New Huberman Lab podcast out now: HOW TO ENHANCE FOCUS & PRODUCTIVITY w/Cal Newport • •Protocols To Access Deep Work •”Pull Forward” for Hyper-Productivity •Sleep & Timing Work •Becoming a “Cognitive Athlete” •True Work vs Non-Work Balance hubermanlab.com/episode/dr-cal…
@hubermanlab Boost your productivity by dividing your day into time blocks: - Work in 30-90 min focused sessions. No distractions. - Take short walks in between. Movement and visual flow between work sessions incubate ideas and replenish depleted dopamine neurons to restore focus.
@hubermanlab The time immediately after waking is great for creative work and problem-solving. You can harness the brain's tendency to explore novel associations during REM sleep to think laterally. If you write down problems before sleep, you will often wake up with new solutions.
@hubermanlab The 'shut down routine' to close open work loops is a powerful idea. A clear behaviour that signals the end of work helps you detach and avoid rumination. This is a great way to manage stress, 'be present' outside of work, and improve sleep.
@hubermanlab I used to think improving productivity was about increasing work output. It's actually about enhancing quality of life. Working efficiently keeps you in the game. It's a marathon, not a sprint.
Excellent podcast! Many useful strategies - for example, that it should be difficult before we learn something - so flow is not the right way. How much wasted time we have today due to multitasking - constant email checking, SoMe, and other distractions. An epidemic of time wasting that we can easily optimize ourselves with a few tools. How we can actually learn to focus and be effective again - without holding 100 meetings and feeling like we're busy. That we should take care of our brains as we do our bodies/physics! How we shall focus on out children to give them some good tools before they also destroy their brains and loose focus with too much SoMe - teach them that it is ok to get bored, that our brain needs this in order to proces and store information.. Just love it.🙏
@hubermanlab Good! I built an ‘ornamental fireplace’ in bedroom. +Got a fake fire insert. (I plan to remove it when friends come over. LoL) Then got a wooden screen to put in front, to diffuse it. Hoping biophilia will kick in & I’ll trick myself into thinking it’s real. Lowering RHR, HRV…
@hubermanlab Excited to listen to this convo! I need to be more productive!
Really useful discussion thanks Andrew. For the past few months I've been keeping social media on a separate device to my phone. That way I can turn it off and throw it in the cupboard outside of certain hours of the day. Gives me agency over something that can be very hard to control, given the design of these apps and the pull of my vocation. I'm not going back. Knowing that something is a click away is a micro-suck too many for me to manage when I'm in the thick of what I do out here. This helps me take away that choice and gives me clarity. And I'm glad to hear you were all off social media on your visit to Australia. I leave my phones at home when I go on holiday. It's good to focus on the essence of who we are without the world at our finger tips.
Here are my notes from the episode: - Dr. Cal Newport's expertise in productivity and focus emphasizes deep engagement with tasks, minimizing digital distractions, and structuring professional and personal life to achieve higher cognitive performance. - Digital distractions, particularly from smartphones and frequent task-switching, hinder productivity by preventing the brain from reaching a state of focused concentration. - Solitude deprivation caused by constant digital connectivity increases anxiety and cognitive load, underscoring the importance of experiencing periods free from other people's thoughts. - Time block planning and multiscale planning are effective strategies for organizing work schedules and ensuring that each minute is used productively while aligning with broader goals. - A fixed schedule productivity approach can improve efficiency by compelling individuals to prioritize tasks and find creative solutions within set work hours, promoting work-life balance. - The separation of work environments into dedicated spaces for different types of tasks can aid in transitioning into focused work modes and reduce cognitive overload. - Pseudo-productivity, which values visible activity over meaningful output, contributes to knowledge worker burnout; a shift towards deep work and structured collaboration can counteract this. - Regular periods of solitude and disengagement from digital stimuli are necessary for cognitive health and can reduce the impact of solitude deprivation on productivity and anxiety. - The systemic adoption of inefficient digital communication tools requires organizational change to establish more structured work processes and reduce reliance on constant task-switching. - Productive meditation and structured work-life transitions, such as exercising after work, can aid in maintaining a balance between productivity and personal life.