On this episode, we chat about how to organize all of the projects you’re in the middle of, to feel more in control and less overwhelmed by them all. Topics covered include:

Links mentioned in this episode:

You can listen (and subscribe) to the podcast below!

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On this episode of the podcast, we chat about how to crowd out bad food habits—as well as how food habits of abundance are far more helpful than habits of deprivation. Topics covered include:

Links mentioned in this episode:

You can listen (and subscribe) to the podcast below! Enjoy :-)

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For this week’s podcast episode I sat down with Michael Moss, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Salt Sugar Fat and now, Hooked: Food, Free Will, and How the Food Giants Exploit Our Addictions. Hooked is an incredible book: a deep dive into the processed food industry and a look at how highly-processed food can be even more addictive than hard drugs.  

My main takeaway from the book is how we shouldn’t see processed food as food: it’s more of a Frankenstein-esque lab creation. Michael illustrates this with the example of pumpkin spice—one of the coziest-feeling flavors I can think of: 

“In our kitchen cabinets, pumpkin spice is made of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and maybe ginger. Not so in processed food. Its pumpkin spice is simulated through the deployment of as many as eighty elements.” 

Companies have learned to isolate flavor compounds and add them to our food—without our knowledge or permission—to make what we eat taste like something it’s not. Our latte may taste like pumpkin, but in reality, it’s a cocktail of other ingredients concocted in chemical laboratories. 

Flavor is the main lever processed food companies use to hook us on their products. According to Michael, the others are: 

In our conversation, linked below, Michael and I dig deeper into the levers processed food companies use to get us to eat more of what they sell. 

He’s a fascinating interview—and I highly recommend the book as well. 

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On this episode, we chat about the power of novelty—and how this one ingredient influences our perception of time and how meaningful our life feels. Topics covered include:

You can listen (and subscribe) to the podcast below!

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On this episode, I chat with Cal Newport about his fantastic new book, A World Without Email. We chat about:

Links mentioned in this episode:

You can listen (and subscribe) to the podcast below!

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On this episode, we chat about five productivity experiments you can try out while stuck at home—including how to wake up early, reset your caffeine tolerance, and replace TV time with books. Topics covered include:

Links mentioned in this episode:

You can listen (and subscribe) to the podcast below!

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On this episode, we chat about how to avoid “all or nothing” thinking—also known as the “eff it” effect, or the abstinence violation effect, if you want to get technical about it. Topics covered include:

⁃ Not being satisfied by partial success
⁃ How the effect plays out across different time scales
⁃ The idea of “sunk costs”
⁃ How awareness is key to behavioral change
⁃ The downfalls of black and white thinking

You can listen (and subscribe) to the podcast below!

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A couple weeks back on the podcast we chatted all about the productivity benefits of capturing ideas and served up a buffet of techniques on how to do just that. This week’s episode looks at how you can generate ideas in the first place.  

Some problems require us to hunker down and apply reason and logic until a way forward becomes clear. Others require larger leaps in thinking and a spoonful of creativity. They demand that we puzzle piece together disparate pieces of knowledge, experiences, and conversations to come up with a new way to overcome the impasse.  

Problems like this are best solved with a wandering mind. It may seem counterintuitive, but setting your focused work aside to let your mind rest and wander is scientifically-proven to be one of the best things you can do for your productivity. 

When it comes to generating ideas, research shows that a wandering mind elevates our creative thinking to a league of its own. When we give our mind time to wander, it visits many destinations: 48% of the time it thinks about the future, 28% of the time it’s in the present, and 12% is spent reflecting on the past (in the remaining moments, your mind is typically blank or not mulling over anything in particular).  

This pondering of the future is when you become more intentional about future goals. In fact, research says we’re 14 times more likely to think about our goals when our mind is wandering versus when it’s focused.  

By keeping your goals or the problem you need to solve in mind, and then bouncing between the future, present, and past, your mind connects ideas from all three mental destinations. At the same time, it’s given the time to rest and plan—something that’s even more valuable in the time of a global pandemic. (If you’re interested in reading more about this, my second book, Hyperfocus, does a deep dive into the science behind this wandering mental mode called scatterfocus. I also dig into this mode in this talk!)  

So how exactly do you get your mind to wander? There are three modes you can use: capture mode, problem crunching mode, and habitual mode.  

Capture mode is the best at capturing what’s on your mind—all the things you’re waiting on, the stuff you’ve got to do, what you’re making for dinner… Let your mind wander and log the ideas that pop to mind as you stroll through those mental corridors. Sitting somewhere with a notepad works well for this. 

Problem crunching mode is great for digesting specific problems where you’ve reached some sort of impasse. Like a sculpture at an art gallery, think of that problem as something worth roaming around. Examine it from different angles, maybe check out another exhibition, and return to it later. Ideas are much more likely to come to you this way versus if you were to focus intently for hours on end. Episode 35 of the podcast explored how sleeping on an idea can have the same effect as allowing your mind to wander.  

Then, there’s habitual mode, my all-time favorite way to generate new ideas. Just as it sounds, this mental mode involves going about a habit that doesn’t fill your attention to the brim. Bake cookies, make coffee, take a shower, go for a phone-free stroll—anything that will give you a bit of a mental breather.  

It’s in habitual mode where we generate the greatest number of ideas and creative insights (remember to capture them!). Plus it’s more fun because you get a mental vacation from focusing on an all-consuming task.  

The next time you’re stuck on a problem, let your mind wander. You’re more likely to break through the impasse and come out the other side feeling well-rested and full of ideas for the future. 

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A couple of years ago, I chatted with productivity author David Allen on the podcast. One of the nuggets of wisdom he shared during our conversation was that our heads are for having ideas, not holding them. 

David was talking about our limited mental bandwidth. The more it’s cluttered with reminders and things to follow-up on, the less attentional space we have to focus on our most meaningful work. It takes a surprising amount of time and energy to remember all these disparate thoughts, and it’s never worthwhile forgetting them only to remember them again later.  

The more ideas you can get out of your head, capture, and organize, the better.  

There are all sorts of ideas to keep tabs on. Some involve strokes of brilliance, others are the laundry list of tasks you need to get done or a reminder that may tug on your attention throughout the day.  

There are countless things you might want to get out of your head: 

There’s no shortage of tools you can use to capture these ideas. And like most productivity tactics, there’s no one right answer for everyone. But what is typically consistent is that whether it’s in the shower, out for a long walk, or jolted awake from a night’s sleep, we’re rarely in a convenient place when an idea pops into mind.  

Some idea-capturing tools: 

I’ve found it’s helpful to ritualize the act of both capturing and organizing my ideas. I do this all at once every Sunday night when I’m planning out my week—but what works for you might be different. This one’s a real choose your own adventure, and it’s all about experimenting until you find what’s right for you. Happy idea capturing! 

P.S. – there are also lots of productivity benefits to meditation. That’s the topic of my latest project: an Audible Original book called How to Train Your Mind. It’s free with an Audible subscription in the US. Check it out! 

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Believe it or not, it’s possible to worry more productively. On this week’s podcast, Ardyn and I dig into one of my favorite productivity tactics for crazy times like these: the worry list.

The name pretty much says it all: a worry list is just a list of what you’re worrying about; problems in your life or the world that are causing you anxiety.

Making the list is straightforward:

1. Capture all of the things that worry you over the span of a day. Just get it all of your head and onto a sheet of paper (or into some digital document, if that’s your preference).

2. Categorize all of your worries into two groups: what you have control over, and what you don’t.

After you’ve captured it all, make a plan to deal with what you have control over. If you can, you can also delegate items on the list—this instantly frees up mental bandwidth for more important things. You can also eliminate worries, by eliminating the underlying commitments or habits that cause them. (One example: if a lot of your worries are fed by constantly checking the news, subscribe to a physical newspaper instead, to get a daily update, instead of an hourly one.) However you can, just make a plan to deal with every worry that’s controllable.

With what’s outside of your control, keep in mind that your mind is predisposed to pay attention to, and worry about anything you perceive to be a threat—throughout the day, recognize when you’re worrying about something, while understanding that some worrying happens subconsciously. Schedule time to worry about these things if you feel the need to, so that they don’t bleed into the rest of your day.

Right now, there’s a lot on our minds to worry about. If you’re anything like me, creating a worry list will help. Especially in overanxious times like these, thought patterns of worry only ever obscure what’s important.

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