#719 - Ali Abdaal - How To Stop Procrastinating For Good
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Hello everybody, welcome back to the show. My yesterday is alive. Doll is a youtube podcast, entrepreneurs, an author.

What would life be like if you didn't get so easily distracted, if you actually did the things you wanted to do with your productive hours rather than what you were distracted by? Ali has spent an ticaret deconstructing the keys to productivity. And today we get to go through some of the most important ones.

I expect to learn what feeling good has to do with productivity. Allies call foundation to what makes someone productive. What determines whether a content created will succeed or fail, the biases running your life that you might not be aware of, why procrastination ens, and how to overcome IT? What do you need a big plan to succeed in life? And much more?

This is me finally being back in Austin, texas after being on to for four and a half weeks around the U. K. Island to buy canada and the us.

And I go back to the U. K. Next week for Christmas. But ah for everyone that came out to see me the live shows, thank you so much.

It's been crazy and very life changing and and surreal and flattering. And all the rest of the things are were kind of winding up toward the end of the year. I've got lessons from twenty, twenty three things coming up.

We've got a Christmas special with the boys, one in a half million, subscribe Q, N. A. And then we are getting ready for just the most insane couple of months at the start of twenty four.

So thank you to everyone who has supported me over the last couple of months. Next year is just going to be so wild, I can't wait for IT. But now, ladies and gentleman, please welcome ali up, down.

Up down the show.

Thank you so much for having something going to be fun. And we've got little drink over here, which we can sip on throughout the epo de and the mechanical keyboard in front of this I feel are doing a lot of doing my book, the keyboard, kind of nice because they are also working on the same company to put the stuff together. And it's cool that there is this sort of creator collaboration and stuff going on now with physical products.

I think. So i'd like the fact, you know, having something that is my own that I spent so much time building is so nice. So that's the brand new right now.

We're recordings this, this tropical realized, which is the White one, isn't out. So this can be first taste for you. IT is ambient as well.

Cracked that open, warm one. So I have a cracked of that. So you think.

I was very nice. I yeah.

this is my favor flavor. It's like it's a White monster killer.

Yes, I was waited to. So when I tried this one for the first time, I was in L A, and I didn't have much sleep for like two nights because I had to had like a meeting with my team the next day and late nights and stuff, because like hang out with people in L. A. And I cracked up in one of these years, I went to the local, we work, had one of these, and I genuinely felt so focused. And my time, yeah, I am, I have you got much done because I was just like, i'm not just people, but like, I IT works.

If IT works, IT works so your newborn get productivity. Everyone needs to gun by that. Right now, I know you've spent an awful lot of time working on IT for a long time. Why does feeling good have anything to do with productivity? That two words that don't usually go together.

they don't usually um but there is a large amount of evidence that suggests that they very much to go together.

So one of the theories, have you come have you come across this the broaden and build theory? No so this is the idea um there's a psychologist called barber herrick who in two thousand one came up with this theory um IT was based on studies that showed that if you get people into a lab and get them to do tasks of creativity and then you split into two groups and you give one group a Candy bar or something and you give the other group nothing for some reason the group who gets a Candy bar comes up with more creative solutions to whatever problem they're trying to solve. And so the theory was, okay.

There's something about you priming someone with positive emotions that affects our creativity. And then they did, you know, one one of the theories around this is back in caveman times, if, for example, someone was experiencing positive emotions, that's usually a kind of safety. Things are pretty child.

Things are good. And so when the cave men are experiencing positive emotions, when they feel in good, they are more inclined to go out and explore. So they're onna.

See what's in that cave over there? What's in that forest over there? Let me build my friendships and stuff. And so bob, professor bob, prof.

Dicks, and came up with the theory called to broaden and build, which is that when you feel good, when you experience positive emotions, IT broads the amount of actions that are available to you, and IT builds resources like social connections and actual physical resources and stuff. Where's the converse negative emotions? If cave man human is feeling negative emotions, it's like shit.

I'm stressed. There is a tiger on the horizon. I need to, I, I have a very small range options to choose from, fight, flight, freeze.

And I have to act within that range. And and so the idea is that feeling good makes us more creative, more productive, less stressed and boost their energy levels. And there so many studies that that back all this up. And conversely, negative emotions have the opposite effect. So very few people can be creative and can perform productively when they are feeling negative emotions.

What is the link between creativity and productivity? Because those two things don't necessarily sound anonymous to me. In fact, some of the most creative people that I know, like my house, max ac, are really, really unproductive. The executive function and openness seem to be basically opposite ends of the same spectrum. How you squaring this circle of creativity and productivity?

Yeah so for me, productivity i'm i'm defining as doing whatever matters to you in a way that's intentional and effective and ideally enjoyable as well. So for some people, you know if you are an artist, then creativity is productivity. Um and the studies that they do, don't on the stuff don't the word productivity, they use the word performance.

And so however you define performance, like studies in the workplace, performance is judged by evaluations from your manager. If you are a writer, performance is judged by word count. If you are in in creative tasks, performance is judged by how creative you were. So I kind of smugly do consumption together because I actually think there is not that much of a difference between creativity and productivity depending on, you know, for example, if you if you're an account, then creative accounting is probably unproductive because it's not what you're trying to do. But if you are a knowledge worker, if you are a right or if you are youtube, whatever, creativity is productivity because is literally what you're trying to do.

And as often, I guess, uh, power law multiplies available where you come up with a solution that means you can be more efficient, which requires you to probably be creative ahead of that, like if you come up with a creative solution to a .

productivity problem. exactly. yeah. And I think in in the world today, like especially people listening to this, most people do not have jobs where the goal is to just crank up more wages per hour.

There is homos y talks about this. The people who are billionaires are not working any harder. In me, there are just playing different chest moves. And often, you know, finding the right chest move to play means that you can get a ten x outcome without working anyone here as hard as someone who's trying to work sometimes hard.

That was the same puri insight bit more controversial. He says hard work is passively overtake. But the lesson is that it's more important about what you work on rather than how hard you work.

Because in the correct decision, if you say that work on equals, times, times, intensity, but that's only within effectiveness yeah right. Like worked on is time, times, intensity, but you can get different outcomes based on how much leverage. So you and we have been friends for a long time.

You spent years writing this book and even longer building up your corpus of productivity stuff on your youtube channel. Given you written about about productivity, why is IT not filled with palette, a technique and time blocking, and how to build a good notion template? Why is IT not just A A tools guide? Why is IT more feeling? yeah. So initially.

when I started writing this, IT was a more of a tool, the type thing, because, you know, as a productivity bro, I love learning about the tools and the templates and stuff.

But I realized that in my own life, the thing that has made me most production, you know, people always ask, how are you able to build the europe channel in the business while working as a doctor and demanding and stuff? And really, this is IT was never because I had a magical to do list. And when people look at my phone that like, oh, actually it's IT just looks like everyone else is a bit of a mess like to do this is always overflowing.

IT was never really about that. IT was about the fact that I found, I consistently found ways to make whatever I was doing feel good. I found ways to make whatever I was doing energizing and enjoyable.

And I was not always like that. So when I started off working, the union doctor in the N. H.

S. Conditions are prety bad in this delay. And I had this sort of grinding mentality where I was, I was feeling drained every day. Work wasn't enjoying IT. But my view was, you know, you ve just got got a struggle through this, because everyone says the first two years of the hardest.

And as long as you struggle for long enough, then on the other side of that, whatever that thing is in, in my case, I was once I become a specialist, then once I become a consult, and once I hit some arbitrary e stone, then my life will be chill. But then I would speak to people who were at those modest ones, and their lives were not really. They were also having a pretty terrible time at work.

And this sort of many, I realized, wait a minute, i'm trying to jugg this full time job and also build my youtube channel in business on the side. I don't have any energy to do this. I do actually have time in the evenings because I was only working sixty years a week and this like another fifty hours to play with, but I just didn't have the energy.

And IT was when I started to actively find ways to make medicine my day job feel more energizing, enjoyable. That was what really unlocked the energy to focus on my youtube channel. I was talking to you about sometimes where you managed to hit the gem way more consistently than I do, and you also managed to podcast.

We will consist me that I do like a stupid rate of like three or four or five per week, but I suspect you don't need to grind. IT doesn't feel like a grin to you. IT feels like play. I suspect IT feels good.

I've had to do things to make you feel more like place, so especially when IT comes to training. And one of the things that i've had to do is get a coach. So for a very long time, I trained in my own very hard and stay great.

But thirty five now, and i've been training for a decade a bit, and I just can't push myself as hard in the gym on my owner. I used to what i'm training with one of my boys. I can, if i'm training in a class, I can.

If I ve got my coach at me, I can. But on my own, I can. Now I, oh right. Well, this seems to be a change in my motivation set up. So I need to account for IT.

So I got a coach, so i'm training with my trainer three times a week, training in a class twice a week. I'm training with one of my boys once a week. That's a six day week spit.

The same goes for recording the podcast if I was a youtube, but like you, IT would be really difficult because I find sitting down, writing a script, getting front of the camera, all of that quite hard. The accountability, I work very well with accountability, and also working in groups of working, at least with someone. The podcast is always with someone.

So I guess i've learned one of the quotes of me, which is that although I work well in solitude and most accountable when there is someone waiting for IT, the same reason if I was my journ for myself, compliance is fifty percent. But my newsroom atter compliance weekly is a hundred percent right, thousand words a week for three years now, right? Every single week without without stop structuring a Kelly.

It's holiday. I'm in guaTamara. I'm get movies or whatever, like always done, wrote IT on the plane from Peterson to the U. K.

And uploaded IT on plane wifi two days ago, right? Because I know that if I don't do IT people going to notice. So i've realized that that is a motivation for me.

Training is on the fuel good side. The other stuff is a little bit more stick than carrot. I suppose I sit to motivator rather than. Encourager yeah um but yeah finding the course of you and then reverse engineering and environment that allows you to tweet the very specific nobs and leavers that trigger your motivation. That's I don't think that that you being the David dogons inside of you might say you should just do this because you want like you should do hard things but so well yeah but you can do hard things in an easy .

way yeah and that's what that is a so things I do that so first, an amazing ample. The third shop of this book is all about people and there is just stupid month of evidence that says that the way that we when whenever we work in a way that involves other people, it's just it's more analysis ing. It's more and enjoyable.

It's more motivating. This is why people benefit from accountability bodies. The way I used to do IT was at university, I found that if I was granting away on my own, i'd be pretty miserable.

I, i'd be effective because, you know, I, I, I can use, I can employ discipline and world power to force myself to sit there on my own and do my, do my work. But if I go to the library with five other friends, we're all doing our work is the palm sock that used to yeah, the promoter ety. We would like, we would do palettes together.

We would do twenty five minutes of work. We were all different subjects starting different things, and then five minutes a break. And there's something about doing IT with friends that just made the whole thing way more enjoyable, way more energizing.

And he meant that had energy in the evenings. I don't know, like hang out with friends or like work on my websites back in the day. And I think this is something that people don't think about enough.

There is this idea that, like, I focus Better when I want my own OK you focus Better you when you're on your own. And there are there are some small number of people that I just tell you, tell about that they never struggle procrastination. They never struggle distraction.

They're just able to grind out on their own. If you are that person and you are also having fun, then great. The advice is not for you, but for the rest of us.

For most of us, we know humans are social creatures. We benefit from the energy of the people around us. So finding a way to do anything with other people makes you way more effective and generally makes you more fun as well. Yeah.

it's it's a delicate baLance. I remember I went to an office for the first time in a long time, a toward the back end of covered, and was reminded. I always used to think, look at how distracted I get when I set at the computer that five minutes on youtube, about that ten minutes growling, instagram, mar, whatever, like you see IT from the front row seat.

But I went into an office and saw one person go, anybody want a coffee? Then they go, oh yeah, yeah. We got, if that blond rose left, is, I know we haven't, we need to get some in, oh, OK, what about those vietnamese world basics? And you realized that someone asking the whole room if they want a coffee, no, just stopped three minutes out of everybody.

The three minutes isn't much, but that's forty times a day, right? That's just always happening over, over, over again. So yeah, I think the baLance between not being around people are not working with people so that they distract you, but also realizing that is motivating force is important. So, right? So people important, having accountability, buddies also important, power.

What's what's in power? Chapter two. So power is one of the key factors that drives intracom internal motivation. So if this might not be familiar, that broadly two types of motivation, there's extrinsic and intrinsic.

So extrinsic motivation is when you are doing something because of the external reward are gonna get as a result or to avoid some sort of punishment. So um kind of doing a thing because of working for the money is extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is when you're doing IT for its own sake.

There is something about the process that either enjoyable or that feels meaningful to you and therefore, you're doing IT for internal reasons, for your own reasons. And basically all the evidence shows that in internal intrinsic motivation is way more powerful and durable. The extrinsic motivation, and in fact, the more extrinsic motivation you have, even if you are intrinsically motivated to do something, extrinsic motivators often crowd out intrinsic motivators.

How it's unclear. But I, I guess I .

exulted for my life. I really seen this. So back when my youtube channel was a side hustle, I was intrinsically motivated to make, to make videos. And IT would be fun and be hearing my message and making videos. And I have having a great time.

But weirdly, as soon as sponsors starting pest started paying lots of money for those videos, and now all of a sudden there's a deadline on the video, and there is like a large amount of money attach to IT, you would think that, oh my god, I could make twenty thousand dollars by just filming this youtube video would make IT way more fun. I get to do what I was doing before, plus twenty thousand. But what I actually feels like is this thing was once fun, but now i've got a deadline, and now i've got a boss and i've got .

to overload to love into a labor. exactly.

And this is one of the problems with monotoned your hobby in that I thought my my view is that if you monitor ze your hobbies um for pocket money, that's really fun. Back when I was a magician, I used to go on university from doing matter tricks and balls, and I was paid a hundred pounds here and there. That's fun.

I am not relying on the hounds hundred pounds to live, but if I had to be a professional magician where I was relying on that income to live, now all of a sudden magic stops being fun. And you human musicians struggle this all the time. Like, you know, actually, I used to enjoy music and now to become work and he cannot relax.

Like in the evening he has to paint because he has to find a creative outlet to recharge energies, because music is now work. So part of the problem, and i'm a big otis, a passions and like fighting a way to make a living out of IT, but there is this sort of fine line, and that the motivation can sometimes to become extrinsic, rather than intrinsic, becoming back to power. Power is this idea of autonomy and competence. If you feel like you have autonomy, control, responsibility over the things that you're doing, and you feel like you are actually good at the things you are doing, that leads to this feeling of empowerment, feeling of power, which is a huge factor.

intrinsic motivation. How can people make themselves feel more autonomous? A lot of people have got some sort of accountability, boss of some kind that they need to be reporting to whats the solution. So there's .

like a spectrum of a of autonomy. You can basically, I have control of three things, control of the outcome. You you can have control over the process, and you can have control over the mindset, outcome, process and mindset.

So a lot of people don't have control over the outcome. Like when I was a doctor, I didn't have control over the outcome. I had to do what I was told.

I couldn't just choose that. I can know as a to and stuff.

but so I I have to do the things that i'm told also I was junior, I had to do with the seniors want to do all this kind of stuff. But even when you don't have control over over what you're doing, you have an enormous control of how you're doing IT. And so what I realized, you know, the first few months where I was working as a doctor, I made the mistake of thinking, the way to conserve energy is by doing the best minimum.

I made the mistake of thinking, you know what, i'm just i'm just going to do what i'm told i'm going to granted at these these couple of years and let me just make sure I I get home with an energy to film my new videos. But weirdly, approaching anything with that level of half artless really drains the energy. IT is not fun.

Looking at watch is not fun. It's not a fun way to go through your work day when you're like i'm just going to do what i'm told, right? I'm just going to do IT.

I'm just going i'm just going to ground IT out and and of the realization for me was the on weekends, on weekends shifts, I felt weirdly more energies afterwards, which is kind of wait. Because weekend shifts to a doctor, I like more busy, because this fear, the fear stuff, is more patients, more emergencies that is going on. But I felt weirdly energized, and I realized it's because on weekend shifts, I was taking responsibility and I was taking more ownership of the things that I was doing.

The way I was approaching my patients was thinking, shit the bug, kind events with me because I don't want to bring up the consultant. So I am going to chase of these blood result i'm going to call radiology. I'm going to do the things.

And so I was working harder. But because I had, I felt like I owned the process of what I was doing. Suddenly I had more energy and work became more fun. And the shift of absolutely flew by to the point that I was like swapping with colleagues to be like, he, can I work a weekend? Because I was like, it's so much more fun working on the weekend.

So what about mindset? mindset.

Is this really, really good blood post by south golda that I have ready years ago that I I still think, think back to, which is there is an enormous difference between I have to do this and I get to do this and whenever we find ourselves thinking, ah, I have to do x we can always do a reframe in our minds I choose to do X. I get to do X I am blessed to be able to do x and even just that like this is my single biggest practical take off.

Anyone listen to this. The next time you feel like I have to do something, just changed up on your head. You don't actually have to do anything.

Everything is a choice short. There are consequences. All choices in all that crap. Fundamentally, you are choosing to do IT. And if you take that ownership and switch IT around in the mind, the mind is a powerful device.

The mind can the the way we think about something profoundly changes the way of philology responds to IT the way our body reacts. Um there a there's a cool there's a cool way that sociologists measure life satisfaction. And we were talking about this on the I stage.

Um we be up for the people information. So one way of measuring life satisfaction is by giving someone to serve and being like how satisfied you are you with your life. Then you know people are self are not software, are they didn't know was going on. But the other way that sociologists do IT is they have a little pager or I think it's an APP these days and they pink you a few times a day and they ask you one question, they ask you if you could, would you choose to fast forward the experience that you're currently having to get to the end of IT? So for example, if you're at work, would you choose to force forward to the end of your workday?

If you are on a flight, would you choose to force forward to the to the end of flight? If you're, I don't know, putting your kids to bed, would you choose to fast forward that so that they're already asleep and they look at what proportion of your day would you choose to fast forward? And what they find is that like you know the people who would choose to false for a large proportion of their day. Ah you know that the the that is a an indicator that actually you're not that satisfied with life because you would rather not experience a big chunk of your time that experience .

like a great definition.

And so what i've learned to do is I I asked myself this question a lot. If I ever find myself like waiting in line for something or I don't know I am a new bar, and like I just want to get to my destination or whatever the thing might be, or or even doing work, then I I don't quite enjoy, I think, what I falls for with this.

And if the answer is ever yes, I know that there is a minds of shift I need to make, because I know that someone, you know, if I cott told was in that position, he would be able to enjoy, enjoy the process. So why can't I? And I find switching from a half to two I get to is incredible for making me feel more like I I have autonomy, therefore I have power.

Therefore I feel good. So much comes back to gratitude, men. It's so giving an answer that people already feel like they know is way less pioneering and and like revelatory. But yeah, gratitude just seems to be such a solution. It's it's a prophetic against life not being the way that you wanted to yeah switching the and also a treatment.

Yes, I like five and as a graduate journey has the same impact is doubling your income in terms of happiness levels wow. And so honestly, being more grateful, me like, what a time to be alive. Where is that phrase from court vanua, which is something, something the effect of as you go through life. Remind yourself in multiple applications. If this isn't nice, I don't .

know what is val, if you want, if you can't be happy with the coffee you won, be happy on the yard.

嗯， yeah.

just D I like the fact that, you know you're thinking about how can we find in the monday, how can we find ways to not only take control from a performance perspective, I know that if I switch this mindset, I will be happier. But also it's actually the way that you enjoy your life moment to moment, forgetting the outcome that you're going to get on the other side of this productivity perspective .

and other side of that, you more production but of the point of the book really is that what i'm hoping people will do is that they will read IT because they want to be more productive.

But what they will find as a result of because most of the researching here is really from positive psychology, gy, rather than from organizational performance design stuff, because what what I found through ding, all this research is, yes, I am more productive when I feel good, but also I am just happier and more that I feel like and I feel good. And that is actually inherent good. So the goal is not actually to get more done. The goal is to generally be more satisfied and fulfilled of life. Well.

ultimately, the reason I think that people want to be more productive, that they presume on the other side of their increased productivity would be that going to enjoy going have more fun, satisfied. I'm going to be happier. okay? But there is a shortcut to get there, which is just be happier in the moment.

Do the things that maximizes happiness now and then the productivity can either come along for the ride or not. So funny, man, that, you know, you SAT off to try and write this thing and begin this journey of productivity as A A solution. First off to being a union and being a student, and then being a doctor, and then being a doctor with a business, and then being a doctor with multiple business. And what you ended up doing was almost completely throwing productivity out the window and realizing that it's just one of multiple different trigger and leavers that you can pull to get satisfied with that.

Yeah and that emotions are like the baseline of this whole thing. I think earlier on, in my productivity Browness, I really are under appreciated the importance of emotions because I was pretty, I started today pretty unself aware of my own emotions and like what was going on.

And me too, but I was when I got punch in the face with this, like working for sixty hours a week, the nh, where people are dying and where i'm potentially responsible for some people dying. And like if you make a mistake, like you think about IT all night, I was like, i'll let you know all the stores. M has not prepared me for this on sort of negative emotions ah and the solution to that finding a way to to make everything feel good OK, what about play? Play the first chat.

Play I think is really fun. So there's a lot of nobel prize winners who attribute their success to the idea of play, the guys that invented gravy, and Richard fineman, who went to atomic bomb, but who helped with the atomic bomb and then want to know about prize. Richard find man, at one point, was feeling total burnout in his career.

He was a physics professor. He was like, he got all the accolades, he ticked all the boxes, but he did not enjoy physically. He felt burned up by IT. And this is really cool story in in his automotive phy, where he talks about how at the cornell university cafeteria, a student was chucking a plate up up in the air. And fineman noticed that the cornell logo was like rotating at a slightly different rate than like the center of the plate or some shell.

And he was like, which? Why is the logo on the out of the plate rotating a different to the inside of the plate? And he was like, I don't really care, you know, the professor, I went to the atomic bomb, nic ant.

But then he would kind of reminded himself that, actually, why did I use to enjoy physics? I used to enjoy physics because I treated IT like play. I did things just for the fun of them.

And so he set out to model the equations of how this bloody plate would rotate. And his colleagues, what I do, what the hell are you doing? You're supposed to be the great professor, five men, and you are like writing equations about african willing play.

And he would respond with, i'm just doing IT for the fun of IT. There is no, there is no use in IT whatsoever. And actually what happened is that, a, he developed his love physics back again. He killed his burn out, and he ended up though the rubbing of that plate ended up leading to the equations that helped .

him win the nobel prize, whose Alberto Lopez .

Alberto loop has. Is this a climbing? He was one of the olympic climbers, and rock climbing in the olympics is is an interesting sport, because if you watch on T, V, you find that they're, they look really happy.

H, which is in sharp contrast to, like the sprinters who look like really stressed. They focused on this one. Go, where's rock? Limmers seem seem to be having a laugh, having a joke, even though they're competing in the olympics, are not competing against each other.

They're like kind of pointing the roots out to each other. And they seem quite happy about the whole thing. And rock climbing was how a me high chicks at me high who discover the concept to flow back in the one thousand nine and seventies, you know, the idea of flow state.

He noticed that he rock climbers get into with flow state, where they feel like they're fully engaged. But this, but but they view the stakes is being, is being low. And that combination of full engagement with sufficiently low stakes is what creates that feeling of play, and can often what create, and often what creates that feeling of flow.

And so this gets that the idea like, how do we experience more plane, our work in our lives, one of the big answers is just lower mistakes. So for example, Roger federal, when he is playing the wimbledon final, especially when he's depending his title, he probably is not feeling that playful about IT because the stakes are serious. It's really serious.

The stakes are too high, whereas most of us are not in that situation lot of the time. And most of us, when IT comes to our work, if we can find a way to just die down, the seriousness approached IT with a bit more sincere, as I want to say, darda lower the stakes, lower the bar. Think of IT not as this is a big thing i'm trying to do, but you have to think of IT as i'm just having fun here. That is often how people perform way Better and feel more playful about their work.

From a tactical perspective, how do you feel less serious about your work, especially if you care about if you the sort of person that can listen to me, you waffle on for a couple of hours about productivity, probably care about the outcomes they are getting in your life, which means that you might apply you or N G pressure to the outcomes that are going to how can someone tactically low the stakes?

Okay, good question. I have a three strategies. Number one is to is a great phrase for marin. What's he calls? He calls IT since ere not serious, um no one wants to play a board game.

What someone is too serious about IT IT is not fun, like they know sticker for the rules. I kind of drain every once energy, but you also don't want to to play board game with someone is completely uncaring ying because it's like, well, what's a fun in that? Like they're even trying.

We want to play with them in a place sincerely. And so I think that phrase self, since if you are not serious, if we find ourselves feeling a bit stress, feeling like the stakes are too high, often not for procrastination, distract kicks in, where, like h this is emotional hodd of like the thing. Thing is, writing a book is like a harder thing, is that a book and a book is a big deal.

That we find ourselves getting distracted in looking for the dupe, mean, hit on tiktok, whatever the thing might be thinking. Let me just genuinely approaches with sincere rather than seriousness is tactic number one that I find be help for taking. Number two is by, you know, the start of each day, I asked myself one simple question, and that question is, what is today's adventure going to be?

Now this speaks to the idea. No is a very common principle in psychological cholos and performance research that making a plan at the start of the days are very useful thing to do. Some people do the night before most people do in the morning. If you can figure out what is your most important task in a brand, Tracy calls to eat that frog. What's the one thing that if you ve got that thing on today, today would be a win.

The adventure question is basically that, but framed in the in the language of adventure, because if you think of anything as an adventure, you can ask yourself the question, what would this look like if IT we're fun? This is so similar to depress the question of what would that look like if they were easy? But I reframe IT as I literally have a post on my computer monitor.

What would this look like if they were fun? Because if you frame something as an adventure and just genuinely ask yourself, how can I make this fun? You the mind will inevitably come up with loads different ways to make this fun. Um so that's another tangible thing. What would this look look like if IT we're fun for me personally, what I found is that everything becomes more fun when I have background music, preferably from, like, lord, the rings, concerning habits, the shire, the tune, that kind of the fact that you have .

a girlfriend continues to amazed me.

Turning habits, all of the rings, when I was. So when, when, when I held these ization, I feel productivity, I realized part of why working and working in the doctors office is a big grim is because the environment is is not nice. It's like that much money.

I got this twenty quid bu tooth speaker for amazon. I attached IT to the light on the ceiling, and I would just play movie soundtracks while I was right writing my discharge letters. And initially the consultants were common to be like what they have going on here.

But then there will be I get IT it's a pot lordling the I don't hands every every now, then and even just having music, the background makes you feel more playful, just makes them more fun. And so what i'm trying to do here is encourage people we can all like, yes, not everything has to be fun all the time. It's not what i'm saying.

What i'm saying is we can always find ways to make everything we're doing just a little bit more fun. I with a little bit more play. And yes, that means will be more productive, but that's also all the point. The point is will just feel Better about life.

Yeah, it's i'd like to get you to sit down with homos at some point maybe over the next year. I like you to get round table between us for dinner or something because alex seems to d priority. He he finds fun in in the ground um but it's his a like executive function and grind muscle is so hypo traffic that he's just prepared to continue to smash that liver.

Um but I would be interested to know what would happen if you took a an inventory of his or an M O T of his particular productivity work set up and said, hey, why don't we try like giving you a window or why don't we try like this or that or the other? I be very interested to know just how robust whether these people for humanness doesn't apply quite so much. Something tells me that we need to be careful taking, uh, global advice from people that are absolute outliers within the performance. IT seems like this is a much more like nori, middle of balk, robust, like solo. You know I mean, I know lots and lots of the people that we know that out lies would still benefit from this.

Yeah um I think this is where I I to you into you David goes, i'd listen about this book great I ve I love the guy but David gog's this thing I think is like he he's outlier there where everything is about discipline you know, he more starting a story about how goggins work up at three in the morning, genuine going for a run because that's the sort of guy.

And what I worry about is that Normal people who are not David organs will then think of, fuck, I just not disciplined enough. I just need to get more discipline. I just need to grind harder. I just need to wake up earlier and all that, all that stuff. And for a very small subset of people, that works.

But for most people, you know, human psychology is not geared towards continuing to push yourself and, you know, wake up at three clock the morning, just you go for a run and continue to cause pain to us. Like gog, frickin runs iron man with broken legs. Human psychology is not clear for that.

And this is literally trying to play. It's like trying to play life on hard mode. And I think I love the message that David god s shares.

But I is also not realistic for a lot, a lot of people, like a lot of us broadly, if you asked people why they do what they do, they do the things that feel good. No one struggle, discipline or motivation to watch netflix or to play video games and to hang out with friends, because they just can feels good. You probably don't strugling with discipline, motivation to do podcast, because IT feels good to you.

I, most of the time don't struggle discipline or motivation to make youtube videos or to write, because IT feels good to me. I actually do struggle podcasts, especially of a zoom. And I find that draining manager in, which is, why am less motivated by that.

I struggle with the gym because i've yet to find a way to make you feel good consistently, especially while traveling. We do the things that feel good. So if we care about work, we can find ways of making whatever matters to us feel good.

Well, you yeah, you could imagine feeling good as A A false multiply to your discipline like that. You have this tank of IT and you can get either one mile pigalle or a hundred miles per gallon based on, are you driving up hill, are you not enjoying IT or are you driving downhill? I this is enjoyable to me.

Yeah, I think this is why disciple come. This is how I square the sight of discipline. I do value discipline. I think, with any task. Exactly this hell analogy you talking about that I think of that if if you enjoy the process, IT feels like like going downhill, if you don't enjoy the process that feels like going up hill, going up hell obviously requires you to execute will power and discipline over the long term.

But the the kitten is before anything that's a bit of a hump, even before something that feels good, there's a bit of hump like for you going to feels good, but still a bit of a hump taxi. You just get there because maybe you're feeling bit tired waking up on A N P, exactly like the uber. And as long as we are employing disciples, just get over the hub.

That is a great use of discipline because that is very sustainable, like just using discipline in small doses to get started with the thing that you want to do. But to use discipline will power to keep going with the thing that you want to do. Oh, that's so training.

so taxing. Yeah, we definitely need to be careful. Did i've contributed to this? I've SAT down and noted David dogons and homozygous KO. They've said things that are similar to this. But we do need to be careful about the heroic narrative, the discipline in face of misery and suffering gibs, right? Because IT is a heroic narrative, and there will be days when life comes and smashes you in the face. And when you need to have built up that discipline muscle sufficiently, but finding the baLance between that not being so atrophy, that IT can be deployed but you're not using IT unnecessarily when there is a simple or more enjoyable route toward achieving the outcome that you want is is very, very difficult and IT can't be synthesized into do hard things even when you are, especially when you don't feel like IT. I can't ham this into a mean um but IT is it's holding two relatively conflicting ting views in your mind that at the same time discipline is important and I continue to use IT so IT doesn't evaporate and I should use discipline as little as possible in my day to day life by trying to design the things that I do to be as enjoyable as possible so that discipline is not something I rely on IT just happens easily and naturally to me absolutely I think this i'd i'd .

be interested to get how many take on this. But one thing that he said that really struggled me is when I was twenty, I wanted to be a millionaire. When I was a millionaire wanted to be twenty and. You i'm million now now. And I actually don't want to be twenty because I feel like I enjoyed the process of getting there and I would love to live my life, not wanting to go back because actually I have just enjoyed every step of the journey. Poly means not to be successful, actually, but .

depends, ritter ia absolutely depends on what the criteria of success is.

What you get is a nice though it's A I do why with the sentiment behind IT. But I think enjoying the journey while also striving towards whatever goals you have .

is literally the point yeah I what are you optimizing for is just such a great question. Uh, my news. Later a couple of weeks, I had Morgan houses on the show and the guy is just fucked in phenomenon, right? This quote that i've been playing with for a long time from suppose key human man, he added, dopamine is not about the pursuit of happiness.

IT is about the happiness of the suit. Oh, nice. So much of life and enjoyment is about the anticipation of things coming. In fact, the anticipation is often actually more enjoyable than the experience itself.

Temporis to book weak ung holidays years and years in advance, so that he could get as much enjoyment out of the anticipation as he could. This put a new perspective on its not the journey is the destination that actually is no destination. Each arrival at the destination simply Marks the beginning of another journey toward the next destination.

Morgan household told me on the show the other week he planned to this big holiday with his family for a long time. They've got kids. Finally did IT after booking time off from laborat, funding from his writing and wife and children and travel, and the rest of IT arrives at this hotel on the first night that he arrives that steps out onto the balcony.

Y of this places been planning for ages, and the first thought of his mind was, do be so good if we came back in the next, like this place would be so good to come back to next year. So literally, during the experience of the destination, he was artificially creating another journey. Already I, I had a really.

I had had a really stark realization of this in a really trivial way recently. Um one of the okay uh there's a few a few reasons. So one of the questions I think about a lot is what would I do if money when I object? And if money when I object, how would I change?

I spend my time. And what of the things that I often land on is i'd actually probably play more video games. You know, I really enjoy the video games when I was kid.

I'd love to have a bit more time to to play video games. I was mentioning this to my team who who were training with me and they were like, yeah, but you don't play video games that much like what's was going on there. But I spent a lot time anticipating the joy of playing with your game.

I I get so much joy out of, like, you know what? I I wants to buy. The highest tand gaming laptop imagined is that the rays of blade, teenage with the alien, wear a teenage.

I can afford that. Now, got much guy. In the past, I was variable of five thousand, amy. And the anticipation of six months of doing the research and watching the videos were so joyful. And then I got IT, I was like, I mean, i'm never going to turn the thing on because I actually have more, more fun in my work. So there's something profound of like even even now I know that if I buy the slapton P, I actually .

won but the anticipation .

of like I could bite whatever I want is the thing i'm holding on to because it's just very happiness points for literally zero costs yeah but that in fares hack of bucking .

holidays years and years and advance so good you know there was A A study done on um I think he is british clubs so the same way that they paint people's phones in your earlier example asking what's your levels would you this one was how happy are you you'd think throughout the entirety of the day leading up to the night out and the night out, you know, I might be twelve midnight before that, so drunk they can't remember anything.

But just if the D J starts to really ramp to set up and the lights are going in, the bottles services in, know whatever you might be. But IT wasn't the time that they had. The most fun throughout the entirety of the day and night of a night out was when they were getting ready together in the house.

IT was in anticipation of the event. IT was not the event itself. And just continuing to remind myself, dopamine is not about the happiness, is not about pursuit of happiness.

It's about the happiness of pursuit, right? Like you have to find enjoyment in the journey because there is no destination. Every single time that you reach a destination, it's just the way marker of the next journey you going to do.

And even in sort of people often say that like, oh, you know you shifted the goal post when you got there, but you actually become become, become a totally different person on route to the destination. Like if someone is trying out, I do not make money on the side and they're like, oh my god, like if if only I could make two thousand dollars a month of of of passive income, that would completely change my life like, yeah, I would.

But by the time you get to fifteen hundred month, fifty hundred dollars a month, a pass of income, you have become a fundamentally different person. You have a new set of skills. You have a new set hopes, believes, expectations.

You have way more self confidence. And now suddenly two k doesn't seem like much. You like ten K I know people at the time came on the bus and by the time you get there, you're like, well, it's one hundred and the goal post keeps some shifting.

And actually, I think there is anything wrong with that. We just need to recognize that for what I you say fundamentally, the journey is the destination yeah so all right. What about seat clarity? Why is clarity important priority? So the.

First third of the book is about how do we find ways to energize us and make things feel more enjoyable, play power in people. Uh, the second third is about how do we beat procrastination. And there are basically three core blockers that caused us to procrastinate from stuff, uncertainty, fear and inertia.

And so seeking clarity is really about that first step. If if someone has the goal of going to get fit, what how does that mean? Like they're gonna progress me on that further entire life because they have no idea what get fit actually means.

Like who who knows how do you break down? Students have have the goal of light onest revised for my chemistry example. Like, okay, but what does that mean? Are you're reading a textbook of you doing some practice papers? Like there is a lot of mental cognitive friction involved in trying to figure out what the how you actually trying to do.

And the point around curious is that if you're ever strugling with procrastination and to ask yourself, am I actually current what I need to do here? Am I clear why doing IT? And am I clear on when i'm going to do IT? What, why and win? And if we can just get clear on those three things that will cure procrastination for the vast majority of people, what's to go? Why is that to go? And okay, cool.

What's next? Action and we know what i'm going to do IT, which is i'm so blish just putting a thing in the calendar because once at once it's in the calendar at least then you have sorted the clarity point. And now if you're still procrastinating for IT.

Now this is probably my emotional issues that we have to deal with. But like at least let's just get in the calendar and defined what the task actually is. So that's the first step from a practical perspective we have in the calendar.

I think one of the best time management strategy i've ever found is something called the ideal week where you know all of people say that that on a time they've never ending to do list um the idea k is basically where you create a blank of google calendar you call IT your ideal c and you just block out what does your ideal week look like, when would you like to wake up? When would you like to sleep, when are your gym times, when I, when are your date nights? When are at work and you realize by by doing this that a you have more time than you realize and also you have less time than you realize.

Because if you wanted to do those eighteen projects on, you're to do this. And someone listening to this is probably no problem. Someone positivity minded wants to get a lot of things done at very high level, realized there are simply not enough hours in the day and not okay. That means you can now eliminate the things that really don't matter in focus of the things that really do um and so the ideal week is a way of figuring out, do I actually have a manageable number of things on my plate and once you do, putting them in your attra calendar is a way of making sure you've ve made the time for the thing.

Hope you thought about how people can learn to .

say no more effectively. Got to around this something I love direct service thing of helium er or no if it's not a hallie then it's intended to know. I love the idea of never saying yes over over the phone or in person and always being like that stone your family thing that is yeah he never says yes of the phone let me check my calendar and get back to you. I loved offload things to be like, you know what let me check with my team because they manage my calendar because then i'm not the bad guy saying no to the thing um do you think you're people.

please, are absolutely and me too. It's so good. good. Yeah, it's so bad. I ve only just realized this. Recently, I started doing therapy for the first time, properly in person in Austin.

The lady that i've started working with work with a friend who was way, way, way more of a basted than I am. And I figured if he can deal with his shit, SHE can definitely deal with my shit. So he was the company in the coal mine.

And yeah, I just I don't know. I think I think I probably, if i'd done enough south assessment of realized that was the people but IT, I think he felt a bit masculinity realize IT felt like I know cocked or agreeable or feminine or something that I just didn't like the idea of. And there's still a lot with me of a vestigial like compensation ory mechanisms from feeling week in school, from being fragile, eland, bullied and stuff in school.

So I I don't want to show that like new, the vulnerabilities that I already have am happy to accept, but new ones I no, no, no, no, no. Because that's just another piece on the pile of you might be a fragile, weak piece of shit, right? But this was a new one.

And IT set me in the face for long enough during sessions, right? I can't, I can't. I can't escape this. I hate telling people bad news. I hate disappointing people.

I somehow managed to find a way to be able to blame myself for something which was, evidently somebody else is fault. Let's say that someone in the team messes up and get something wrong. And IT was completely on them. I feel bad about telling them that they did something bad because it's gna make them feel bad and I don't want them to feel bad, even though is that fuck fault.

I know you may may I have exactly the same like how how are you dealing with this?

Any tips? A couple of these things that have helped up for me. Uh, the big productions that i've done in person are uh sufficiently high stakes that theyve pushed the boundary of what i'm prepared to expect from people sufferance. We did seven episodes in three days in london a couple of weeks ago. I need the guys to be on the ball for that.

And I also need to be able to get people to do things that I can do, like, if i'm ungry and I need a sandwich, I need to shout you, can someone get me a sandwich like that previously would have been like, who the fuck um eye to ask for a sandwich? What is this? Like, can you come and feed me grapes and find me with a leaf? But like just formative experiences where you need to make commands and demands of other people, that's one another one has been um more of a realization that the standard that you hold yourself to are the minimum stand.

You should hold everybody else to as well, right? Like I know that I work hard for all that. There's a current trend on the internet of a laying all of my success at the feet of I, the love island of the way that I look, given that this is, yeah, I did a trigger entry episode and they decided to call IT like the truth about confidence and IT trigger some people on the internet, yeah, which will tell areas a given, especially given the fact this is a podcast which is bigger on audio, literally where my face doesn't exist.

Then on youtube IT does anyway, you be banners like you doing that? That's true, but that that's not unspotted y it's my fucker in the head anyway, that insight around. I know that I work really, really hard.

I know that the standard that I hold myself to are very high, so saying, okay, I should expect other people to at least be in the same universe. Me shouldn't be something that you feel guilty about, that luck if the guy does that one component within a team, whether at the top of the tree or, you know, the bottom of the tree, doesn't matter. But if you are working hard, you can quite happily expect other people to be like, hey, I did IT.

My stuff was done on time, right? So setting an example, I think as a people pleaser is is good. If you are a people pleaser who also doesn't work hard, that's gonna a tough circle to squat yeah because you're not going to be able to set an example and to say, hey, I did IT my stuff was done on time right um helping of the people understand why you're doing IT.

So as a good example, there's a couple of a couple of times where a deem had booked to go away like bad times of the um not any foot of his own. And then we started to apply a lot more work to him. I knows like he did mean chase got a stuff done.

You didn't get your stuff done right. Like this is this is just fact and he was like, man, I, I, I do not want to be the bottles neck. I'll fix IT I was like, that was a nice way to get passed that so using yourself, not in a like, i've already got my you not making people feel billiton, but starting ten toes forward and like, I am doing my things, everybody else needs to follow along behind.

That seems to be a good, a good route. But it's hard, man, that people pleasing thing for me is like, I find IT hard to upset people on the podcast. I find IT hard to tell people in my personal life things that they don't anna, hear I all of IT looks like it's resonating with your .

sale hundred percent. yeah. This is literally i'm in the midst of some like family drama that's literally a result of me wanting to if someone is upset with me, then my default is like.

shit me going to fix IT. Hey, you're in the wrong. Yeah, i'm not supposed to.

I can apologize for this. Yeah, it's a rough man. I've got doctor .

Robert glover that but I D I read IT every few years. I know.

keep in, set out doing exact i've in january um yeah i'm looking forward to speaking to him. Maybe he will be the answer but as with most things, man, you know you become aware of something about yourself that you may be not that happy with and then you obsess about IT and you think, oh my god, this is like one of the defining characteristics of my pathology as a human and then you realize, oh no, this is just one ingredient in the entire meal of the things that are wrong with me um but yeah I I also okay because people love you for you i've all of the different melodies and stuff that you could have being a people please, there isn't the worst.

But I do think that it'll be interesting for me to check in, in a couple years time and but hey, how s the people pleasing thing going um you definitely get you know you look at older people in there a bit more grumpy sometimes and they seem to be less people pleaser. So maybe it's just onna come along for the ride as a by product of getting older. I don't know uh .

one point on the on the therapy thing so um mutual friend bill perkins, you when we were a hung up with them in yeah in Austin when when we tried to teach you to wakes up yeah that that was a real fail. I I think if I do a second time around the mule, memory will take in.

But I I was asking him, you know that I I love with the madison about love you your interview with him, by the way, but actually didn't interview with him, was the direct result of why i'm currently like digital nomads around the world. Because before that interview I was like, I just rent a homage in london and be based in london. After that interview, I was like, I need to freak .

and go for IT like some kids. The reason that he came on the pod test because video him, I learned about the book from your youtube channel, brought bill on the show. Bills mashed IT. Bill then changed your digital Normal thing, and there's a part of your digital no one thing you came to austan .

and where I introduced you to bill book. And then when we were in all on his boat, him, what, the girl of his life, and he SAT a hands down couples of thera relationship coach. And so i've now started a couple, like, literally the following week, I started working with a couple of therapists, such as relationships.

Coach IT has been absolutely phenomenal game changing. I cannot recommend IT highly enough to literally anyone, if you're in a relationship, then doing relationship of coaching with someone who's a professor who is experienced. The four gammage of all of the ship the couples talk about and struggle with, it's just incredibly helpful.

What's IT done for you? Why is IT so useful?

It's really useful because it's given me tools to have conversations that I just didn't really have before. I think there are some people who are really, there are some couples are just amazing. A communication by default, very few, like most couples, do not say, oh my god, we communicate so much like we are so good to communication.

Literally every couple says, like, relationships are hard. Communications the main thing. And so one of those things is like it's going sound potentially simple, but listening out for the thing, up for the needs behind what the other person is feeling. I if the other person is upset with anything, or sad, or angry, frustrated or hurt any of these emotions, there is always a core need that they have that is not being met.

And instead of kind of talking at the level of, is a fridge geral left open or closed or is are we going here or there? It's like, what what's the core need? Does he oh, he has a need for feeling empowered when IT comes to decision making? Uh, okay. So now that we know what the need is and then usually if if you describe a need to some yeah that's IT like I have a need for fairness and contribution in the relationship. And when we kind of landed on on those two needs, I was to that video as, yeah, that's literally yet, like those two needs explain a lot of my behaviors in relationships and outside .

of relationships, without the other person's perspective, presumably you would just get caught up. But what the problems are at the top.

not what the subtext is, that the locally, and this is where I think you, I, I, I would say my I Q was reasonable, bob, but my E Q is probably lower than I would like IT to be right at the thing I think I working on. And so when my girlfriend and I would have issues around like I did not planning a trip, I would get caught up in the level of like OK. But you i've got to be coming out and you know, it's important for me that we go to L A.

To do this podcast. We are all this sort of stuff, but when I realized that he has a need to feel empowered in decision making, oh, I can just get her involved in the decision making. I find a podcast that's yeah but also like, hey, let's approaches as a team, as a conversation rather than me doing all, working in my head and coming bit.

So this was another big realization, if someone would to say to me, if my point would you say to me, I like for the next three months i've got everything plant. Don't you worry about IT like you just come along for the ride and know life going to be great gonna go south east asia, I would think. Thank the lord.

That's incredible. I love that someone else making the, making the decisions. Here I can focus on my work, which is, life is good. Whereas for my goal friend, that same arrangement makes her feel disappointed and is therefore terrible.

And so a lot of the couples therapy and relationship coaching is recognizing that the patterns of thought that we think are so natural to us, absolutely not necessarily useful for the other person, and just understanding that, oh okay, you have a need for connection and that is solved by having a cuttle in the morning for a minute. great. That's easy enough.

Or like you know hugging when we greet each other. It's not a thing that not yet in the morning in the bet OK. Um so just been super hello in that on on that front to just as a way of us being Better communicating what what .

about sustaining so what be spoken about, finding a way to make things more enjoyable, overcoming procrastination ation but then doing this along a long period of time, you know the next ten, twenty, thirty, forty years of your working life, your creative life, is what really matters. I think I heard you say on the podcast recently um the reason that had been successful was a combination of a tiny little bit of talent, mostly look and good timing with consistency.

Yeah, this is the thing. So anyone can be who super productive or super disciplined for a short amount of time. January, yeah january, like the week, january, very few of us can actually sustain that unless we really put effort into what does consistency and sustainable sustainability look.

Um and one of my favorite Morgan house and court Morgan housing quote is i'm not going to do anything unless I can do IT forever. That's a really good way thinking about IT. Um and so we kind of board IT down to three things, three tools that help combat burn out and let lead to more sustainability and productivity and conserve recharge and a line.

And each of these three strategies to tackles a different aspect to burn out so broadly, three, three or three different types burn out there is over exertion, burnout. You just try to do too much IT depletion. Burn out where your energy level of solo and you're not giving yourself the chance.

Replenish your energy levels, and then miss alignment to burn out, which is sometimes the hard to want to deal with, which is where everything seems to be going well. But actually, what the actions you are taking in the here and now are not aligned with the future that you actually intrinsically want for yourself, maybe other people expecting whatever the thing might be. And so those three things really stop stuff from being sustainable.

conserve. How do you do?

Conserve is basically about recognizing that a, we need to limit the amount of things that we're doing because. One of the issues with to do list is that a, they are infinite and you can always keep adding stuff to to do list. And so a lot of people who are won to be high performance and productivity brand stuff will just keep adding things to to do and think, you know what, i've got a juggle these boys on here.

But one of the things I love about all of a burkman philos hy from four thousand weeks is there is simply too much that to do, and you'll never have enough time for any of IT for all of IT. Therefore you have to make some sacrifices um and the way I I personally do this is you know this ideal week method. If IT doesn't fit in the ideal week, I don't have time for IT but also something that I call the energy investment portfolio, which is basically, I have a long bucket list in a sort of can band board, but you can do IT.

How have you one have a long bucket list of things I would like to do? And then I have a very short list of the three to five things I am actually putting i'm actually investing energy into right now. It's back in the day, made the mistake and locked down of like have got so much time i'm going to have get all lessons and singing lessons and piano lessons and art lessons because I want to learn all the stuff let mean trying to learn some japanese on on the side just doing too much stuff.

Um making focus progress in a few in a few smaller er in in a few small some small number things is way more effective than trying to you make a thousand one model progress in a thousand different directions. So a big part of conserved that he just this distant of earning to say no and getting things off a plate. Um I really like the strategy uh that's called the uh the six week trap which is if you imagine yourself, someone's asking you to do a thing, it's more than six weeks out.

Look at a calendar more than six week is great, right? The kind of is looking pretty blank oh glorious around I can tell you do that thing and the time rolls around, the kind of has gotten full up again, you are completely overwhelmed and like, fuck, I should have said yes to that. If you wouldn't do tomorrow, don't say yes for in six months time exact.

And so conserve is really a about kind of limiting the number of things that we're doing. And b also kind of on a microwave. L, as he is focusing on one thing at a time, this is, again, the classic stuff everyone knows. But you know, the idea of a kind of switching costs and attention residues sweeting between multiple tasks means you are just less efficient at each of them. And you're draining your you're wasting a lot of energy by not being by not doing things one at a time.

Um and so the basic stuff that people know, but like you know, I found I was I was reading the audibility for this a couple a couple weeks ago and I was really the third the final three chapters or I was like, oh my god, I need to take my own advice because I was feeling overwhelmed. I had too much stuff on my calendar. I felt all of IT was important, but I really wasn't. And as I was narrow the audi book for those chapters and I was like OK actually point there, actually, point there actually.

But it's strange. I mean, even just that insight that the guy who wrote the book doesn't always necessarily take the advice that he wrote down. I think IT is good for people to know. It's important for people to know.

Because one of the problems that some people that listen to this podcast tell me about is I hear all of these great strategies, and I get overwhelmed with how many of the different things that are that I could do that I could apply to my own life. And IT seems like everybody else has got that shit together. As I could look.

Let me promise you, i've been around some of the most famous, successful, high status people on the planet, and it's idiots all the way up, right? It's people who do not know what they're doing. They haven't gotten everyone is trying their best and fAiling.

That's the one I was listening to a mark manson's interview with with Morgan housel yesterday on a run because part of my thing is like I to tell minutes exercise day a one of the thing that mark said was, you know, once he became rich and had all these problems around like status and money and thinks like that, you know, bahoo, he read his book and he realized, oh, shit, all of the principles of the subtle of not giving a fuck applied to this exact situation that i'm currently. I didn't realize that.

and so took his own advice. So the book that made him famous and successful, contained in IT the answers to the problems of his fame and success.

exactly until, like a couple of years after, suffer through the suffering.

the application of stuff, the application of these ideas, of everything that we go through. This is why I love a temper irs's idea. The good shit sticks like the most robust way, I think, to get over the guilt of your external brain.

Note not being perfectly optimized or you know your fucking bing house forgetting curve anche space repetition thing not remaining you of all of the quotes that you want to say, like if there's something from one podcast a week or one book per month that you can't stop thinking about, that's the thing right? That is the thing itself selected for IT like memetic evolution inside of your own mind. That's the thing that you need to work on.

What can you not stop telling people about screen recording at sending in group chats? It's written on a post IT not like that's the thing. The godship will stick.

Everything else can fall away again. This is like um it's like feel good productivity. It's like feel resonance a like a progression. Yeah right. What is the thing that you can stop talking about, that the thing that you can focus on is the easiest .

thing we do not not stop thinking about. yeah. I think this point around, like you know, in in this book, initially there was twice as long and there were twice many strategies and are IT was like, bro, we need to cut down. And even now there are nine chapters and fifty four actionable experiments that people can apply their life.

But you know, the whole thing that we try to get across in this book is that the the goal is not apply fifty four at once, the order to apply the one at a time and see, see what vibes, see what problem you are having in your life right now. The problem like what situation you to deal, what is a strategy that might help try out for yourself? Does that work? Does IT not cool.

Either way. It's an experiment. You've gain data, and you can see how to make IT work for you.

For some people, you know, they realized the way to be consistent in the gym, to do IT first in the morning. For some people, they do realized in the afternoon. For some people is accountability body, for some people is doing profit. For some people, it's tracking their workouts using a APP. It's a different things for different people. But the point is, as long as you are finding the things that work for you and not trying to overload your brain by doing all of them at once, that is kind of this path of continuous and never and never in improvement. Recharge, recharge.

There is a fun experiment that I I like those people when they say that they are strugling or like run out or anything like that, which is, what are the things you find yourself doing when you are drained of energy? And then separately, what are the things that actually recharge your N G energy? So for example, when I find myself drained of energy, I will default to scrolling on twitter or instagram or whatever, randomly opening europe minories and randomly refreshing.

My youtube and list is OK. But what are the things that actually recharged energy? Do any of those things? Have I ever left a scooting session from tiktok feeling, wow, wow.

I feel so refreshed? Absolutely not. I don't think. I don't know anyone who's left to scoring section on tiktok fear feel really refreshed again.

I'm not saying tiktok is bad, but like you know, broadly, i'm all i'm in favor of people doing the things, doing things intentionally if for you scoring instagram and watching cooking videos will or whatever the thing is, in fact, we charge to your energy and great. You are in the very small minority of of people, for most of us, that does not on. And so part of recharging is to recognize that, hey, I care about my energy levels.

My energy levels affect my entire life, because when we are eating high energy, we feel happier, more fulfilled, more productive. So let me actually just do the things and incorporate things into my life that genuinely recharge my energy. Unfortunately, this is the basic shit.

Keeping well, doing some exercise, having an APP, spending some time in nature, creative hobby are very recharging. Um you know this why painting is a great hobby that a lot of people land on is being a thing kitting crushing and anything like that that like gives us that feeling that we are making progress, that we have autonomy is low stakes. Low stakes. Yeah you not try to monetize IT too much like all of that stuff. It's important to have creative of these generally recharges of energy way more than watching netflix is going to talk.

So there's A A vicious cycle here. I came up with this idea of productivity poetry told you about this before. But productivity power tree is when the things that you do to enjoy life and recharge are only done in order to facilitate your productivity when you stop doing them, right? So you don't go for a walk in nature because you want to enjoy your time in nature.

You do IT because you want listen to an Andrew human podcast that said, fifteen minutes of sunlight in the eyes improves your dolpin ogc response, which means you can be five percent or productive that day, right? Productivity poetry describes a an environment in which nothing that you do is not for productivity, and it's dangerous, right? And this is something it's like, recharge is both a productivity strategy, but also a life piece of advice, right?

You need to do things that are not just the thing that involves work. Even if you absolutely love work, you can't keep doing that, your work will benefit from this. But IT can't be in service of the work or else you end up in productivity.

Poetry try um is the thing like i've been rereading the power of now and just just some such a good advice no, do the thing for the sake of the thing itself. The way that i'm trying to apply this is in the shower each morning, because in the shower is like a clear place where, if you like, I look, look forward to monday's. I love hang out of my team and like doing the work stuff.

And I sometimes find myself thinking, I I just want to get to the end of the showers so that I can get involved. The team like, no, what the fuck am I doing? Like having a hot shower.

The person moment is literally all there is. And I to remind myself, okay, i'm having a shower to have a shower. Not so that I can then do my hair, I and stuff and film the next video.

I'm going for a walk too. Simply go for a walk. You not so that I can actually get my steps.

And while also consuming the audi book at three times speed here, and that is a, again, IT comes back to this idea of holding, holding seemingly conflicting ideas in mind at the same time. One idea, which is that, you know, the happiness of pursuit is like pursuing stuff, feels very dopa energies. But also enjoying the present moment and focusing on IT is a very contented place to be.

yes. So as a George mac has this idea of a dopamine George on in George o and he says, I won't spend as much time in seaton in George as I do mean George looks after himself. I don't mean George is a cocaine added serotonin.

George is a quiet guitar player and spending more time in saton's. No, this is a third one that I wanted start talking about with him soon, which is called is old George and called is old George is somewhere between like he's even further down the line than dopamine George's it's frantic. It's like kind of like ten and uncomfortable but yeah and you know a lot of the people that also told in George xy tos true.

I guess that's on the other side of everyone in but yeah and you know everyone spends way too much time in dopamine, whoever they are. You know it's using the power of progression and targets and achievement and money and extrinsic motivation and all of that sort of people and even intrinsic motivation of, well, I got Better at that thing. Like, that's fantastic.

But how many hours this year did you spend lying underneath the tree? Like, that's a good metric for a saton's ali o serono crisis. serota. George.

yeah. I think this is why, why also why I love the, you know, honor the maintain that I I ve got away from writing this book is just the title, feel good productivity. Because there is seemingly contradictory, because productivity always about the suit, and feeling good is about enjoying the moment. And both of those things are OK. And we just you know, we think both we are really, really winning, working toward the for fulfilling life, enjoying the of me and also enjoying the in the .

the way we spoke about this on stage in front of maybe a thousand people in brighton a couple of months ago. And you kind of revealed the end of the book, which is what a lot of people might have thought would have been at the start of IT, which is to do with what are you actually working on, what are the goals that you're choosing to do? Why put that the end of the book?

yeah. So initially, when I do the first thought of the book, the first chapter was about figuring out your direction in life. Because my idea was like like productivity fine, but there's no point in driving a hundred miles in a particular direction if you find out IT IT was the wrong direction to drive in.

And so a big part of productivity is really asking yourself the question of what are the things i'm working on and why are working on them. Was a bit heavy for chapter one, and I didn't want the conclusion to be, hey, I I don't enjoy my job. Therefore, I ve always telling me the only thing I can do is quit my job and follow my passion like that. That's not the not the vibe.

It's the final chapter because and it's called a line because it's about aligning your actions in the here and now with where you actually want to go as a final chapter because even if you're not there yet, you most people listening to this are probably probably don't have the level of autonomy and freedom that you and I do having great at this shit and take the process for a very long time. You probably if you have a day job and you don't enjoy the day job, the solution is not the way the way to get to feel the productivity is not too simply. Day job is to try all the other things first, find a way to approach A T with play and power, get to find a way to get people involved, make sure you not procrastinate, sure, you're doing the right thing to recharge your energy.

Once you have done all of those things, if you are still feeling you know why the things i'm doing don't feel aligned, i'm getting this misalignment burnout at that point. It's now time for us to start thinking about the big questions. So once strategy I really enjoy that I think is super helpful for everyone to do is to just write their own arbitrary. And did this couple month ago was pretty I opening. And is this idea that Stephen kobe talks about as well. Begin with the end in mind, there is something about imagining yourself on your death bed surrounded by loved ones, and imagining what would they say at my funeral, what are they saying around me, what would my arbitrary read that really helps get a rid of the bullshit of like what doesn't matter and helps to focus on what really does, which is often relationships rather than work. So that's one usual strategy.

Um he always answered his emails on time and he was really great at keeping the notion template up to date. He drove seven .

percent returns for a hatch fund every like no one knows a IT. It's like, you know he was humble. He enjoyed the spending time with people around him.

He energized the people around him. He was always there for us. He was supportive.

He was kind. He was warm. Don Brown and his book happy.

Which sport toaster has a really good idea that I I often come back to, which is we think people want impressive. But actually what they want is just warm. And warm is way more important than impressiveness.

And in like networking advance, when when meeting people is like people often try and present some sort of, I am impressive because X, Y, Z nicely, a lot of people just want one month. And so beginning with the end of mind thinking, what would I want people to sell my death bed? What would I want written my grave stone, can be a really helpful way of thinking. Is the way that i'm currently living aligned with what I would like that .

to be one of the things i've always struggled with. And I felt I came up through the trenches of productivity, you know, seven or eight years ago because I was added that the solution is more than because I was element, that the solution was, if only I had a perfectly designed notion, all of my problems would go away.

And one of the tools that often in there is, beginning with the undermind, you know, start with A A twenty five year long outcome, broken down into five year like marathons, broken down into one year medical, broken down in the ninety days springs, broken down in the daily actions, broken down in the micro discipline, right? Okay, fantastic. Like, I understand, I understand why that sort stuff work. Twenty five year goals, five year goals, one year goals, one year goals just about is on the very, very brink of what I can do. I'm so bad at long term planning and so bad knowing what I want to do over the long term. And IT used to I I appreciate the fact that you say um not putting the goals thing at the beginning was a strategy done to try to help people get moving because the easiest steps that you can go along that path because i'm very much that sort of a person a lot of the uh strategy planning and goal like productivity planning systems that I came across, I fell at the first hurdle because that goal setting thing for me just really, really struggle. What is Better .

about .

the orbital solution? I suppose it's not about what are the outcomes that you want. It's about what is the feeling and the sense that you want to have left behind.

It's not saying what's your net worth going to be in A J T. How many ut videos who will you have created? What is the sort of set up of the company that you want? It's much more vibes.

Yeah right. All about the vibe. I think I also tried the whole, like figure out a fifty year plan and break IT down into five year chunks method. No, come on.

Like my life is so different now that I was even two, three years ago, because no way in hello could even vague begin to predict what what the future looks like. But the way I found to square this is to recognize that the further that we go, the fuzz the destination becomes. But that's okay because the point of the destination is to give us a direction. It's not actually the destination .

itself and you can check in and continue to read just actually yeah but I mean, the vibe is very unlikely to change, right? I want people to feel. Understood, seeing, warm, less fearful, like.

comfortable in my presents. I want, I want to .

leave the world in a Better place than I arrived at IT. A, in a way that is in lighting. And hopeful. Ly, not too serious. Like, okay. And that's the same across my friends, my family, the people that I talked to on the internet, all of that stuff.

All right, none of those things really have any none of IT comes to bear on the business organizational that I have, all the revenue or the videos s or any of that such stuff or you know, it's do I arrive on time for dinner with my friends, right? Do I have enough respect for my friends that i'm going to make sure that I set off early and arrive on time? It's a little decisions like that. Those are really what I think ultimately are going to define the kind of memory is .

the elif bind yeah, I I also viable what you said around a one year plans. One year plan is also the the longest time horizon that I can visibly plan in. And even then, you know, the way the way I think of IT is in each different domain of life.

And they are luck. Nine of them, three. And health, work and relationships, speed the pie, how we want, need to, those different remains.

What am I celebrating twelve months from now? So in my worklife around, like learning, you know, D I D love to celebrate actually becoming really, really good understanding the the longevity stuff. Been wanting to do you for a while.

So I could, i'd like to celebrate that in my romantic life. No, i'd like to celebrate getting married cool, easy in my friendships. I'd like to celebrate the fact that every quarter we went on like a little lazer trip. Okay, cool. Now those, those are my goals.

And now I can employ all my productivity strategies of, like putting in the ideal week, make you sure i've got time writing IT down to my project list to just remind myself that this is a thing that I actually care about because, oh, wise, we get caught up in the day to day of life, and we forget that, oh yeah, I was meant, I did intend to organize a trip with my friends every few months have been on that a while. I got to Spark. And now when I just do some research on APP N B and just those little reminders is where I think productivity strategies are super, super helpful. But becoming obsessed with the systems um then kind of detract from everything else in life.

What's turning the bus upside down, right? Productivity is there to facilitate the outcomes that you want to you want to achieve. And those should be streams from the vibes and the sort of life that you want, right? IT shouldn't be.

I'm going to employ productivity strategies and allow the vibe of my life to occur out of those. They IT doesn't grow out of the productivity strategies. yeah.

So this is going to be out december twenty six, right in the U. S. Twenty eight worldwide.

Okay, uh, this episode gona drop, but like december, so people can go to buy IT now. Yeah, amazon, I have a feel good productivity. What's this keyboard? Oh.

this keyboard. This is a tech brand called light mode that we are in the process of launching. IT would have launched by the time this is um we are trying to do productivity desk accessories, stuff in your bag or that kind of stuff, but not aimed at gamers, aimed at like people who like the apple is static a little bit who want things to be a little bit more lightened, friend, playful and stuff.

So this is mechanical keyboard. How long if you ve been working on the invite? This is black black two year along process to try and to find the perfect click and the perfect switch and the perfect .

amount of on the perfect in the metal place and the yeah the first places that I go to yeah man .

so people like that, if if you interested in a cakey and ding the keyboard exactly .

how yeah I I appreciate you. I look forward to seeing how this book gets on you you know you going to see like it's very much needed, I think. And given that we're about to go to the new year and people are going to be thinking, right, I need to get myself together new, new productivity strategy.

That's the back. Hopefully it's helpful for some people how you like good shit that are you reading us?