EVERY SPOKEN WORD
135 min read · 27,034 words- 0:00 – 0:25
Intro
- CBChris Bailey
When you start with the research and work backwards to a logical conclusion of how we should spend our time, I think focusing on things all day long is one of the most disastrous things (laughs) we can do for our productivity. (wind blows)
- CWChris Williamson
Chris Bailey, welcome to the show.
- CBChris Bailey
Chris, yourself. How are you?
- CWChris Williamson
I'm good. Tell me about what you're drinking.
- CBChris Bailey
I am drinking a lovely green tea. I,
- 0:25 – 10:18
Cutting Out Caffeine
- CBChris Bailey
I have cut out coffee from my repertoire, and I feel calm, I feel focused. It's the L-theanine, isn't it?
- CWChris Williamson
I haven't had caffeine for 400 and something, 450 days or so now.
- CBChris Bailey
How do you find it affects you?
- CWChris Williamson
So, I wanted to see what would happen if I cut it out at the start of 2021.
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And I didn't really notice any withdrawals, none of the headaches. A lot of people talk about you getting headaches and stuff.
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I was, I would say a moderate user. So, one coffee in the morning, maybe a knockout, which is about 120 mgs or 150 mgs, uh-
- CBChris Bailey
Okay.
- CWChris Williamson
... during the middle of the day, and then that would be it. So, what's that?
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Probably about 200 throughout the day-ish, something like that.
- CBChris Bailey
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
So I'd say that's probably a-
- CBChris Bailey
Decent amount.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, like a moderate amount. Um, stopped, no headaches, no withdrawals. Um, did notice that I had a craving for it, but my energy levels didn't really seem to change all that much.
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Now, over the last year and a half, I've been stealth caffeined-
- CBChris Bailey
Ooh.
- CWChris Williamson
... a couple of times. You, you, you think that you're getting-
- CBChris Bailey
Decaf.
- CWChris Williamson
... Diet Coke on the gun in postmix that doesn't have caffeine, and it's come from a bottle that does have caffeine.
- CBChris Bailey
Ugh.
- CWChris Williamson
And you get, whatever, 20 milligrams of caffeine.
- CBChris Bailey
(laughs) Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
So I've been, I've been stealth caffeined, but, like, purposeful caffeination hasn't happened. Sleep's better. Energy levels are more consistent.
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, but performance in the gym is a little bit difficult to get to.
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And the high that you get if you have a nice coffee, you know, halfway through the morning, and you put some good tunes on for, you know-
- 10:18 – 14:22
Wake-up Time
- CWChris Williamson
is interesting and useful.
- CBChris Bailey
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
I'm surprised about the wake time has no correlation with socioeconomic status.
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Main reason being that people who wake up close to the time that most other people wake up, I would have presumed would have afforded them more opportunities socially.
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
You're going to align with the timelines and the schedules of other people. That basically would have increased ambient serendipity-
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... as far as I could see. You know what I mean? Ooh, nice phrase.
- CBChris Bailey
You're just doing more things at the same time.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- CBChris Bailey
Um, but that's not the case. It, it is about deliberateness, you know, and, and that deliberateness should be informed by the constraints of our environment. So, if you do have meetings at 8:00 AM (laughs) and you wake up at 9:00 AM, that, that's not gonna be that helpful, (laughs) o- obviously, with regard to, to your schedule, with regard to your routines. But, uh, I think, you know, if there's one central theme with personal productivity advice is that I- it's not about doing more, more, more, faster, faster, faster. It really is about that deliberateness and that intentionality. Uh, I think if there's anything that lies at the core of productivity, you know, and I, and I think this is also something that many people get wrong with regard to this space, uh, you know, first of all, there is no five, this 10-step trademarked, all-rights-reserved solution for becoming more productive that some consultant is gonna try to sell you on. You know, you do have to take what works for you and leave the rest. But the things that I have seen work, uh, in myself, so I, I like to do a lot of experimentation with myself using kind of myself as a guinea pig, 'cause if, if I don't try the advice I'm giving...What's the point of giving the advice? Because, uh, s- uh, uh, you know, ur- very early on in writing about this stuff, I, I, I would recall writing about things that sounded like the right thing to say. But then I tried it out, and I realized that often the truth was the opposite, like the wake-up time, and especially when you look at research after that point. And so, y- you're exactly right. You know, we do have to account for the constraints of our day. And there are s- those common constraints. If you're asleep when everybody else is working, uh, you probably won't benefit from the coordination, uh, that, uh, some projects need. You know, there's the collaborative work that we do. There's the individualistic work that we do. Finding out where we are on that spectrum can inform a lot of the best productivity strategies that work best for us. Um, and, you know, th- speaking of distraction, distraction is a necessary byproduct of doing work that's collaborative. We need it in order to do work that's collaborative because it involves interfacing with other people, and that's always messy. But it's that deliberateness and that intentionality. I think that is what we should be, uh, for lack of a better frame that I can think of extemporaneously, that's what we should be optimizing, uh, not only our work, but our lives around. You know, if you have a deliberate life, y- you're gonna l- act and live in accordance with what you value. That'll create meaning, of course, because meaning is when we manifest our most, uh, deep values through how we act and how we work and how we live and how we speak with other people. But it's that deliberateness that lies at the, the core of productivity advice that, that I, I, I honestly have fallen in love with over the years. 'Cause if we can do w- the things that we set out to do, what more do we need?
- CWChris Williamson
That's your definition of productivity, right?
- CBChris Bailey
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Accomplishing what we intend to do.
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah, exactly.
- CWChris Williamson
So give me... Y- you've written, uh, two books, both on productivity. You may have written more. Uh, The Productivity Project-
- CBChris Bailey
No, two.
- CWChris Williamson
... and Hyperfocus, and you've spent a lot of time doing personal experiments plus research, plus-
- CBChris Bailey
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... science-y stuff around all of this.
- 14:22 – 21:46
Engendering Deliberateness
- CWChris Williamson
- CBChris Bailey
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
If deliberateness and intentionality are two of the key principles-
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... that underlie the, the core of the productivity approach that you've found, what are the frameworks or the supporting structures that help people to bring as much deliberateness and intentionality-
- CBChris Bailey
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... to their productivity as they can?
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah, that's, that's an awesome question. Um, it, it's, it's interesting 'cause I (laughs) ... you know, I don't start with some system and work backwards to, to the advice. I bo- my, my approach is usually to start with the, the science that I can find on this stuff.
- CWChris Williamson
Is there much science of productivity?
- CBChris Bailey
Well, uh, i- that's the awkward part is y- you hear people talking about, "Oh, there's thousands of studies that show that this type of music supports productivity." But first of all, (laughs) the way they measure productivity is usually, uh, more conducive to work that we did in a factory than doing work with our minds. Um, and, and that's a big challenge to overcome in the research. Um, because... just because you produce something more with your time doesn't mean that you actually make a difference with your time. Just because you answer more emails, just because you work longer, just because... a- and, y- you know, to have a proper experiment, something needs to be easily measured, and knowledge work is very difficult to measure. Uh, you can write a 200-word speech, a 300-word speech. The Gettysburg Address was around that length. That changes the course of history. Or you can write a 300, like, crappy blog post about a, uh, a sandwich that you ate or a green- cup of green tea that you drank. Maybe that's a bit better than the s- ... actually, it depends what's in the sandwich, i- in my opinion. But measuring productivity is, is a really awkward thing that nobody really does right because how do you ac- how do you measure knowledge work when the work that we produce with our, our time, our attention, our energy, uh, differs? And it's difficult to measure the impact of that. Uh, but what I like to do... th- that's why... that's the benefit of the personal experimentation. You know, it's an n of one. (laughs) Uh, I don't have these, these teams that, that, that I coordinate. Maybe I should, uh, but i- it's... I see everything through my own lens, and, and then I use the experiments as a launching off point to examine the research surrounding a topic. And m- my, my whole philosophy is there's a lot of productivity advice out there. Uh, in my opinion, there might even be too much productivity advice out there. Um, and I, I try to be the, the person (laughs) that separates out all the stuff that works from the stuff that does not work, and it's messy because it's knowledge work. And just because I write 1,000 words one day and 2,000 words the next, those 2,000 words could be garbage (laughs) compared to the 1,000 words that came the day before. And so it's definitely not an e- an exact science, and the research surrounding productivity advice is not always good. Uh, but the best advice that I have found, uh, falls into three different categories, and thi- this is kind of the, the curious thing. And I haven't... r- you know, I, I started with this... I guess y-... you know, I've been bashing frameworks, and, and I guess this is kind of a, a, a natural framework that, that appears i- in the research is that most of the advice, not all of it, but most of the advice that allows us to actually move our work and our life forward, uh, it falls into one of three categories. The, the first category is time, of course. We, we've always had to manage our time around the schedules of other people. That goes back to the factory-type work, where it was the environment where there was a direct connection between how long we worked for and how much we accomplished with our time. If we made one widget an hour-... and we worked four hours, we made four widgets, baby. And if we worked eight, we made e- you know, there's a direct relationship. Um, so time is the first ingredient of productivity. We've always had to manage our time around other people. And it's like you said, if we work in a collaborative environment, we need to account for that constraints in our deliberateness. Uh, the second component I see in productivity is attention, right? It, it doesn't matter how well you can schedule (laughs) things if you can't then focus on what you have scheduled, if you're distracted, if you're constantly interrupted, if you don't have as much mental capacity as you deserve in the moment that you give yourself through your habits, through your routines, through your rituals, uh, to accomplish things to the best of your ability. And it's not just about accomplishment, obviously, right? That goes back to that idea of, of intentionality, right? What do you want to get out of your time? And, you know, that definition of productivity, it works regardless of the context. You know, it, it, if you intend to write 2,000 words and maybe, Chris, like, record, like, three podcasts or... I, I, I don't know what the makeup of your day looks like. And maybe do a couple of interviews yourself, maybe. And then you do, and you do a, a bang-up job of everything. I would say you're perfectly productive. And the exact same thing is true if your intention is to put your feet up on the beach with, uh, two pina coladas, one for each hand, obviously, and just listen to an audiobook and soak in the sun, right? It be- productivity begins and ends with intentionality. And I think that's how we should be measuring our productivity in the first place, and that's why it gets messy. (laughs) That's why it gets messy with the research. But time, attention, uh, those are the first two components of productivity, and I believe the third is energy, right? Energy is kind of the, the, the fuel, the, that we have to burn over the course of the day that fuels our willpower, that fuels our stamina, that fuels our capacity to get things done. Uh, so if you burn out at 1:00 or 2:00 in the afternoon because you over-caffeinated all week, you're probably not going to accomplish much of your intentions with that day because you're not gonna have the capacity with which to do so. Uh, (laughs) if you have, like, I don't know, like, if you go to, like, some Indian buffet over lunch as I did the other day and have a, a couple of delicious Tiger beers and, like, way too many plates of buttered chicken and white rice, which I do not regret. I mean, let me just say, I do not regret it, but I did not accomplish much that, that afternoon. (laughs) Uh, and so energy, I think, is the third component that not... It's not part of my f- I, I guess it's part of the framework that I like to share, but that's a, a common idea that, that, uh, repeats through the research, that these three ideas and where they overlap, you know, if we can manage our time well, our attention well, our energy well, right? We have to develop habits, and that takes time. But if we can get to a place where we optimize all three, then we are far more likely to accomplish the things that we set out to do.
- CWChris Williamson
Time, attention-
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... and energy. (clears throat)
- CBChris Bailey
That's right.
- CWChris Williamson
But we still have deliberateness-
- CBChris Bailey
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... and intentionality-
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... sitting somewhere around that.
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Before we get into those three,
- 21:46 – 34:56
Daily Habits for Productivity
- CWChris Williamson
w- how... What are the ways that you ensure that your deliberateness and your intentionality is supported on a daily basis?
- CBChris Bailey
What a, what a beautiful question. Uh, I, I, I have a couple of different strategies that I use. And, you know, I, I really think deliberateness is a skill. It's not something we're born with. It's something that we can get better at over time. Uh, the first is, uh, I have an hourly chime on my watch, on my Apple Watch, uh, (laughs) that, well, that I've disabled all notifications from 'cause that would negate the effect of the chime. Uh, but essentially, it just taps me on the wrist every hour, and I use that as an opportunity to reflect on whether I'm spending those ingredients intentionally. And so I think, okay, what am I doing right now, and is what I am doing something that I made the decision to do in the first place? Because an awful lot of our behavior is not something that we choose to do, right? Even if it's defined by somebody else, we kind of go through the motions, and there's this automaticity with, uh, with a lot of our actions that, that I, that I think is a sign that we have room to grow in terms of how intentionally we live. And so that is the first. I, I think, oh, when that goes off, I just do a brief, very brief reflection. Uh, am I distracted right now? What am I working on? Is it important? Am I spending my time intentionally right now? It's become kinda second nature. Um, and when, when I'm happy with the proportio- it, it's never 100% of the time. And I don't think e- you know, maybe not even a, a, a Buddhist monk on a meditation retreat will get to 100%. There's always an automaticity, especially when you consider that 40% to 45% of our daily actions are comprised of habits, um, things that we do with that automaticity. And there's... A- automaticity has, has a, a remarkable place in our lives because we don't have to (laughs) force ourself to work out every day. We get that... We get energy back, and then we have more energy for other things. So, that's one of them. The second is just a simple intention-setting ritual that I do every day, uh, where at the start of the day, I think to the end of the day, and I ask, uh, "Okay, what three things will I want to have accomplished by the time that this day is done?" And it's a simple rule, uh, and I think the best productivity advice should be, right? It's almost... It, it, it's kind of like how when something is designed really well, you think, "Oh, that's obvious." And then everything is designed like that. Like the iPhone, right? Every phone looks like an iPhone now because...... they, they got it right. And when you get something right, it's so obvious. Uh, uh, I think behavior (laughs) is, is a lot like that too. Um, and, and productivity is like that too. The, the best advice, like, it- eat well, exercise, meditate, focus, tame distractions. It's all very, very obvious. And I would include this piece of advice in that, in that bunch. Uh, at the start of the day, fast forward to the end of the day to find three things that you want to have accomplished by the time that the day is done. Um, what I, what I love about this frame is you think not about what you have to get done, but what you want... you think about what you want to be different in your life by the time you have reached the end of the day. And in that way, you make progress. You make progress every day, and you won't always accomplish the three things. Nobody does. There's emergencies, there's fires, there's things that, that arise that we have to deal with. And this shouldn't be all that you do. If you only did three things all day, every day, you probably wouldn't have a job after (laughs) much of a period of time. But that's the point, right? Right? It, it's, it's in defining what is more important than everything else that we recognize the truth about productivity, that not all tasks are created equal, right? Like take writing or maybe recording a podcast for, for an example, to use what we're doing right now, (laughs) uh, versus watching Netflix, right? If, if our intention is to make progress with our work, it's very obvious which one of those leads us to make the most progress. There's this, this asymmetry of importance with regard to the things that we have on our plate, and recognizing that asymmetry and using that knowledge to inform how we, uh, how we act and what direction we act in. Uh, so, you know, my three things today, I don't have them in fr- they're in an app, but, uh, but I'll recall them. (laughs) So number one is to structure a talk, number two is to have fun in a few interviews, and number three is to write a couple of blog articles. It's simple. There's email to do (laughs) on top of all that, uh, but those are the three core things that I will want to have accomplished by the end of the day. And I, I do three personal things most days as well, uh, because then you decide every day just how balanced you wish to be. And so there's a lot of simple strategies like that where we can make a pre-decision with how we act that can inform how our day, uh, manifests and, and, uh, increases how much control we have over our time over time. So, uh, I, I love the hour- hourly awareness chime as a simple, uh, method of reflecting on intention. I love the rule of three as well. And meditation and just general awareness I find not only helps productivity, but also obviously a- awareness and mindfulness.
- CWChris Williamson
How do you ensure that the three things that you have set out to be intentional about during the day-
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... are things which are given priority throughout the day? Now I understand that the hourly chime is to ensure that you're supposed to do the thing that you're supposed to be doing at the time, but that thing that you're doing right then can be email, it can be-
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... what e- you know, there's going to be a number of other tasks. And I think... I, I quite like the idea of three things, what would-
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... I've liked to have done by the end of today to have moved me toward my goals, um, because it allows for the fact that the sand that fills the cup of that day, the inevitable sort of small things, they're just going to accumulate. Like-
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... you don't need to say, "Do my emails," to know that you're going to probably respond-
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... to some emails or-
- CBChris Bailey
You'll probably do it. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, or go to the bathroom or, you know, go to the gym or whatever. Like, you know-
- CBChris Bailey
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... those things are probably going to happen anyway. Um, how do you ensure that you instantiate the things?
- CBChris Bailey
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Are you time blocking?
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Are you prioritizing, are you using an Eisenhower matrix?
- CBChris Bailey
(laughs) Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
What have you found as the most effective way?
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah. It, it's interesting. Yeah, you mentioned how, how simple the rule is. And that, that's one of the beauti- uh, uh, I'll get to the, to the other part, but I just wrote a little note 'cause I, I think it's important to, uh, to mention in talking about this idea, that we think in threes by default. You know, I, I mentioned earlier the, the natural limit of our mind. Uh, it's called our working memory capacity, which I just think of our, as our attentional space, which is just what we focus on and bring into our mind in each moment. And w- we used to think that we can hold seven or eight pieces of information in our mind at one time, but the latest research shows that we can hold around three. And there are so many examples of, of this that abound in modern culture. Uh, we have sayings like good things come in threes, and celebrities die in threes, and the third time's the charm, and the good, the bad, the ugly, and blood, sweat, and t- it... Like, we grow up with stories like the three little bears, the three blind mice, the three little pigs, the Three Musketeers. E- even across cultures, uh, we group things together into threes. A story, a novel, we divide into three parts, the beginning, the middle, and the end. Uh, the Olympics, they passed a few months ago, we divide into three parts, the, or we award three medals, right, gold, silver, and bronze. So we think in threes, and that, that I think speaks to the science of productivity where, uh, where we need to accommodate the science with the tactics that we use. And it's a bit of a, a, a long connection between these two ideas, but that's why I, I think people will find it works pretty well. The, the way I do it is by putting these things somewhere obvious. This, this, uh, was what I did at the very beginning, uh, before this rule became just so i- i- ingrained in my day that it became invisible. (laughs) Uh, and so that's why, you know, I don't have them obviously in front of me because I, I've learned to structure my time around this over time. Uh, and we all get better at this too. And, and i- at first you'll probably overshoot your intentions, then you'll undershoot your intentions. You know, i- if you are a writer, for an example, it's an easy example when it, when it relates to knowledge work, uh, and you say, uh, that you want to write 500 words on a given day and you end up writing 1000.... y- the next day you might think, "Oh, yesterday worked so well, today I'm gonna set an intention to write 2,000 words," and again, you might write 1,000. And over time, though, you settle into this understanding of your capacity for daily accomplishment while accounting for the constraints related to how much time you have, so if you have meetings all day, how much attention you have, maybe you're going through an anxious period 'cause you're over-caffeinating and you can't necessarily bring your full attention to what you're doing, and how much energy you have, uh, so a- accommodating whether you're going through a more tired time, whether you're maybe a bit more stressed and exhausted at a given time. But having these intentions somewhere very, very obvious that you see on a regular basis as you, uh, as you get accustomed to a habit like this. Um, and again, pers- personal productivity takes what, take what works for you and leave the rest. Um, you may find over time, you internalize them because your mind thinks in threes, but putting these things somewhere obvious, blocking off time for them. Uh, this is something that I also love that, that you mentioned, having these chunks of time where you focus on just one thing that you know is important, right? If y- if you wanna cultivate presence with what you're doing-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CBChris Bailey
... what a beautiful way of cultivating presence, deciding that you're gonna do something at the beginning of the day, having the confidence to know how, uh, i- important it is, uh, as you go about your day. I- in the moment, it's so easy to get wrapped up in that thing because you have the confidence, uh, o- of that pre-decision. And so, time blocking works really well. Having them somewhere obvious works as a nice, uh, reminder. And one, one other thing, if we're chatting about this ritual, this r- this rule works so well, and it's, I, I, I know it's weird to get obsessed over (laughs) such a, a rule so simple, but I think one of the th- that's, A, why it's so powerful, but B, another reason it's powerful is it works across different time frames. And so, I- I personally, you know, have tried this out for different time frames, but I've found that the best ones, uh, on which it works is every day, every week, and every year. Uh, (laughs) it's a big jump between the y- week and the year, so do try out, you know, quarters, accommodate the rhythms and the constraints in your own work. Uh, but, I- I find there's, there's... That's where the rubber meets the road with productivity, when our daily intentions feed into the weekly intentions, which feed into the overarching yearly intentions.
- CWChris Williamson
Are you suggesting here that each week and then-
- CBChris Bailey
(clears throat)
- CWChris Williamson
... each year, you make a decision, what would have had to have happened by the end of next week-
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- 34:56 – 44:26
Is Focusing Counter-productive?
- CWChris Williamson
you said earlier on, um-
- CBChris Bailey
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... something that you bring up in Hyperfocus, which is that there is a trade-off or a tension between thinking about future goals and our ability to focus. And this is something that I'd never really thought about very much-
- CBChris Bailey
(clears throat) Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... that focus is kind of an antithesis of our ability to do big-picture thinking.
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Could you, could you explain how that works?
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah, for-
- CWChris Williamson
Also, sorry, the other thing-
- CBChris Bailey
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... the main thing that I want to get into people today, the takeaway from your book is that focus, whilst being fantastic, isn't a panacea.
- CBChris Bailey
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
It's not a cure-all. It's not the thing that you want all the time. And it's the first time that I've ever heard anybody, really ever, but certainly within the productivity space, actually say, "More focus isn't the answer." Because-
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... when you think about, um... I- I'm gonna go and play ultimate frisbee later on today.
- CBChris Bailey
Oh.
- CWChris Williamson
But when I think about that, I think, "Yeah, this is my time away from work. However, the, the point is for me to be fully focused on what I'm doing."
- CBChris Bailey
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
As opposed to kind of more free-flowing and, and present, and feeling grace and ease and joy and kind of that scattered focus that you talk about.
- CBChris Bailey
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
But let's go through the, the trade-off between long-term thinking, goals, uh, and focus.
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah. And i- it's such a wonderful question, 'cause I, I think focusing on things, uh, all day long is one of the most disastrous things (laughs) we can do for our productivity. Uh, and, uh, and when you look at the re- when you start with the research and work backwards to a logical conclusion of how we should spend our time, you know, first of all, we don't focus 100% of the time. By default, our mind is wandering about half of the time, which is not good when we don't want it to wander. (laughs) Because when we don't want it to wander, we, we're usually trying to zero in on something that we intend to accomplish. But it is remarkable...... the ways that a wandering mind can support us in what we want to accomplish. Um, one, one example that I love to use is the, how traffic flows down a highway. And so, if you look at how traffic flows down a highway, what moves traffic forward is not how fast the cars are moving. Uh, what moves traffic forward, what allows it to move forward, is how much space exists between the cars. And, uh, I think our work and our life are the exact same way. Uh, there's this wonderful quote that I'm sure most people have heard before from JRR Tolkien, uh, where he has written that "Not all those who wander are lost." And I think the exact same thing is true with regard to our attention, with regard to our productivity. When our... Here, here's a, an interesting idea. And, and I, I usually don't find statistics that motivating in and of themselves, uh, because I think in stories, just like everybody else (laughs) on the face of the planet. But this statistic tells an interesting story, uh, where when our mind is wandering, we think about our goals 14 times as often as when we're focused on something. That's sampling research done by Jonathan Smallwood and Jonathan Schooler. Uh, I believe the name of the study is called Back to the Future Autographical Planning... I, I don't remember the full name, but you could probably find it through Google using those keywords. W- we unearth ideas when our mind wanders. We rest when our mind wanders, but we also plan when our mind wanders. And a good example of this that everybody is probably familiar with is taking a shower. If you're taking a shower, your mind is hardly ever in there just appreciating the shower (laughs) , even though there's a lot to appreciate. We turn inwards when our mind is, uh, is, is in the shower. We think about the future. We think about what we have to get done later that day. We think about our goals, we think about our plans, we think about the intentions that we set that year, that week, that day, right, while our mind recharges, and I think that's the key, too. Uh, there, there's actually been research that has looked at different types of mind wandering. So, when we're mind wandering kind of just on the floor or something, like, doing nothing, uh, versus when we're mind wandering doing something that is habitual, you know, that 40, 45% of the time, uh, that we are doing something that is a habit over the course of the day. And research shows that we come up with more ideas when we're doing something habitual, because our attention ebbs and flows with that activity. It moves us along, and there's a, there's a rhythm l- to our attention, kind of like a heartbeat, where sometimes we need to intervene with something that we're doing out of habit, and...
- CWChris Williamson
What would be an example of each of those?
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah. Driving i- is a great example of that. So maybe you're driving down the highway, and hopefully there's space between (laughs) you and the other cars. Uh, and you're kinda doing it out of habit. Your mi- your, you have a bit of highway hypnosis, uh, where you're kind of immersed in the task. And you're thinking about that you need to pick up, like, a cantaloupe on the way home or so- but then you hit a de- you hit a detour. When you hit that detour, your conscious mind has to intervene with the habitual part of your mind that's going through that activity automatically. And that, that conscious intervention makes that activity have that rhythm, that heartbeat kind of rhythm, that anchors us into the moment. What we usually do in a time like this is we just kinda listen to a podcast, we listen to an audiobook, and there's nothing wrong with that, of course. It, it can make, uh, something more fun, especially things that we tend to procrastinate on. You know, you mentioned procrastination. Uh, there are certain cues that, that, that, uh, certain attributes that a task can have that make us more likely to put it off. Uh, that's something, whether something is boring, frustrating, difficult, ambiguous, unstructured, lacking in personal meaning, and lacking in intrinsic reward, so the process of doing it is not rewarding. And making something more fun, listening to a podcast, doing chores around the house, if you have that intention to make something more fun because you've been putting them off, that cancels out a bunch of the triggers that a task can have. But other times, we want our mind to wander, because i- it not only makes us more productive. When we think about our intentions, our goals, our plans, our, dare I s- use the word dreams, our mind wanders to the future quite a bit too. Uh, what, w- researchers call this our mind's prospective bias. Is, is... (laughs) And so it- it was, thi- this was one of the most, uh, remarkable parts of, of zooming in on this idea, uh, o- of attention in the, uh, i- in the book that you mentioned. I won't mention the name of the book again 'cause I hate when people plug their stuff constantly. But when you look at where our mind wanders to, our mind wanders to think about the future 48% of the time. So, about half of the time, our mind is just kind of in the shower, or driving, or doing the dishes, or planning, right? And 28% of the time, we're thinking about the present. We're... Thi- this is when you're typing up an email and you can't figure out how to phrase it, so you walk across, uh, your, what do you call it, a flat, uh, an apartment, uh, and, uh, on the way there, when you're on your way to make a cup of green tea, not coffee, uh, the solution hits you. And then you run back, you type up the email, you figure out how to phrase it, and you forgot about the green tea in the first place. Uh, we do wander to think about the past around 12% of the time, but a lot of that time, we're recalling ideas. Sometimes we do recal- you know, those cringe-worthy memories, those stupid things that you've said? Uh, we do recall that sometimes, but, uh, most of the time, we're, we're thinking about ideas. And where we connect all three, right, where all three meet in the middle, it's great to plan, it's great to rest, it's great to recharge doing something habitual. But when we connect...... the past, to the present, to the future, to the present, to the past, to the future, to the p- and so on. We think about an idea that we heard on a podcast, and we connect that to a problem that we're facing in that present moment, and we connect that to a conversation we might have in the future. And then we think about that future conversation. When we connect all three mental temporal destinations, we arrive at ideas that we would never have arrived at if we were just focused on something, if we were on Twitter, I- if we were checking email one more time. Uh, there is, uh, you know, economists refer to it as, uh, diminishing marginal utility, where our enjoyment of something goes down. You know, that, that th- 30th bite of ice cream is way less novel than the first, and the 31st, by God, you might be throwing up. Uh, productivity's the same way, right? That 30th check of email is probably a lot less necessary than just going for a walk, you know? It's mind-wandering that, um, makes that space between the things that we do meaningful.
- 44:26 – 50:16
Creating a Distraction List
- CBChris Bailey
- CWChris Williamson
So, if that's the advantage of how to unfocus-
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... of how to relinquish our focus throughout the day, talk to me about the science and the strategies around when we need to put the ha- the hammer down, when we need-
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... to actually get in, we've got a thing that we need to do-
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... the proposal needs finishing, the podcast needs editing, the article needs writing, whatever.
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah. Yeah, there's ... (laughs) And i- it's funny, because relative to the research on, on the, that deliberate mind-wandering, uh, which I call scatter focus, because deliberate, saying "deliberate mind-wandering" every time is, is kinda awkward. (laughs) Um, i- you know, the, relatively speaking, the steps, uh, to devoting our full attention to something are quite simple. And i- if you look at the rhythms that our attention has throughout the day, you know, the research shows something very, very obvious, (laughs) i- in hindsight. A- and it's funny how much research is sometimes conducted to prove something so obvious. You know, we focus on something, our mind gets distracted by something internal or external, um, th- which is, a- and sampling studies show that we get distracted internally versus externally about the same proportion. Uh, then we notice that our mind has veered off, then we bring it back. Um, it's simple, right? This happens repeatedly as we ebb and flow through, um, periods of intentional mind-wandering, unintentional mind-wandering, and focus. Um, you know, the mind-wandering, again, about half of the day focused the other half. So, w- we can combine this with, uh, some ideas from the science of intentionality, which I find to be interesting, and something I'm planning on doing a, a, a deeper dive into it in the future, too. Um, we can choose, first of all, what we wanna focus on. And ideally, that's something that is productive, and so it produces, uh, something that will lead us to make progress that we want, uh, or something that is meaningful, right? An experience that we want to, to live fully, right? Because that is, that's what life is (laughs) , right? Like, what's the point i- if we're not gonna just have this deep presence with what we're doing if we're just running from one moment to the next? So, the pre-decision, for lack of a better term, the, the choice, um, that's where intentionality comes in. Uh, then, ideally, (laughs) you know, here's the thing about obstacles as it relates to anything, goals in general, focus, too. Uh, obstacles are infinitely more difficult to deal with when they come up compared to dealing with them ahead of time. Uh, and so you mentioned, uh, working out a time or two. That's a good example of that. We all have fitness routines or fitness ambitions, and the truth is, if you have a period of travel coming up, anticipating that period of travel and how you're gonna work around it, uh, will prevent your workout routine from falling through the cracks. But if you scramble to find a, a gym right when you land in New York City, you'll probably not end up doing much at all (laughs) unless you have some external cues, like your Apple Watch is telling you to close your rings on that particular day. Uh, so the second step is eliminating as many, uh, external distractions and interruptions as you can, but also internal distractions and interruptions. Uh, keeping a distractions list, (laughs) if your mind veers off to think about something that you have to do as you, as you focus on something, uh, i- is one powerful way-
- CWChris Williamson
What's a distractions list?
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah, it's ... So, uh, I have many pages of, (laughs) of distractions here. Uh, it's just a list of anything that you want to do that isn't what you have intended to do. Uh, so i- if you really want to focus on something, you know, you set a timer, uh, for however long you wanna focus on something, and your mind will go all over the place. You'll think about somebody you need to email. You'll think of somebody you need to follow up with. You'll think of something you need to buy on Amazon. You'll think of just all k- you'll think of the fact that you need to buy cantaloupe on your way home tomorrow. Uh, when those things arise, you put them on the distractions list, and so that when your focus timer goes up and the duration of which will get, increase over time as, as you get better at this skill of deliberateness, um, w- when, when that timer goes off, you, you can tend to what's on your distractions list so you don't veer off track.
- CWChris Williamson
... what's the difference between that and a capture process from GTD?
- CBChris Bailey
Nothing.
- CWChris Williamson
Right. Okay, cool.
- CBChris Bailey
Nothing. Yeah, nothing at all. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Cool, cool, cool. Uh, uh, people that are listening will probably be familiar with Getting Things Done. Uh-
- CBChris Bailey
Oh, have, have you had David on the show?
- CWChris Williamson
David's been on the show. Uh-
- CBChris Bailey
Ah. He's great.
- CWChris Williamson
He's absolutely fantastic. He was the one that introduced me to a vertical bookcase. So he's got-
- CBChris Bailey
Oh.
- CWChris Williamson
... in his office, he has a-
- CBChris Bailey
Do tell.
- CWChris Williamson
... he's got a vertical bookcase, um, which has a copy of Getting Things Done in each of the 73 languages.
- CBChris Bailey
73.
- CWChris Williamson
Some insane number of languages it's been translated into.
- CBChris Bailey
Wow.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, and he had this bookcase, and I was really impressed by it, and then I ended up buying two of them. So, uh, David, if you're listening, thank you for the suggestion about the bookcase.
- CBChris Bailey
And, uh, send me a link after. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. It's du- it's absolutely dope. It's the coolest thing. That, with a Philips Hue strip-
- 50:16 – 54:16
Environment Design
- CWChris Williamson
how we can bring a little bit more focus in.
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
What about environment design?
- CBChris Bailey
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Because having an environment which engenders a particular type of mindset-
- CBChris Bailey
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... is something that I think most people will be familiar with. I think it's broadly understood that you're supposed to go from a place to a place to a place, and if you can try and have, "This is the place where I do my work. This is the place where I watch my Netflix." Or a lot of the time, people like myself maybe even have different devices that they do things on.
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
So, I have, I have a type of device for social media, I have a type of device for watching Netflix on, I have a type of device for doing emails, and so on. Um, what did you-
- CBChris Bailey
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... learn that was new or novel when it comes to focus and-
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... environment design?
- CBChris Bailey
Oh. Oh, there's (laughs) , there's, there's so many directions to go. Uh, I'll, I'll, I'll share just one 'cause I tend to ramble. (laughs) As y- as you can tell by now, we're 53 minutes into the podcast, or however long you edit this down to. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
53 minutes.
- CBChris Bailey
53 minutes, baby. Let's go. Uh, so, uh, one, one interesting thing that, that I, I found in the research is the extent to which how messy our environment is, uh, influences how we think. Uh, and so we're more creative when our environment is messy, and we're more productive and focused when our environment is clean. And the creativity is informed by these different environmental cues that send ripples of, of thought through our unconscious mind that, when those ripples hit a- an idea that becomes sufficiently activated so as to break through into our conscious attention, lead us to a creative insight. Right? This is when you're walking through a bookstore and you're just kinda, you know, wandering to think about ideas, and then you encounter some random cue that leads you to think about a brilliant idea you wouldn't have arrived at otherwise. It's kinda like scattered focus. It's kind of a similar mode. Uh, dreaming is the same way. There's the, uh, the, the dreaming br- brain network that we have is a neural correlate with the daydreaming network that we have. It's just intensified, and we have less awareness too when, when this mind, wh- when this mode is activated.
- CWChris Williamson
I'm sure that you'll have heard the story. Was it Isaac Newton that used to fall asleep with ball bearings in his hand?
- CBChris Bailey
I think it was Edison.
- CWChris Williamson
Edison.
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Used to go for a nap in the middle of the afternoon thinking about-
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... a maths problem or some sort of issue that he was coming up with, ball bearings in his hand. As he fell asleep, the ball bearings fell out of his hand-
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... hit the floor, woke him up. But what he was doing was he was using that sort of liminal sleep state, that peri-sleep state to-
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... get him into that default mode, switch off-
- CBChris Bailey
Network. Yeah. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Yeah. And then he would go and write stuff on the board.
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah. And (laughs) what, what a beautiful way of harnessing the... I, I don't know if my schedule is conducive to (laughs) holding the handful of marbles over a, over a metal plate (laughs) and, and waking up when they, when they hit the plate, but, you know, whatever you can do to activa- A- and alcohol is kind of similar too, uh, to, to sleeping, because when we consume alcohol our mind wanders more, but we become less aware of the fact that it has wandered in the first place. So when you have a drink, your mind is more likely to wander off to some far, (laughs) faraway place, then you kind of snap back to reality, "Oop, there goes, there goes your attention again." And, uh, a- and (laughs) , you know, but you're less aware. You know, our, our metacognitive skills plummet when we consume alcohol. So journaling, if you have a glass of wine or, or scotch, uh, n- nearby, can be a helpful reflective strategy too.
- 54:16 – 1:03:16
Why We Procrastinate
- CWChris Williamson
more likely that we're going to put a task off, because I think that that, um, structural identifier for s- for a lot of people-
- CBChris Bailey
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... will be, um, they continue to come up against things that throughout their week, they just... Procrastination is like-
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... inbuilt into them doing the task, even if the task is routinized. So, what are some of the common ways that tasks can be structured in a way that makes us want to put them off, and also-
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... give us some solutions?
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah, for sure. (laughs) Uh, so those are, I'll, I'll try to recall them. Uh, this is a true test of... whatever. I don't know. This is a true test of how good of an editor you are on the pod.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- CBChris Bailey
No, I'm just... I'll try to do it. Uh, so those are whether a task is boring, uh, whether it is frustrating, so the process is tedious. Whether it's difficult, uh, or ambiguous.Um, no, tho- those are s... So whether it's difficult, whether it lacks personal meaning, so we can't connect with it, uh, whether it lacks intrinsic rewards, and whether it is ambiguous or unstructured. So the process of doing it is not rewarding in and of itself. And so you can look at something like doing our taxes is a really g- good example, or, you know, you're a business owner, b- bookkeeping is another good example of this, where that's boring, that's frustrating, that's difficult. There's no meaning in paying taxes unless you ... I don't know, maybe you find meaning in that. Uh, it's ambiguous. It's unstr- this is why the half trillion dollar tax prep industry exists in the United States. Um, Netflix, not boring, not frustrating, not ... This is why we engage with Netflix as we put off other things, because it's kinda the opposite of this. Uh, but what we can do with this knowledge is we can look at something that we're putting off, and we can compare how we relate to that task, because it's about us, right? Two, two people can relate to a task completely differently. We all have different interests. W- and we'll have to adapt for that. But we can look at what triggers a task sets off in order to, uh, connect with why we're putting something off. And, uh, and so that's kind of the first of all, the, the, the awareness of why we're putting something off in the first place. But i- i- it's like, uh, I, I think you mentioned this a bit earlier, defining the very next thing you have to do to move something forward. That's a simple strategy, but it works because it disables a few of those triggers. It makes something immediately more structured. It makes it immediately less ambiguous, um, uh, and a few of the other ones as well, uh, shrinking how long we do something for until we no longer feel resistance to it. Uh, this works really well for meditation, which is, in itself, a process of understanding the resistance embedded within the depths of our mind. We can shrink how long we meditate for. This is an idea that I, that I, uh, found from my friend Jon Kropp, who teaches meditation to lawyers. Um, h- he'll, what he'll do is he'll guide people through, "Okay, do you wanna meditate for half an hour?" "No way in hell. The thought of it puts me off." "Okay. What about 20 minutes?" "No." (laughs) "What about 15?" "No." "12?" "No." "10?" "Maybe I could, I could do 10." And so you meditate for 10, and in the process of understanding that resistance and getting to a level that is just beneath it, uh, you know, first of all, the resistance we have to doing things is stacked at the very beginning of a task. It's jumping in a cold pool. Uh, i- i- you know, once we do so, we acclimate very quickly. But understanding that resistance and working with it makes something more structured, less ambiguous, less frustrating, and we see that there's an end in sight, uh, and so the process becomes a bit more rewarding too. Uh, one, one other random idea that comes to mind is connecting with our future selves. So our future self is ourself, but from the future. It's just ourselves in the future. Uh, and so when we put something off, we're giving it to ourselves to do, our future selves to do. Uh, and here's the interesting thing, you know, speaking of the science of, of productivity a little bit. Um, i- if you were to wheel somebody into an fMRI brain scanning machine, and you ask them to think about themselves in the future, but also just a total stranger, like, I don't know, Taylor Swift comes to mind, 'cause I've been listening, uh, to her music all day as I've been writing, great, simple music. (laughs) What you would find is the two brain scans would be virtually identical to one another, m- for most of us. Most of us view our future selves as a stranger. And what this does, and this is a measure called our future self-continuity, so it's just a measure of how tight we are with our future self. Uh, i- if you find that you continually put things off to tomorrow, when you give it to your future self, you need to raise your level of future self-continuity so that you don't feel as though the things you're putting off are something you give to a stranger, like Taylor Swift, to do, so that you have this connection to this, this timeline of your life. Uh, and so a couple of ways of doing this. One, one of my favorite... Actually, this is a video podcast, so I can, I can get the picture. And you can edit out the dead air in the audio. Wow, look at the production quality over here. Uh, this is, (laughs) this is a picture that e- people thi- people, when they visit my, uh, my office here, they... First of all, they think, "Wow, this guy's really full of himself," 'cause he has a picture of himself across, across the, the way there. But then they (laughs) see the picture, and then they think I'm just a weirdo. Uh, this is a, a picture of me created with an app called AgingBooth. Uh, and there's another one called FaceApp that does pretty much the same thing. It can show you what you're like in the future. Uh, (laughs) they, they have done studies where they, they put somebody, eh, eh, with a contro- control group, obviously, and they put some, they give somebody a live projection of their face, but the, the projection is aged, uh, t- th- 20, 30 years into the future. And then at the end of this experiment, right, after somebody sees this projection of themselves answering just some random questions, they gave the two groups of participants, uh, $1,000 to, uh, either, you know, theo- a theoretical $1,000, or else it would have been a very expensive experiment. They, they gave everybody this grand to divide between their present selves and save for retirement. And what they found is that those who saw this, uh, projection of their future self saved significantly more for retirement compared to those who didn't. Uh, and those who are more connected with the- their future self, they save more money for retirement overall.... uh, they're less likely to put off work to tomorrow, less likely to agree to unproductive meetings. Uh, so connecting with your future self, you can pri- y- you know, you can frame, (laughs) frame a picture of it if you want. But also just journaling about alternative futures, you know, one in which you make, uh, the change that you've been putting off, one in which you, you build that pipeline of, of podcast (laughs) episodes and don't put that off, and another where you don't and suffer the consequences, that leads you to step into the shoes of your future self. And by the way, by the way, this is why the rule of three works so well, in that frame. Uh, at the... You fast-forward to the end of the day, and you think, "What three things will I want to have accomplished?" That's your future self. Same with every week, same with every year. It, it's, it's in bridging the gap between where we are and where we wanna be that we overcome procrastination, that we get to where we want. And so, yeah, understanding the triggers, connecting with our future self, creating a bit more structure by defining the next thing or shrinking resistance. Uh, one final way is to list the costs of putting something off. And so the fascinating thing about procrastination is, it is a purely visceral and emotional reaction to something that we do not want to do. (laughs) Like, there's no logic embedded within the construct of procrastination whatsoever. And so, when we list the costs of doing something, we activate the logical centers in our mind to overcome that emotional impulse. Uh, there's a procrastination researcher named Tim Pychyl, uh, who describes procrastination as when we give in to feel good, when we give in to that, that emotional, uh, instinctual part of us. And by firing up that logical prefrontal cortex in our mind, we, we overcome, uh, those impulses. So long-ass answer, I know, but that's a bit o- a bit of a, uh, geek-out on the psychology of procrastination.
- CWChris Williamson
I think it's important.
- CBChris Bailey
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
A question I've been had-
- 1:03:16 – 1:11:28
Does Productivity Bring Happiness?
- CWChris Williamson
I, I've had in my mind for a little while, do you think that people who think about productivity are happier on average than the people who don't?
- CBChris Bailey
No, I don't. And...
- CWChris Williamson
I, I would agree, in my experience.
- CBChris Bailey
And it... I think it, uh, well, I think it relates to savoring. Um, people who focus too much on accomplishment, I think accomplishment, uh, focus drives productivity focus often, 'cause they're... Uh, it's like you said-
- CWChris Williamson
Productivity is in service of the thing, right?
- CBChris Bailey
E- exactly. It's like you said, our micro-actions contribute to, to our goals overall. There, there's actually been studies that, that are conducted in, in this field of, uh, savoring research, where they found that the wealthier somebody is, the less likely they are to savor their lives. And savoring is, you know, just when we enjoy something in the moment. Uh, and it's the process through which we convert, um, experiences, positive experiences into positive emotions, right? When you have this cup of, of green tea, and you enjoy every sip, and you find yourself present with every sip, that, that creates meaning, right? When you enjoy the, the things in your life that are good. But the research shows that the more accomplishment-driven somebody is, the less likely they are to enjoy their lives, the less time they spend savoring. Savoring is a skill that we can get better at, better at over time. But, uh, I, I completely agree that the more driven somebody is, the more ambitious, especially to achieve traditional measures of success somebody is, um, the less happy they are. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
That seems to be the case, I think. So there seems to me to be a undercurrent at the moment of new wave productivity/lifestyle design writers, coaches, influencers, that are taking a much more holistic-
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... broad, uh, frame view.
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, I think you would fall into that. I think that Ali Abdaal's new-
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... uh, book is moving toward that. But you see everybody kind of enter this world in the Gary Vaynerchuk hustle-and-grind-
- CBChris Bailey
Ugh.
- CWChris Williamson
... until-your-eyes-bleed-
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... like, that kind of GTD, how many things can I get out of my day-
- CBChris Bailey
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... I'm gonna delegate, I'm gonna have my system set up, so on and so forth, right? How much can I automate, and how much can I just brute force achieve?
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And then over time, you realize that if the goal of productivity is to do the thing that you intended to do, and the thing that you intended to do is to live a life which, in retrospect, you're glad you lived-
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... all of the things that you take on the step to do that are all, they're all not in service of the end goal of actually being happy or living a meaningful life.
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And I do think, if I was to be able to bet on a prediction market for this, I'd say that there's probably a pretty high likelihood that you're going to see a movement toward this holistic high-performance, more fully rounded productivity view-
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... that the satisfaction that you get from getting things done and from moving yourself towards your goals is important.
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
That is only correct when it's mediated by moving you- yourself toward goals that you genuinely want. So working out what you want, working out-
- CBChris Bailey
Mm-hmm.
- 1:11:28 – 1:12:54
Where to Find Chris
- CWChris Williamson
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... ladies and gentlemen. If people want to check out what you do, where should they go?
- CBChris Bailey
So, my books, I- I have saved the plug for the end, uh, of the show (laughs) . Uh, Hyperfocus is the one that you've, um, intense name, but really just about acting more intentionally every day. Uh, Productivity Project is where, uh, the pro- is my other book where I've pulled some of that procrastination, uh, some of those procrastination ideas from. And Time and Attention is the name of my podcast as well. Uh, my site is alifeofproductivity.com. I, that- that's enough plugs.
- CWChris Williamson
Has that got all of your-
- CBChris Bailey
Four, four plugs.
- CWChris Williamson
... blog posts on, on-
- CBChris Bailey
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... timeandattention.com?
- CBChris Bailey
And they're all out there for free. There's a- an annoying newsletter pop-up that you need to X out of, but everything is ad-free, and you know, I put it out there for, uh, you know, 'cause I- I kind of, my- my whole business model is I- I share whatever I can, uh, freely i- in the hopes that people will either buy the books or book me for a speaking (laughs) , speaking gig, 'cause those are the main revenue sources, and then try to give out as much as I possibly can for free, uh, outside of that.
- CWChris Williamson
Dude, I appreciate you. Thank you for coming on.
- CBChris Bailey
Thanks so much.
- CWChris Williamson
What's happening, people? Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode, then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few weeks. And don't forget to subscribe. Peace.
Episode duration: 1:12:54
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