Do you feel guilty because you aren’t getting more done? Chris Bailey wants to inspire you to get more productive to feel less guilty. In fact, he became a productivity enthusiast to minimize feelings of guilt and regret in his life.
He started his productivity journey conducting experiments for a full year. He shared the results of those experiments in his first book, The Productivity Project.
Recently, Chris released his second book, Hyperfocus to help you can reclaim your focus. You know what Chris does to regain his focus? He knits! Seriously!
And I want to wish Chris a Happy Entrepreneur Birthday, which he’ll be celebrating soon on May 13th!
Lot of great lessons in our conversation including:
- Why Chris left college to experiment with productivity for a year instead of getting a job.
- Minimizing guilt and regret by getting more focused.
- The first action you need to take to start getting more focused.
- Chris shares his unique on how to discover your purpose.
Life Skills That Matter In This Episode
- Manage your energy
- Align your habits
- Practice self-awareness
How Chris Works and Thinks
- Wake up time: 8:00 – 9:00 am
- Core work activities + habits: 1) Speaking. 2) Writing. 3) Research.
- Ideal work environment: When he’s distraction-free, often later in the day after he’s meditated, and when he’s on a deadline.
- Biggest distraction: Wanting external validation from things like social media and email.
- Superpower: Communicating about productivity.
- Peak performance period: Usually between 10:00 am and 12:00 pm and then later on in the afternoon.
- Regains focus by: Noticing that he’s been distracted and then using a distractions blocker or putting his phone in another room.
- 90-day goal: To rest up from his book launch and to celebrate it.
Inspirational Quotes
“If you don’t think about what you want to focus on before you focus on something, you’re just working on autopilot mode in response to the work that comes your way.”
“The purpose of productivity is to make us more human and what is more human than intention?”
“Half of productivity is noticing, half of productivity is intention.”
Coaching Advice
To rethink how you work, Chris shared these two helpful exercises:
1) Divide the tasks you do over the course of a day into categories like productive/unproductive or attractive/unattractive.
2) Stepping back from distractions as well as work that you do throughout the day to help reclaim your attention.
Resources + Bonus Materials
How cool is this? A member of our community Hannah Wilson from New Zealand created this amazing sketch note of all the information from this episode! Check it out . . .
The Productivity Project by Chris Bailey
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Intentional Productivity With Erik Fisher (028)