Takeaway: Artificial intelligence will let us accomplish significantly more with our time. To best take advantage of these tools,  identify the highest-leverage ways you could spend your time and carefully navigate how to “abstract” your work. Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes, 52s. What artificial intelligence will do to our productivity For each minute you spend on a task, how much do you accomplish? One of the fundamental truths about productivity is that not all tasks are created equal. With some, we accomplish hardly anything despite the minutes they drain. Watching YouTube videos ..read more

On this episode, we chat about how we use and think about social media. We cover what the problem is with social media (if there even is one), how the “novelty bias” hijacks our attention as we use it, and tactics to use to keep social media contained. Topics covered include: The books we’re reading (and loving); Impulsiveness and procrastination; How social media algorithms come down to “bodies and comparing lifestyles”; Ardyn’s incredibly wholesome Instagram feed; “Stimulation loops” and the “novelty bias”; Crowding out social media; Extracting more meaning out of social media; Putting gua ..read more

Takeaway: Can’t explain why you act the way you do? Your values may be at play. There are 10 human values that we hold most dear, explained below. Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes, 22s. When I was a teenager, I ran a marathon. Well, sort of. Following the instructions from a great book (my memory is hazy but I’m pretty sure this was the one), I trained for hours on our treadmill at home. By a certain point, I was practically running a full marathon in the basement. The book made it so that, once you got to the point where you could run the distance, the actual marathon was easy—you had alre ..read more

On this episode, we chat about whether or not you should wake up early—and how our biology and daily constraints dictate when we should rise. Topics covered include: Calculating your natural wakeup time; How our wakeup time drifts; The “sepia toned” idea we have to wake up early; Carving out time in the morning to be deliberate; How biology affects our wakeup time; How the constraints of our day affect wakeup time; Having an anchor in your morning routine; Whether waking up early makes a difference in our daily productivity. Links mentioned in this episode: Russell Foster’s great TED Talk ..read more

On this episode, we chat about how to avoid “all or nothing” thinking—also known as the “eff it” effect, or the abstinence violation effect, if you want to get technical about it. Topics covered include: Not being satisfied by partial success How the effect plays out across different time scales The idea of “sunk costs” How awareness is key to behavioral change The downfalls of black and white thinking You can listen (and subscribe) to the podcast below! The post Podcast: All or Something Thinking (Replay) appeared first on Chris Bailey ..read more

Takeaway: If you’re not careful, your to-do list can make your work less enjoyable, while leading you to feel less in control of your time. When finishing tasks, reflect on the next most important project to work on—and treat your to-do list as a series of suggestions, not obligations. Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes, 26s. One of the highest leverage things you can do to become more productive is simple: continually do what you consider to be the most important thing in each moment. This is way easier said than done, but isn’t as difficult as you may think. To explain, let me tell you ..read more

On this episode, we chat about how to stay productive when you don’t feel like it. Ideas covered include: How to settle into work when you just don’t feel like it; Not letting your to-do list turn into a list of expectations for how things will go; The idea of making “only progress”; Feeling your “pace of productivity” Understanding the procrastination triggers; Managing expectations downward; Connecting with how you feel to analyze how you’re stuck; Paying yourself ‘time and a half’; Accommodating your mental resistance to doing a task. Links mentioned in this episode: Ardyn’s ChatGPT pho ..read more

On this episode, we chat about our phone home screens, debate about whose is better, and talk about whether “focus modes” should drive what’s on our home screen. Chris’s home screen: Ardyn’s home screen: A few links mentioned on the episode: Locket app: iOS; Android; Pedometer++ on iOS; ChatGPT voice assistant; Kijiji wikipedia page; Withings Body Scan. You can listen (and subscribe) to the podcast below! The post Podcast: Our phone home screens appeared first on Chris Bailey ..read more

Takeaway: My five favorite ways to manage a busy inbox: conduct email sprints, use your email’s auto-responder feature, limit emails to five sentences, delete the email app off of your phone, and tackle email during lower energy periods. Estimated Reading Time: 2 minute, 39s. Email can feel like a weird beast to tame. Equal parts essential, helpful, and downright annoying, it can be a mixed bag for productivity. So how can you take advantage of the good parts of email while leaving the bad? Here are five of my favorite tactics, each of which can help wrangle your mess of messages: 1. Con ..read more

On this episode, we chat about how the nature of productivity is changing, and how AI is making us more productive by making our work tasks higher-leverage. Topics covered include: The most important tasks in your work; How our “productivity leverage” increases with time; How AI makes us more productive by moving us up the “layers of abstraction” in our work; How we can delegate work to AI; How AI can save us time; The most popular AI apps right now. Links mentioned in this episode: TinyWow Canva DeepL Github Copilot Hugging Face You can listen (and subscribe) to the podcast below! The po ..read more