Hello!

Over the past months, I have been preparing and drafting a Literature Review related to my research project. Since this task involved a substantial effort reading and structuring information from dozens of articles, it was vital for me to turn to non-scientific literature in my leisure time to balance the demands of the daily tasks associated with the review. Therefore, in this post, I would like to share some insights collected from one of the books I read in this period: “The Productivity Project” by Chris Bailey.

Briefly, the book summarises the author’s findings after a year-long experiment about fruitful productivity practices. This topic is very dear to me, as already in high school, I started to pay attention to the effects of different factors on my studies, from the music genres I liked to play to the duration of my study sessions. My interest in the topic kept evolving, and I soon started tracking my working hours for each course in my undergraduate studies and tailoring my studying schedules to the content I had to review. Overall, I was excited to learn about Chris’ experience and, hopefully, identify and implement new practices in my daily life.

“Productivity is not about doing more things; it’s about doing the right things.” - Chris Bailey

1. The three ingredients of productivity

2. The fight between limbic system and pre-frontal cortex

3. Embracing intention and awareness

The three ingredients of productivity

Throughout the initial chapters, Chris describes how the output of many new sectors in our society is no longer bound by the time spent working, a mindset prevalent since the Industrial Revolution, but rather by what we accomplish in a day. The concept of “Knowledge economy” is used to show how current jobs incorporate more analytical and creative elements than the arduous and often repetitive physical effort required in factories and how this shift also implies re-defining the scale used to track progress and set milestones. For this reason, Chris argues that Productivity is the result of a careful balance between the time, energy, and attention we devote to tasks.

“When we waste time, we are procrastinating. When we cannot manage our attention well, we are distracted. When we don’t cultivate our energy levels, we are tired.” – Chris Bailey

Chris supported his opinion with several experiments, from comparing 20h- to 90h-work weeks and how much he effectively achieved, to taking long naps throughout the day as needed to maintain energy levels and citing the conclusions from other works that have explored similar concepts. All in all, it became clear that routinely chasing a given number of work hours per week is worthless if we are not actively engaged in what we are doing. Specifically, Chris shared how settling at around 45h of work per week has allowed him to accomplish his aims while also giving enough time to mentally rest and recharge with enough leisure and sleep time. Furthermore, incorporating schedules to manage the amount of time spent on low-return tasks such as answering emails or browsing social media helps set more explicit boundaries around high-intensity time blocks without interruptions, protecting our attention during meaningful or high-return tasks.

The fight between the limbic system and pre-frontal cortex

Next, another engaging section of the book introduces two significant parts of our brain: the limbic system, associated with emotional responses and short-term pleasure, and the pre-frontal cortex, “responsible for logic, reason and long-term goals”. Chris nicely presents how these components battle each other to decide what we should do, the former incessantly searching for instant-gratification stimuli and the latter focusing on high-return, attention-demanding tasks.

There are two main points worth emphasising. First, Chris presents how procrastination is often the result of the limbic system consistently winning over the pre-frontal cortex, which impedes us from focusing on what we should do and, instead, leads us to pursue low-return tasks that give us a pleasant feeling. Hence, identifying and limiting our personal instant-gratification triggers and developing self-control mechanisms to block our response to sudden urges to these triggers can help to regain control to focus on (less stimulating and more demanding) tasks.

Second, it is presented how multitasking, increasingly more prevalent in many jobs given how easily we can participate in a meeting, draft emails, and reply to a message from a colleague, can be a disguised way of feeling productive. Although it may seem we are doing more in less time, the constant switch in attention and short period devoted to each task makes it harder to provide a valuable contribution.

“Multitasking creates a dopamine addiction feedback loop, rewarding the brain for losing focus in search of external stimulation.” - Daniel Levitin

For this reason, Chris challenges us to actively practice single-tasking. From working, sharing a meal, or having a conversation, the goal is to focus exclusively on whatever we are doing and resist the urge to add another source of stimuli (like checking notifications while talking or watching videos while eating).

Embracing intention and awareness

Finally, Chris concludes the book with a personal story that challenged his resilience and ability to focus and converges on a list of practical takeaways that should hopefully have the most positive impact on our lives.

Overall, it is described how setting (three) goals at the start of each day and week can help to manage our expectations and give a sense of accomplishment when we review them; furthermore, it allows us to be more aware of our current state, such that we schedule tasks according to how we are feeling (e.g., if we did not sleep well, there is no point planning several attention-demanding goals). In this regard, Chris also promotes a sense of self-kindness, respecting and incorporating our needs to take breaks to recharge and rewarding ourselves with something meaningful after accomplishing a challenging objective. Recalling the discussion of the previous sub-section, this practice helps rewire our brain to accept rewards after we complete good work and not as an alternative to it. Additionally, breaking down large tasks is an effective technique to create structure, reduce ambiguity and draw a path to the desired outcome, which Chris describes as factors that help counter procrastination urges.

Conclusion

In conclusion, these were some of my favourite takeaways; still, there were many more sections with engaging experiments and thoughtful findings, making this book worth reading. I am looking forward to incorporating these findings into my daily schedule. Please feel free to share your thoughts and experiences about productivity!

Have a great day!