The Inforium

Back in April of 2015, my friend Chris Bailey was on the show and we basically just geeked out about productivity the whole time.

Now it's time for another round of that.

If you need a reminder, Chris is the man behind A Life of Productivity - which started out as a project called A Year of Productivity. During that first year, Chris turned down two job offers to spend 365 days experimenting with every productivity technique he could find, writing about the results along the way.

After trying dozens of planning systems, tracking his happiness, spending 30 hours meditating in one week, going a month drinking nothing but water, and doing plenty of other experiments, people started to take notice.

His project was featured on several other blogs and podcasts (which is how I found it), and eventually, Portfolio Penguin reached out and asked him to write a book about all he'd learned.

When Chris was last on the show, he was starting to write that book; today, The Productivity Project is finished and is on store shelves. As a guy with publishing goals of my own, I'm a little jealous. However, I'm also happy to say the book is pretty awesome, since I was fortunate enough to get to read an advanced copy.

Whether you want to dig into the book or not, I think you'll find a lot of value in this conversation. Enjoy!

Things mentioned in this episode:

The Productivity Project - Chris' book

Want more cool stuff? You can find all sorts of great tools at my Resources page.

If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to the podcast on iTunes! It's easy, you'll get new episodes automatically, and it also helps the show gain exposure :) You can also leave a review!

RSS is cool and all, but you can also view the original post here: The Worst Thing You Can Do for Your Productivity (Ep. 91)

The great thing about knowing a lot of cool people is that they often introduce you to even more cool people.

A few weeks ago, my friend Tam Pham (who had me on his podcast Outside the Classroom earlier this year) introduced me to a guy named Heath Padgett.

His email went something like this:

To be a bit more specific, Heath graduated college and initially got a job like most people. After doing that for a while (and being very nonchalant about paying off his student loans), he and his wife Alyssa decided to do something crazy for their honeymoon - buy an RV and take a trip to every U.S. state.

Of course, the idea had to get crazier - so Heath decided to attempt working an hourly job in all 50 states and make a documentary out of it. Along the way, he and Alyssa learned that living in an RV can be really, really cheap - and pretty awesome as well.

After they traveled to every state, Heath and Alyssa decided to keep living in the RV and dedicated 2015 to paying off student debt. The result? They paid off over $15,000 in just a year, and are on track to pay off the rest in 2016.

In this episode, we'll dig deeper into Heath's story and find out how he and his wife live on $2,000/month and make a living with such a mobile lifestyle. Enjoy!

Things mentioned in this episode:

Heath's website

Want more cool stuff? You can find all sorts of great tools at my Resources page.

If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to the podcast on iTunes! It's easy, you'll get new episodes automatically, and it also helps the show gain exposure :) You can also leave a review!

RSS is cool and all, but you can also view the original post here: How to Pay Off $15,000 in Student Debt… By Living in an RV (Ep. 90)

This episode is not about Star Wars.

Instead, it's about something most people call "mastermind groups" - though I'm really not a fan of that term. So I'm living up to this site's namesake and christening it Jedi Councils instead.

Whatever you'd like to call them, I think Jedi Councils are incredibly valuable. I'm part of five - two of which are regular group calls with 3-4 people, and three of which are just less frequent calls with me and one other person.

In each council meeting, we go over our goals, give each other advice, and hold each other accountable.

Each person I talk with in these council meetings is simultaneously a friend, business contact, mentor, and mentee. Each brings unique experience and expertise to the table.

I probably first mentioned my Jedi Council meetings in the "What I'm Struggling With" video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IJ-WOJKAVc

...and since then, I've gotten a lot of emails from students who all have the same questions:

Hopefully by hearing these stories, you can start to pull out the common threads that hold them together and use what you learn to start taking steps in your own life that can help. Enjoy!

Things mentioned in this episode:

Stefano Ganddini - Collegetopia

Want more cool stuff? You can find all sorts of great tools at my Resources page.

If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to the podcast on iTunes! It's easy, you'll get new episodes automatically, and it also helps the show gain exposure :) You can also leave a review!

RSS is cool and all, but you can also view the original post here: Jedi Councils – No Star Wars Spoilers, I Promise (Ep. 89)

Should you study with music or not?

I get this question a lot, and I've seen plenty of answers that range from a simple, "No," to, "Only listen to classical," to people excitedly trying to link me to their epic female vocal trance playlist (I'm not even mad about this).

What does science have to say about it, though?

Well, to find out, today I'm talking with Junaid Kalmadi and Adam Hewett - two of the people behind a web app called Brain.fm.

Brain.fm is an app that uses artificial intelligence to generate ultra-precise music designed to improve your brain's performance. They have "sessions" designed for several purposes, including:

Focus and creativity

Now, I'm a pretty excitable person, and I'm always on the lookout for new apps, tools, and resources that can improve the way I work. However, I'm also pretty skeptical of things that make bold claims - which is why I try to cite so many studies in my videos.

That's why Brain.fm kept me hooked after the initial curiosity - they've actually conducted studies comparing brain performance under multiple conditions - silence, normal music, and their own generated music. Another one of their co-founders - Giovanni Santostasi - is a neuroscientist who works at Northwestern University's Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory.

I've also tested Brain.fm myself and have found it helpful. I'm not yet entirely sure if it works better than my study playlist, but it's at least as good, and I'm looking forward to testing it out over a longer period of time going forward.

So, in short, I'm pretty excited about Brain.fm, and I had a lot of fun picking Adam and Junaid's brains about how music can affect our ability to study and work - and maybe even affect other areas (Adam says Brain.fm has essentially cured him of insomnia that he suffered from for years).

Hope you enjoy the episode!

Things mentioned in this episode:

Try out Brain.fm (there's a monthly fee, but you can do 7 sessions for free before needing to pay)

Want more cool stuff? You can find all sorts of great tools at my Resources page.

If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to the podcast on iTunes! It's easy, you'll get new episodes automatically, and it also helps the show gain exposure :) You can also leave a review!

RSS is cool and all, but you can also view the original post here: Improving Brain Performance Using Music Created by Robots (Ep. 88)