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Speaker 1: Pushkin. The stock market crash of nineteen twenty nine and

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Speaker 1: the great depression that followed quite reasonably scared a lot

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Speaker 1: of people. Fortunes were lost, savings disappeared, factories closed, and

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Speaker 1: jobs evaporated. The only places doing a roaring trade were

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Speaker 1: soup kitchens and breadlines. Things looked bad, with no end

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Speaker 1: in sight. But one man wasn't that worried.

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Speaker 2: We are suffering just now from a bad attack of

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Speaker 2: economic pessimism, so.

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Speaker 1: Said famed British economist John Maynard Keynes.

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Speaker 2: It is common to hear people say that a decline

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Speaker 2: in prosperity is more likely than an improvement in a

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Speaker 2: decade which lies ahead of us. I believe that this

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Speaker 2: is a wildly mistaken interpretation of what is happening to us.

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Speaker 1: People were having trouble keeping a roof over their heads

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Speaker 1: and food on the table, but Keynes wanted them to

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Speaker 1: look to the far horizon.

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Speaker 2: My purpose is to take wings into the future. What

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Speaker 2: can we reasonably expect the level of our economic life

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Speaker 2: to be one hundred years? Hence, what are the economic

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Speaker 2: possibilities for our grandchildren?

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Speaker 1: You might recognize the voice reading Keyes's words. It's my colleague,

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Speaker 1: the economist Tim Harford from the Cautionary Tales podcast. Tim's

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Speaker 1: very familiar with Keanes's rosy predictions about what life would

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Speaker 1: look like in the year twenty thirty.

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Speaker 3: Kaines thought that the Great Depression was just an economic blip,

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Speaker 3: albeit quite a painful one. He predicted that, thanks to

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Speaker 3: industrial and scientific developments, the economy would boom, and that

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Speaker 3: the standard of living enjoyed by people would improve dramatically. Indeed,

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Speaker 3: he suggested that most people would be so rich their

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Speaker 3: struggles to make ends meet would be consigned to history.

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Speaker 3: At last, they'd earn more than enough money to pay

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Speaker 3: their bills in just a few hours each week, with

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Speaker 3: the rest of their time freedom up to enjoy life.

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Speaker 1: To people in nineteen thirty, these predictions must have been

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Speaker 1: mind blowing. Kines believed his grandchildren would enjoy a fifteen

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Speaker 1: hour work week, with ample time left not just to

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Speaker 1: relax in leisure, but to engage in a host of

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Speaker 1: purposeful activities like increased kindness and civic participation. And Caines

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Speaker 1: thought our whole attitude towards work would change radically as

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Speaker 1: a result.

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Speaker 2: When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high

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Speaker 2: social importance, There would be great changes in the code

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Speaker 2: of morals. For love of money as a possession, will

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Speaker 2: we recognize for what it is a somewhat disgusting morbidity.

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Speaker 1: Well, dear happiness lab listener, congratulations, because you are currently

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Speaker 1: living in that utopian time that Caine's envisioned. How are

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Speaker 1: you enjoying your fifteen hour work week? To Kanses's credit,

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Speaker 1: we do have a much higher standard of living than

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Speaker 1: our grand parents. We also have smart TVs, dishwashers, microwaves, iPhones,

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Speaker 1: and the internet, fun and time saving gadgets the people

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Speaker 1: of nineteen thirty could only dream of. But although Kaines

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Speaker 1: was right about our increased incomes, he was wrong about

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Speaker 1: what would happen to our sense of busyness. Rather than

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Speaker 1: living relaxed lives of leisure, people in twenty twenty four

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Speaker 1: are working harder than ever. Americans today worked ten percent

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Speaker 1: more hours than they did in the nineteen seventies. Economists

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Speaker 1: have also observed a shift in the last few decades

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Speaker 1: and the usual relationship between a person's wages and the

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Speaker 1: number of hours they work. Historically, people who earn less

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Speaker 1: money tended to work more hours, but that relationship has

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Speaker 1: now reversed. These days, it's higher paid individuals who are

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Speaker 1: spending more time at work. They also report significantly more

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Speaker 1: time stress than they did in the previous decades. If

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Speaker 1: Kans had lived to see what workaholics we've all become,

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Speaker 1: he'd be very sad. Instead of a utopian work life balance,

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Speaker 1: our generation got side hustles and career cushioning and time

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Speaker 1: hacks and over employment and burnout culture. I've been thinking

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Speaker 1: about Kynes's predictions a lot these days, because lately I've

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Speaker 1: feeling busier than ever. I'm privileged to have a great

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Speaker 1: standard of living and a job I love, but my

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Speaker 1: to do list feels endless. I spend a lot of

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Speaker 1: time feeling frantic, fantasizing that any day now I'll finally

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Speaker 1: be able to get through all the stuff on my

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Speaker 1: plate so I can take a breather. But that fantasy

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Speaker 1: day of rest never seems to come. And what's my

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Speaker 1: solution to feeling so so overworked all the time. It's

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Speaker 1: usually to double down on my business. I try to

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Speaker 1: get through my to do list as quickly as I

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Speaker 1: possibly can, so I work long hours and multitask whenever possible.

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Speaker 1: But this endless quest to optimize my overloaded schedule usually

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Speaker 1: winds up increasing my sense of overwhelmed rather than decreasing it.

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Speaker 1: I end up feeling like everything is urgent, and not

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Speaker 1: just when I'm at work. Somehow, this obsession with using

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Speaker 1: time well leaks into my leisure time too. In the

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Speaker 1: rare moments I do get a break, I feel anxious

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Speaker 1: that I'm not getting enough productive stuff done, and as

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Speaker 1: is probably obvious, none of this overwhelm is all that

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Speaker 1: good for my quest to feel happier. This episode about

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Speaker 1: the happiness challenges that I struggle with, I'm going to

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Speaker 1: explore how I and so many others got this messed

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Speaker 1: up when it comes to busyness and productivity. Are we

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Speaker 1: doomed to our relentlessly overloaded schedules, or can we claim

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Speaker 1: the leisure time that Caine's envisioned as our generation's birthright.

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Speaker 1: Our minds are constantly telling us what to do to

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Speaker 1: be happy. But what if our minds are wrong? What

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Speaker 1: if our minds are lying to us, leading us away

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Speaker 1: from what really make us happy. The good news is

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Speaker 1: that understanding the science of the mind can point us

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Speaker 1: all back in the right direction. You're listening to the

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Speaker 1: Happiness Lab with doctor Laurie.

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Speaker 4: Santos Okay, Wednesday May twenty nine, six am podcast interview

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Speaker 4: with person in the UK.

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Speaker 1: Nine am meeting with my lab manager, ten am brainstorm

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Speaker 1: meeting for my new course. Eleven am Zoom podcast recording.

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Speaker 1: Looking through my schedule on an average day, I'm pretty

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Speaker 1: much doing ten plus hours of work. Oh and I

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Speaker 1: have to make my husband's birthday cach. What happened to

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Speaker 1: the fifteen hour work week that Keenes promised us?

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Speaker 5: If you do well in a career a professional era,

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Speaker 5: you can actually expect to get busier and busier and busier.

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Speaker 1: Writer Oliver Berkman has shared my sense of overwhelm for decades.

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Speaker 1: He always had too much on his plate, and like me,

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Speaker 1: he tried many a hack to team his overloaded schedule.

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Speaker 1: He even reviewed time management techniques and productivity tools for

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Speaker 1: The Guardian newspaper in a weekly article called This column

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Speaker 1: Will Change Your Life. Oliver desperately tried anything in everything

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Speaker 1: to get his packed schedule under control.

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Speaker 5: Fancy notebooks to organize your time in year, planners, pens

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Speaker 5: that cost too much money, you know, all part of

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Speaker 5: an attempt to try to reach this sort of position

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Speaker 5: of feeling completely in control of time.

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Speaker 1: Things finally came to a head one day about ten

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Speaker 1: years ago. Oliver was sitting alone on a park bench,

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Speaker 1: sxiously ruminating about all his undone tasks, when a scary

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Speaker 1: thought occurred to him, None of this productivity stuff is

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Speaker 1: ever going to work. In an instant, he realized that

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Speaker 1: no matter how much work and self discipline and time

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Speaker 1: management gear he marshaled, he simply was never going to

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Speaker 1: feel on top of all he had to do. That

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Speaker 1: dream of getting everything he needed to get done done.

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Speaker 1: It was always going to remain out of reach.

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Speaker 5: The reward for good time management is more work.

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Speaker 1: Oliver christent this painful realization the efficiency trap.

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Speaker 5: Anything you do to try to use time more effectively

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Speaker 5: by becoming more efficient, seems to be a fairly general

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Speaker 5: law that what will actually end up happening is that

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Speaker 5: you get a lot more busy and a lot more stressed.

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Speaker 5: The sort of abstract way of talking about it is

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Speaker 5: that if you make a system capable of processing more inputs,

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Speaker 5: then it will just attract a lot more inputs. A

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Speaker 5: concrete example gives email. Right, if you get really good

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Speaker 5: at answering email at a really fast tempo. You end

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Speaker 5: up with loads more email because you're getting replies to

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Speaker 5: your replies and you have to reply to that, and

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Speaker 5: you get a reputation for being responsive. And it doesn't

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Speaker 5: just apply to email. If you're in a workplace setting

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Speaker 5: where there's some particular kind of project that needs to

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Speaker 5: be done and you get a reputation for being really

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Speaker 5: fast at completing that kind of project, you're going to

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Speaker 5: get loads more of those projects to complete. So that's

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Speaker 5: the trap of efficiency. It's an attempt to try to

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Speaker 5: get everything done, to get to the end of everything,

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Speaker 5: but because the supply is infinite, it's not actually a

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Speaker 5: good way to build a more productive or fulfilling life.

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Speaker 5: It's just a way to sort of get busier.

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Speaker 1: Oliver argues that this sense of overwhelmed has begun to

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Speaker 1: take over our entire modern existence.

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Speaker 5: But we not only overwhelmed by work tasks, by email,

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Speaker 5: by things that we have to do. We're overwhelmed by

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Speaker 5: potential experiences. We could have bucket list places we could go,

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Speaker 5: things we could be doing on any given evening, people

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Speaker 5: to date, depending on your context, you know. So there's

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Speaker 5: all these kind of different ways in which there's just

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Speaker 5: more experience to be had in the world. So I

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Speaker 5: think that leads to sort of permanent state of feeling overwhelmed, A.

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Speaker 1: Permanent state of feeling of whelmed. Yep, that pretty much

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Speaker 1: describes my life these days, and all of our's tough

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Speaker 1: message is that if you're feeling that way too, it

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Speaker 1: is at least in some ways, your own fault.

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Speaker 5: I never want to underplay the sort of broader societal

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Speaker 5: and economic reasons for this, but in some sense we

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Speaker 5: do bring it on ourselves, or we at least collaborate

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Speaker 5: with the situation, because we're presented with this sort of

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Speaker 5: infinity of things to do, and the very first thing

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Speaker 5: we say to ourselves is like, Okay, let's find a

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Speaker 5: way to do an infinite amount of things.

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Speaker 1: One reason is that being busy all the time makes

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Speaker 1: us feel kind of important.

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Speaker 5: If you are somebody who has your self worth wrapped

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Speaker 5: up in your productivity, right, you think that you've got

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Speaker 5: to do a certain amount or reach some kind of

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Speaker 5: standard to sort of be okay, then being busy is

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Speaker 5: proof to yourself that you're in demand, that the spigot

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Speaker 5: of opportunities has not dried up, that it's all very

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Speaker 5: much part of feeling that you are doing all you

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Speaker 5: need to be doing to feel good about yourself.

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Speaker 1: I definitely felt called out by this comment. How often

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Speaker 1: have people asked me, Hey, how's it going, only to

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Speaker 1: get my standard response of Oh, I'm just so busy.

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Speaker 1: The frazzled feelings behind that reply aren't fun. But if

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Speaker 1: I'm being honest, I do feel weirdly proud of myself.

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Speaker 5: We've created this situation that makes busyness into a status symbol.

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Speaker 5: So then obviously, by definition, you want to make sure

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Speaker 5: that you've got some of that business.

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Speaker 1: But there's a cost to seeking out busyness for the

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Speaker 1: sake of busyness. We wind up stuck in a painful

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Speaker 1: psychological state that the journalist Marilyn Robinson has called a

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Speaker 1: sense of joyless urgency.

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Speaker 5: I mean, I think that is just a very very

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Speaker 5: widespread feeling, the sense that you've really got to get somewhere,

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Speaker 5: but it's not really the place you'd necessarily want to

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Speaker 5: be going, and certainly the process of getting there is

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Speaker 5: not what you wanted to be doing.

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Speaker 1: How did we all get so hooked into this joyless

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Speaker 1: relationship with our busy schedules. Oliver suspects that at least

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Speaker 1: some of the problem stems from how humans have learned

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Speaker 1: to think about time.

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Speaker 5: Going from introduction and widespread adoption of mechanical clocks and

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Speaker 5: then into the industrial revolution, we'll get this very long,

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Speaker 5: slow process that is characterized by people starting to think

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Speaker 5: of time as a resource. And once you have this

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Speaker 5: idea that like, there's you and then there's time, and

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Speaker 5: you're living your life sort of lined up against the

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Speaker 5: sort of a yardstick or a measure of some kind,

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Speaker 5: you have to keep up. If you use a bit

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Speaker 5: of time wrongly, you're wasting it. You can try to

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Speaker 5: squeeze more things into that time, and all of this

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Speaker 5: is kind of a spatial metaphor, right, It's all to

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Speaker 5: do with time as containers and little boxes. When you

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Speaker 5: really get right back down to the experience of being

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Speaker 5: in time, it isn't like that at all. We just

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Speaker 5: get this one moment and then the next moment and

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Speaker 5: then the next moment. I think we really need this

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Speaker 5: idea of being able to think about time as a

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Speaker 5: resource for all sorts of things. But it's a little

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Speaker 5: bit crazy, really when we try constantly to interact with

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Speaker 5: time as something that it isn't, which is something we

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Speaker 5: can sort of hord or endlessly fit more things into it.

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Speaker 5: None of it quite makes sense.

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Speaker 1: But there's another way that our thinking about productivity doesn't

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Speaker 1: quite make sense, one that relates to the changing phase

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Speaker 1: of modern work. These days, a lot of our jobs

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Speaker 1: are a bit weird. The happiness lab. We're a turn

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Speaker 1: in a moment.

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Speaker 6: Up until about the mid twentieth century, we had really clear,

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Speaker 6: well defined definitions of productivity.

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Speaker 1: Best Selling author and computer scientist Cal Newport has spent

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Speaker 1: a lot of time thinking about why modern work is

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Speaker 1: so overwhelming.

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Speaker 6: So if you're in agriculture, it was bushels per acre

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Speaker 6: of land under cultivation, you could measure it. It was

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Speaker 6: a number you could change how you planted your crops,

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Speaker 6: that you could see if that number went up and down.

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Speaker 6: When we got to industrial manufacturing mills followed by factories,

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Speaker 6: we could do something similar.

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Speaker 1: A factory manager on an assembly line can easily measure,

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Speaker 1: say the number of Widgets or Model T Fords produced

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Speaker 1: per labor hour. People could just tell if everyone was

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Speaker 1: using their time efficiently and contributing to the company's bottom line.

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Speaker 6: All that fell out the window with knowledge work, which

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Speaker 6: really emerged as a major sector in the nineteen fifties.

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Speaker 1: Knowledge workers create useful goods and services not through physical,

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Speaker 1: assembly line style labor, but through their thoughts. The modern

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Speaker 1: economy is full of such professionals scientists, doctors, writers, professors, attorneys,

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Speaker 1: even podcast hosts. But professionals like these don't end the

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Speaker 1: day with a bunch of widgets piled up on their workbench,

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Speaker 1: and that means it's harder to assess their productivity. Take

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Speaker 1: for example, what it would mean to define productivity in

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Speaker 1: my own form of knowledge work, making a podcast. How

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Speaker 1: could I make the happiness lab as productive as possible?

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Speaker 1: I could try to take a mathematical approach and define

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Speaker 1: productivity as the number of episodes we make. But should

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Speaker 1: I go with the sheer number of episodes? Maybe longer

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Speaker 1: episodes are better than shorter ones. Or maybe I should

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Speaker 1: count AD revenue per episode or listener downloads. Each of

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Speaker 1: these could be a reasonable metric for podcast productivity, So

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Speaker 1: what should I choose? Similar kinds of questions pervade pretty

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Speaker 1: much all knowledge work.

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Speaker 6: We do not get a lot of direct feedback in

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Speaker 6: terms of how well is what you're doing right now

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Speaker 6: impacting what we care about. It's free floating.

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Speaker 1: And things get even more complicated when you ask how

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Speaker 1: you should be allocating your time to achieve whatever free

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Speaker 1: floating definition and productivity you came up with.

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Speaker 6: The typical knowledge worker has many different things they're working on,

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Speaker 6: and what they're working on might be different than the

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Speaker 6: person right next to them. It can shift. It's more informal. Also,

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Speaker 6: how we do our work is very personal, which is

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Speaker 6: a real innovation to knowledge work we don't see in

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Speaker 6: other places.

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Speaker 1: Supervising factory workers on an assembly line is easy. You

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Speaker 1: figure out how to best build your widget, and you

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Speaker 1: tell your employees, hey, make the widget like this. But

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Speaker 1: none of that holds for a job like podcasting or

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Speaker 1: teaching or programming.

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Speaker 6: Knowledge work is too complicated. It's creative, it's skilled. The

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Speaker 6: individual knowledge workers know more about what they're doing than

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Speaker 6: the people supervising them. So we got to allow the

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Speaker 6: individual workers autonomy. Allow them to have autonomy in figuring

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Speaker 6: out how they're going to do their own work.

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Speaker 1: But managers did want some way to determine and whether

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Speaker 1: or not knowledge workers were putting in useful effort, so

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Speaker 1: they came up with what cal thinks is a very

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Speaker 1: problematic alternative pseudo productivity.

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Speaker 6: So suitor productivity is a crude heuristic that says, visible

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Speaker 6: activity that's going to be my proxy for figuring out

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Speaker 6: whether or not you're doing useful effort. So the more

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Speaker 6: I see you doing things, the more productive. In scare quotes,

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Speaker 6: I'm going to assume you're being. This is the dominant

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Speaker 6: way I think we measure effective work.

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Speaker 1: This need to monitor visible effort led to other changes

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Speaker 1: in the knowledge work sector, ones that had nasty implications

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Speaker 1: for a worker's sense of autonomy and happiness.

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Speaker 6: When the knowledge sector grew as a big sector and

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Speaker 6: we said, how are we going to literally organize this work,

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Speaker 6: we said, well, let's just do what the factories do.

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Speaker 6: You will come to a building, we'll all gather in

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Speaker 6: the same place. We'll be there for a long shift,

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Speaker 6: so that we can just see that everyone is working.

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Speaker 6: That's why I know you're working, because you have to

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Speaker 6: come to this building and I can physically surveil you.

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Speaker 6: That's suitor productivity. There's nothing about cognitive work that says

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Speaker 6: the best way to do this is as many hours

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Speaker 6: as possible, or to do it in one contiguous shift.

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Speaker 6: But if our main metric for productivity is visible activity,

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Speaker 6: then it made life a lot easier for the managers, But.

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Speaker 1: Of course such surveillance didn't make life easier for the

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Speaker 1: knowledge workers.

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Speaker 6: Suit of productivity makes us miserable, and has been making

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Speaker 6: us more miserable. It barely worked until about the two thousands.

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Speaker 6: Then digital technology enter the scene, and it spiraled out

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Speaker 6: of control. Because now I can leave a trace of

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Speaker 6: me working or not working by doing emails, et cetera anywhere.

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Speaker 6: Now there's an unlimited supply of work. Because one of

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Speaker 6: the things the digital age brought to us was zero

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Speaker 6: friction work assignment. I can just hey, can you handle

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Speaker 6: this sin boom? It's off my plate.

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Speaker 1: This emergence of email and slack channels and team meetings

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Speaker 1: and group texts meant that workers had way more opportunities

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Speaker 1: to show off their visible activity, and managers quickly took notice, Hey,

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Speaker 1: I haven't.

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Speaker 6: Really been seeing you in the email chains recently. You

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Speaker 6: weren't at these zoom meetings. You are slow to respond

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Speaker 6: to the slack chack. What's going on? Maybe you're not productive.

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Speaker 1: But managers weren't the only ones to embrace pseudo productivity.

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Speaker 1: Knowledge workers soon began to internalize this notion. Practices like

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Speaker 1: clearing your emails. To achieve inbox zero and being on

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Speaker 1: slack after hours became almost as important to workers as

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Speaker 1: the projects that made up their true job descriptions, especially

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Speaker 1: since incremental progress on the big projects will always be

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Speaker 1: harder to show off.

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Speaker 6: You don't know if I'm at home or I'm in

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Speaker 6: my office, you're not in nearby. You don't know that

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Speaker 6: I'm working deeply on an article that leaves no trace,

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Speaker 6: but if I'm jumping onto email threads, that does leave

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Speaker 6: a trace, And so it biased us towards what's going

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Speaker 6: to leave the best trace through the environment of pseudo productivity, evaluation.

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Speaker 1: And this desire to leave some tangible evidence of your

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Speaker 1: efforts has a terrible effect on the actual output of

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Speaker 1: knowledge work.

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Speaker 6: So one of the consequences of pseudo productivity is that

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Speaker 6: it gets in the way of the ability to give

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Speaker 6: the most important things you do unbroken attention. How do

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Speaker 6: we get our brain to actually produce value. It's the

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Speaker 6: ability to focus intensely on some If you want to

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Speaker 6: produce the best things you're capable of using your brain,

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Speaker 6: you don't want to be distracted. I want to focus

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Speaker 6: on this hard thing I'm doing until it's done. Pseudo

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Speaker 6: productivity punishes that.

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Speaker 1: I've totally been punished by my internalized pseudo productivity. I'll

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Speaker 1: be in the middle of writing a podcast script or

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Speaker 1: an academic paper when I'll hear a ding from a text,

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Speaker 1: so I peek at my phone, get distracted, and take

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Speaker 1: longer to finish the task I'm really supposed to be

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Speaker 1: focused on. And that sense of distraction doesn't just bubble

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Speaker 1: up during actual interruptions. Whenever I find myself deep in

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Speaker 1: a writing project, I'll inevitably think, you know, I haven't

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Speaker 1: checked my email in a while. I wonder if there's

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Speaker 1: something important next thing. I know, I'm deep in my inbox.

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Speaker 1: I've internalized the importance of visible activity so much that

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Speaker 1: I start feeling anxious whenever I'm not engaged in it,

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Speaker 1: and that anxiety gets worse when my bigger projects fail

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Speaker 1: to produce an obvious output. For a while, it feels

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Speaker 1: almost easier to spend my time on dumb, pseudo productive

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Speaker 1: stuff like clearing my inbox.

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Speaker 6: And now we have whole departments, we have whole teams

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Speaker 6: and organizations producing a lot less valuable work because we

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Speaker 6: are servicing this crude proxy that doesn't actually get to

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Speaker 6: the core of what it means to be productive. It's

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Speaker 6: completely cross purposes.

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Speaker 1: But pseudo productivity doesn't just impair actual work productivity. It

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Speaker 1: also increases our stress levels and decreases our happiness.

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Speaker 6: There's an unavoidable consequence of pseudo productivity that you're going

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Speaker 6: to get overloaded and you're going to stay overloaded. Saying

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Speaker 6: yes to someone asking you to do something is very important,

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Speaker 6: right because that's a very clear signal of activity. We

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Speaker 6: have to get rid of pseudo productivity. We need much

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Speaker 6: more humanistic, psychologically aware, and evidence based approaches for saying

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Speaker 6: this is what we mean by productivity in the knowledge sector.

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Speaker 1: Thankfully, Cal has come up with just such an approach,

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Speaker 1: one that he outlines in his fabulous book Slow Productivity,

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Speaker 1: The Lost Art of Accomplishment without Burnout. Accomplishment without feeling

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Speaker 1: burned out, Sign me up. Cal's idea for slow productivity

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Speaker 1: was inspired by the slow food movement, a campaign in

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Speaker 1: the late eighties pushing back against fast food culture arguing

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Speaker 1: that people should take the time to grow and cook

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Speaker 1: their own healthy food.

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Speaker 6: Slow food actually gives us a couple really good ideas

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Speaker 6: for how to form a reform movement. One it says,

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Speaker 6: when dealing with a cultural situation that's displeasing, don't just

401
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Speaker 6: attack what you don't like, give a positive alternative. The

402
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Speaker 6: second part of their reform program was don't just try

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Speaker 6: to create the better thing looking forward, make sure that

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Speaker 6: you're also drawing from wisdom that is accumulated in the past.

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Speaker 1: Cal now applies the same approach to fixing our overwhelmed schedules.

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Speaker 1: He turned to knowledge workers of the past, professionals who

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Speaker 1: lived back in John Maynard Keynes's day and even before,

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Speaker 1: to see how they produce their most effective work. Such

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Speaker 1: insights led Cal to develop the three core principles of

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Speaker 1: slow productivity, doing fewer.

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Speaker 6: Things at once, working at a more natural pace, and

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Speaker 6: then obsessing over the quality of what you do.

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Speaker 1: Let's start with doing fewer things at once.

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Speaker 6: Well, when we're doing fewer things, we are relieving ourselves

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Speaker 6: of not just a lengthy task list, but the administrative

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Speaker 6: overhead that comes along with each of those items on

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Speaker 6: our task lists. And this is something I think people

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Speaker 6: often overlook is that when I say yes, I'm not

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Speaker 6: just saying yes to eventually, how many hours am I

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Speaker 6: going to spend writing the report or doing the committee

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Speaker 6: or whatever it was I said yes to. When I

422
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Speaker 6: say yes to something, it's also going to come with

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Speaker 6: persistent administrative overhead responsibilities. It's going to be emails back

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Speaker 6: and forth with people who are involved in it. All right,

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Speaker 6: every Wednesday we got to like jump on zoom, and

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Speaker 6: it's going to be cognitive space taken up by the

427
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Speaker 6: fact that, hey, this thing's ongoing in some part of

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Speaker 6: your brain wants to think about it. So when you

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Speaker 6: say yes the lots of things, even if you're not

430
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Speaker 6: working on the actual projects at the same time, all

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Speaker 6: of their administrative overhead begins to pile up. And so

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Speaker 6: what happens is the more things I've said yes to,

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Speaker 6: the less time I actually have to work on things.

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Speaker 1: This hit me like a ton of bricks. When I

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Speaker 1: look at my own calendar, I see days and days

436
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Speaker 1: broken up with staff meetings and check ins and random appointments,

437
00:22:21,356 --> 00:22:25,116
Speaker 1: cal calls, commitments like these productivity termites. They eat up

438
00:22:25,156 --> 00:22:27,316
Speaker 1: the big blocks of time in our schedule, so much

439
00:22:27,356 --> 00:22:29,876
Speaker 1: so that little solid foundation is left for the stuff

440
00:22:29,916 --> 00:22:30,476
Speaker 1: that matters.

441
00:22:31,076 --> 00:22:33,796
Speaker 6: And this is a negative feedback cycle that can get

442
00:22:33,836 --> 00:22:37,356
Speaker 6: pretty nasty, because once you have enough of your day

443
00:22:37,716 --> 00:22:41,236
Speaker 6: servicing commitments but not working on them, you fall behind.

444
00:22:41,796 --> 00:22:44,516
Speaker 6: And the only way to escape from the spiral is

445
00:22:44,516 --> 00:22:47,316
Speaker 6: to start reclaiming time outside of work hours, and they

446
00:22:47,316 --> 00:22:48,996
Speaker 6: have to work on the weekends and late at night

447
00:22:49,076 --> 00:22:52,516
Speaker 6: and early in the morning. Doing fewer things at once

448
00:22:52,996 --> 00:22:55,996
Speaker 6: is not the same as doing fewer things overall. In fact,

449
00:22:55,996 --> 00:22:58,436
Speaker 6: you're going to accomplish a lot more per year if

450
00:22:58,476 --> 00:23:00,316
Speaker 6: you keep your plate much more sparse.

451
00:23:00,796 --> 00:23:02,716
Speaker 1: But it's not enough to streamline what you work on.

452
00:23:03,156 --> 00:23:05,316
Speaker 1: You also need to work at a more natural pace.

453
00:23:05,516 --> 00:23:07,556
Speaker 1: As cal looked to the great writers and thinkers of

454
00:23:07,596 --> 00:23:10,156
Speaker 1: the past, he realized they didn't work the way most

455
00:23:10,156 --> 00:23:10,996
Speaker 1: of us do today.

456
00:23:11,316 --> 00:23:13,676
Speaker 6: So a knowledge work emerged. We said, okay, how are

457
00:23:13,716 --> 00:23:15,516
Speaker 6: we going to deal with this? We said, we'll use

458
00:23:15,516 --> 00:23:19,356
Speaker 6: pseudo productivity as our metric for effective action. Well, what

459
00:23:19,436 --> 00:23:22,276
Speaker 6: was the best way to monitor pseudo activity back then?

460
00:23:22,396 --> 00:23:24,476
Speaker 6: We said, we'll run our offices like a factory.

461
00:23:24,716 --> 00:23:27,396
Speaker 1: Managers brought knowledge workers into a building where they could

462
00:23:27,396 --> 00:23:30,676
Speaker 1: be observed. Employees were stuck there for eight hours a day,

463
00:23:30,836 --> 00:23:34,036
Speaker 1: working the entire time. But applying a factory model to

464
00:23:34,076 --> 00:23:37,676
Speaker 1: writing good computer programs or academic papers or podcast scripts

465
00:23:37,836 --> 00:23:38,836
Speaker 1: doesn't work that well.

466
00:23:39,236 --> 00:23:41,316
Speaker 6: So Cognitive work is not something that you can just

467
00:23:41,716 --> 00:23:43,956
Speaker 6: churn out of your mind like a widget, as many

468
00:23:43,996 --> 00:23:46,156
Speaker 6: hours as you want in a row. It's not like

469
00:23:46,196 --> 00:23:48,956
Speaker 6: putting steering wheels on a model T. It needs way

470
00:23:48,956 --> 00:23:51,676
Speaker 6: more ups and downs. I have to get the right information.

471
00:23:52,116 --> 00:23:53,516
Speaker 6: I need to think about what I want to do,

472
00:23:53,596 --> 00:23:55,996
Speaker 6: and then there's periods of great intensity, But then that

473
00:23:56,076 --> 00:23:58,076
Speaker 6: might need to be coupled with periods where I'm really

474
00:23:58,116 --> 00:24:00,636
Speaker 6: pulling back. My brain is recharging and trying to find

475
00:24:00,676 --> 00:24:04,556
Speaker 6: new inspiration. Our brain does not operate like an assembly line,

476
00:24:04,596 --> 00:24:06,276
Speaker 6: but we run it that way, and now I think

477
00:24:06,316 --> 00:24:07,756
Speaker 6: we have a lot of misery because of it.

478
00:24:07,996 --> 00:24:10,116
Speaker 1: Kel argues we need to take a much more humane

479
00:24:10,116 --> 00:24:12,516
Speaker 1: approach to our schedules. We need to build in the

480
00:24:12,596 --> 00:24:16,236
Speaker 1: natural variability that thinking well requires. We need to expect

481
00:24:16,276 --> 00:24:18,596
Speaker 1: that some days will be filled with more progress than others,

482
00:24:19,036 --> 00:24:21,556
Speaker 1: and we need to intentionally build in time to recharge

483
00:24:21,756 --> 00:24:24,476
Speaker 1: without beating ourselves up over it. And cal has a

484
00:24:24,516 --> 00:24:28,796
Speaker 1: specific suggestion for doing this, a practice he calls small seasonality.

485
00:24:29,356 --> 00:24:32,996
Speaker 6: Standard seasonality is what our Neolithic ancestors used to do.

486
00:24:33,196 --> 00:24:35,956
Speaker 6: The winter, I don't do as much work as the fall.

487
00:24:35,996 --> 00:24:38,156
Speaker 6: When I'm bringing into harvest, and you have these variations

488
00:24:38,196 --> 00:24:41,236
Speaker 6: of seasons, so we can shift intensity at smaller scales.

489
00:24:41,356 --> 00:24:43,876
Speaker 6: I'm going to take the three weeks in December before

490
00:24:43,916 --> 00:24:45,876
Speaker 6: we get to the holidays, and I pull back for

491
00:24:45,876 --> 00:24:49,396
Speaker 6: those three weeks. It's a lower intensity period that's not

492
00:24:49,436 --> 00:24:52,156
Speaker 6: as big as a season, but it gives me some variation.

493
00:24:52,476 --> 00:24:54,836
Speaker 6: You could do this at an even smaller scale. I

494
00:24:54,836 --> 00:24:57,716
Speaker 6: don't schedule meetings on Mondays. Don't tell anybody this. When

495
00:24:57,756 --> 00:24:59,636
Speaker 6: someone wants to set up meetings, you can propose all

496
00:24:59,636 --> 00:25:02,316
Speaker 6: sorts of times, just never happen to propose a time

497
00:25:02,356 --> 00:25:05,116
Speaker 6: on Mondays. So now every week you have this first

498
00:25:05,156 --> 00:25:08,356
Speaker 6: day that has a fully different field than the other days.

499
00:25:08,596 --> 00:25:11,956
Speaker 1: But working naturally also requires taking a healthier approach to

500
00:25:11,996 --> 00:25:12,716
Speaker 1: your workspace.

501
00:25:13,156 --> 00:25:17,076
Speaker 6: If our work primarily uses our brain, everything that impacts

502
00:25:17,076 --> 00:25:19,316
Speaker 6: our brain is relevant to our work. So just like

503
00:25:19,356 --> 00:25:22,316
Speaker 6: if I was an athlete and my work primarily involves

504
00:25:22,316 --> 00:25:25,356
Speaker 6: my body, other things I'm doing to my body matters.

505
00:25:25,396 --> 00:25:28,396
Speaker 6: If I'm sort of doing a bunch of squats right

506
00:25:28,396 --> 00:25:31,076
Speaker 6: before a soccer game, it's going to matter. But we

507
00:25:31,076 --> 00:25:34,076
Speaker 6: don't think about this with cognitive work. But the environment

508
00:25:34,116 --> 00:25:38,276
Speaker 6: that our brain is exposed to impacts how our brain functions.

509
00:25:38,796 --> 00:25:41,116
Speaker 6: And so when you see that laundry basket at your

510
00:25:41,116 --> 00:25:43,596
Speaker 6: home office, there's a whole other part of your brain

511
00:25:43,636 --> 00:25:45,596
Speaker 6: that says, we gotta do laundry. When are we gonna

512
00:25:45,596 --> 00:25:48,836
Speaker 6: do laundry? Which means your efforts to write a book, chapter,

513
00:25:48,956 --> 00:25:51,676
Speaker 6: whatever is going to be degraded. So if you make

514
00:25:51,716 --> 00:25:54,636
Speaker 6: a living with your brain, you have to separate where

515
00:25:54,676 --> 00:25:57,636
Speaker 6: you do this brain work from where you live. Location

516
00:25:57,796 --> 00:25:58,876
Speaker 6: matters if you're a.

517
00:25:58,796 --> 00:26:01,756
Speaker 1: Remote worker, Cal recommends finding a spot that doesn't remind

518
00:26:01,796 --> 00:26:04,556
Speaker 1: you of all your other daily pressures. Find a coffee

519
00:26:04,556 --> 00:26:08,116
Speaker 1: shop or co working space, even a large closet, anywhere

520
00:26:08,116 --> 00:26:10,196
Speaker 1: that stops you from c and thinking about all the

521
00:26:10,236 --> 00:26:12,396
Speaker 1: stressful stuff in life, so you can focus on your

522
00:26:12,396 --> 00:26:15,996
Speaker 1: important projects. And once you're settled down to work, Cal says,

523
00:26:16,036 --> 00:26:18,236
Speaker 1: you need to obsess over the quality of what you do.

524
00:26:18,916 --> 00:26:21,876
Speaker 6: Obsessing over the quality of what you do is the

525
00:26:21,876 --> 00:26:24,356
Speaker 6: glue that holds the other two principles together. There's two

526
00:26:24,356 --> 00:26:27,476
Speaker 6: things that happen once you start caring about quality. One,

527
00:26:27,956 --> 00:26:31,636
Speaker 6: it justifies for yourself going slower, because to do things

528
00:26:31,676 --> 00:26:34,596
Speaker 6: really well, you have to slow down. On the flip side,

529
00:26:34,956 --> 00:26:36,956
Speaker 6: when you get really good at something. Because you obsess

530
00:26:36,996 --> 00:26:39,996
Speaker 6: over your quality, you get more leverage and control over

531
00:26:39,996 --> 00:26:41,836
Speaker 6: your work life, and it becomes easier.

532
00:26:42,436 --> 00:26:45,516
Speaker 1: Obsessing over quality can help produce burnout in other ways, too.

533
00:26:45,836 --> 00:26:49,236
Speaker 1: Burnout typically emerges when we experience what clinicians call a

534
00:26:49,356 --> 00:26:51,996
Speaker 1: values mismatch in our work. We want to produce work

535
00:26:51,996 --> 00:26:54,196
Speaker 1: of a certain standard, but we just don't have the

536
00:26:54,236 --> 00:26:57,196
Speaker 1: time or bandwidth to accomplish that. When we can't give

537
00:26:57,236 --> 00:27:00,196
Speaker 1: meaningful projects our full attention and creative energy because we're

538
00:27:00,236 --> 00:27:03,636
Speaker 1: doing so many other things, we feel cynical and overwhelmed.

539
00:27:04,036 --> 00:27:06,476
Speaker 1: But obsessing over the quality of our work prevents that

540
00:27:06,516 --> 00:27:09,116
Speaker 1: sort of values mismatch. We wind up able to put

541
00:27:09,236 --> 00:27:12,516
Speaker 1: our full passion and energy into what truly matters. But

542
00:27:12,796 --> 00:27:15,796
Speaker 1: this ability to focus on what truly matters requires one

543
00:27:15,916 --> 00:27:19,996
Speaker 1: other important, but very painful realization. There may never be

544
00:27:20,116 --> 00:27:22,556
Speaker 1: enough time to do everything we really care about.

545
00:27:22,956 --> 00:27:25,636
Speaker 5: We've got minds that allow us to conceive of an

546
00:27:25,676 --> 00:27:28,036
Speaker 5: infinite number of things we want to do, or could do,

547
00:27:28,156 --> 00:27:31,036
Speaker 5: or should do, and yet we are these sort of

548
00:27:31,076 --> 00:27:33,196
Speaker 5: animals who can only do so much of it.

549
00:27:33,836 --> 00:27:36,396
Speaker 1: The happiness lab or return after the break.

550
00:27:44,596 --> 00:27:48,356
Speaker 5: The desperate side of being a productivity junkie is that

551
00:27:48,396 --> 00:27:50,876
Speaker 5: it is an attempt to sort of not have to

552
00:27:50,916 --> 00:27:55,356
Speaker 5: confront certain truths about either one's own life or human

553
00:27:55,396 --> 00:27:57,636
Speaker 5: life in general, and the fact that you know, in

554
00:27:57,756 --> 00:28:00,156
Speaker 5: case of time management, there just isn't enough time for

555
00:28:00,196 --> 00:28:01,836
Speaker 5: all the things that feel like they matter.

556
00:28:02,316 --> 00:28:05,876
Speaker 1: Former productivity junkie Oliver Berkman now embraces all the tenets

557
00:28:05,876 --> 00:28:09,956
Speaker 1: of slow productivity that Cal Newport described earlier. He does less,

558
00:28:10,116 --> 00:28:12,676
Speaker 1: tries to work at a more reasonable piece, and focuses

559
00:28:12,716 --> 00:28:15,956
Speaker 1: on high quality work. But Oliver thinks there's one more

560
00:28:15,996 --> 00:28:18,676
Speaker 1: painful truth we must confront if we want to find

561
00:28:18,676 --> 00:28:21,876
Speaker 1: the utopian work life balance promised by John Maynard Keynes.

562
00:28:22,316 --> 00:28:23,836
Speaker 5: If you're convinced that in the end there must be

563
00:28:23,916 --> 00:28:25,956
Speaker 5: a time for everything, then you're not going to say

564
00:28:25,996 --> 00:28:27,516
Speaker 5: no to the right things. You're not going to make

565
00:28:27,556 --> 00:28:29,996
Speaker 5: the right choices about what not to spend your time on,

566
00:28:30,036 --> 00:28:32,156
Speaker 5: and as a result, it's just going to be more

567
00:28:32,156 --> 00:28:33,636
Speaker 5: and more stuff incoming.

568
00:28:34,196 --> 00:28:37,836
Speaker 1: Oliver explores this idea in four thousand Weeks Time Management

569
00:28:37,876 --> 00:28:40,876
Speaker 1: for Mortals. The four thousand weeks in the book's title

570
00:28:40,956 --> 00:28:43,316
Speaker 1: refers to the length of the average human life span.

571
00:28:43,916 --> 00:28:45,476
Speaker 1: Pretty sure, right, The.

572
00:28:45,436 --> 00:28:47,756
Speaker 5: Important point is just that it's finite that has an

573
00:28:47,876 --> 00:28:50,356
Speaker 5: end point. It means that there's no reason to assume

574
00:28:50,556 --> 00:28:52,876
Speaker 5: that there will be time in a day or in

575
00:28:52,916 --> 00:28:54,876
Speaker 5: a life to do all the things that feel to

576
00:28:54,956 --> 00:28:56,756
Speaker 5: you like they matter.

577
00:28:57,036 --> 00:28:58,636
Speaker 1: No time in a life to do all the stuff

578
00:28:58,676 --> 00:29:01,316
Speaker 1: that matters. I can't what Oliver is saying here, but

579
00:29:01,356 --> 00:29:03,276
Speaker 1: I find the realization terrifying.

580
00:29:03,836 --> 00:29:06,756
Speaker 5: I do think that humans have, since the beginning of

581
00:29:06,836 --> 00:29:12,196
Speaker 5: humanity railed against their finitude. Most of our worst problems

582
00:29:12,196 --> 00:29:15,276
Speaker 5: with time, the ways we end up procrastinating, distracting ourselves,

583
00:29:15,316 --> 00:29:18,636
Speaker 5: feeling unfulfilled, feeling too busy, feeling overwhelmed, can be traced

584
00:29:18,676 --> 00:29:23,636
Speaker 5: back to various forms of this avoidance. It's because we

585
00:29:23,676 --> 00:29:26,756
Speaker 5: want to make ourselves feel unlimited that we try to

586
00:29:26,796 --> 00:29:29,436
Speaker 5: set up ludicrous productivity systems that are going to enable

587
00:29:29,516 --> 00:29:30,916
Speaker 5: us to do absolutely everything.

588
00:29:31,316 --> 00:29:33,676
Speaker 1: Embracing the idea of a time limited life can help

589
00:29:33,716 --> 00:29:35,756
Speaker 1: us come to terms with the fact that we're simply

590
00:29:35,796 --> 00:29:38,556
Speaker 1: never going to get everything done, which forces us to

591
00:29:38,556 --> 00:29:40,596
Speaker 1: become intentional about what we choose to do.

592
00:29:41,076 --> 00:29:43,796
Speaker 5: You don't get to choose not making tough decisions about

593
00:29:43,796 --> 00:29:45,356
Speaker 5: what you do with your time, but you can make

594
00:29:45,516 --> 00:29:49,476
Speaker 5: wiser or less wise ones. First of all, ask yourself

595
00:29:49,476 --> 00:29:53,156
Speaker 5: how much time you reasonably have available, and then decide

596
00:29:53,556 --> 00:29:55,916
Speaker 5: what are the most important tasks to put into that box.

597
00:29:55,956 --> 00:29:58,516
Speaker 5: So maybe that strikes people as very obvious, but in

598
00:29:58,516 --> 00:30:01,196
Speaker 5: fact I think what people instinctively do instead is the opposite.

599
00:30:01,196 --> 00:30:02,556
Speaker 5: They get up in the morning and say what has

600
00:30:02,556 --> 00:30:04,036
Speaker 5: to be done by the end of the day, paying

601
00:30:04,036 --> 00:30:06,356
Speaker 5: no heed to the question of whether there's actually enough

602
00:30:06,396 --> 00:30:08,796
Speaker 5: time to do it, and then you make bad choices.

603
00:30:08,836 --> 00:30:10,476
Speaker 5: You try to clear the decks, you try to do

604
00:30:10,516 --> 00:30:12,236
Speaker 5: all the short stuff first, and you find you've got

605
00:30:12,236 --> 00:30:14,556
Speaker 5: no time for the really important stuff. You end up

606
00:30:14,796 --> 00:30:18,996
Speaker 5: feeling inadequate and dumb because you didn't get through the list.

607
00:30:19,036 --> 00:30:22,596
Speaker 5: And it's just a sort of recipe for procrastination and psychodrama.

608
00:30:22,716 --> 00:30:25,516
Speaker 5: So it's really just about saying, this is the time

609
00:30:25,556 --> 00:30:27,716
Speaker 5: that is available, given that, what shall I do.

610
00:30:28,156 --> 00:30:30,796
Speaker 1: Oliver admits to struggling with this level of acceptance from

611
00:30:30,836 --> 00:30:34,476
Speaker 1: time to time. Luckily he has sparked time management gurus

612
00:30:34,636 --> 00:30:36,156
Speaker 1: like his wife around to help him.

613
00:30:36,516 --> 00:30:40,236
Speaker 5: I remember on a couple of occasions asking aloud in

614
00:30:40,276 --> 00:30:42,796
Speaker 5: her presence, whether I really had enough time left to

615
00:30:42,916 --> 00:30:45,236
Speaker 5: meet a deadline? On something that I was working for,

616
00:30:45,516 --> 00:30:47,676
Speaker 5: and of course corresponds always like, that's the wrong question

617
00:30:47,836 --> 00:30:50,836
Speaker 5: you have this time. The question is what's the wisest

618
00:30:50,916 --> 00:30:54,036
Speaker 5: use of that time. All of our time is trade offs.

619
00:30:54,316 --> 00:30:56,956
Speaker 5: You're always choosing not to do things, and so the

620
00:30:57,036 --> 00:31:00,396
Speaker 5: question is, just, given this available time, what's the best

621
00:31:00,476 --> 00:31:03,036
Speaker 5: way to spread my attention and energy?

622
00:31:03,356 --> 00:31:05,676
Speaker 1: And Oliver thinks one clearly bad way to spend your

623
00:31:05,716 --> 00:31:10,596
Speaker 1: attention and energy is with constant multitasking. Recognizing your finitude

624
00:31:10,636 --> 00:31:13,076
Speaker 1: and embracing a limited life means coming to terms with

625
00:31:13,156 --> 00:31:15,116
Speaker 1: the fact that you're not going to have time to

626
00:31:15,156 --> 00:31:17,956
Speaker 1: take in every new tweet or blog post or news article.

627
00:31:18,316 --> 00:31:20,716
Speaker 1: Monotasking requires sacrificing all that.

628
00:31:21,156 --> 00:31:24,516
Speaker 5: It's strange how difficult it is. It shouldn't be that difficult.

629
00:31:24,796 --> 00:31:28,596
Speaker 5: Just not always filling every available attentional channel. It's always

630
00:31:28,596 --> 00:31:33,076
Speaker 5: going to feel easier to veer away from that challenging, difficult,

631
00:31:33,276 --> 00:31:38,916
Speaker 5: uncomfortable thing to some pleasant and compelling source of distraction.

632
00:31:39,236 --> 00:31:41,956
Speaker 5: This is especially the case now because we didn't used

633
00:31:41,996 --> 00:31:44,556
Speaker 5: to have places to go when we got distracted that

634
00:31:44,636 --> 00:31:49,636
Speaker 5: were explicitly designed by very well paid geniuses to keep

635
00:31:49,716 --> 00:31:51,836
Speaker 5: us their as long as possible. On the other hand,

636
00:31:52,476 --> 00:31:54,796
Speaker 5: we are part of the problem, right. I mean, it

637
00:31:54,916 --> 00:31:57,196
Speaker 5: is not in my experience anyway that I'm sort of

638
00:31:57,236 --> 00:32:01,636
Speaker 5: sitting writing a chapter filled with joy and absorption and

639
00:32:01,676 --> 00:32:05,396
Speaker 5: then like somehow Edil Musk's Twitter comes and kind of

640
00:32:05,436 --> 00:32:08,036
Speaker 5: grabs me from my desk and drags me kicking and screaming. No,

641
00:32:08,116 --> 00:32:10,796
Speaker 5: it's more like I find the task difficult because it

642
00:32:10,836 --> 00:32:12,796
Speaker 5: matters to me, and I'm not one hundred percent confident

643
00:32:12,836 --> 00:32:14,716
Speaker 5: I can do it, and all sorts of emotions are

644
00:32:14,756 --> 00:32:17,396
Speaker 5: brought up by doing it. On my better days, I

645
00:32:17,396 --> 00:32:19,996
Speaker 5: can say that's that thing again. It's not actually that

646
00:32:20,236 --> 00:32:22,476
Speaker 5: I can't write this chapter, or that I've got to

647
00:32:22,556 --> 00:32:25,476
Speaker 5: go and waste an hour online. It's that writing brings

648
00:32:25,516 --> 00:32:27,396
Speaker 5: up these feelings for me because I care about it.

649
00:32:28,156 --> 00:32:31,796
Speaker 1: We also need to avoid those comforting but pseudo productive activities.

650
00:32:32,316 --> 00:32:34,596
Speaker 1: A big one for me is my daily practice of

651
00:32:34,676 --> 00:32:35,836
Speaker 1: clearing the decks.

652
00:32:35,836 --> 00:32:37,756
Speaker 5: Trying to get through all your email and little stuff

653
00:32:37,756 --> 00:32:39,156
Speaker 5: and all the bits of paperwork needs to be doing.

654
00:32:39,276 --> 00:32:41,396
Speaker 5: People come in, they feel anxious about all this stuff.

655
00:32:41,396 --> 00:32:43,476
Speaker 5: There's an itch that needs to be scratched, So you

656
00:32:43,516 --> 00:32:45,316
Speaker 5: do with all that first, and then you're supposed to

657
00:32:45,356 --> 00:32:47,036
Speaker 5: feel very calm and at piece, and you can really

658
00:32:47,076 --> 00:32:48,596
Speaker 5: focus on the thing that matters.

659
00:32:49,156 --> 00:32:51,356
Speaker 1: I can't tell you how many hours of my working

660
00:32:51,396 --> 00:32:53,956
Speaker 1: life are spent on this stuff, just sending off one

661
00:32:54,036 --> 00:32:57,116
Speaker 1: more unimportant message so I can get closer to inbox zero.

662
00:32:57,596 --> 00:32:59,716
Speaker 1: We're doing a bunch of stupid errands just so I

663
00:32:59,716 --> 00:33:02,276
Speaker 1: can cross something off my to do list. When I

664
00:33:02,276 --> 00:33:04,676
Speaker 1: say it out loud, deck clearing is obviously not a

665
00:33:04,716 --> 00:33:07,636
Speaker 1: smart approach, but it feels so scary to leave so

666
00:33:07,716 --> 00:33:09,036
Speaker 1: much stuff undone.

667
00:33:09,236 --> 00:33:12,516
Speaker 5: Prising that we feel anxious. But the wise response to

668
00:33:12,556 --> 00:33:14,876
Speaker 5: that kind of anxiety is to do what one can

669
00:33:14,996 --> 00:33:18,516
Speaker 5: to hang out with the anxiety, to tolerate the anxiety,

670
00:33:18,796 --> 00:33:21,916
Speaker 5: and trying to wean yourself off the practice of clearing

671
00:33:21,916 --> 00:33:24,556
Speaker 5: the decks in response to it, I suppose.

672
00:33:24,836 --> 00:33:28,516
Speaker 1: Oliver admits that the strategies he recommends require emotion regulation,

673
00:33:29,076 --> 00:33:31,676
Speaker 1: but he's come to appreciate how much a more realistic,

674
00:33:31,916 --> 00:33:35,436
Speaker 1: more mortal approach to productivity increases what he's able to

675
00:33:35,436 --> 00:33:36,156
Speaker 1: get done.

676
00:33:36,356 --> 00:33:38,596
Speaker 5: Some people see it as quite depressing. I think it's

677
00:33:38,636 --> 00:33:41,476
Speaker 5: incredibly liberating to be like, it is not your faults,

678
00:33:41,556 --> 00:33:44,636
Speaker 5: that you are a finite human and from that basis

679
00:33:44,756 --> 00:33:47,836
Speaker 5: you can then try and do the most meaningful things

680
00:33:47,836 --> 00:33:48,396
Speaker 5: that you can do.

681
00:33:50,836 --> 00:33:53,276
Speaker 1: I'm still a long way from enjoying the leisure filled

682
00:33:53,356 --> 00:33:56,716
Speaker 1: utopia that Kent's envisioned, but making the show has helped

683
00:33:56,756 --> 00:34:00,556
Speaker 1: me establish better habits. I've put cal Newport's slow productivity

684
00:34:00,556 --> 00:34:03,956
Speaker 1: approach into practice. I started doing less at one time

685
00:34:04,076 --> 00:34:07,196
Speaker 1: and saying no to more projects. And I've stopped checking

686
00:34:07,196 --> 00:34:09,876
Speaker 1: my inbox as the first work task of the which

687
00:34:09,876 --> 00:34:12,276
Speaker 1: gives me more morning hours for the projects I want

688
00:34:12,276 --> 00:34:15,836
Speaker 1: to work on. And I'm already seeing the benefits. I'm

689
00:34:15,876 --> 00:34:18,876
Speaker 1: happy to report that my calendar has slowly begun recovering

690
00:34:18,956 --> 00:34:22,116
Speaker 1: from all of productivity termite damage, and I'll be trying

691
00:34:22,156 --> 00:34:24,836
Speaker 1: out some small seasonality by taking a few weeks off

692
00:34:24,836 --> 00:34:27,876
Speaker 1: from the show. But in spite of this progress, I

693
00:34:27,916 --> 00:34:30,356
Speaker 1: have been struggling more than I expected. With one piece

694
00:34:30,356 --> 00:34:33,196
Speaker 1: of advice you heard today, It was Oliver Berkman's idea

695
00:34:33,276 --> 00:34:37,196
Speaker 1: that we need to embrace time management for mortals. You see,

696
00:34:37,276 --> 00:34:39,956
Speaker 1: I don't really like the idea that I'm finite. I

697
00:34:39,996 --> 00:34:42,396
Speaker 1: hate thinking that I ultimately won't have time for all

698
00:34:42,396 --> 00:34:44,756
Speaker 1: the important stuff in life due to the fact that

699
00:34:44,836 --> 00:34:47,436
Speaker 1: I'm going to die someday I find the idea that

700
00:34:47,436 --> 00:34:51,676
Speaker 1: I'm limited to four thousand weeks utterly terrifying. But could

701
00:34:51,676 --> 00:34:54,636
Speaker 1: my avoidance of my inevitable demise be doing more harm

702
00:34:54,676 --> 00:34:57,756
Speaker 1: than good? Okay, it helps if I close my eyes.

703
00:34:58,356 --> 00:35:03,756
Speaker 4: I am going to die. I am going to die.

704
00:35:03,836 --> 00:35:07,316
Speaker 1: I am going to die. Could I wind up happier

705
00:35:07,356 --> 00:35:10,916
Speaker 1: by accepting, maybe even well becoming my own mortality? How

706
00:35:10,996 --> 00:35:12,796
Speaker 1: is it literally talking about it right now?

707
00:35:12,836 --> 00:35:13,356
Speaker 5: Us together?

708
00:35:13,636 --> 00:35:17,716
Speaker 1: No, seriously, I hate hate thinking about it. We'll get

709
00:35:17,716 --> 00:35:20,916
Speaker 1: some answers and explore the benefits of memento mori in

710
00:35:20,956 --> 00:35:23,876
Speaker 1: the next episode of The Happiness Lab with me Doctor

711
00:35:23,956 --> 00:35:24,796
Speaker 1: Laurie Santos