This session is on productivity, efficiency,
and motivation, so hopefully, we can do more
good in less time, and be more efficient,
effective altruists.
I only have half an hour, so I'm gonna try
to be as efficient as possible.
I'll give you some quick background on myself.
I'm a writer and a journalist, and what I
like to do is do experiments on myself, change
my lifestyle and see what makes it better,
and what makes it more miserable, which is
often the case, and then figure out what I
can take away.
Perhaps, my best-selling book was called The
Year of Living Biblically.
Thank you again for reading it.
That one is where I knew nothing about religion,
but I decided to learn about it by following
all the rules of the Old Testament, so the
Ten Commandments.
I grew a beard, I stoned adulterers, I used
pebbles so that I didn't get arrested, and
by the way, I gave one tenth of my income
to widows and orphans as instructed.
So, that was a very early version of Giving
What We Can, I think.
They needed better metrics, but the idea was
pretty good.
I got involved in EA a couple of years ago,
because I wrote an article for Esquire Magazine,
and the premise was if I were to donate my
writing fee of a couple thousand dollars so
that it could do the maximum good in the world,
where would I donate those $2,000?
Naturally, delightfully, I ran across EA and
Will, and Peter Singer, and I've been a huge
fan ever since.
Amy asked me to speak today because some of
my books and experiments have to do with productivity
and efficiency, and motivation, so I'm delighted
to share the strategies I've learned over
the years.
As I say, experimentation is the unifying
theme.
That's my big theme, so I encourage you to
try these out.
Not all of them are going to work for everybody,
and some of them you may already be using,
but my hope is that we experiment and find
some of them helpful.
And I'm going to cover, quickly, four themes
today.
Motivation, how to get yourself to do something
you don't really want to do.
Outsourcing and crowdsourcing, unitasking,
like how to avoid multitasking, and speed,
not the drug.
One final note is, one of the strategies I
find most helpful in all projects is crowdsourcing.
For a couple of years, I wrote an advice column
where people would send in a question like,
“I'm staying at someone's house and I think
they hate me.
What should I do?"
Then, I would put it out to all of my Facebook
friends and followers, and get hundreds of
answers, and then take the best of those answers.
So, I find crowdsourcing a super effective
method.
So today, after each one of these four, I'd
love to hear from one or two of you of a strategy
that you find helpful, especially with apps.
I know some apps for productivity, but I'm
not an ultimate expert.
This is not my full-time job, motivation and
productivity.
All right, starting off with motivation.
How do you convince yourself to do something?
How do you…
my friend Tim Urban calls it the procrastination
monkey.
How do you get rid of that procrastination
monkey in your brain?
And a lot of strategies I picked up when I
was doing a book called Drop Dead Healthy,
and this was where I tried to be the healthiest
person alive.
So eat healthy, exercise, sleep healthy, go
to the bathroom healthy.
I can tell you about that later.
We don't have time.
All right, so let me give you a couple of
strategies that helped me with that, because
I definitely did not want to act in a healthy
way, that was not… but I forced myself to.
First was the idea of egonomics, which is
from a Yale professor came up with this.
The idea that we do have our current self
and our future self, and they have different
ideas of what we should be doing.
The current self wants to sit on the couch
and the future self wants to be alive.
And there are studies that show the more you
think about your future self, the more you
will act in a good way, a healthy way, a productive
way, a moral way.
So my advice is to treat your older self like
you would treat a friend, be altruists to
your older self.
And the studies say that the more concrete
your older self is, the more likely you are
to treat it.
So this, you don't have to do this.
But I took a photo of myself, like a selfie
and I digitally aged it, and I printed it
out, and I put it over my desk.
So every time I was procrastinating or not
wanting to go on the treadmill, I'd look at
my future self and he'd be like, “Come on,
do it, do it for me.
You wanna be around.”
Similarly, there's black mailing yourself.
This one I found very effective.
During this year, I would eat a lot of these
dried mangoes, that's my vice.
Which may sound semi healthy, but it's really
just candy disguised as fruit.
Just a lot of sugar.
So I made… again, this is the same professor
at Yale came up with this idea to blackmail
yourself.
I had my wife write a check for $100 and I
said if I eat another mango, then you have
to send this check, and the check was to the
American Nazi Party and it was so crazy effective.
And there are websites that will do this.
There's one called stikk.com, S-T-I-K-K.com.
So you make a contract with yourself.
And I was told that the Effective Altruism
site has a version of this called bee planning
or something...
Beeminder?
Okay.
So, I didn't even know that, but I'm delighted.
Another effective strategy I found was a…
and I think this crowd, it actually might
resonate with, is appealing to the utilitarian
inside of yourself because there are studies
that when you have a clear vision that you're
doing good for the world, you are more motivated
to act.
So there was a study by Adam Grant for fundraisers,
they were doing like college fundraising.
And when he showed them video testimonials
from kids who had benefited from the scholarships,
they raised three times as much money.
So the more concrete and visual you can be
about realizing that you're doing good.
And I actually, I used this today, 'cause
I was like, “I'm not getting paid, no offense,
but like should I just phone this in?” and
I'm like, “You know what, if I can increase
these people's productivity by like 1.5% each,
and you guys are all doing amazing work, like
I am having a huge impact.”
So that motivated me to actually prepare whether
it seems like it or not.
And I would…
I do this as well.
When I exercise, I also am not self-motivated
to exercise, because I'm married.
And unfortunately, I'm not proud of it, but
I don't care what I look like, but I do want
to see my kids grow up.
So I'm motivated to exercise, I focus on them.
So putting yourself… putting your motivation
on the society.
Miniature goals, this I found incredibly effective,
and Lynette yesterday talked about exploding
big goals into little ones, and that's just,
I do that all the time and I tell my kids
to do that.
But I even break it down into the micro goals
because if I…
I actually do like to answer emails while
walking on the treadmill, but sometimes I
just don't feel like it.
So I will break it into a micro goal.
I'll say, I'll trick myself, I'll be like,
“All right, just put on your sneakers.
You don't have to do anything else.
I'm not saying you have to go on the treadmill,
your only goal is to put on your sneakers.”
And I put it on the sneakers and then I am
propelled to the next goal.
So micro goals I find very useful.
Delusional optimism, that I find an extremely
useful tool because as we know, most ventures
worth anything, they have a small chance of
succeeding, but you've got to convince yourself
that they have a bigger, or you will never
do it, at least me.
So when I was writing this health book, I
remember I woke up filled with despair many
days that it's too big a topic, like how am
I…
I'm not a doctor, how am I gonna write a book
about all of health?
And what I would do is I would act as if I
were optimistic and eventually, I became optimistic.
It's basic cognitive behavioral therapy.
So I would call up my publisher and I would
say, “All right, so when this book comes
out, let's have a big party and serve Kale
Martinis,” and once you do that for a couple
of hours, you become optimistic.
All right.
If I could pause really quickly for a crowdsourcing
moment, is there anyone who has one quick
tip on how they motivate themselves that might…
yeah.
Epic music.
Epic music.
Like what is that?
Like you're on an adventure.
I love that.
I'm gonna try that.
Yeah.
Either one.
Five minute timer.
Spending just five minutes.
Yes.
Oh, five minutes.
Interesting.
All right.
Because I was gonna talk about the Pomodoro
technique, which some of you might know, where
it's you do 25 minutes and then 5 minutes
off, but I like that, that's even less time.
All right.
I definitely wanna hear more and hopefully
we'll have a little time.
I'm talking quickly, but I just wanna to get
quickly to the other sections.
The next is outsourcing and crowdsourcing.
This, about 15 years ago now, outsourcing
was just starting and I read about it, and
how these banks or law firms would hire people
in India to do their repetitive tasks, like
data entry.
And I'm just a writer, I didn't have a corporation,
but I was like, “That's an interesting idea.”
So I decided what if I outsourced myself,
outsourced my life.
So, that's what I did.
I hired a team of people in Bangalore, India
to do everything for me.
So they answered my phone, they answered my
emails, they argued with my wife for me, it
was fantastic.
And this came out as an article in Esquire
and it was reprinted in Tim Ferriss's book,
The Four Hour Workweek.
I don't know if you've read that.
And just very quickly he called me.
He had never written a book, and he called
me out of the blue.
He's like, “I'm a first time writer, I don't
know what I'm doing.
Can you help me be a writer?”
And I was like…
I gave him whatever wisdom I had, which wasn't
much.
And then he said, “I loved your article.
Can I reprint it in my book?”
And I'm like, “This guy is a first time
writer, I've never heard of.
He doesn't know what he's doing.”
“Sure.
Reprint it.
I'm not gonna charge you, being a jerk.”
And then like a year later he calls me, he's
like, “Yeah, my book is number one on Amazon.”
I'm like, “What the fuck happened?”
But I'm actually happy because a lot of his…
he's got like a huge…
I don't know if you know him, but he's got
a huge cult following.
And so it did work for me in the end.
And as an effective altruist, hopefully it
worked for other people.
But anyway, just a couple of thoughts on…
because now it's become much more commonplace.
There are several places that do it.
The one I used and the one that Tim mentions
is called getfriday.com.
And there's another one called getleverage.com
that a friend of mine started.
I have not used it, but he's very smart, so
I'm thinking it'll be good.
Of course, there's places like TaskRabbit
and Fiverr, and just a couple of notes on
when you outsource, one thing I've found is
the importance of being very precise in what
you ask for.
Especially if there's a language barrier,
things can get messed up.
I remember I asked for a wax paper to keep
my vegetables and we ended up getting a wax
mustache strip remover for women.
And my wife was like, “What are you saying?”
And it was ugly.
So, and this may sound strange, but I honestly
think one of my favorite… one of the most
effective things I did while outsourcing is
I outsourced my worry.
I was really stressed out about a family matter,
but I knew that worry... problem solving is
good, but worrying is a waste of time and
energy.
So I said to Asha, in Bangalore, I asked her,
“Would you please for 10 minutes every day,
I will pay you, to worry for me.”
And I don't know if it works for everyone.
It was an amazing feeling to know that someone,
every time I started to worry, I'd be like,
“that's taken care of, someone…” and
you don't have to hire someone.
I've found what you can do is you can switch
worries with a friend and say, “I'll worry
for you, and you worry for me,” because
you don't have the emotional connection to
their worry, so it's not all that unpleasant
to worry for them.
Now, moving onto crowdsourcing for a second.
Again, I love that, the advice people gave
was amazing.
I also am a big fan... like, I have a book
coming out in November and I was talking to
you about that, and I didn't know what the
title was.
The publisher had a title that I didn't love.
So I think I did it on Mechanical Turk on
Amazon, where you can do very inexpensive
polls or Google ads to figure out what works
better, what will get more clicks.
And so I actually… the book is called…
now it's called… it worked, because I got
my title, because I showed them the data.
I'm like, “Look, this gets a lot more clicks.”
It's called Thanks a Thousand.
They wanted to call it Thank You All.
But what I did was instead of a poll, I said,
“Buy this book,” which doesn't exist yet.
I didn't say that but, “Click on this to
buy this book.”
And then when they clicked on it, there was
like, “You can sign up and get it as soon
as it comes out.”
But that way I think it's more accurate than...
because people don't really necessarily know
what they're going to buy, but if they click
on that link, then they have intention.
So, that's a little tip.
And by the way, some of you may know Spencer
Greenberg, who is an effective altruist, he's
coming here today.
That guy is the master of Mechanical Turk
and crowdsourcing.
So I highly recommend you go to his talk and
talk to him about that.
Let's see.
Oh, and finally, I don't know what to call
this, source sourcing or something sourcing
because… but it is, I have a friend named
Charles Duhigg who writes for the New York
Times, and he's also… he wrote a book on
productivity, so he knows what he's doing.
And I asked him his interview style, and he
said what he does is he doesn't, like most
journalists, come up with a list of questions.
He goes to the person, he gets them on the
phone and said, “You know your topic better
than I do.
Can you tell me the five things that I should
do?
What are the most common questions?
What are the biggest concerns?”
So he totally like outsourced his job to the
people he's talking to, and I thought it was
brilliant, and I've tried to do that a little.
Okay.
Oh, so let me pause for a quick crowdsourcing.
I don't know if anyone does outsourcing or
crowdsourcing, but if they do and they have
a tip or a service they like, I would love
to hear it.
Anyone.
Yes.
For interviews I use something called Rev.com.
So do you ever use transcription?
So you tape an interview on my tape...
That is aging me, but I record this on my
phone and then I just email it off to somebody
in Rev.com, and 24 hours later, the entire
transcription comes.
So I never have to transcribe.
I have many friends who use that, I've never
used it, but I should.
And it's the human.
It's not a software program.
It's a human.
Because there are software programs, but I'm
not sure they're quite-
About a dollar a minute, but it's pretty worth
it, because think about your time.
That's great.
R-E-V.com.
All right.
I love that.
Anyone else with an outsourcing or crowdsourcing
tip?
Okay, next we've got focus and unitasking.
This was an article, a chapter of a book I
wrote called the Unitasker, where I tried
to just spend a month just doing one thing
at a time, which is not easy.
And, but as you know, this is not news, but
multitasking is not only inefficient, it doesn't
really exist, because you can't do two cognitive
tasks at the same time and you're losing energy
when you switch from one task to another.
You're losing mental energy.
You're losing time.
So, how to be a unitasker.
One of the most effective strategies which
you might've heard of, is called the Odysseus
strategy or the Ulysses pact, and it comes
from the Odyssey where Odysseus was going
on a ship and he was about to go to the sirens,
and he knew that if he heard their voices,
he would leap into the water.
So he had his sailors tie him to the mast
and put wax in his ears.
So this has become a very successful strategy
in work.
And I took it far more literally than maybe
it was supposed to.
I actually did tie myself to my desk chair
and it worked.
It worked.
I was like, “All right, I can't get up,”
but you don't have to do that.
There are many apps that use the Ulysses pact
idea, like freedom where you're cut off from
the Internet and you have to reboot your computer,
and it's so shameful when you do that, but
hopefully you don't do that.
There's the Pomodoro technique that I was
mentioning earlier and there are several apps
on your phone or computer where it will cut
you off for 25 minutes, and it'll tell you,
“All right, 25 minutes is up.
You're allowed to have that five minute break.”
I actually found this effective, weirdly:
when talking on the phone, I shut my eyes
and actually talk on the phone.
And it's a revelation.
It's like, “Oh, I'm actually having a conversation.
I'm learning things instead of just doing
my email.”
So it really changes the tone of the conversation.
I think that social media, of course, and
the Internet, no shock there, they have huge
downsides, and I really do think reading the
news several times a day is a… it increases
our negativity bias because you're seeing
all the horrible things, and it is just a
motivational drain.
So I really do try only to read the news once
a day at night because what I find is I get
really depressed and then I can fall asleep.
So another…
I also wrote an article on, on creativity
hacks, like what are the best creativity hacks,
and I'm happy to talk about those.
But one of them had to do with this, which
was some creativity is when you're taking
a shower.
But some of it, I find it very helpful to
actually block out 15 minutes a day for brainstorming.
And it could be general brainstorming about
anything.
It could be specific about a project or a
book.
But I find if I don't do that, the day just
slips away.
You've got to really be proactive with your
calendar, show your calendar who's boss and
actually put in, all right from 2:00 to 2:15,
I'm going to brainstorm ideas.
And sometimes, even though 98% of those ideas
are going to be useless, it really does help
keep my brain...
I do believe in the analogy, the brain is
like a muscle and the more you use it, the
stronger it is.
So sometimes if I don't have anything, I'll
just bring…
I'll take any…
I'll take a snowman and be like, all right,
“What can I do with a snowman?”
And I'll just play with it.
What about a snow transgender person?
Snow nonbinary person?
What if instead of a pipe, they're vaping?
And so, just… and I honestly find that…
then when I am in a situation where I need
to think quickly, I feel that I'm more prepared.
All right.
So, oh, I think there must be some good tips
from you guys on focusing.
So I'd love to take, yeah.
Yeah.
That's very sweet.
I don't know if you've heard that because
I was supposed to wait for the microphone.
Sorry.
But, yeah, the idea is it's a Pomodoro technique,
the 25-5 and it's a visual representation
of a tree, and you actually killed the tree.
And if you believe well, then plants have
sentience and can feel pain, so you should
be... he doesn't believe that.
But remember, he told us to think.
Any other tips?
Yes sir.
I built my own hackintosh that has no Wi-Fi,
no Bluetooth, no audio driver and no video
driver.
I do my writing on that-
I do… thank you for reminding me, but I
have two computers, one that I write on and
one that is connected to the Internet, because
I do think that if you're trying to write
on the one that's connected to the Internet,
it's just nearly impossible.
All right.
And then finally, and then we can talk your
hacks.
What is my final one?
Doing things is… are we down to the… yeah,
speed, okay.
This is a short one, appropriately.
But I did write an article once on how to
do things faster without sacrificing quality.
And one hack that I use that I love, and that
I'm trying to spread, is I have adopted Skype
lunches.
So instead of going out to lunch with someone
where you lose like 15 minutes, half an hour
getting there, you have to wait for the waiter
to bring the check.
I say to a friend, I'll be like, “You order
lunch, I'll order lunch and we'll do it over
Skype.”
And it is awesome.
I highly recommend it.
It is so efficient and you do get the face…
you maybe lose a little because you're not
in, but you do get the face and you do get
privacy.
And I have a friend who's very tech savvy
and he chooses a background, so we could eat
in Paris at a cafe.
So Skype lunches, I'm a big fan of.
You guys might already know this, but double
speed is a beautiful thing for podcasts, and
for videos on YouTube, and for anything.
There's a great app that is free.
It's a chrome extension called Video Speed
Controller.
Does anyone use it?
Three?
Four?
Yeah.
All right, let's see.
Oh man, it is a thing of beauty.
Because you can watch anything.
You can watch Netflix, you can watch Hulu,
you can watch anything as fast or slow as
you want.
And I have friends who are in the movie industry
and they're not so happy about that.
But some movies, like I watched Manchester
by the Sea, I watched that on double speed
and it was still slow.
It was like, “Jesus.”
So, yes, I am a big fan of that.
And if you do go out to lunch, this is a little
hack I learned from my former editor at Esquire.
If you're going to have a lunch that you are
required to go to but are not excited about,
he would... and if it's a nice enough place,
you go to the host and say like, “Can you
bring me the check in 40 minutes?”
And so you set it up.
Yeah.
It's not the nicest thing, but listen, you're
doing it for the greater good.
You need to get back there and do your real
job.
All right.
So let me…
I'd love to hear any hacks that you guys have
for speed, there must be some ideas that you
have, any apps or anything.
Anyone?
No?
Yeah.
The common one that every place I ever walk
to, I'm talking on the phone with someone,
usually my family, but every single long walk.
Well, you know what I like…
I love that.
But I also like to come up…
I find that I don't trust my brain, because
it will wander into dark corners that are
not productive to me or anyone else.
So I will choose a topic to think about, a
problem that I have that I'm going to think
about on my walk to work.
And then when I get there, I'll have four
or five solutions, maybe one of them will
work.
So I am a big fan of scheduling my thoughts
and I find that very helpful along those lines.
Well, look at that.
See, 10:30.
Damn, that's good.
It would be very embarrassing if I did a productivity
efficiency thing and I got through half and
rambled.
So 10:30, I got through my little points,
but I'm around in office hours if you guys
are interested in talking more about this
topic.
Again, it's more of a conversation, I'd love
to learn from you too.
So thank you very much.
It was fun.
