Some problems require logical thinking, while others need creativity. Mind wandering can help solve the latter. When our mind wanders, it visits different destinations and generates new ideas. Research shows that a wandering mind enhances creative thinking. The podcast discusses different strategies for generating ideas and emphasizes the importance of capturing thoughts instead of keeping them in our minds. It also explores the breakdown of our thoughts between the future, present, and past, and the benefits of mind wandering.

Takeaway:Capturing ideas helps us log what’s on our mind and think more clearly throughout the day. What you capture can be super broad, from tasks, to follow-up reminders, to actual insights. The ways of logging those ideas are equally diverse, and include digital and physical notepads, task managers, and messaging tools. Estimated Reading Time:3 minutes, 40s. Podcast Length: 25 minutes, 56s (link to play podcast at the bottom of post). 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:  Stuff you’re waiting on. These are items you’re waiting for from other people—things you need to check up on later. I’ve scheduled a recurring weekly task in my calendar so I remember to check this list a few times a week and follow up with people accordingly.  Ideas you want to look into more deeply. You encounter so much information in a day, and chances are you’ll want to explore more on these topics—just not when you’re in the middle of some other task. Log them and leave them for later.  Distractions and reminders. If you’re anything like me, your mind is an ongoing to-do list of reminders and distractions. Capturing and organizing these mental tidbits helps set them aside in the moment.  Actual ideas and insights. If you don’t capture an idea, you can’t act on it. With so many of us doing knowledge work for a living, the insights we generate are worth their weight in gold. If your job involves a lot of juggling tasks, connecting with people, and generating new ideas, capturing what’s on your mind becomes a way to do better work.   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:  AquaNotes. Research has found that ideas commonly come to us when our mind wanders or we’re doing something routine. AquaNotes are water-proof notepads you can hang in the shower. They’re one of my favorite productivity products, period.   Notes app on your device. Most devices come with a notepad app. I personally use Simplenote, so my ideas sync across every device I own. These apps are a great way to make sure you’re tracking all your ideas and have them at your fingertips when it’s time to action them.  Physical notepad. Kick it old school! I always keep a physical notepad on my desk so I can scribble down thoughts and distractions, and get back to work.   Task manager. Task managers are basically repositories to keep your thoughts organized. My favorite task manager is Things, though it’s only available for Apple devices.  Voice recorder app. Sometimes ideas flow more freely when we speak them versus writing them down. Most devices come with a built-in voice recorder tool.  Email or message an idea to yourself. This is another option if you’re close to your device. If you prefer not having your primary email account on your phone, try creating a dedicated inbox for sending these messages.  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!  The post The Productivity Benefits of Capturing Ideas appeared first on Chris Bailey.

Takeaway:: Make a list of everything you’re worrying about, and divide it into what you do and don’t have control over. Then, deal with the items on your list accordingly. Estimated Reading Time:: 1 minutes, 35s. Podcast Length: 22 minutes, 42s (link to play podcast at the bottom of post). 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. The post The Worry List appeared first on Chris Bailey.

Behavioral scientist and Harvard Business School professor Ashley Whillans discusses the relationship between time, money, and happiness in her book 'Time Smart'. She highlights the importance of making time-first choices for greater happiness, offering strategies to save time and buy time back. The podcast delves into societal preferences for money, the benefits of prioritizing time, and strategies for reclaiming time to enhance overall well-being.

Explore unique ways to give yourself non-material gifts this holiday season by disconnecting from the digital world, rediscovering reading, and reflecting on personal growth. Embrace boredom, prioritize self-care, and make the most of the holidays for inner peace and well-being. Disconnect, reflect, and rejuvenate during this unusual holiday season.

Takeaway:Before switching between tasks, take three deep breaths. It’s a super simple way to reset your focus and set a quick intention for what comes next. Three techniques you can try: box breathing, the 4-7-8 technique, and the 5-5-5 breathing technique. Estimated Reading Time:2 minutes, 28s. Podcast Length: 14 minutes, 21s (link to play podcast at the bottom of post). Breathing is something we all do but rarely think about. And yet it dictates whether we feel anxious or calm, tense or relaxed (and not to mention keeps us alive). Harnessing the power of your breath is one of the most simple and powerful things you can do for your mental and physical well-being.   That leads to one of my favorite new productivity tactics: the next time you switch between projects, meetings, or return to work after answering email, take three big, deep breaths.  That’s it.  This simple half a minute is a great way to transition from one task to another, and it helps your mind reset and focus for the next thing on your plate. This tactic also helps you clear your mind of some “attention residue,” a phenomena I write about in Hyperfocus.   Coined by Dr. Sophie Leroy, a professor of organizational behavior at the University of Washington, attention residue is the term that describes the fragments of a previous task that remain in your memory after you shift to another activity. If you jump immediately from task A to task B, your mind will still be thinking about that previous work, preventing you from fully engaging in whatever is going on at hand. This phenomena is just one of the reasons why multitasking makes us less efficient.   Taking three deep breaths between tasks will serve to dust out some of this attention residue. Consider it a bit of mental housekeeping—clearing the table before eating your next meal.  While three deep breaths of any length will do, you can also try your hand at a few different techniques.  Box breathing is an inhale hold, exhale hold technique. Breathe in for four seconds, hold for four seconds, exhale for four seconds, and then start again on the inhale. Think of it as constructing a box with your breath, where the “walls” of the box are four seconds in length.  Another is the 4-7-8 breathing technique where you inhale for four seconds, hold for seven seconds, and exhale for eight seconds. While everyone is different, this pattern has been used to reduce anxiety and help you sleep.   The last pattern you can try is the 5-5-5 breathing technique. Studies suggest that a pattern of 5.5 second inhales and exhales is the optimal breathing rate to achieve higher heart rate variability—which has been associated with improved physical and mental well-being.   Taking three deep breaths is an easy, powerful, and completely free tactic that should take no more than a minute, even if you’re taking really long, intentional breaths. Give it a shot the next time you feel yourself frantically hopping from one thing to another.  If you want to dig deeper into the fascinating art and science of breathing, I highly recommend the book Breath, by James Nestor. We chat about it a bit on this week’s podcast. The post All you need are three breaths appeared first on Chris Bailey.

Takeaway:A pre-mortem is a ritual that helps you account for all that could go wrong with a project—in advance of those mishaps actually occurring in real life. Three steps to do a pre-mortem: identify the projects you want to go well, imagine the worst case scenarios, and create a plan to make your project more resilient using the knowledge you collected. Estimated Reading Time:2 minutes, 39s. Podcast Length: 18 minutes, 29s (link to play podcast at the bottom of post). You’re probably familiar with the idea of a post-mortem—the debrief session that happens after you wrap up a project. For projects that haven’t gone as planned, a post-mortem is a chance to figure out what went wrong and how to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen the next time around.   A pre-mortem is similar, but instead of picking up the pieces after a project finishes up, you think about what could go wrong before a project starts, so you can anticipate problems before they occur.   A pre-mortem ritual is great for any project, and takes just a few steps.  1. Identify the projects you want to go really well This can be anything in your life, big or small, individual or team projects, stuff going on in your home life or at the office. You can do a pre-mortem on projects you haven’t started yet, or ones you’re in the middle of completing.   2. Imagine all of the ways those projects might fail The second step is to imagine that the projects you identified in the first step have failed catastrophically. Ask yourself: what went wrong that led these projects to go so poorly?  While this may seem like a depressing exercise, this step will help you anticipate all that could go wrong—and then strategize ways to avoid such mishaps.  There’s never just a single worst case scenario, and these disastrous situations may come to you over time. Keep a “what went wrong” sticky note on your desk or a running list on your phone for a few days, to capture ideas. This will help when it comes to step three.   Be sure to ask people close to the project for their worst case scenarios, too.  3. Draw up a plan to make your projects more resilient Now that you’ve conjured up the ways in which your projects can go wrong, do all you can to avoid having those visualizations become a reality. Look at the lists that you’ve made and consider the things you could have done differently. Use these ideas to make changes to your work plan or timeline to make it more likely to succeed.   The result will be a game plan that’s more resilient to change—because you’ve already imagined and accounted for those pitfalls.  —-  As a personal example, I did a pretty extensive pre-mortem back in 2018 when I was preparing to launch my second book, Hyperfocus. I wrote out a bunch of scenarios that eventually informed the publicity plan for the book—as well as how I wrote the book itself.   Sample worst case scenarios for me included things like:  Not doing enough podcast outreach;  The book getting a lukewarm reception;  Terrible reviews;  No big media outlets wanting to cover the book.  These points and others became a catalyst to plan more, do more, and ultimately, to write a better book. While this is just one example, try the pre-mortem exercise out—it’s a gateway to better, more thoughtful planning, and can lead to a cascade of positive effects for your project.   The post Starting a new project? Conduct a pre-mortem appeared first on Chris Bailey.

Takeaway: Last week I challenged you to go as many days as possible without charging your phone. Some practical tips to help you do that (especially during this anxious time): rethink which jobs you hire your phone for, rearrange your home screen, take advantage of your phone’s many modes, and opt to get news alerts from a single source.   Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes, 48s.  Podcast Length: 30 minutes, 1s (link to play podcast at the bottom of post). It’s been a uniquely crazy and anxious few weeks (in an already stressful year), and if you’re anything like me, you’ve been glued to coverage of the U.S. election, awaiting all the results that came in over the weekend. Maybe you’re spending more time than ever bouncing between news apps, or texting friends out of excitement and nerves.   With our phones keeping us tethered to a world of worry, there’s no better time to try out the challenge we talked about last week: to see how many days you can go without charging your phone.   My iPhone 11 Pro usually lasts for a day on a single charge, so this was an experiment to see if I could make the battery last for two days, or even three. In the end, I got to 2.5 days before running out of juice.   For those who are interested in disconnecting for a bit during this crazy time, here are some practical tips for how to check your phone less and make your battery last longer. While it can be a fun competition with yourself, the real goal is to use your phone more mindfully—and hopefully less overall!  1. Rethink the “jobs” you hire your phone for  The late Clayton Christensen was known for a bunch of interesting nuggets of business wisdom, one of which was the jobs to be done theory. The premise is that every product we buy should do a job for us—whether it’s “hiring” Kleenex for blowing our nose or using Uber Eats to order another round of election night chicken wings.   Today, our phone does so many jobs. It’s our alarm clock, GPS, newspaper, video game console, calendar… the list goes on. It’s no surprise we spend so much time on our devices when it’s our one-stop-shop for just about everything. To spend less time on your phone and make your battery last longer, consider switching some of these tasks to analogue devices—i.e. a nightside table alarm clock, physical newspaper, or agenda. Or, even better, cull the ones that don’t serve you (think: social media, video games, Netflix binges).  2. Rearrange your home screen  We’ve all opened our phone to text a friend only to 30 minutes later find ourselves scrolling on Twitter. Changing the layout of your phone’s home screen is one way to make your device less appealing.   Consider the apps that make you feel anxious or unhappy, and either delete them or store them on the second or third screen, buried in a folder. I have social media apps stored in a “Social” folder (which I relabel as “Distractions” when I really want to deter myself from using them!). It’s a small extra tap to open them, but I find it’s enough of a reminder to use my phone with a bit more awareness.   Reclaim your home screen with apps that are meaningful to you—maybe it’s a meditation timer, an audiobook app, or your workout tracker. The less you’re tempted to use your phone, the longer your battery will last.   3. Take advantage of your phone’s many modes  This one’s more of a hack, but it works. Modes like Do Not Disturb, Airplane mode, Low Battery mode, and Grayscale disable various features of your phone that will preserve its battery and make it less appealing overall.   The power of Grayscale mode is especially worth highlighting. It simply turns your screen black and white, which may seem like no big deal until we realize that a lot of apps use color psychology to boost usage. News websites crank the saturation on photos so our screens appear more vibrant and exciting. Grayscale mode is great for your battery life and will make your phone less stimulating.   4. Get news alerts from a single source  This is a turbulent time, and it’s not helpful to be bouncing back and forth between a half dozen news apps. Choose your favorite news app and enable notifications—shutting off the alerts for all others. Being mindful and selective with your alerts will help you stay better focused and less stressed at a time when calmness is key.   —  The two-day phone challenge isn’t really about how long you can make your battery last—it’s about how to be more mindful and intentional about what you’re consuming. Remember that the path to better productivity runs straight through calm, and checking your phone less routinely is one stop along the way to get there.  The post Here’s how to (properly) put down your phone appeared first on Chris Bailey.

"Inbox Zero" is discussed in this podcast, with tactics such as tracking email usage, email sprints, and taking email vacations. The concept of email accessibility and the goal of achieving a mental state where email doesn't occupy much mental space are emphasized. Tips for maintaining good email karma and reducing email volume are shared. The importance of focusing on important work, overcoming distractions, and sticking to priorities is also discussed. Additionally, a challenge for screen time and phone battery life is mentioned.

Cait Flanders discusses her book 'Adventures in Opting Out' and explores living true to oneself, not conforming to societal expectations, reflecting on books, minimalism, and experimentation, opting out and living in alignment with values, embracing personal growth, the power of personal rituals for celebration, and living without regret.