Chris Bailey ran a year-long productivity project where he studied and ran experiments on the subject. To date, he’s written hundreds of articles on the topic which have been published in places like the Huffington Post, The New York Times and LifeHacker. In this episode, Chris and Eric discuss his new book, Hyperfocus: How to Be More Productive in a World of Distraction and they cover many topics and techniques to improve your focus and productivity. In addition to being a lovely person, he is also a true expert on this topic and you’ll walk away with useful information, no matter how productive you are to begin with.
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In This Interview, Chris Bailey and I Discuss…
- His new book, Hyperfocus: How to Be More Productive in a World of Distraction
- That what we notice is what we become
- The state of our attention determines the state of our lives
- The hourly awareness chime
- How our mind gravitates to things that are any of these three things: pleasurable, threatening or novel
- The measures he uses to determine the quality of attention: how long we can hold our focus, how long our mind wanders, how much of our time we can spend with intention
- How we feel when we use our time well
- The pain of using time wastefully
- The Rule of 3 (Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Yearly)
- Text Expander
- The natural rhythm of our attention
- Being kind to our mind
- Our minds are built to wander
- Approaching our wandering minds with curiosity
- Keeping a distractions list
- Scatter focus
Will says
I’d love to make a donation, but I don’t want to become a patron. Is there a way to do that?
denis says
out of respect of nativ nation in america you could mention them because that story about god and bad wolf is their story
Eric Zimmer says
Hi Denis,
I would love to but there is a difference of opinions on whether it really is Native American. See this link: http://apihtawikosisan.com/2012/02/check-the-tag-on-that-indian-story/
When I attribute it Native Americans I get flak, some of which is Native Americans themselves and when I don’t I get flak for that also. I have decided to consider it of unknown origin. If you have some scholarship that proves definitively it is a Native quote I would be happy to do proper attribution. Thanks…Eric