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Speaker 1: When it comes to productivity, you are your own worst enemy.

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Speaker 1: Nobody knows how to trick you into procrastinating or cutting

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Speaker 1: corners quite like you do. You know all of your

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Speaker 1: own strengths, weaknesses, and thought patterns. But if you know

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Speaker 1: yourself better than anyone else does, that also means that

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Speaker 1: you are your own best resource for productivity tools, hacks,

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Speaker 1: tips and tactics. New York Times best selling author and

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Speaker 1: ex Hollywood screenwriter Eric Barker knows how important specificity is,

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Speaker 1: especially when it comes to productivity. So while he loves

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Speaker 1: pouring over productivity books, courses, videos, and articles, he knows

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Speaker 1: that ultimately it's all down to him, which is why

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Speaker 1: Eric wrote his own productivity bible called the Book of Me.

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Speaker 1: So what is the Book of Me? And how can

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Speaker 1: it help help you? My name is doctor amanthe Immer.

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Speaker 1: I'm an organizational psychologist and the founder of Behavioral science

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Speaker 1: consultancy Inventium, and this is how I work a show

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Speaker 1: about how to help you do your best work. On

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Speaker 1: today's My Favorite Tip episode, we go back to an

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Speaker 1: interview from the past and I pick out my favorite

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Speaker 1: tip from the interview. In today's show, I speak with

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Speaker 1: Eric about his Book of Me.

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Speaker 2: I call it kind of like the Book of Me,

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Speaker 2: where basically it's like, instead of these all purpose, generally

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Speaker 2: good sort of advice tips, these are like specific to

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Speaker 2: me where it's like, you, Eric, you are going to

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Speaker 2: tell yourself that you will get to this later and

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Speaker 2: you never do, so, do not fool yoursel. It's like

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Speaker 2: it's like it's like Doctor Jekyl like chaining himself when

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Speaker 2: he knows that mister Hyde is coming, where it's like, okay,

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Speaker 2: how do you lie to yourself? What other rationalizations you

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Speaker 2: usually tell? Oh, you know what, today, I'll start off

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Speaker 2: with something simple. I can do that really hard work. Late. No,

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Speaker 2: you can't, and you know it, and we have. If

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Speaker 2: you look in the notebook here, you've written this down

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Speaker 2: four times that you thought you could do it and

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Speaker 2: you never did it. And I think that's the advice

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Speaker 2: that no book can ever ever ever give you, no

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Speaker 2: guru can ever give you, no blog post can ever

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Speaker 2: give you, is your own idiosyncrasies. You know nobody can

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Speaker 2: kind of maybe a spouse might have some clue or something,

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Speaker 2: or a partner you live with, but overall, really that's

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Speaker 2: there is an enormous amount of good advice that can

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Speaker 2: only come from you to you, and you need to

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Speaker 2: write it down. You need to write it down, You

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Speaker 2: need to review it because otherwise you will rationalize and

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Speaker 2: you will tell yourself things and to have answers to

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Speaker 2: those questions to be able to say, you know what

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Speaker 2: taking you know, an extra day off? Is that the

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Speaker 2: kind of thing that you come back and you are

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Speaker 2: energized and ready to go, and it's such a good idea.

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Speaker 2: Or you take a day off and all of a sudden,

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Speaker 2: you just took three days off and you did, like

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Speaker 2: which kind of person are you? That can have different

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Speaker 2: effects on people? If you start writing down I know

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Speaker 2: that this happens. I know if I wake up after

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Speaker 2: this hour, you know, stuff doesn't get done. If I

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Speaker 2: go to bed this night, Eric, that third drink is

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Speaker 2: not a good idea, you know, just like having that

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Speaker 2: list is so powerful and like I said, it's it's

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Speaker 2: advice that only you can give you. And then reading

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Speaker 2: a lot of productivity stuff like, all of a sudden,

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Speaker 2: there becomes an easy way to implement it. Because once

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Speaker 2: you start having these personal rules and you and you,

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Speaker 2: like I said, you real man, today went really badly?

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Speaker 2: What did I do and then you can say, oh,

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Speaker 2: I did X. You make a note, and all of

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Speaker 2: a sudden, the structure creates itself because like it or not,

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Speaker 2: you're kind of ab testing. You know, maybe you woke

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Speaker 2: up in the middle of the night and couldn't get

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Speaker 2: back to sleep. Okay, you're going to learn something today.

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Speaker 2: Maybe you overslept today. Okay, you're going to learn something today.

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Speaker 2: And every time I get a tip, I can now,

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Speaker 2: all of a sudden, it can slot right in like, oh,

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Speaker 2: they say break should be this long. I let me

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Speaker 2: try that. Oh that didn't work, And you can like

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Speaker 2: all of a sudden, and then what you find is

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Speaker 2: it just kind of all comes together like Voltron, Like

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Speaker 2: you got all the pieces and they're just kind of clicking,

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Speaker 2: because all of a sudden, you have these rules and

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Speaker 2: you sort of know, you sort of know what works.

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Speaker 2: And as long as you read the Bible of you,

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Speaker 2: then your productivity religion will stay sacred.

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Speaker 1: If you enjoyed this tip from Eric, you might want

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Speaker 1: to go and listen to the full interview. You can

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Speaker 1: find a link to that in the show notes. If

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Speaker 1: you're looking for more tips to improve the way that

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Speaker 1: you work, I write a short fortnightly newsletter that contains

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Speaker 1: three cool things that I've discovered that helped me work better,

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Speaker 1: ranging from software and gadgets that I'm loving through to

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Speaker 1: interesting research findings. You can sign up for that at

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Speaker 1: Howiwork dot com. That's how I Work dot co. How

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Speaker 1: I Work is produced by Inventing, with production support from

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Speaker 1: Dead Set Studios, and thank you to Matt Nimba who

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Speaker 1: does the audio mix for every episode and makes everything

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Speaker 1: sound so much better than it would have otherwise. See

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Speaker 1: you next time.