Time and Attention

Separating the real experts from self-proclaimed ones is challenging. Guest Cait Flanders shares her journey of paying off debt, starting with her popular blog. They discuss the flaws of expertise and the value of personal experiences. Reading blogs and books for personal finance advice differs in inspiration and practicality. Seeking advice from experts depends on personal growth goals and journaling.

This podcast dives into the science of consuming caffeine strategically for optimal performance. It explores strategies such as timing caffeine intake before important tasks and adjusting consumption for introverts. The hosts discuss various methods of intentional caffeine consumption, including caffeine pills and the ritual of drinking coffee or tea. They also touch on tea options, the benefits of consuming grapefruit with green tea, and strategies for consuming caffeine more strategically.

Takeaway:The paperback version of Hyperfocus comes out today! It looks awesome. Estimated Reading Time:1 minute, 12s. One year ago, my second book, Hyperfocus: How to Manage Your Attention in a World of Distraction, hit store shelves! I consider the book to be the best thing I’ve created to date. It’s about how to take advantage of the science behind how our attention works. Today, a new version of the book hits store shelves, as a paperback published by Penguin Books! Same book, but with nice new packaging (including a little penguin on the front), at a slightly cheaper price. I know your time is valuable, so I’ll cut right to the chase. If you haven’t checked out the book, it would mean a lot to me if you did. If you dig the posts on my site, I’m confident that you’ll enjoy the book, too. Here are links to pick up the paperback in the US and Canada!  Amazon.com Amazon.ca Barnes and Noble Chapters/Indigo Audible (same book; linking to this just for fun!) Have a wonderful week!Chris P.S. This week’s episode of the podcast is all about how to read a nonfiction book. The episode is more interesting than it sounds, and you can play it below! The post Hyperfocus comes out in paperback TODAY! 🎉 appeared first on Chris Bailey.

Learn three strategies for holding yourself accountable for aversive tasks: get a deadline, use Focusmate or find an accountability partner. Research shows unstructured tasks lead to procrastination. Productivity platform Focusmate is discussed, along with the benefits of setting deadlines and having someone to hold you accountable.

In this discussion, Jon Krop, a Harvard-trained lawyer and meditation instructor, shares insights on the practical benefits of meditation for professionals. He explains how meditation saves time by boosting productivity and clarity. Jon highlights five key advantages: increased happiness, improved focus, deeper relationships, enhanced clarity on priorities, and reduced dependency on devices. He emphasizes starting small for lasting change and advocates for self-kindness to enhance personal and community well-being.

Discover the benefits of tracking your time to align with your priorities and values. Learn how time tracking can provide perspective on your life and help you make more intentional choices. Explore insights from Laura Vanderkam on managing time effectively and overcoming common time management challenges.

Takeaway:You should work around your energy levels; working on more important tasks when you have the most energy, and less productive tasks when your energy dips. Below is how to calculate when your energy peaks (your “biological prime time”), and a few suggestions for working around your energy levels. Estimated Reading Time:3 minutes, 11s. Podcast Length22 minutes, 25s. Our energy-per-hour isn’t consistent, and because of this, neither is our focus nor productivity. Luckily, though, there are a few ways to calculate exactly when you have the most energy throughout the day, so you can work around how much energy you have; doing more productive and meaningful things when you have the most energy, and less important things when your energy naturally dips. (My cohost Ardyn and I dig deep into this idea in this week’s episode of Becoming Better—the link to play the episode and subscribe to the podcast is at the bottom of this post!) There are three main ways to calculate when your energy peaks. Here are the best methods, inspired largely by Dan Pink’s fantastic book, When, on how to time your life: Easy enough, and pretty accurate. Think about a free day—the weekend, or a weekday when you don’t have much to do that day or the next. Ask: when do you usually go to sleep on these days? When do you wake up? Finally, what’s the midpoint of those two times? (E.g. I go to sleep at 11 p.m. and wake up at 7 a.m., so my midpoint is 3 a.m.) Find where your midpoint lies on the chart below.1 Easy, but less accurate. Ask yourself what time you wake up on weekends (or free days). If it’s the same as weekdays, you’re likely an early riser. If it’s a little later, you’re probably somewhere in the middle. If it’s much later, especially if it’s 90 minutes or more, you’re probably a night owl. Difficult, but most accurate. Chart your energy levels. I recommend collecting data every hour, for two or three weeks, so you can find a general pattern. If you really want to get an accurate reading, I suggest cutting caffeine/alcohol/sugar during this time. Here’s an article I wrote a while back on how to calculate your “biological prime time” using this method. Once you find out when your energy peaks, there are a bunch of ways to work around these hours. You can: Block off that time in your calendar. I like to block off 10 a.m.-noon in my calendar most days (this is when my energy peaks). When you block off your peak energy time in your calendar, people will just assume you have meetings or other important commitments during that time, and are unlikely to ask for your time then. Take advantage of energy dips by doing creative work. You’re more creative when you have the least energy, because your brain is less inhibited, and doesn’t hold back on the ideas it generates. Take advantage of this by working on creative tasks when you have less energy. Work out, take a break, and clear your mind when your energy dips. This way you can further build up how much energy you have in your focus hours. Mind the prime times of people around you. If you have people that you meet with often—or live with!—pay attention to when they have the most and least energy. If you work with a bunch of morning birds, you may make your team a good deal more productive by scheduling big meetings and projects for the morning, and not deferring important work to later in the day. Mind your constraints. It’s great to know when your energy peaks, but you should also work around the constraints of your life. If you have lots of energy midmorning, but yet you find that you’re the most productive in the early morning before your spouse and kids wake up, then it’s likely worth doing your most productive activities then. If you’re looking to work around your energy levels, the three strategies above, as well as Dan’s book, When, will come in handy—they certainly have for me. As Dan puts it: “I used to believe in ignoring the waves of the day. Now I believe in surfing them.” Source for this chart: Dan’s book. He repurposed it from world-renowned chronobiologist Till Roenneberg‘s research. I’ve lightly modified the chart to fit this article. ↩The post 3 Ways to Calculate Your Peak Energy Time of Day appeared first on Chris Bailey.

Takeaway:The trick to traveling smarter is to prepare ahead of time, and develop strong traveling habits. Some ideas covered below: creating a default packing list; preparing things to consume and work on while you’re offline; leaning into how tired you are while traveling; and making your trip feel more like home. Estimated Reading Time:5 minutes, 46s. Podcast Length29 minutes, 22s. Whether you’re traveling for a business trip, for fun, or something in between, here are some strategies to manage your energy, get more done, and just enjoy traveling more. As someone who travels 50-60% of the time, I couldn’t stay sane without these tactics. As always, my cohost and I dig deep into these tactics in this week’s episode of Becoming Better—but if you don’t have the time or inclination to listen, here’s a summary of what we talked about! To Do: Before Traveling Create a default packing list, that contains everything you could ever want possibly pack. This is one of my favorite strategies for saving a ton of time each time I travel. I have a snippet of text (that I store in TextExpander, though a simple text document would do) that contains every possible thing I could ever want to pack for any trip, ever. On the list is everything from a travel belt, to my Nintendo Switch, to printed information about my flights. When packing for a trip, I just paste this snippet of text into a new document, and delete the items I won’t need. This helps me pack for trips without forgetting anything, in a very small amount of time. Prepare things to consume and work on while offline. This is key. It’s easy to burn through a lot of time on long plane rides, or while just waiting around. Download a few podcast episodes or audiobooks to treat yourself while traveling—or use a read-it-later app like Instapaper or Pocket in order to read a bunch of articles. Make sure to also download work to do ahead of time. If you want to be productive, avoid downloading things like movies in order to nudge yourself into doing higher-quality tasks. If you’re traveling with someone, be sure to plan for that, too. When we travel together, my partner Ardyn and I never travel without a cribbage board. Plan ahead for time zone changes. If you’ll be transversing across time zones, shift your wakeup and bedtime an hour or two before you leave, to make time zone shifts less jarring. When you begin traveling, eat and sleep on a schedule consistent with where you’re going. This helps get your mind into where you’re going. It’s important to stress about time zone shifts an appropriate amount—I don’t overthink them if I don’t have to “perform” on a trip (ie. do some work or give a talk), but shift my wakeup times a tad leading up to the trip if I’ll need to hit the ground running. Find a solid travel rewards card. If you travel often, a good travel rewards card can grant you access to airport lounges, comprehensive travel insurance, trip delay and cancellation insurance, and even hotel room upgrades. Not to mention that it can give you the points you need to go on a free trip every once in a while. My favorite card for this is the American Express Platinum card, but that one has a hefty annual fee. (Here are a few of the best ones if you live in the US.) Scope out airport lounges ahead of time. I use LoungeBuddy for this. Airport lounges aren’t always worth the cost of admission—they can cost upwards of $50-100 when you don’t have lounge access included with your credit card, or don’t have a fancy first class ticket or elite status with an airline. But if you have a long layover, they can be worth it: while they’re pricey, lounges often include meals, drinks, showers, and a place to hunker down to get some work done and avoid the chaos of the airport. Check out SeatGuru when checking into your flight. SeatGuru lets you type in your flight deals to see which seats on the airplane are good, and which ones suck. Scope it out when checking into your next flight. Plan around disruptions to your routine. When it comes to how disruptive it can be, travel is infinitely easier to plan around ahead of time. Before heading out, schedule time to exercise, meditate, and maintain your keystone habits. I also like to scope out healthy meal options ahead of time, as well as what restaurants I want to check out, so I don’t resort to ordering in. To Do: While Traveling  Lean into your tiredness. If you’re traveling across time zones, take advantage of how tired you are on the first day. Do your best to live in the time zone you’ve arrived in: your first day may be crappy, but you’ll adjust more quickly to the change. Pro tip: do creative work during this tired day. Your mind is the most creative when you’re tired, because your brain is less inhibited. Work on what you’ve prepared! You almost never get as much uninterrupted focus time as when you’re traveling. Don’t waste this time! Read the articles you’ve saved for the trip, watch the TED talks you’ve downloaded, and work on the stuff you’ve prepared. Make your trip feel more like home. If you’re like me, the more you travel, the more you miss home. This is why I do my best to bring home to me; packing things I enjoy at home, like my favorite kinds of tea and coffee, and calling loved ones more often than I regularly would. If you’re like me, this will give you a pretty good boost of energy! A few things to buy/pack, which I never travel without: Good noise-canceling headphones. Or, at the very least, good earplugs. I never travel without my Bose headphones—but there are great noise-cancelling headphones out there at a lot of different price points. A light-blocking sleep mask. Works great for when you need to sleep on a flight, or sleep in a hotel room or bedroom that doesn’t have blackout blinds. A portable speaker. I never travel without a portable speaker. When I first picked one up, I didn’t expect to use it much. Now, I never travel without it. It’s great for listening to music, podcasts, and audiobooks in a hotel room. A portable clothing steamer. While most hotels have irons, I hate ironing, so I travel with a portable steamer. There’s very little setup involved in using one, and steaming clothes takes a fraction of the time that ironing does. If you dislike steaming clothes as well, or just want to same some time, hang your clothes up when you’re taking a hot shower or bath. The steam should remove most of the wrinkles in your clothes, and you may not need to steam or iron afterward. If you’re looking to maintain how much energy you have, get more done, save time, and enjoy travel more, these tips will help! Have a great trip :-) The post A Simple Guide for Traveling Smarter appeared first on Chris Bailey.

Takeaway:Apps can be distracting and lead you to waste a ton of time, but the best apps make you more knowledgeable, organized, and productive. The 10 apps below—selected by myself and Ardyn on our podcast—all will help you do this. Estimated Reading Time:4 minutes, 4s. Podcast length26 minutes, 45s. At their worst, apps are distracting and lead you to waste an ungodly amount of time. But at their best, they can make you quite a bit more efficient and productive. So which ones are worth your time and attention? In this week’s episode of the much-beloved podcast Becoming Better, Ardyn and I dig into our favorite productivity apps, and chat about why we love them so much. In case you don’t have the time or inclination to listen—or just want to check out the apps we chat about this week—here’s a list of our favorite productivity apps, along with a quick blurb on why we dig them.  If you’re looking to become more focused, knowledgeable, and organized, I hope you’ll agree that these apps are in a league all of their own. (A quick note: this list differs slightly from the episode, in order to make the article more accessible.) 1. Focusmate (website; free). Focusmate is one of my all-time favorite productivity apps. When you launch the website, you’re presented with a calendar in which you’re able to book a 50-minute session to focus on something. The site then partners you up with someone from around the world who also wants to get some work done during that time. You then spend 50 minutes working with the person—working with them over video—and share what you got done when your focus session is done. The service is eerily effective at making you more focused and productive. (I’m writing this article during a focus session with a programmer in Boston.) 2. Freedom (Windows, Mac, iOS, Android; $29/year). I write about Freedom quite a bit on this site, and for good reason. Freedom is a distractions-blocking application: once it’s enabled, you’re not able to access your most distracting websites and apps for the amount of time you specified in advance. Pairs well with Focusmate. (A free alternative for the Mac: SelfControl.) 3. Libby (iOS, Android, Windows; free). Libraries are an incredible resource that far too few people take advantage of. Libby is a great, free app that connects to your local library, that lets you browse their selection of ebooks and audiobooks. If you’re a bookworm, this app can easily save you hundreds of dollars a year. 4. Audible (every platform; $15/month for one book a month). I read around twice as many books because of Audible. Audible is an audiobook site that, for $15/month, gives you access to one book a month, along with two Audible Originals (original audiobooks exclusive to Audible). A no-brainer, along with Libby, if you’re a bookworm. 5. Simplenote (every platform; free). A great, simple, and beautiful note-taking app that’s available for pretty much every platform under the sun. The app is so simple that you can’t even bold or italicize text in it. I personally use this app for capturing ideas throughout the day, as well as for capturing my daily intentions when I travel. This app is on all of my devices, and I couldn’t live without it. 6. Toggl (every platform; free, with paid plans). A dead-simple time-tracking app, which can be set up to track your time automatically.  7. Insight Timer (iOS, Android; free). This is my favorite meditation app, and I’ve pretty much tried them all. Insight Timer features guided meditations, sleep meditations, and a simple meditation timer. But the app’s real power lies in how it lets you see, in real time, who else is meditating around the world—including people near you. The app also keeps you accountable with meditation reminders and meditation streaks—and you can have friends in the app, too. 8. Things (iOS, Mac; $10-50). The last three picks on the list are only available for Apple devices, but I’d be remiss to not include them; they’re a few of the best apps available on any platform. Things is a beautiful, powerful, and delightful to-do list app. I’d be far less productive and organized without it. 9. Fantastical (Mac, iOS; $5-$50, depending on device type). In my opinion, Fantastical is the best calendar app out there for any platform. Unfortunately it’s only available for Mac and iOS, but if you’re in the Apple ecosystem, the app is easily worth the purchase. A few of my favorite features: using natural language to enter calendar events, a convenient mini-window that lets you access your calendar no matter what you’re doing on the computer, a beautiful interface, and complex time zone support. 10. Soulver (Mac, iOS; $3-9). Many of the things I calculate each day are too complex for a calculator, but aren’t nearly complex enough for a spreadsheet. That’s where Soulver comes in. Soulver lets you type out problems as you would on paper, and then solves them for you. Plus, it’s super lightweight, easy to use, and fast. Everyone I recommend this app to loves it. If you’re looking to become more focused, read more books, and organize your life, give these apps a shot. A few honorable mentions: Overcast (for listening to podcasts); Overleaf (an online LaTeX editor); and Strava (a run/cycling tracker). The post The 10 best productivity apps out there appeared first on Chris Bailey.

Takeaway: Some productivity rituals worth trying out: setting three intentions every day; reviewing and mapping out your week (and day); having an accountability partner that keeps you on track; and maintaining an “accomplishments list” throughout the week. Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes, 1s. Podcast length:26 minutes, 0s. Great productivity rituals allow you to become more productive without much thought; once you make a habit out of them, you become more productive every day, automatically. So which rituals are worth the time and energy investment? On this week’s episode of Becoming Better, Ardyn and I chat about the rituals we both use to manage our lives. The best rituals let you do things such as externalize the stuff you have to get done (so it’s out of your head), introduce accountability into your daily and weekly schedule—while often being lightweight enough to let you get to work quickly. As always, in case you don’t have the inclination to listen to this week’s episode, here are a few of our favorite rituals and systems we chatted about! Not all of these will work for you—but they’re all worth experimenting with. If you’re like us, you may be surprised by just how much rituals like these support your work and life. 1. The Rule of 3. This is one of the best productivity rituals out there. At the start of each day, fast-forward to the end of the day in your head and then ask yourself: by the time the day is done, what three main things will you want to have accomplished? This helps you identify what’s actually important and consequential each day. 2. The weekly review. At the beginning of each week, look at the week ahead and set yourself up to get stuff done. Schedule blocks of time where you can hunker down on larger projects, and set reminders for what you will have to accomplish. 3. The daily review. A simple way to start your day. At the start of each day, before settling into work, review the tasks you plan to get done, and review your calendar for the day, too. 4. An accountability ritual. At the start of the week, send an accountability partner what you plan to accomplish by the end of the week—and, when the week is done, follow up with them to let them know how things went. 5. Keep an accomplishments list. We tend to focus quite a bit on what’s on our to-do list, forgetting all of the things we’ve accomplished. To combat this tendency, keep a running accomplishments list as you go about your week—and when the week is done, celebrate what you’ve gotten done! In the episode, we mention about a dozen of rituals, but these are a few of our favorites! Enjoy! The post 5 Productivity Rituals Worth Trying Out appeared first on Chris Bailey.