"The Productivity Project" by Chris Bailey

6 hours of mindful eating

At the beginning of every day, mentally fast-forward to the end of the day, and ask yourself: When the day is over, what three things will I want to have accomplished? Write those three things down.

At the start of every day and week, I also define three personal things I want to accomplish. I don’t always come up with three (and the same is true for my work items), but I find that the ritual lets me feel much more in control of my week ahead and also get excited about the things I have coming up. In case you’re curious, here are my three goals for today and for this week: Today: 1.  Have fun at tea tasting with Ardyn (my girlfriend) 2.  Read twenty-five pages for fun 3.  Finalize Christmas shopping list

interested in gaining back 13.6 years of your life in an instant? Quit watching TV. According to Nielsen, the average American adult watches 5 hours and 4 minutes of television every single day.

6:30–7 a.m.: Wake up naturally. • 7 a.m.–9 a.m.: Eat breakfast, work out, meditate, shower. • 9 a.m.–1 p.m.: Write. • 1 p.m.–3 p.m.: Break. • 3 p.m.–8 p.m.: Read, conduct/participate in interviews

But perhaps you can relegate cleaning to two or three days a week,

Call someone or Skype someone so you can have a meaningful conversation while doing the tasks.

The way I calculate it usually requires a bit of thought. But it’s quite simple. Every so often I ask myself: How much would I be willing to pay in order to buy back one hour of my life?

MY FIRST BRAIN DUMP The very first productivity book I bought, about a decade ago, was David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD). The premise of this book lies on the same principle: that your mind is not the best place to store everything you have to get done. Allen pioneered a system for getting all your tasks and projects out of your head into an external system—incredibly, before a wealth of research came out over the following decade that validated how powerful getting unresolved open loops outside of your head can be. As David Allen told me, “Your head is not for holding ideas—it’s for having ideas.”

When I’m away from my devices—like after my 8 p.m. shutoff ritual—I just carry a small pen and notepad around in my pocket.

hmm, actually might be a good idea…

attention and energy) every day: • Mind • Body • Emotions • Career • Finances • Relationships • Fun

There is a curious reason this phenomenon occurs in the shower and not when you use your smartphone: when you shower and let your mind wander, you carve out even more attentional space for yourself, which creates room for thoughts, ideas, and insights to bubble up to the surface from your unconscious mind and grab your attention.

Every day or two I would set a timer, usually for fifteen minutes, and then simply give my mind permission to venture off and go wherever it wanted to go. In a way, it was the opposite of a planning session or brain dump—instead of staying

when you’re looking to carve out attentional space for yourself. They include: • Exercising or playing sports • Reading • Meditation • Listening to music • Investing in a creative hobby • Praying • Going for a nature walk • Spending time with friends and family • Going for a massage

The reason habits are so powerful—and so difficult to break—is that your brain releases dopamine, a pleasure chemical, along with the reward at the end of each neurological pathway.

When you slow down while drinking or eating something, you create attentional space around the flavors and textures of what you’re eating so you can enjoy it that much more.

he mentions meditation here. pretty much same, focus on breath, observing it

Something is considered a “drug” when it has a physiological effect on your body, and caffeine and alcohol are no exception to this rule. As an example, both boost how much dopamine—a main pleasure chemical in your brain—the neural pathways in your brain produce, essentially rewarding you for consuming caffeine and alcohol.

Green tea and matcha are my favorite caffeine vehicles, because they’re chock-full of antioxidants and L-theanine, which ease the caffeine crash afterward. Matcha is a tad more expensive than tea and coffee, but I think it’s well worth the price; for a few extra bucks you essentially buy back some energy that you will be able to use later in the day. When you consider how your energy levels can have such a huge impact on how much you accomplish, it’s often worth the extra cost.

Expose yourself to less blue light.

addition to meditation and exercise—which Shawn is a huge advocate for—my favorite two tactics of his are recalling three things you’re grateful for, and journaling one positive experience you had at the end of each day.