Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Good Morning, This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 2: Today's episode is going to be a longer one part
Speaker 2: of the series where I interview fascinating people about how
Speaker 2: they take their days from great to awesome and any
Speaker 2: advice they have for the rest of us. So today
Speaker 2: I'm delighted to welcome Charles Duhig back to Before Breakfast.
Speaker 2: Charles is the author of several best selling books, including
Speaker 2: the Power of Habit and Super Communicators, which is newly
Speaker 2: out in paperbacks.
Speaker 1: So Charles, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, really excited to have you back.
Speaker 2: So, if we have any new listeners who've joined us
Speaker 2: in the last year or so, maybe you could tell
Speaker 2: everybody just a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I'm an author. I wrote the book The Power
Speaker 3: of Habit, and also my most recent book is Super Communicators,
Speaker 3: and I'm a writer at the New Yorker magazine previously
Speaker 3: with The New York Times. I write about business and
Speaker 3: investigations and tech for the most part.
Speaker 2: In AI, Absolutely, so, I know you have written about
Speaker 2: a ton of different topics, but I thought, in our
Speaker 2: time here today we could focus a little bit on
Speaker 2: your most recent book with communication and in particular how
Speaker 2: better communication can save us time, because that was a
Speaker 2: big thing for people who listen to this show. So first,
Speaker 2: what tends to go wrong with communication that winds up
Speaker 2: being a major time suck?
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, it's a great question because oftentimes, when we're
Speaker 3: in a conversation and we want to actually communicate with
Speaker 3: the other person and miscommunication is happening, which means they
Speaker 3: can't understand us, we can't understand them. The consequences are
Speaker 3: pretty dire, right. They can go off and spend days
Speaker 3: working on a project without understanding that you actually asked
Speaker 3: for something different, or there can be these hurt feelings.
Speaker 3: So for this miscommunication and what's often happening there is
Speaker 3: that people are having different kinds of conversations without realizing it. Right,
Speaker 3: what neuroscience tells us is that almost all discussions fall
Speaker 3: into one of three buckets. There are these practical conversations
Speaker 3: where we're talking about plans and making choices together and
Speaker 3: solving problems. But then there's emotional conversations where I tell
Speaker 3: you what I'm feeling and I don't want you to
Speaker 3: solve my feelings. I want you to empathize, I want
Speaker 3: you to relate to me. And then finally, there's social conversations,
Speaker 3: which is about how you and I relate to each
Speaker 3: other in society and the identities that are important to us.
Speaker 3: And all three of these different kinds of conversations are important,
Speaker 3: and frankly, all three of them might happen during a
Speaker 3: long discussion or a big discussion. But what researchers have
Speaker 3: found is if we aren't having the same kind of
Speaker 3: conversation at the same moment, I cannot hear what you
Speaker 3: are trying to tell me, and you cannot fully hear me,
Speaker 3: and in fact will feel disconnected from each other. So
Speaker 3: if I'm telling you how like, oh, go ahead.
Speaker 2: No, it's just gonna say that's interesting, because you know,
Speaker 2: when we're talking about how bad communication saves us time,
Speaker 2: I was going to say it would even just be
Speaker 2: the back and forth, like having you know, ten different
Speaker 2: messages go back and forth of trying to figure something out.
Speaker 2: But you're saying it's it's not even so much that
Speaker 2: is that people are having a different conversation.
Speaker 3: Well, and oftentimes that back and forth. In fact, one
Speaker 3: of the things that we know about productive conversations is
Speaker 3: that they tend to involve a lot of what's known
Speaker 3: as ping ponging, Right, Like I'll say something and then
Speaker 3: you kind of pick up on it, and you might
Speaker 3: interrupt me, and then I'll interrupt you, and like that
Speaker 3: means that we're both involved in the conversation. We're really
Speaker 3: hearing each other. It's not that the goal is to
Speaker 3: make conversations as brief as possible, because if you think
Speaker 3: about it, if the goal of a conversation is simply
Speaker 3: to import impart information, then it shouldn't really be a conversation.
Speaker 3: I should just tell you, Laura, the weather today is this,
Speaker 3: and so therefore you should wear a raincoat. But I
Speaker 3: think what's important is that when we are in a conversation,
Speaker 3: we're actually trying to learn from each other. We're trying
Speaker 3: to share our own perspective, and to do that, we
Speaker 3: have to be able to hear the other person. And
Speaker 3: that means we have to get a ligned on what
Speaker 3: kind of conversation we're having.
Speaker 2: So, what are some best practices then for make making
Speaker 2: sure that we are having an effective conversation?
Speaker 3: Absolutely so, the first and most important thing is to
Speaker 3: ask more questions. One of the things that we know
Speaker 3: about consistent supercommunicators, and we're all super communicators at one
Speaker 3: time or another, but consistent supercommunicators people who can connect
Speaker 3: with almost anyone, is that they tend to ask ten
Speaker 3: to twenty times as many questions as the average person.
Speaker 3: And some of those questions don't even register as questions.
Speaker 3: Are things like oh, oh, what'd you think about that?
Speaker 3: Or what'd you say next? Or what do you think
Speaker 3: about this? They're invitations to a conversation. But some of
Speaker 3: the questions are what are known as deep questions. And
Speaker 3: a deep question is something that asks about our values
Speaker 3: or beliefs, or our experiences. And that can sound a
Speaker 3: little intimidating, but it's as simple as if you meet
Speaker 3: someone who's a doctor, for instance, instead of asking them, oh,
Speaker 3: what hospital do you work at, you can ask them, oh,
Speaker 3: what made you decide to go to medical school? Right?
Speaker 3: That second question, that second question is actually an invitation
Speaker 3: for someone to tell me something about themselves that's real,
Speaker 3: and that's how we tend to get aligned. That's the
Speaker 3: best practice for getting aligned with the other person, making
Speaker 3: sure we're having the same kind of conversation at the
Speaker 3: same moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I'm curious about.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, that's one thing for if we're
Speaker 2: having a face to face person, you know, in person conversation,
Speaker 2: but so many of these conversations take place like back
Speaker 2: and forth over email. Are there way is to make
Speaker 2: sure that we are communicating more effectively in that medium.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a couple of things that we know about
Speaker 3: email in particular. The first is that asking questions on
Speaker 3: email is actually even more powerful. Right, So if you
Speaker 3: just have two people saying this is what I think,
Speaker 3: this is what I think, that's not really going to
Speaker 3: work out. But if somebody says, look, I'm just wondering, like,
Speaker 3: like you said that this was really important to you,
Speaker 3: Can you just give me a little bit of background
Speaker 3: on why it's important to you. That's as easy to
Speaker 3: do in an email as it is at face to face.
Speaker 3: But we do know that some of the things about
Speaker 3: email that are true are that, first of all, it
Speaker 3: tends to be there's a set of rules around email
Speaker 3: that we've all internalized, but sometimes we forget to remind
Speaker 3: ourselves of We know, for instance, that sarcasm does not
Speaker 3: work an email. Right when I'm speaking to you, can
Speaker 3: hear the sarcasm in my voice. When I'm type something,
Speaker 3: you don't know if I'm being serious or sarcastic. We
Speaker 3: also know that politeness pays huge dividends when we're conversing online.
Speaker 3: The simply saying please and thank you oftentimes, and studies
Speaker 3: show this can bring down the temperature of a conversation significantly.
Speaker 3: But equally, the thing about email is that it's asynchronous, right.
Speaker 3: That's really one of the huge benefits of it is
Speaker 3: that it's immediate and when I hit send, you get
Speaker 3: it right away. But also I can hit send tonight
Speaker 3: and you don't have to look at it until tomorrow morning.
Speaker 3: And so I think recognizing that an asynchronous kind of
Speaker 3: communication sometimes means you need to explain something a little
Speaker 3: bit more. Oh, last night, you know, I went home
Speaker 3: with my wife and we had this conversation. Really, communication
Speaker 3: is about trying to over communicate, or at least thinking
Speaker 3: about how we're communicating. And it's not hard, it doesn't
Speaker 3: take much time. But the people who are the best
Speaker 3: communicators are the ones who just spend half a percent
Speaker 3: more thinking about what they're saying.
Speaker 2: And what about in meetings, for instance, I wonder if
Speaker 2: this sort of norms around communication that can make meetings
Speaker 2: more effective and hopefully, you know, not drag on as
Speaker 2: long as many tend to do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's actually a lot of research into how to
Speaker 3: communicate in meetings, and the goal of all this communication
Speaker 3: in a meeting is to create what's known as psychological safety.
Speaker 3: Psychological safety is the most important characteristic in bringing a
Speaker 3: team together, allowing them to feel like a cohesive unit
Speaker 3: as opposed to just individuals operating next to each other.
Speaker 3: And there's two things that researchers have found particularly helped
Speaker 3: create psychological safety. The first is what's known as equality
Speaker 3: in conversational turntaking. If you have dominated the conversation, you've
Speaker 3: spoken way more than anyone else. That's not a great sign.
Speaker 3: On the other hand, if you've spoken way less than
Speaker 3: everyone else, that might mean that you're not being invited
Speaker 3: or feel comfortable enough to voice your opinion. And so
Speaker 3: for a leader of a meeting like that, what's really
Speaker 3: important is to draw people out. Hey, Susie, you know
Speaker 3: you mentioned this thing last meeting, and I haven't heard
Speaker 3: much from you. Tell me what you think about this.
Speaker 3: That's the first thing in quality and conversational turn ticking
Speaker 3: The second important tactic is what's known as ostentatious listening.
Speaker 3: And it's particularly important that leaders do this that when
Speaker 3: I listen, I make it obvious to you that I'm listening. Hey, Jim,
Speaker 3: that's a really good point you brought up. Let me
Speaker 3: repeat it back just to make sure I understand it,
Speaker 3: or you know, Frank, I remember earlier this meeting you
Speaker 3: said this, and I'm wondering how it connects to this
Speaker 3: new idea. What happens when a leader engages in ostentatious
Speaker 3: listening is that other people start to echo him, or
Speaker 3: mirror him, or copy him or her, almost unconsciously, and
Speaker 3: so as a result, what you get is a room
Speaker 3: where people are talking up in roughly equal measure. And
Speaker 3: that doesn't mean the same number of minutes or the
Speaker 3: same number of words, but roughly everyone has a chance
Speaker 3: to participate, and that we are all showing that we
Speaker 3: are listening to each other, which means we are actually
Speaker 3: listening to each other.
Speaker 2: That's going to work, wonders Yeah, Well, I love the
Speaker 2: phrase ostentatious listening. I'm going to have to start using
Speaker 2: that one. That's great to going above and beyond with
Speaker 2: the listening. Well, We're going to take a quick ad
Speaker 2: break and then we'll be back talking with more about
Speaker 2: ways that better communication can save us time. So I'm
Speaker 2: here talking with Charles Doujig about ways we can communicate better.
Speaker 2: We've been talking about communication and email communication in meetings.
Speaker 2: I want to throw out one of the sort of
Speaker 2: most difficult ways to communicate, the group text that you know,
Speaker 2: I think many people have had the experience of things
Speaker 2: sort of going off the rails, or even a simple
Speaker 2: thing of trying to get everyone together for lunch. You
Speaker 2: know that many people are involved, it goes many directions.
Speaker 2: You want everyone to be heard, but sort of making
Speaker 2: a decision with five people is often very difficult. I
Speaker 2: wonder if there are ways we can communicate effectively in
Speaker 2: those situations.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, Well let me ask you, so, when's the
Speaker 3: last time you were in a group text that you
Speaker 3: thought went well.
Speaker 1: Well, I've had a few. I've had a few.
Speaker 2: You know. Usually it's if you've gotten together recently and
Speaker 2: you're all sort of chatting about.
Speaker 1: Something that just happened.
Speaker 2: You know, you're rehashing what happened, sharing the inside jokes
Speaker 2: of what came out of that, and laughing on it
Speaker 2: as sort of a way to send everyone off into
Speaker 2: the world.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think what's happening there is that because
Speaker 3: you are you've been together recently, there's kind of an
Speaker 3: almost meta conversation happening in that group text. Right, remember
Speaker 3: when we were all together and Jane said this one thing,
Speaker 3: like I'm going to make a joke about that. That'll
Speaker 3: harken back to it. What we know is that one
Speaker 3: of the best things you can do for communication is
Speaker 3: engaging what's known as meta communication, which is very simple
Speaker 3: and time efficient. It's a matter of saying, hey, look,
Speaker 3: my goal in this conversation. I want to have a
Speaker 3: meeting with you to sit down, and my goal is X.
Speaker 3: That's a meta conversation. I've told you what my goal
Speaker 3: is for this conversation, and I might ask you what's your goal,
Speaker 3: like what do you hope to get out of this discussion.
Speaker 3: Oftentimes in group chats, we don't engage in meta conversation. Right,
Speaker 3: So somebody says, hey, you know, I'm wondering if you
Speaker 3: should go see that movie on Friday night, And you
Speaker 3: don't know, are they proposing this, are they asking it?
Speaker 3: If you guys really want to go? Are they suggesting
Speaker 3: that we actually make a plan, and so as a result,
Speaker 3: one person says like, oh, yeah, that sounds good, and
Speaker 3: another person says, yeah, I can be there at six
Speaker 3: fifty five in the evening and I'll meet you guys
Speaker 3: exactly in front of the theater. So what's happening there
Speaker 3: is that people are having different kinds of conversations. Right,
Speaker 3: someone's making a general comment, someone's making a specific comment.
Speaker 3: The other thing that happens in a group text, and
Speaker 3: this is true group emails, is that nobody feels the
Speaker 3: obligation to respond because it's a group that was sent
Speaker 3: the message was sent to, So for the sender, it
Speaker 3: feels very very lonely that they send, you know, twenty
Speaker 3: of their best friends, Hey, does anyone want to go
Speaker 3: to the movies? No one person responds. I think that
Speaker 3: they all their friends hate them. But it's actually because
Speaker 3: when you're in a group, you don't feel any obligation
Speaker 3: to respond. You assume that it's up to the group.
Speaker 3: So the things that we can do that can make
Speaker 3: them better is just to be very explicit about why
Speaker 3: we are texting. Hey, guys, I want to see if
Speaker 3: you'd like to go see the movie on Tuesday. If so,
Speaker 3: then can you meet at the movie theater at six
Speaker 3: fifty five. Please respond to me either privately or or
Speaker 3: over the group. Okay, that's great, Right. Everyone knows exactly
Speaker 3: what they're supposed to do, they know why you're having
Speaker 3: this conversation, and they can easily opt out and say, hey,
Speaker 3: I'm not interested. But that's what often happens in group
Speaker 3: text is that the meta conversation gets very muddled.
Speaker 1: Well, so what I'm.
Speaker 2: Hearing you say here is that conversations in general need
Speaker 2: an intention, right. I mean, we run our mouths all
Speaker 2: the time, we have no idea why we are doing so.
Speaker 2: But pausing to think about why I am having this conversation,
Speaker 2: either by email, by group text, by in person with
Speaker 2: another person can go a long way.
Speaker 3: Well, and it's actually a little bit tiger than that,
Speaker 3: which is that every conversation you have already has an intention. Right.
Speaker 3: You are opening your mouth for a reason. Now you
Speaker 3: might not be aware of what that reason is, and
Speaker 3: that reason might be I want to make my friend laugh,
Speaker 3: or I want to find out how my spouse's day went,
Speaker 3: or I want them to understand that I'm angry. There
Speaker 3: is an intention behind every time we open our mouth.
Speaker 3: There's two questions. Number one, do we know what our
Speaker 3: intention is? Have we taken just half a second to say,
Speaker 3: like why am I having this conversation? And number two,
Speaker 3: are we trying to communicate clearly what that intention is
Speaker 3: to the other person and ask them what their intention is?
Speaker 3: If we do, the conversation is going to get much better? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Well, I wonder if there's sort of a I mean,
Speaker 2: when we talk about that one with a group text,
Speaker 2: you kind of wanted to get to a decision.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've had a lot.
Speaker 2: Of experiences some people kind of go back and forth,
Speaker 2: and I don't know if it's that they're trying to
Speaker 2: seek consensus. They don't want to put something out there,
Speaker 2: but if you're trying to schedule something or get together.
Speaker 2: I've had some people who are also like, Okay, yes
Speaker 2: we want to do lunch. Let's do either you know
Speaker 2: this restaurant, this restaurant or this restaurant on Tuesday. Name
Speaker 2: your thing, right, There's some people who go very quickly
Speaker 2: to making it happen.
Speaker 1: I wonder what we have going on there? Is it
Speaker 1: good to do?
Speaker 2: I mean, it does reduce back and forth if somebody
Speaker 2: takes I mean it depends on what the like.
Speaker 3: Let me ask you, when somebody said, which which kind
Speaker 3: of conversation do you prefer? Do you prefer one where
Speaker 3: someone says, hey, we should all have lunch and then
Speaker 3: you know, like a week and a half later people
Speaker 3: have chimed in and a month later you get together,
Speaker 3: which is totally fine. Or do you prefer something where
Speaker 3: someone says, we should have lunch. Here's three dates for
Speaker 3: you to choose from at twelve o'clock and we're going
Speaker 3: to do it next week. Which one do you prefer?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: I love the second one because because it puts you
Speaker 2: in an easy place that you can say yes or
Speaker 2: no right with one more step and if it works
Speaker 2: for you, great, If it doesn't, it doesn't, but you
Speaker 2: don't have to continually come back to it and see
Speaker 2: what's going on and follow up and all that. It's
Speaker 2: it's that we've gone from intention to reality and like
Speaker 2: one small step.
Speaker 3: And that doesn't mean that the first kind of conversation
Speaker 3: is the bad kind of is a bad conversation. Right.
Speaker 3: There's sometimes when we're just making jokes with our friends
Speaker 3: where we don't want to be really efficient. We don't
Speaker 3: want to be practical. The whole goal of it is
Speaker 3: just to make each other laugh and to have something
Speaker 3: to go spend, you know, five minutes on in the
Speaker 3: middle of the work day. But I think what that's
Speaker 3: important there is to understand and recognize what you want
Speaker 3: out of a conversation. If your goal is to go
Speaker 3: from hey, let's have lunch to a plan on when
Speaker 3: we're going to meet up in you know, twelve hours,
Speaker 3: then you should be very explicit and say here's three
Speaker 3: dates and tell me which one works for you, or
Speaker 3: tell me that you don't you can't join us. But
Speaker 3: if your goal is just to kind of like reconnect
Speaker 3: with people and you don't really want to have a plan,
Speaker 3: and if you have lunch, it's okay, But the point
Speaker 3: is that you ask to have lunch, then that's all
Speaker 3: right as well. What's important is knowing in your own
Speaker 3: head what you're looking for, and what studies tell us
Speaker 3: is that if you just take literally two seconds and
Speaker 3: say why am I having this conversation, you'll know immediately
Speaker 3: why you're having that conversation. It doesn't take much time
Speaker 3: to figure out what your intent is. What does take
Speaker 3: time is not knowing your intent and then moving around
Speaker 3: like a blind person in the dark.
Speaker 2: I think the idea of what I mentioning having lunch
Speaker 2: but not really wanting to have lunch is a whole
Speaker 2: different set of social cues I have not really entirely
Speaker 2: figured out. But that's a subject for an entirely different matter.
Speaker 2: We're going to take a quick ad break and then
Speaker 2: I will be back with more from Charles Doing.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: I am back talking with Charles Doing who's the author
Speaker 2: of the book Super Communicator, switched out last year and
Speaker 2: is out nearly in paperback, so please go check that out.
Speaker 1: So, Charles, I'm curious about you.
Speaker 2: Do you have any sort of norms around like email
Speaker 2: for yourself, like ways that you deal with email more effectively,
Speaker 2: any routines.
Speaker 1: That help you. Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely. So when I send emails, I tend to
Speaker 3: use many more bullet points, right, And the reason why
Speaker 3: is because what I'm trying to do is I'm trying
Speaker 3: to visually suggest to the person what my goal is. Right.
Speaker 3: So I say like, hey, look, I wanted to talk
Speaker 3: about this new apartment that we're buying. There's three things
Speaker 3: that I'd like to address. A view number one number two,
Speaker 3: number three, And what I'm saying explicitly is here are
Speaker 3: the three questions that I'm asking, right, I'm not just
Speaker 3: sending you an email and hoping that you pill out
Speaker 3: the questions that are important to me. I'm going to
Speaker 3: make it explicit. The other thing is we have this
Speaker 3: saying in journalism, which is I didn't have enough time
Speaker 3: to write short, right, And I think this gets it
Speaker 3: something kind of important, which is everyone who's written knows
Speaker 3: this feeling that when you're rushed and in a hurry,
Speaker 3: oftentimes you write longer more than when you're not in
Speaker 3: a hurry, and you have the time and the luxury
Speaker 3: to figure out what you want to say and to
Speaker 3: write short. And the same thing is true of sending
Speaker 3: emails or any other kind of communication. Oftentimes we use
Speaker 3: an email to figure out what we mean to say
Speaker 3: through the process of writing the email, and that's helpful
Speaker 3: because then we know what we want to get across,
Speaker 3: we know what we want to ask, we know what
Speaker 3: our intent is. But if we've used an email to
Speaker 3: help us figure out what we want to say, it's
Speaker 3: worthwhile to reread that email and take out the fluff,
Speaker 3: because inevitably the path of figuring out what I want
Speaker 3: to say involves a lot of side avenues that aren't
Speaker 3: that useful to me and or useful to the other person.
Speaker 3: So I think one of the things with written communications
Speaker 3: is that if we self edit, even just the lightest
Speaker 3: kind of self edit, that we know that that actually
Speaker 3: makes the communication much richer and actually more efficient for
Speaker 3: everyone involved.
Speaker 1: All right, so we're going to use bullet points, we're
Speaker 1: going to edit ourselves.
Speaker 2: Right, But if you were figuring out what you were
Speaker 2: trying to say, you're going to go back, take all
Speaker 2: that out, put in what you're actually going to say.
Speaker 1: Then I'm curious about subject lines.
Speaker 2: Because I think this is this is just I mean,
Speaker 2: it's only a few words, and yet in and of itself,
Speaker 2: that can be whether the email gets opened, it can
Speaker 2: be you know, how quickly it gets responded to. And
Speaker 2: yet most of us are not you know, professional email marketers,
Speaker 2: like we have no idea how to title an email
Speaker 2: to get somebody to open it.
Speaker 3: Well, I think that we should think of a subject
Speaker 3: line as marketing. Right. Sometimes we use the subject line
Speaker 3: as like, here's the here's the summary of what I'm
Speaker 3: about to email you. That's not what a SA subject
Speaker 3: line should be A subject line should be a little
Speaker 3: bit of marketing. Hey, here's a funny joke for you. Okay,
Speaker 3: Now if I yeah, there's one weird trick and so
Speaker 3: and so. I think the thing is that you know, obviously,
Speaker 3: we know what's interesting to us, we know what's likely
Speaker 3: to cause us to open an email, and if we
Speaker 3: just think about that for the other person that we're
Speaker 3: sending an email to, I think it'll work. So when
Speaker 3: I send emails out to people I don't know, I
Speaker 3: often say from Charles Dohig, the author of Supercommunicators in
Speaker 3: the Power of Habit, because I think for some percentage
Speaker 3: of people they are familiar with my work and so
Speaker 3: they think, oh, I got an email from Charles doing.
Speaker 3: But for other people, I might say, you know, uh,
Speaker 3: from the New Yorker, a quick question for you for
Speaker 3: an article I'm writing, right, And for a certain type
Speaker 3: of person, they're thinking, oh, if they have a quick
Speaker 3: question for me, I might appear in this article. And
Speaker 3: that's something that I enjoy. I'm very aware of how
Speaker 3: a subject line is read by the recipient, and in
Speaker 3: doing so, I'm using it as just a little bit
Speaker 3: of marketing. Doesn't have to be over the top, doesn't
Speaker 3: have to be you know, one trick that will cause
Speaker 3: you to lose weight, but it should be something that
Speaker 3: entices you into this correspondence.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm probably opening the one about the one weird trick.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think we're all helpless.
Speaker 2: So when it comes to that subject line, how about
Speaker 2: in terms of the rhythm of your days, are you
Speaker 2: the sort of person who's in and out of email
Speaker 2: a lot or you'd have set times when.
Speaker 1: You check it.
Speaker 3: Oh no, I'm in and out of email all day now.
Speaker 3: I will say my ideal day in my actual days
Speaker 3: tend to differ quite a bit. But one thing I
Speaker 3: do do is every night before I go to bed,
Speaker 3: I just look at my calendar for the next day
Speaker 3: and I fill in blocks with the work that I
Speaker 3: want to do. So, for instance, for today, it has
Speaker 3: this conversation with you, and then on my calendar it
Speaker 3: says for the next forty five minutes answer emails, and
Speaker 3: then I have another conversation, and then for forty five
Speaker 3: minutes after that, I have something that says work on
Speaker 3: fact checking letters. So basically what I'm trying to do
Speaker 3: is I'm trying to plan out my entire day. Now,
Speaker 3: that doesn't mean that I hit all of those exactly
Speaker 3: on the nose, but I know that today I have
Speaker 3: forty five minutes to deal with all the emails that
Speaker 3: I need to do deal with, and then I'm not
Speaker 3: going to have another chance to look at them until
Speaker 3: six or seven tonight, and that's going to help me
Speaker 3: prioritize what I actually look at. So I think. I
Speaker 3: think oftentimes starting is the hardest part, right. Deciding to
Speaker 3: choose switch from one task to the next is challenging.
Speaker 3: But if we can make that decision in advance, if
Speaker 3: we tell ourselves when we're in a what's known as
Speaker 3: a cool period, when the work isn't right in front
Speaker 3: of us, that tomorrow at nine o'clock, when I'm in
Speaker 3: a hot mindset, instead of going and doing something pointless,
Speaker 3: I'm going to spend forty five minutes on email. But
Speaker 3: that's it. It makes it easier.
Speaker 2: I love the idea of scheduling the exact amount of
Speaker 2: time you are going to spend on email as well.
Speaker 2: I think for many people it becomes I mean it's
Speaker 2: like tidying the house. I mean, you can fill any
Speaker 2: amount of time that you choose to give.
Speaker 3: Oh, absolutely, And the more you answer emails, the more
Speaker 3: emails you get, right, It's it's I think that oftentimes
Speaker 3: people use their email inbox as a to do list,
Speaker 3: and that's exactly the wrong way to use it, because
Speaker 3: what you're doing is you're letting other people put items
Speaker 3: on your to do list that you might not want
Speaker 3: to do. What's important is to take control of that.
Speaker 3: So I don't have I don't have inbox zero. I
Speaker 3: don't have a certain number of emails in my inbox
Speaker 3: that I care whether it's above or below that number.
Speaker 3: I just glance at it at least once a day
Speaker 3: to see if there's anything pressing that needs to be
Speaker 3: dealt with right now. And if the answer is no,
Speaker 3: then I'll wait until I have more time. I think
Speaker 3: the most important thing is to forgive yourself for email.
Speaker 3: You should feel no guilt over not returning an email.
Speaker 3: Just because somebody has emailed you does not imply an
Speaker 3: obligation on your part to reply or return that email
Speaker 3: unless it's something you want to do.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, that's tough love, but we'll try to
Speaker 2: keep that in mind. So, Charles, since you've been our
Speaker 2: guests on the show before, I always ask people something
Speaker 2: you have done recently to take a day from great
Speaker 2: to awesome.
Speaker 3: Well, so it's a great question. So we just moved
Speaker 3: right from from one house to another house, and in
Speaker 3: one of the things that's been driving me crazy is
Speaker 3: that there's been boxes all over and having a having
Speaker 3: like this visual clutter in my in my eyesight has
Speaker 3: been really hard. And so what I did is yesterday
Speaker 3: I just spend a bunch of time picking up boxes
Speaker 3: and putting them into into basically this side room that
Speaker 3: we were not using. Now, this is not particularly efficient.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna have to take those boxes back out of
Speaker 3: that room. I'm gonna have to unpack them. Not only that,
Speaker 3: but in that room it's very hard to get organized
Speaker 3: because there's a whole bunch of boxes in there. But
Speaker 3: what I recognize is that I'm more efficient and more
Speaker 3: productive when I have sort of a clean, simple visual
Speaker 3: field around me. And taking the time to create the
Speaker 3: environment that makes you most productive is oftentimes one of
Speaker 3: the most productive things you can do.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: Well, it's it's kind of like putting the emails at
Speaker 2: a folder that you don't want to see at this
Speaker 2: point to maybe deal with them later.
Speaker 3: But yeah, exactly, And I have a folder like that.
Speaker 3: I have a folder called AA to Do. And what
Speaker 3: happens is if an email has been sitting in my
Speaker 3: inbox and like I don't want to deal with it,
Speaker 3: and it's been there for a long time and it's
Speaker 3: stressful just to see it, I put it in that folder.
Speaker 3: And the key is I never opened that folder.
Speaker 1: It's gone.
Speaker 2: It's like the stuff I was put in the donation box,
Speaker 2: and you wait for a while and then if you
Speaker 2: don't open it in six months, it's out, and.
Speaker 3: I don't have to feel guilty that I deleted it.
Speaker 3: In fact, I still have it. Someday, who knows, one
Speaker 3: hundred years from now, I might actually open that folder.
Speaker 3: But the point is that right now I've decided I
Speaker 3: don't need to and that there's no point in having
Speaker 3: it on my consciousness.
Speaker 2: Absolutely if we love getting rid of clutter. So what
Speaker 2: are you looking forward to right now?
Speaker 3: One of the things I'm looking forward to is I'm
Speaker 3: looking forward to hearing from people about how they communicate better.
Speaker 3: You know. One of the things that's been such a
Speaker 3: delight is that after writing this book, I get emails
Speaker 3: from people saying, I haven't talked to my brother in
Speaker 3: you know, four years, and then I read this book
Speaker 3: and it gave me a way to go and have
Speaker 3: this conversation. Or I've been meaning to ask for a
Speaker 3: raise for the last six months and I didn't know
Speaker 3: how to do it, and then I read your book
Speaker 3: and it gave me a gave me a step by
Speaker 3: step guide on how to have that kind of conversation.
Speaker 3: And so if anyone listening, if you've had a great conversation,
Speaker 3: I would love to hear from you and to hear
Speaker 3: how it went and why you think it went so
Speaker 3: well and what you learned from it.
Speaker 1: Awesome.
Speaker 2: Well, be sure to reach out to Charles, and so
Speaker 2: I should ask you, how can people find you?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Absolutely, they can find me online. I'm at Charles
Speaker 3: Duhig dot com, which is Duhigg or I have a
Speaker 3: substack newsletter called the Science of Better And if you
Speaker 3: just google Science of Better or my name, or even
Speaker 3: Power of Habit or Supercommunicators, it'll certainly come up. And
Speaker 3: I'd love to love to hear from you and love
Speaker 3: to have you as a subscriber. Awesome.
Speaker 2: We'll be sure to check that out so Charles, thank
Speaker 2: you so much for joining us. Thank you to everyone
Speaker 2: for listening. If you have feedback about this or any
Speaker 2: other episode, you can always reach me at Laura at
Speaker 2: Laura vandercam dot com and in the meantime, this is Laura.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
Speaker 2: our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've
Speaker 2: got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at
Speaker 2: Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a
Speaker 2: production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit
Speaker 2: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 2: your favorite shows.