to Keep Time, an exploration of our relationship with time and how to reclaim it. For the new season, The Atlantic’s Becca Rashid returns as co-host (and producer), now joined by Atlantic contributing writer Ian Bogost. How to Keep Time follows the show’s past seasons, which have explored such related topics as how to build a happy life (with Arthur C. Brooks), how to talk to people (with Julie Beck), and how to start over (with Olga Khazan).

Over the course of six episodes, in How to Keep Time, Becca and Ian will look into fundamental questions around our relationship with time, including why we can feel like there’s never enough time in a day; what cultural myths get in the way of using time to build connections; why so many of us are compelled to record time and document our lives; and even how an understanding of theoretical physics can inform our relationship with time, the universe, and ourselves.

The first episode, which is now available, discusses the time-maximizing myths of the modern era––notably, the idea that some perfect future exists in which we are “on top of everything” and our time is fully in our control. The author Oliver Burkeman argues that this romantic thinking is exactly what makes it challenging to avoid future-focused thinking and just lean into the moment. The episode further explores how to rethink time wasted as time well spent.

With an aim to make self-reflection and introspection a vital component of daily life, the How To series provides insights from social scientists, writers, and a range of experts on how to think about our lives, how to think about ourselves, and how to live well with others. The fifth season arrives as the culmination of an ambitious year of audio offerings at The Atlantic. In May, The Atlantic relaunched its flagship podcast, Radio Atlantic, with Hanna Rosin as the new host. Earlier in the year was the launch of the narrative podcast Holy Week, hosted by Vann R. Newkirk II, about the uprisings that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 and how those seven days––one of the most fiery, disruptive, and contentious weeks in American history––diverted the course of a social revolution.

Episodes of How to Keep Time will be released each Monday, and listeners can subscribe here or wherever they listen to podcasts.

Press Contact:
Paul Jackson | The Atlantic
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