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Brain-Based Transformational Solutions

Increase Your Productivity by Eliminating Choice

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Writing

The best way to ensure you will accomplish something is by taking choice out of the equation. As long as you think you have a choice about whether or not to do something, chances are good you won’t do it.

In an article at 99U titled How I Kept a 373-Day Productivity Streak Unbroken, Jamie Todd Rubin talks about his consecutive-day writing streak. He has an even longer streak, though. At the time he wrote the piece, he had written 516 out of the previous 518 days.

Rubin doesn’t talk about choice in his article, nor does he talk about habits. What he says is:

While I didn’t set out to form a routine, I eventually established one which has led to my most prolific year as a writer yet.

How did he do it? He used the principles of I.A.P.: Intention, Attention, and Perseverance.

He decided to challenge his assumptions about the circumstances he needed to have in order to write. He has a day job and a family that includes young children, so large blocks of uninterrupted time were not on the menu. But as a result of questioning his assumptions, he discovered he could get a significant amount of writing done (500 words) in a 20-minute block of time.

So he set an intention to write for at least 20 minutes every day. He knew that would be easier said than done, especially on days when his regular routine was disrupted.

I learned ways to hack my writing streak to cope with the disruptions and still write every day.

He keeps his attention on his intention by deciding ahead of time when to fit his writing in when his day isn’t going to follow a normal routine. On such days, he usually gets his writing done earlier in the day. He also cuts himself some slack while still keeping his routine in place.

In my normal routine, I can usually count on 40 minutes of writing time. On these off-days, I may only be able to count on 10 or 20 minutes.

Rubin has a plan in place for responding to the unexpected, which is the perseverance part of the process. We have to expect the unexpected to occur and figure out ahead of time how we’ll deal with it.

Sometimes, things happen that you can’t plan ahead for. Life gets in the way. I’ll go into a day thinking that it will be routine, and something comes up. Maybe I have to work late at the day job or maybe one of the kids is sick. Whatever it is, in these instances, I haven’t planned ahead and so I can’t necessarily get my writing done early in the day.

Rubin knows that he can usually count on squeezing 10 minutes of writing in, no matter what’s going on. So he makes that his goal instead of 20 or 40 minutes. As he says, the 250 words he can generate in 10 minutes is 250 words he wouldn’t have otherwise. He also keeps several writing projects going, so he can always find something he’s in the mood to work on.

Even so, he sometimes has a day where he doesn’t have an opportunity to do any writing whatsoever.

What happens when the streak inevitably comes to an end? Well, I just start anew. It’s happened once already. I previously had a 140-day streak, and then missed two days in the space of a week. But I got right back on the horse, and haven’t missed a day for 373 days.

Getting back on the horse is what perseverance is all about. It’s how we beat the “ah, screw it” that tempts us when things don’t go according to plan. It isn’t the two missed days that are important. It’s the other 518 days that really matter.

These three steps (intention, attention, perseverance) can be applied to any activity, not just to writing. If you decide ahead of time that you aren’t going to waste time each day choosing whether or not to do it, you’re far more likely to get it done.

Rubin concludes:

There is no question that my sales of both fiction and nonfiction pieces have increased since I started writing every day. Indeed, since the streak began, I’ve sold 18 pieces of fiction or nonfiction, triple that of any previous year.

Although he didn’t initially set out to create a daily writing habit, by setting an intention, finding a way to keep his attention focused on it, and persevering by planning for the unexpected and the failures, that’s exactly what Rubin has done. By taking choice out of the equation, he tripled his writing productivity.

Self-Talk Radio Is Always on the Air

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Announcer

Our monkey minds are constantly chattering away, leaping from one thought to another, unchecked and unguided. We have many conflicting wants, needs, and goals but little available headspace in which to sort them out. Most of our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are not even consciously generated. They’re the result of what neuroscientist David Eagleman calls zombie subroutines.

In addition, we’re unaware of how vulnerable we are to influence from the environment. We are reportedly mentally AWOL at least 50% of the time. If you don’t believe that, just try tuning in to your own self talk. But be prepared to be appalled.

You’re engaging in some variation of self-talk whenever you:

  • Explain yourself to yourself
  • Explain external events and other people to yourself
  • Assign blame
  • Rationalize
  • Justify
  • Judge
  • React to events and other people
  • Rehash events
  • Mentally argue with yourself or others
  • Come to conclusions
  • Recall past events
  • Berate yourself
  • Make comparisons
  • Make predictions about the future
  • Encourage yourself
  • Give yourself directions
  • Remind yourself or keep a mental to-do list
  • Rehearse for the future

Most of these categories of self-talk are not very productive or what anyone would call positive. It’s part of the human condition. But self-talk can have a very powerful effect on us—especially when we’re tuned in to it unconsciously rather than consciously. On the other hand, tuning in to your self-talk is a great way to find out what’s going on in your unconscious.

  • Notice the ongoing stream of self-talk. Some of it is productive, some of it is neutral, and a lot of it is counterproductive.
  • Notice your inclination to label, judge, or try to change it—which creates additional self-talk.
  • Notice what kinds of themes your self-talk has. Does it bolster a particular mental, emotional, or physical state? Do particular events or situations hook you more often than others? Do you find yourself rerunning mental tapes?
  • Notice your emotions. What’s the relationship between your self-talk and the way you feel?
  • Notice your physical sensations. What’s the relationship between your self-talk and your physical state?

Instead of judging or trying to change your self-talk, try these gentle tools.

  • Ask questions. (Is that true? What do I want? What actually happened? etc.)
  • Empty the trash. If a particular situation or issue has hooked you and you want to get it out of your head, set a timer for 10 minutes and flow-write (keep writing without lifting your pen from the paper and without reflecting) about it. When you’re finished, do not reread what you wrote. Just toss it.
  • Focus your attention. Choose a word or phrase to focus your attention in the moment so you can redirect your thoughts.

A great way to pay attention to your self-talk is to get a pocket-sized notebook to carry with you. Each time you become aware of your self-talk, jot down the date, time, and a brief summary of your self-talk. The notebook is a cue for you to pay attention, and the more often you write in it, the more aware you will become of how you talk to yourself, what you talk to yourself about, and what effect it has on you.

Remember that Self-Talk Radio is always on the air—so you can tune in any time.

NOTE: This post was originally published exactly one year ago today and its subject is timely as ever. Paying attention to self-talk can really help us lessen our attachment to a situation, emotion, or even another person. Observing our self-talk can clue us in to beliefs, attitudes, and biases we may not even be aware we have. We can also watch our brain as it spins a convincing narrative out of what we do, think, and feel and what happens to us. If we’re able to observe the spinning process, we can exercise at least a little control over it. We don’t have to fully buy in to it. We might be able to laugh at ourselves or at least take ourselves less seriously.

Habits of Behavior vs. Habits of Attention

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Last week poetdonald responded to my post What Do Your Habits Say About You? with this comment:

The following came to me as I was reading this post as well as your post on Mindfulness vs. Habits.

Let’s call this thinking out loud, Joycelyn. I’m going to pose 2 questions. I’m not ready to answer them, and I’m not sure if you are able to comment at this stage, but I feel it is important I ask and begin to explore them now.

For my Writing in Nature project, I am repeatedly going to sites and learning how to really see and thus write haiku. Eventually, I want to use what I learn to help others write haiku and connect with nature (for many, many reasons). Mindfulness is very important, as I need to pay attention—and at the same time be open—to my surroundings.

My two questions relating to this project…

1. Should I try to create habits to help with this process?

2. If I am not consciously creating habits, will I unconsciously be developing habits that will affect my seeing and writing?

These are such great questions! They got me thinking, first, about the distinction between habits of behavior and habits of attention. After that, I gravitated to looking at when we can best “use” habits to our advantage and when to avoid habits by focusing our attention intentionally. I hope this response will shed some additional light on the subject of habits.

Habits Are Habits

When we think or talk about habits, we’re usually referring to habits of behavior. Those are the habits that are the most obvious for us to see in both ourselves and other people. In fact, most advice about habits seems to assume those are the only kinds of habits we’re interested in changing. But after having explored this subject in considerable depth, I’ve concluded that behavioral habits are actually the easiest ones to deal with. There’s not much doubt as to whether we’re doing something or not doing it. We may not like what we see, but we can keep track of our behavior, either in the moment or after the fact.

Habits of attention, however less apparent they may be to us, are no less habitual than are habits of behavior. In both cases the unconscious brain (System 1) rather than the conscious brain (System 2) is directing us. System 1 takes in about 11,000,000 bits of information at a time, of which System 2 can process about 40. System 1 decides what information is important for us to notice and attend or respond to. It does this at a speed System 2 couldn’t hope to keep up with or replicate. So unless we make a conscious decision ahead of time as to where to direct our attention, System 1 will be making that decision for us. It can do so all day long, without much intervention from System 2.

So in response to poetdonald’s questions, I have two thoughts.

First: Develop as much of a routine as possible for going out to the sites in nature. Focus on creating the habit of doing so. That means identifying a trigger or cue (time of day, for example), following the same routine (although that doesn’t mean always going to the exact same place), and rewarding yourself for doing so. If you turn going out to these sites into a habit, you won’t have to waste any System 2 attention on the mechanics, whereas if you attempt to be flexible or spontaneous about going out to sites, you’ll be expending System 2 attention unnecessarily. Also, creating the habit of doing this will actually get your brain ready to pay attention and to write haiku.

Second: The kinds of habits you might unconsciously develop in regard to this venture are habits of attention, which are not the kinds of habits you want here. Habits of attention train the brain to always pay attention to this but not to that. You want to be conscious (using System 2) rather than unconscious so you can determine what to pay attention to. We all have the ability to train ourselves to be able to focus our attention, rather than allowing it to go wherever System 1 takes it.

Here are some excerpts from a very fine book on the subject, Rapt, Attention and the Focused Life, by Winifred Gallagher:

Paying rapt attention, whether to a trout stream or a novel, a do-it-yourself project or a prayer, increases your capacity for concentration, expands your inner boundaries, and lifts your spirits, but more important, it simply makes you feel that life is worth living.

Not only how you focus, but also what you focus on can have important neurophysiological and behavioral consequences.

Just thinking about paying attention affects your brain, revving it up for the actual experience.

Your neuron populations can represent pretty much anything, but not everything at once. You have to choose—or they do. (John Hopkins neuroscientist Steve Yantis)

New research…shows that what you pay attention to, and how, can actually change your brain and thus your behavior. This extraordinarily practical scientific breakthrough shows that like physical fitness, the mental sort that sustains the focused life can be cultivated.

To give yourself an opportunity to make the most out of your Writing in Nature venture, you might want to put System 1 to use to create the behavioral habit, which will then free up System 2 attention for you to focus intentionally. Recognizing the distinction between behavioral habits and habits of attention is important for any creative pursuit. It’s a waste of time and attention to have to think about and decide whether or not to perform an activity we’ve already determined we want to do. That attention is limited and could be put to much better use!

Poetdonald, thank you for asking such great questions. I’d really like to hear more about how this works out for you.

I’m also interested in hearing anyone else’s thoughts on the subject.

Reduce the Clutter in Your Life

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Clutter

Even before I fully understood the limits of the brain’s conscious attention, I created a list titled “things taking up headspace.” I wrote down every single I could think of that needed to be started, needed to be finished, or needed to be attended to in some way.

I had already recognized that these things were occupying precious mental space. I thought about them repeatedly—sometimes daily or even more frequently. I wanted them taken care of, I wished they would get taken care of, I occasionally had an impulse to take care of them, yet they remained unattended to. Unfortunately, thinking about doing something is not the same as actually doing it.

Making the list was sobering. So I set out to cross as many things off as I could, going at it with a vengeance. As I worked on the initial list, a few new things popped up and were duly added. I found that the time period in between identifying something that needed to be dealt with and taking care of it shrank considerably. When I was done with almost everything on the original list—which included items I’d been renting headspace to for up to three years!—I no longer had a massive headspace list. I had…some clarity!

It can be tempting to try to ignore the small stuff when there are bigger things to do and to deal with. The problem is that ignoring the small stuff makes it that much harder to deal with the bigger things. For one thing, something that started out as minor might, over time, develop into something major. The bigger problem is that ignoring the small stuff becomes a habit. As a result, we consume precious conscious attention trying to not think about all those bothersome things. That leaves less conscious attention available for what really matters. As I wrote at the beginning of this year:

We can’t reach for the stars by climbing that mountain of clutter. We may manage a few steps, but inevitably we’re sucked back down into all that…stuff. We won’t get anywhere by trying to manage or rearrange our clutter, either. Let’s face it; we have developed the habit of creating clutter. We have become clutter junkies. We’re convinced we can’t live without it.

So we rationalize, justify, and explain it away.
Or we deny we have a problem.
Or we admit we have a problem but insist we’re working on it.

The result is always more clutter. Yes, our attempts to deal with our clutter add to the mountain of clutter. So do our failed attempts to Step It Up. In my experience, this is the real “law of attraction”: clutter attracts more clutter. It’s as if the mountain of clutter has magnetic properties. The more undone, unfinished, messy stuff there is in our lives (the bigger our mountain of clutter), the more likely it is that we’ll just keep adding to it.

Clutter is not innocuous; we pay a huge toll for keeping it in our lives. Clutter not only takes up physical space, it also uses precious mental resources. Clutter that preoccupies us taxes our brain’s bandwidth and can literally make us dumber, at least temporarily, by as many as 10 to 14 I.Q. points. The effect is like being sleep deprived all the time. This kind of preoccupation also negatively impacts the brain’s executive function, which results in diminished ability to focus our attention and a decrease in self-control.

The absurd thing is that whatever we’re not doing or not dealing with is likely taking up more of our attention than it would if we were actually doing it or dealing with it. But habits are hard to break. For clutter junkies, there’s only one way out: we have to get rid of the mountain of clutter. Pick a corner, start shoveling, and keep going until it’s all gone. No excuses, no rationalizations, no explanations. Just do it:

    • Clean it out
    • Fix it
    • Address it
    • Replace it
    • Finish it
    • Toss it out

Then declare yourself a clutter-free zone!

If you do, you’ll have greater clarity—and more conscious attention available—when the going gets grueling.

[NOTE: This post is the last in a series. See also When the Going Gets Grueling, Fortitude: Don’t Leave Home Without It,  Focus: Keep Your Eyes on the Prize, Patience: Learn to Play the Waiting Game, Embrace Uncertainty and Know When to Get Assistance.]

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Know When to Get Assistance

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If you work by yourself or live by yourself (or both), you already know how much there is to do and to keep track of every single day. When there’s no one else to pick up some of the slack, the sheer volume of it all can be overwhelming. Believing that you can and should be able to do it all will not make it so. But it can wear you down mentally, emotionally, and physically.

It will wear you down mentally because our brain provides us with a limited amount of conscious attention each day, and when we’ve used it up, we can’t just shift into another gear to get more. When you are trying to do it all, you may find yourself squandering your conscious attention on things that need to be done but that don’t further what you’re trying to accomplish in life. Too many days or weeks of this and you could begin to wonder if what you’re trying to accomplish is worth it or if you’ve really got what it takes.

It will wear you down emotionally because you will inevitably fall behind, miss a target or an actual deadline, or lose track of something. And then you’ll feel bad about it. You’ll feel bad about yourself. If you believe you should be able to do it all, you’ll feel guilty and incompetent when you don’t. If you’re the rugged individualist or self-reliant type, you’ll feel like you just need to work harder to keep on top of everything. Even worse, you could lose your sense of humor.

It will wear you down physically because trying to do everything is exhausting—whether or not you actually get everything done. Mental and emotional stress creates physical tension. You may let your self-care routines go—or at least skimp on them. No time to get to the gym, no time to prepare a healthy meal, no time for a vacation or even a break. You may develop a constant low-level state of anxiety you aren’t even aware of. Trying to do it all can stress your body, weaken your immune system, and make you physically ill.

If you’re in this kind of situation, the best thing you can do is get out of it as soon as possible.

Consider making a list of all the things you do or are responsible for that can only be done by you and another list of all the things that could possibly be done by someone else, even if you have to pay for having it done. You may think you’re saving money (or being self-reliant) by trying to do it all, but that approach can break your spirit. By trying to do it all, you put yourself in jeopardy of losing it all.

I fall into the self-reliant category, and my life-long tendency is to try to figure out how to do whatever has to be done and then do it myself. Sometimes that’s paid off. But even when it has, I’ve often ended up spending an inordinate amount of time learning about something plenty of other people already know how to do. When I do that, I eliminate the amount of time I can spend doing what I know how to do that others may not.

Within the past couple of months, however, I’ve loosened the reins and have begun getting some assistance in three areas: office/organizational, website, and recreational (seriously). I’m not yet taking full advantage of the assistance that’s available to me because old habits die hard. It requires my conscious attention to bypass the tendency to just do it myself. Yet I already feel an enormous sense of relief in realizing that I don’t have to hold up my entire world…all day…every day…ad infinitum.

[NOTE: This post is the sixth in a series. See also When the Going Gets Grueling, Fortitude: Don’t Leave Home Without It,  Focus: Keep Your Eyes on the Prize, Patience: Learn to Play the Waiting Game, and Embrace Uncertainty.]Enhanced by Zemanta

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