The Art of Manliness - #196： The Science of Self-Motivation and Productivity

00:00:00.000 Brad McKay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast so we all want

00:00:19.040 to be productive we want to do more and less time so we can spend more time doing the things we

00:00:23.780 actually want to do so we read the post about being productive read the books on productivity

00:00:29.960 have the best of intentions but we find ourselves just spinning our wheels or you know worst is you

00:00:37.040 can't muster the self-motivation actually do the things you know you should be doing if that

00:00:42.360 describes you you're gonna love this podcast today on the show my guest is Charles Duhigg we've had

00:00:47.280 him on the show before to talk about his book the power of habit he's got a new book out called

00:00:51.540 smarter faster better the secrets of being productive in life and business and Charles

00:00:56.640 has spent years doing research about the science of productivity and finding out what science actual

00:01:01.720 research says that what we could do be more productive instead of just relying on these

00:01:04.580 platitudes that you often see in the self-help world great podcast today we get into the nitty

00:01:10.660 gritty about the science of self-motivation and why being a self-starter is such an important skill

00:01:17.300 to have in today's economy we talk about how to set more effective goals and how to use to-do list

00:01:23.500 more effectively so you're not just checking things off and not actually getting things done

00:01:28.020 great podcast be sure to check out the show notes after you listen because we have a lot of links to

00:01:32.840 resources that you can delve deeper into the topics now you can find that at aom.is slash

00:01:38.100 Duhigg and that's spelled d-u-h-i-g-g and as always if you enjoy the show I'd appreciate it if

00:01:44.220 you give us review on itunes or stitcher

00:01:45.840 Charles Duhigg welcome back to the show thanks for having me back so we had you on uh last year

00:02:00.140 or a few maybe a few years ago about your book the power of habit uh you got a new book out called

00:02:05.180 smarter uh faster better it's all about being productive in life and in business i'm curious

00:02:12.040 is this book a continuation of the work you did in the power of habit or is it something completely

00:02:17.520 different so i i think it's fairly different but it builds a little bit on on the power of habit so

00:02:24.620 and if the power of habit was about how people can program the automatic behaviors in their lives this

00:02:32.580 this 40 to 45 percent of our day that's that are that are not actually decisions but are about sort

00:02:38.460 of doing things automatically this book smarter faster better is about the other 50 to 50 55 to

00:02:45.440 60 percent of our day where we're actually making decisions and it's about how do we make the right

00:02:51.720 decisions to be as productive as possible and and because productivity is a uh hard word it's a kind

00:02:58.820 of a mysterious word let me go ahead and define exactly what it is productivity isn't necessarily

00:03:03.820 about turning out widgets faster or about getting to inbox zero what it's really about is it's about

00:03:09.940 helping people understand how their own brain works well enough to to empower them to do to get as close

00:03:18.000 to their goals as possible with the least amount of stress and strife and waste so when so productivity

00:03:25.200 might change from day to day it might be that a wednesday morning is you define productivity as

00:03:30.560 getting to your office as early as possible and dropping off the kids at school so you can

00:03:34.180 power through that memo that you want to write but a productive friday morning might be the opposite

00:03:39.160 where you have time to walk your kids to school and not not have to think about work so that you can

00:03:44.480 actually talk to them and learn about their lives in both cases though what we're trying to do is we're

00:03:49.400 trying to empower people so that they are in control they understand what their goal is they understand

00:03:54.960 what their priorities are and they know how to get as close as possible to that goal without having

00:04:01.200 to make unbearable sacrifices without having to work non-stop without being stressed out about all the

00:04:06.760 other things in their lives but it seems that most people approach productivity as the way is cranking

00:04:12.400 as many widgets out as possible they want to get as many of their to-dos list off uh they they think

00:04:18.380 productivity is like you're busy all the time you're just doing a lot of things but you're saying

00:04:21.780 that that's actually not being productive well no i mean i think that everyone knows that it's not

00:04:28.920 productive to to to run after the wrong goal line right if if you want to pump out widgets if that's

00:04:36.600 your life's desire then getting faster at that is fantastic and for some people that's exactly what

00:04:41.520 they want to do right if you're if you're in sales learning how to close that sales loop faster

00:04:47.420 and faster that is productivity but but if you're an artist if you're an engineer if you're a scientist

00:04:54.420 if you're a writer then it might be that much of what you want to do is not doing things faster but

00:05:00.520 instead doing it smarter trying to figure out how do i get to that perfect paragraph how do i have

00:05:05.800 five experiments that fail so that i get closer to the experiment that works that's that's kind of the

00:05:13.300 underlying principle is that the most productive people are actually the ones who are most successful

00:05:18.520 at identifying their their deepest most important goals and then understanding how to structure their

00:05:25.900 life so as to get to that goal so what i love about smarter faster better is just like you did in the

00:05:32.640 power of habit like you don't just a lot of you know productivity books self-help books they get sort

00:05:36.960 of these platitudes that we've all heard before what i love about your books is that you get into

00:05:41.040 research nitty-gritty research uh in psychology neuroscience to show what we can do to actually

00:05:47.900 be more productive and i thought it was interesting you start off the book talking about motivation

00:05:53.000 particularly self-motivation um which makes sense because like i think people are really good at

00:05:58.720 creating lists of things that they need to do to move forward in life things they want to do

00:06:03.080 but i get emails all the time from guys who are like you know i just i can't get motivated to to do

00:06:08.200 these things i know i need to do so the question is like what does the research say how do we how do

00:06:14.040 we get motivated to do the things we want to do or know we need to do well it's a it's an it is a

00:06:20.720 fundamental question right because in many ways if you think about what what productivity what a

00:06:25.880 productive life looks like it's not just having motivation for the big tasks it's easy motivation for

00:06:31.800 the small things that we have to do every day so that when you sit down and you're at your desk and

00:06:36.740 you've got 10 emails that you know you should respond to and you want to respond to but it just

00:06:41.800 seems so much easier to open up facebook and kind of spend 15 minutes surfing on facebook and fall

00:06:47.120 falling into the facebook time warp how do we how do we effortlessly trigger that motivation

00:06:52.260 to do the emails to do the small things that success is built upon well what the science tells us

00:06:59.180 is that it's most easy to trigger our self-motivation when we can find a choice that

00:07:04.480 makes us feel in control so this actually comes from research that looks at a part of the brain

00:07:09.760 known as the striatum which is part of the basal ganglia it's one of the oldest structures within

00:07:13.920 our brain and the striatum is where self-motivation originates we know this from from neurological studies

00:07:20.300 that when you trigger the striatum it's much much easier to feel a sense of motivation and the thing

00:07:25.560 that triggers the striatum is feeling like you're in control so let's take the email example if i'm

00:07:31.120 sitting down and this is what i do now if i sit down and i have 10 emails that i know i really want

00:07:35.700 to get i really want to respond to but but you know it's kind of a drag right it's like one of these

00:07:40.260 small little things that you have to do throughout the day that's that can can eat away at your willpower

00:07:45.060 muscle what i do is i find ways to make myself feel in control about those emails so what i'll do is

00:07:50.660 i'll open up 10 responses on my screen and i'll go through as fast as possible and into each response

00:07:56.160 i'll type like a half sentence that simply asserts some preference or assert some type of control

00:08:02.220 or lets me make a choice so if someone's emailing me and they say hey do you want to have lunch

00:08:06.100 tomorrow at 11 o'clock i will in the in the reply i'll type sure but i want to eat at an indian

00:08:11.680 restaurant or if they say can you meet tomorrow at three o'clock i'll say sure i can meet but only

00:08:16.300 for 20 minutes and let's do it in my office and what i find is that once i've written down half

00:08:22.080 a sentence that asserts some type of choice that allows me to feel in control about whatever i'm

00:08:26.920 being asked to do then it's really easy to go back and put in like the the rest of the email all the

00:08:31.860 pleasantries hey jim thanks for your email sure i'll meet tomorrow at three o'clock but only for 20

00:08:37.160 minutes let's do it in my office period thanks charles and then i hit send and and i can actually look

00:08:43.100 at the choice i made and make sure that it's the right choice maybe maybe meeting in my office isn't

00:08:46.940 the best idea maybe i want to meet in his office or i want to do something else or i want to say no

00:08:52.100 i don't have any time to meet with you but the point is that by just asserting a choice by finding

00:08:57.140 some by turning a chore into a decision i'm able to trigger that self-motivation and it's much much

00:09:05.000 easier to get through all those small little niggling tasks because i found something in it that 0.87

00:09:10.560 allows me to feel like i'm in control so act don't be acted upon that's exactly right that's

00:09:17.400 exactly right and more importantly find some way to make to prove to yourself that you are acting

00:09:23.120 right so that instead of just replying to emails what you're doing is you're asserting your

00:09:27.140 preferences the other part of this though is that for things that that really matter right for the

00:09:33.960 things that it's hard to motivate for we know that the way to trigger motivation is not only turning

00:09:39.580 a chore into a choice but also looking for something that's really meaningful somehow

00:09:45.520 connecting this task to a bigger more important goal in our own minds and one of my favorite

00:09:51.760 examples of this is when i was doing research for smarter faster better i talked to a cancer

00:09:55.920 researcher and and he's a professor at a university and he said his least favorite activity was grading

00:10:01.680 students papers he just hated grading students papers super boring and he always had trouble

00:10:06.360 motivating for it so what he would do is that each night when he would sit down to grade students

00:10:10.460 papers before he started he would say to himself this little mantra that would go if i grade the

00:10:16.060 students papers then the university can charge them tuition and if they charge them tuition the

00:10:20.520 university gets the money it needs to fund my research and if they fund my research i get to do the

00:10:25.680 work that i love and i get to save people's lives so i mean this is a guy with a phd in genetics

00:10:32.760 and oncology right it doesn't seem like he's the type of guy who should have to remind himself

00:10:37.340 of why what he's doing is important but what we know is that it's so easy for our brain to turn off

00:10:43.740 to become reactive to stop thinking that by just sort of repeating that mantra to himself he found it much

00:10:50.140 easier to start grading he became enthusiastic about grading and we can all find ways to do that in

00:10:55.740 our life to say basically to ask ourselves the question why why am i replying to these emails

00:11:01.780 why am i getting up and going to work today why am i you know sitting down with my kid and doing this

00:11:07.180 like long boring project and helping them write some story if we link that to something that's more

00:11:12.840 meaningful our our deepest goals which is to raise good children or to provide for our families

00:11:18.520 or to to to do work that's important it's much easier to motivate ourselves and to find the

00:11:25.900 enthusiasm to keep going and it sounds also too in the way you wrote about self-motivation that i think

00:11:32.720 a lot of people this idea self-motivation is this sort of ephemeral thing that you know if you read a

00:11:37.000 an inspiring quote on instagram that will get you motivated but the way you're portraying motivation

00:11:42.180 it's more of a skill that you have to develop over time and you can actually develop motivation

00:11:47.200 muscles as you exercise choices to get you motivated that's absolutely right that's absolutely right

00:11:53.100 so so if you read a great quote on on on the web and it motivates you that's fantastic but that quote's

00:11:59.900 probably only going to work once or twice right what we're really looking for is how do we motivate

00:12:04.320 ourselves over time and you're exactly right it is a muscle it's a skill we can get we can learn

00:12:10.120 self-motivation and in fact the u.s marines have built their entire boot camp to teach self-motivation

00:12:17.080 the way that we learn it is by practicing it and it gets bet we get better and better and it gets

00:12:23.200 easier and easier the more and more we learn how to see chores as choices how to connect what we're

00:12:29.580 doing to something that's bigger and more meaningful and you talk about too in the book that this skill

00:12:35.520 of self-motivation it's becoming an increasingly important skill in today's economy why so absolutely

00:12:42.180 well because we're living in this economy where sort of self-motivation is a critical component

00:12:48.060 for the jobs that most people have it you know our grandparents our grandparents tended to work in

00:12:54.380 places where they had a boss who told them exactly what to do if you were on an assembly line you

00:12:59.560 didn't really have to have that much motivation because every three minutes a new widget would come

00:13:04.240 along and all you had to do was react to it but in today's economy in today's economy almost half of

00:13:10.500 the people out there they don't have bosses right they're either independent contractors or they

00:13:16.040 they're in the the so-called sharing or gig economy or they're people who have been hired as creatives

00:13:22.380 and they've been put in offices where they're told here's the end goal that we want to get to

00:13:26.920 but the way that we get there you need to figure that out on your own that takes someone being self-motivated

00:13:32.800 coming in and saying i have a three or four month project in front of me i need to figure out what to

00:13:38.280 date what to do this morning and get motivated to make it happen because there's a hundred steps

00:13:43.220 between today and being done and the people who are who succeed best in that environment are the

00:13:50.080 people who know how to motivate themselves who know how to get themselves fired up and ready to go

00:13:55.920 and that's really about understanding how your brain works and finding these choices that make you

00:14:00.940 feel as you're in control um so your next chapter is about focus and i think this is something that

00:14:06.880 people today they they're very hyper aware that they have focus problems because like you said we

00:14:12.100 you know we we had the best intentions of getting started on a project going then we get taken down

00:14:17.920 this facebook instagram wormhole and then you know an hour passes by and we're like we haven't done

00:14:24.560 anything and i think it's interesting that you make the case in the book it's sort of counterintuitive that

00:14:30.580 we have all these tools at our disposal that allow us to automate so that we have more time

00:14:36.780 to focus on the things that we we think we should be focusing on but you argue that these tools can

00:14:43.740 often decrease or increase in distraction instead of decreasing distract distraction uh can you explain

00:14:51.280 that yeah well i think anyone who um anyone who has a smartphone in their in their pocket or their

00:14:59.320 palm as they're listening to this knows exactly how true that is right i mean if the idea of having

00:15:05.220 email and smartphones was that it was going to decrease the distractions in our life then then

00:15:10.860 then the technology has failed miserably because because all of us have had that experience where

00:15:16.200 you're you're you know sitting you're sitting at dinner with your kids or you're in the middle of

00:15:20.960 something and you feel that buzz in your pocket and all of a sudden you find yourself pulling the

00:15:25.580 phone out without even thinking about it and looking at what whatever email you just received

00:15:30.500 this is one of the things that we know about how our attention works is that when we're surrounded

00:15:38.620 by automation when we're surrounded by these labor-saving devices we tend more easily to fall into a

00:15:44.760 reactive mindset and in the book we tell this through the story of these two airplane um airplane

00:15:51.600 disasters one a tragic completely avoidable crash and the other the worst mid-air mechanical disaster in

00:15:59.580 history which ended up with the pilots landing the plane with no casualties whatsoever and the

00:16:05.500 difference between the two situations was how the pilots managed their attention how they managed

00:16:10.980 their focus when the plane crashed the pilots essentially had no control over their focus they

00:16:16.360 would they would react to whatever information was around them but the pilots who managed to land

00:16:20.380 the plane safely it's because they invested very heavily in building what's known as mental models

00:16:25.360 and we all do this to some degree a mental model is essentially a story we tell ourselves about what

00:16:32.760 we expect to occur so when we get to work in the morning we all have mental models about how we

00:16:39.900 anticipate that day to go right we have a vague sense of what we expect to happen and as a result

00:16:46.760 our brain is primed to pay attention to the things that we've already highlighted in this story that we've

00:16:54.860 told ourselves that that we we will pay more attention to the things we expect and we'll pay attention

00:17:01.200 to the things that go awry in what we expect and our brain will automatically screen out distractions

00:17:08.120 that don't fit into the mental model now the difference between the most productive people and

00:17:12.480 everyone else is that the most productive people they tend to build much more robust mental models

00:17:18.040 than other folks so one of the things that for instance the best ceos do or that most ceos do

00:17:25.040 actually the reason they become ceos is that they tend to have some type of practice or routine or

00:17:31.860 habit in their day where they imagine their day with a certain amount of specificity they tend to

00:17:38.820 visualize on an hour-by-hour basis what their day is going to be like one one ceo that i admire in

00:17:45.900 particular a guy named richard plepler who's the ceo of hbo he tells me that every morning he prays

00:17:52.200 and i asked him about this i was like well i didn't realize that you were a very religious guy and he

00:17:55.600 said no no i'm not religious at all actually but this practice of prayer every morning what i do is it

00:18:02.700 helps me kind of visualize the day like to figure out what's my top goal for today how do i expect

00:18:08.520 like that morning meeting to go let me play it out a little bit in my brain what do i want to get

00:18:13.560 accomplished between nine o'clock and eleven o'clock so that i know when i go into the afternoon i'm

00:18:19.220 ready for whatever that might bring in other words he just he only spends 15 minutes doing this

00:18:24.500 but he basically tries to encourage himself to visualize with some degree of specificity

00:18:30.620 exactly how that day is going to unfold and as a result when some type of potential distraction

00:18:37.160 comes up he can much more quickly say no no don't talk to me about that today right i understand that

00:18:43.880 you have something you want to you want to talk to me about but i'm going to put it off till tomorrow

00:18:48.300 because my mental model my the story i'm telling myself of this morning it's that i need to focus

00:18:54.080 on this meeting that's coming up and so i'm not i need you to wait until this afternoon or tomorrow

00:18:59.120 to talk to me about this thing that you want to discuss he now now a mental model isn't a fail

00:19:05.380 safe right it it doesn't mean that we are slavish to that to that story inside our head because if

00:19:12.580 some emergency occurs if something really important pops up then richard or anyone else wants to say

00:19:17.820 oh actually i'm going to adjust my mental model this is important enough that i need to deviate from

00:19:22.860 the story inside my head i need to come up with a new story but the point is that richard has the

00:19:28.500 ability to choose what he is focusing on because he has this mental model our brain needs some type

00:19:36.680 of script to determine what we pay attention to and what we ignore through a choice rather than

00:19:43.300 simply reacting if you don't have that script inside your head then every time someone comes

00:19:47.700 into your office and they say i got to talk to you right now you say oh okay okay come on in i'm

00:19:52.580 going to put aside everything else or every time you feel kind of tired and you don't know what to do

00:19:56.560 next you'd go to facebook rather than taking the next step in your plan because you don't have a

00:20:01.800 script in your head that tells you this is what you should do next yeah i love the concept of mental

00:20:06.800 models we've written a lot about it on the site um i was introduced to it after researching about john

00:20:12.220 boyd the air force uh colonel who developed the the ooda loop i don't know if you're yeah and the

00:20:20.880 ooda loop is a fantastic structure for building a mental model right it's a way for forcing you to tell

00:20:26.060 yourself a story about being in a dog fight at this particular moment and what you should pay

00:20:30.980 attention to and what you can ignore right um so you talk about goal setting and i think that's

00:20:36.140 something that everyone everyone sets goals for themselves and it's become an article of faith in

00:20:40.880 the you know the self-improvement productivity world that you need to set smart goals you know

00:20:45.960 that's an acronym for i guess it's specific measurable i forgot what the a stands for achievable

00:20:52.060 achievable realistic and timely right so you know you set goals like i will lose 10 pounds by october

00:21:00.280 31st 2000 whatever um but you argue in the book that smart goals are useful but sometimes they can

00:21:07.940 actually prevent you from reaching your goals so um what's a better way of going about or i guess

00:21:14.420 we're thinking meta here what's the the the the twenty the thirty thousand dollar or not thirty

00:21:19.740 thirty thirty thousand feet view of how we should be setting goals well so and we can actually make

00:21:25.260 it less meta we can make it very specific because we can talk about to-do lists so you're exactly right

00:21:29.620 we know that systems that force us to take a goal and break it into a plan are really really useful

00:21:36.600 and so one of the things that people should do is they should use a system like smart goals or

00:21:41.320 or something similar to that to take the goal and make it into an actual plan the problem with that

00:21:48.520 is that a plan can be so enticing because it tells us what to do next that we stop asking ourselves

00:21:57.060 if we ought to be doing that thing in the first place at all and so what psychologists say is they say

00:22:03.400 in addition to having smart goals you should also have a stretch goal you should also know what is your

00:22:09.260 biggest ambition your biggest ambition for today or for this week or for this month what is the thing

00:22:14.960 that is most important to you that maybe you don't have an immediate plan for but that you want to

00:22:22.100 remind yourself constantly is your top priority and then the question is okay so i have this smart goal i

00:22:28.460 have these this stretch goal right this big thing that i want to get done today and this big thing i want

00:22:32.420 to get done this week or this month and then i have a smart a smart goal or a smart plan for the first

00:22:38.080 step how do i how do i arrange those so that i'm reminded of both of them and this is where to-do

00:22:45.280 lists come come into play most of us use to-do lists as simply a memory aid we write down a bunch of tasks

00:22:53.360 and if people are anything like me what they do is they write down the easiest tasks at the top of the

00:22:58.040 page you know they sometimes i actually used to write down things i had already done because it

00:23:02.980 felt so good when i sat down on my desk to cross something off right and when i talked to psychologists

00:23:07.480 about this though what they said is that's not using a to-do list for productivity that's using a

00:23:12.480 to-do list for mood repair that's using it to make yourself feel better what you really want is you want

00:23:18.200 a to-do list not only to be a memory aid but to also be something that forces you to think about

00:23:23.340 your priorities that forces you to ask yourself am i doing the most important thing right now

00:23:28.860 am i doing the thing that's going to get me closest to my biggest goal and so what they recommend is

00:23:34.100 that at the top of your page you write down your stretch goal you put it across in big capital letters

00:23:40.020 across the top of your to-do list this is my most important goal for today and for this week

00:23:45.320 and then under that you go ahead and you write your smart plan right you write your smart goals

00:23:49.760 you break that big goal into steps and you write down what the first step is and exactly how you're

00:23:55.740 going to get it done but the point is that when you look at that to-do list you're being reminded

00:24:01.580 of your big goal alongside this plan and more importantly that you rewrite that to-do list every

00:24:09.240 morning because by doing so by rewriting your stretch goal at the top of your page you kind of have to

00:24:14.660 stop and ask yourself is this really still my stretch goal like is what i did yesterday does

00:24:20.120 it get me closer to this or farther away is this the thing that i should be focused on today is it

00:24:25.780 the biggest priority or have i learned something in the last 24 hours that tells me that another

00:24:30.020 stretch goal is actually more important what we want to do is we want to create systems that not

00:24:35.580 only help us plan that help us come up with some type of you know tangible structure that tell us what

00:24:40.720 to do next but something that challenges us a little bit to think about am i doing the things

00:24:47.820 that are most important am i being productive or am i merely being busy because being busy feels so

00:24:55.600 good right it gives you those dopamine hits whenever you get to cross something off your

00:24:59.800 your checklist that's exactly right yeah right and i think it's interesting how much of your research

00:25:06.720 about you know uh productivity has come from the military because in your chapter about smart

00:25:11.360 goals you discuss the yom kippur war where they they got in trouble because of smart goals they got i

00:25:18.300 guess it was like goal focus or goal lock and it that's exactly right yeah the yom kippur war is one of

00:25:24.220 the the shining examples of a situation where there was so much evidence that that the enemies were

00:25:30.840 about to attack israel and yet israel ignored all of that because they were so focused on on basically

00:25:38.600 feeling good on feeling productive they had said our goal is to make our military our intelligence

00:25:46.340 decision making smooth right to to not have to reconsider questions to not have to reopen old debates

00:25:53.580 and we're so focused on that goal we're so focused on on the the plans of that goal and

00:25:59.120 operationalizing that that that objective that we stop paying attention to the evidence that we're

00:26:07.620 that we're looking at the wrong thing so we stop paying attention to evidence that we ought to reopen

00:26:12.460 old debates we ought to be more paranoid we ought to we ought to engage in more debate and the way that

00:26:18.940 you remind yourself of that is by having these systems that force you to stop and think you know the

00:26:26.840 truth of the matter is our brain is actually designed to be like this our brain is designed to

00:26:31.820 to to love multitasking to love being distracted and evolutionarily that's really really important

00:26:39.200 because two thousand years ago if you were someone who could plant crops and look for predators at the

00:26:47.700 same time you had a significant advantage over someone who could just plant crops or just look for

00:26:53.040 predators and so our brain loves distractions it also loves feeling busy because when we feel busy

00:27:00.440 when we feel like we're checking things off our to-do list it feels like we're accomplishing something

00:27:04.640 but as a result it's very very easy to get into this mindset where we stop thinking we simply react

00:27:11.880 against our email we react against our to-do list we react against our calendar or people coming in and

00:27:18.280 asking us to do things we stop thinking because thinking is hard and because all of us have these

00:27:24.120 very busy lives where it's just hard to carve out the time to sit down and say am i doing the right

00:27:30.240 things but but the most important part of life is actually thinking right thinking hat is and always

00:27:37.660 has been the killer app for productivity and so productive people they don't they don't pretend that

00:27:44.860 they're just going to think automatically instead what they do is they try and carve out systems

00:27:50.860 in their life that forces them to think a little bit right they much like Richard Plepler they take 15

00:27:58.460 minutes every morning to just think about their day or they write to-do lists in a way that force

00:28:04.300 them to think about their priorities or they you know there's all types of systems that people use

00:28:10.700 they um they engage they have a habit of engaging in debate with their friends about what the right

00:28:17.520 path forward is because they know that having a little bit of debate with your friends will force you

00:28:23.300 to think about whether you're making good choices or not or when they're making decisions they force

00:28:28.840 themselves to think about multiple outcomes what's known as probabilistic thinking because they know

00:28:34.760 that by by having to think through at least three or four outcomes outcomes that might contradict with each

00:28:40.200 other that that's going to force them to really think about which one is more or less likely to

00:28:44.960 occur the most productive people the only real difference is that they have systems that push

00:28:51.180 themselves to think half an inch deeper but that half an inch it makes all the difference yeah that

00:28:57.720 reminds me of a i'm a big fan of charlie munger um yeah the guy at berkshire hathaway and he's really

00:29:05.080 big on that of just developing systems mental models that help you think better and i think

00:29:10.620 even even warren buffett says like he spends most of his time just thinking and reading and makes very

00:29:15.740 few decisions because the decisions he makes like he knows that's the thing he needs to do

00:29:19.380 and i i don't think anyone would argue that um charlie munger or warren buffett are not productive

00:29:26.220 individuals right but what they're not doing is they're not focused on turning out widgets

00:29:31.460 instead they're focused on giving themselves the space and time to make the right decision

00:29:37.380 and this this gets the kind of attention that most people don't really recognize existent to

00:29:43.980 contemporary life which is the tension between productivity and efficiency all of the things

00:29:50.220 that we've talked about they are not necessarily efficient right taking 15 minutes in the morning

00:29:55.380 to like tell yourself a story about the day that's about to occur getting into debates with your

00:30:01.200 friends that is not efficient like if you wanted to produce as many widgets as possible you would

00:30:06.920 not do either of those things but it is productive right because productivity is about is about not

00:30:14.360 having to make widgets in the first place it's instead about figuring out how to build a widget factory

00:30:19.800 so that you don't even have to work at making the widgets there's a tension oftentimes between

00:30:25.920 productivity and efficiency and we tend to make them synonymous in our mind but the people who can

00:30:32.580 kind of take a step back and say this thing i'm about to do it might not be efficient in the short run

00:30:38.100 but it is going to be incredibly productive over time those are the people who end up being most successful

00:30:43.900 so i'm curious uh charles i mean you you did a lot of research you wrote the book on how to be

00:30:49.720 more productive are you still implementing the things you learned while writing this book or

00:30:53.600 are you struggling with some of them so i implement so excuse me i i implement all of them and i continue

00:31:04.880 to struggle with them because the struggle is kind of the point right the the whole point of of all of

00:31:11.080 these techniques is to force ourselves to think and that means that that we have to force ourselves

00:31:16.600 to think that that we have to sometimes take a step back and say you know i made all these decisions

00:31:22.420 yesterday did i actually think about those decisions or did i just react so no i would say

00:31:27.760 the techniques in the book they've been hugely they have improved my productivity significantly

00:31:33.820 my life has much less stress now it has it's much more easy to get things done it's much more easy to

00:31:40.000 self-motivate it's much easier to to ignore distractions because i have these practices these

00:31:45.340 contemplative routines as they're known in the psychology literature that make thinking easier and more

00:31:51.400 automatic but that doesn't necessarily mean but if they make things easier they don't necessarily make

00:31:57.620 me they don't mean that doesn't mean that my need to reconsider has disappeared because the whole point

00:32:05.680 of these routines is to get me to think about what is productivity what what is most productive

00:32:11.700 today in this week for me how can i best use my time now what it's done is it's removed the stress

00:32:18.020 from that question because i feel much less busy but it hasn't removed the need to actually think

00:32:24.380 and that's kind of the point is that is that when you to be really productive when you talk to really

00:32:31.720 successful people what they say is i've embraced that i need to be less busy and more thoughtful

00:32:39.380 successful but that's an ongoing process it's a process that we always work at and it's a great

00:32:44.540 process that feels really good to think but it's a process that you can't just say i'm going to put it

00:32:50.400 on autopilot instead you find routines that push you to think and ask yourself what are my most important

00:32:58.820 goals am i am i making choices that get me closer to those goals am i sharpening my focus by building a

00:33:06.440 mental model of who i really want to be and once you do that that's actually when when everything

00:33:13.600 starts coming together right so it's you got to be intentional and you can never stop

00:33:17.760 you can never stop and it does get easier it becomes a habit right i think that the nice thing

00:33:23.940 about these contemplative routines is that they become habitual but that doesn't mean that we let the

00:33:31.300 habit take over that means that we've developed a habit that pushes us to think great well charles we

00:33:37.400 just scratched the surface of your book there's so much more we could delve deeper into but where can

00:33:42.300 people learn more about uh smarter faster better they can um they can come to my website charles

00:33:47.920 duhigg.com or they can buy the book online at amazon or any other um barnes and noble or any retailer or

00:33:55.560 their local um bookstore which is a great way to go buy it and um and i also mentioned my email

00:34:01.720 address is charles at charles duhigg.com i would love to hear anyone's thoughts on smarter faster

00:34:07.560 better or the power of habit and um learn what and learn how they improve their productivity um because

00:34:15.160 i i find that every time i hear from from someone i learn a new way to force myself to think a little bit

00:34:21.120 more fantastic well charles duhigg thank you thank you so much for your time it's been a pleasure

00:34:25.240 thanks for having me my guest today was charles duhigg he's the author of the book smarter faster

00:34:29.960 better and that's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere also check out his website

00:34:34.240 at charles duhigg.com and be sure to check out the show notes of our of this podcast at aom.is

00:34:40.500 slash duhigg and it's d-u-h-i-g-g 1.00

00:34:44.780 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice

00:35:04.200 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com and if you enjoy

00:35:07.920 the show i'd appreciate if you give us a review on itunes or stitcher i'll help spread the word

00:35:11.600 about the show as always i appreciate your continued support and until next time this is

00:35:15.380 brett mckay telling you to stay manly

The Art of Manliness - April 27, 2016

#196： The Science of Self-Motivation and Productivity

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