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Ian: You're listening to “Coffee with Gringos.” I’m Ian Kennedy.
Paige: I'm Paige Sutherland.
Ian: And today we're going to be talking about a cool video that we recently watched on a cool YouTube channel. It's called ASAP science. You guys should check it out on their channel and they have a lot of really cool videos but one that I found, in particular, the other day was about the science of productivity. So, I'm someone who I think I consider myself productive but there definitely been moments in my life where I've procrastinated or I've definitely had to work on my time management at times. So, it was an interesting video I wanted to check out and so we both watched it and figured we could share the tips of the science of productivity that we learned with our listeners. So, listeners, as always, if you get lost, go online and check out that audio guide and transcript at www.dynamicenglish.cl. So, Paige this video, I found it to be pretty cool. It helped me out a little bit too with a few things to help me plan out my schedule and how to get a little bit more work done and maximize all of that. So, the first thing that I noticed that they mentioned was that it's not necessarily having just enough willpower to do something, because science is going to prove that after a while, you can completely lose all your motivation, all your energy if you're just going at something really hard saying “I just need to want to do it or I need more energy.” This is something called “ego depletion.” So, what they say is the biggest barrier to getting started with something is to just get started on the project. So, a lot of people get very anxious and worry and look at the entire problem that they have in front of them or they're in this entire project. They have and they think “How am I ever going to get this done?” And they make it a really big deal and so, they say the biggest barrier is to get started. And don't let yourself get distracted because this is a way of getting you off of track and they mentioned something interesting called the Zeigarnik Effect, which basically is something that is once people start something, they feel motivated and compelled to finish that task. So, if you just go ahead and get started on something, you're going to have that feeling of I don't want to start something without finishing it and that might be a driving motivator to get you to the end. I don't know. Have you ever felt this way before? I didn't realize there's an actual term for that—the Zeigarnik Effect. Kind of scientific.
Paige: Yeah, I think, honestly, I put this into practice a lot. As we’ve probably talked about on the podcast, I ran cross country in college and when you're a runner in college, you have to run –if you’re distance runner—you have to literally train all year because you're training in the summer for cross country season, you're training post-cross country for indoor track, you're training in the middle for outdoor tracks. So, there's never an offseason. And I went to college in New England where the weather is shit and so, you have to get out the door and run your tempo, run when it's negative degrees, it's snowing, it's windy. And so, the thing we would always say on the team is it's that first step, just putting on your shoes and taking that first step and once you commit to doing it, you always end up doing it and so I found that very true with my training and as well definitely applies of work. So, because the first step is the hardest. It's like getting up in the morning, hearing that alarm, and actually getting up is so hard but once you do it, you're like “I'm up, I can do this.”
Ian: You're right. It's a key to all the little decisions we make throughout the day to be productive and get things done. Whether it's doing your workout, going for a run, getting started on work tasks maybe you're not looking forward to. I've found that if I just hunker down and I get started on it, then it can just flow and I can finally just knock it off the list. I can get it done. But, like you said, it's that first step. It's that first little entry that gets us going.
Paige: Another one that I found helpful and, I think I should apply this to my life because I don't do it, is creating healthy habits. Especially, I think the culture in the US we have is just like workaholics where you get into something and you have to finish it and you skip lunch or you skip breaks and you just do it. The research says that that's actually not the most productive because you're tired and you're maybe working but your efficiency isn't as great. So, it's more efficient to say, “I'm going to work really hard for ninety minutes and then maybe I'm going to go for a walk for fifteen (minutes) or call your mom or do something for you that's not work and then go back to that project. And so, it's creating these habits of incremental hard work along with breaks, which I'm very bad at.
Ian: I completely understand what you're saying. You get that feeling of I can't go and do something else until this is finished and it's proven in the video that that's like you said not the right thing to do. You need to give yourself those mental breaks, go for a walk around the block do something different, lay down for fifteen minutes, whatever it might be, and then return back to that. I think they mentioned that there was a study with some elite violinists that use this practicing method of ninety minutes of intense work with fifteen to twenty minutes of a break and they found that they were able to get so much more progression and so much more practice done without feeling the anxiety or anything because it's not that they were practicing more necessarily, it was just more deliberate practice in the way that they were doing it. So, it just goes to show if you can have a disciplined calendar and really stick to it, it can be one of your best friends in getting everything done and then not be dragging late into the night because you were avoiding something or you got distracted. So, this has been something that I've also tried to apply, and coming from a workaholic, US sort of culture, I also understand what you mean. So that's one that I found really interesting on the list as well.
Paige: Hey, Ian. Did you know besides the podcast, Dynamic English offers one-on-one classes with native teachers from all over the world?
Ian: Really? But isn't it just a bunch of grammar lessons?
Paige: Nope, it's completely discussion-based and focuses on topics the student is interested in.
Ian: That's amazing. But what if I'm not living in Chile?
Paige: No problem. Dynamic does online classes. You can be living anywhere.
Ian: Great, but I'm a little intimidated to take the class alone. Can I join with a friend?
Paige: Of course. Dynamic offers group classes of up to four. Plus, for the next month, Coffee with Gringos listeners get 10% off individual or group classes. So go online to www.dynamicenglish.cl and mention that you are a listener and get your discount.
Ian: Well, I'm sold. Sign me up.
Ian: Another good thing that they mentioned in the video is it's a good idea to go ahead and if you want to get something done to give it an actual deadline, whether it's the actual deadline for that or not. So put it down on your calendar, give yourself a fixed date and say okay, I need to get this task done by this date. And another thing is to break it up into little pieces as well. Don't try to think of the entire project in its totality because it's just going to stress you out and it's not going to be able to help you focus. So, if you can say, if you're writing an essay for example, if you can say, “Okay, my deadline is this Wednesday. I have to finish my introduction and my first three pages.” If it's something like that, by breaking it up, you don't see it as this overwhelming thing that you're trying to take on And, in that way, you are keeping yourself accountable and hitting all those deadlines, using time as your best friend really. Y
Paige: Yeah, as a journalist is literally just constant deadlines. It's funny. I think I'm on the less normal scale of journalists where I don't like to go to the wire but most journalists only can work under that deadline like where it will just be right before it has to be published. That's when you know the juices start flowing thing is pretty normal. Where I feel like I have a bad tendency with deadlines where I'll overwork a project because if I have like more time, which isn't good. But I do find it definitely always helps to make yourself accountable for getting certain things done because it's so easy to be like, “Oh, this week was really stressful or my mom's visiting this week, so maybe next week.” It's so easy to keep pushing it off if you don't really physically put something on the calendar and stick to it.
Ian: Exactly. It's easy for that to happen. Another one that I thought was interesting from the video is they talk about what's called tomorrow's action plan. So, the idea is before you go to sleep at night, you write down maybe three to five things that you would like to get done the next day and it's a good way for you to just get a head start before your next day, and maybe even start having a couple of ideas about how you want to hit the ground running as we say, and maybe get those things done earlier in the day and be productive and have your mind a little bit more organized. So, this is actually something that I've been trying to do as well to a degree. I have a to-do list that I use but I also have something that's like “Okay, tomorrow, you should really move these things because they're pressing, they're a little bit urgent.” I've found that it's helped me out a little bit in that way and I hope I continue to stay disciplined and keep doing it. Do you do anything like that? Get yourself prepared for what's coming up the next day or maybe something that's been on your mind that you just need to get done?
Paige: Yeah, I think I love writing to-do lists. What the video was good about, which I can be better at, is creating things in small chunks that are manageable instead of being like, “Tomorrow, I'm going to do my taxes and do seven interviews, go for a ten-mile run.” In the video, it's small chunks so that you are checking things off the list that you can realistically do because you could get in a pattern where the list is unattainable and then you feel discouraged and then it just, you never end up doing those things because they're too overwhelming. So, it's good to have reasonable tasks that you can actually achieve, which I need to get better at. But it is, I think, it is helpful to write something down or put it on your actual calendar so you get a notification. I find that really helpful. I do that a lot. The other thing I saw in the video, which again, I'm realizing I'm really bad at being productive. They say multitasking does not mix with productivity. Studies show that we all have a tendency to multitask yet it's really not effective even though we think we're being efficient and productive. It's an illusion, we're really not. And I find this even more so during COVID because so many of my meetings are on Zoom, that I feel like I can multitask more. Where, back in the day, where I would be in an office and we'd be sitting around a conference table and we'd be in a meeting, you couldn't really be on your phone or googling stuff but since we're joining Zoom meetings on our computers, I'm sending emails, I'm checking the news, I’m doing things where I probably shouldn't be.
Ian: Yeah, it's definitely that multitasking that was an eye-opener too in that video because I think all of us have found it to be a struggle and I think that's just being a part of this digital world that we're in now where everything is at your fingertips and it's so easy to feel like okay, I can get a lot of things done at once. But it goes to show that's not really the case. And yeah, this definitely was something that even when I worked back in the US when I was in an office, it was pretty common to see people having to answer phone calls and emails for other matters in the middle of a meeting where really, we all should have just been computers off, phones off, focus on what was happening and it's just these things that come along and you think, okay, let's try to do all of them at once. But really, it's just better to, like you said, break it down into chunks and just knock one thing off at a time. You're going to find yourself more productive, more efficient that way. It's hard in the world that we live in today so, you have to be conscious about it to make that sort of habit.
Paige: No, definitely. I think I'll have to definitely apply some of these tips from the video to my own life.
Ian: I agree. Me too. I think it would do all of us a lot of good. So, like we said, listeners, the video definitely was not only interesting but helpful for us to be a little bit more productive in our lives. So, we recommend you go to their YouTube channel and check out those videos. As well, go on to the Dynamic English YouTube channel and check out the videos they have on there as well and try to be more productive. Don't do them at the same time. Remember, don’t multitask. Think of your own productivity tips that help you as well in your own life. So as always listeners, go online and check out that audio guide and transcript at www.dynamicenglish.cl. Thanks for listening.
Paige: We'll see you next time.
Paige: Coffee with Gringos was brought to you by Dynamic English, where you can learn English simply by using it. If you're interested in taking classes or just want to learn more, go to our website at dynamicenglish.cl. Thanks for listening.
Key Vocabulary, Phrases & Slang:
1. to procrastinate (verb): to delay or postpone doing something.
a. Many people have problems with procrastinating their work.
2. off track (idiom): not focused or on the correct path.
a. It’s important to not get off track when doing something.
3. to hunker down (phrasal verb): to get situated and comfortable in one place and one position.
a. I need to hunker down in the library and finish my essay.
4. incremental (adjective): in smaller amounts of the whole thing.
a. I like to do projects in incremental steps so that we can organize better.
5. accountable (adjective): responsible.
a. Everyone could be a little bit more accountable with their time.
6. the wire (noun): the deadline for something.
a. Journalists tend to work down to the wire with their writing pieces.
7. to hit the ground running (idiom): to be successful and productive from the beginning.
a. I suggest you take these pieces of advice if you want to hit the ground running with your to-do list.
8. pressing (adjective): urgent; requiring quick or immediate action or attention.
a. It’s especially important to follow these steps when something is pressing.
9. unattainable (adjective): not able to be reached or achieved.
a. Your goals may not be unattainable if you follow a good productivity plan.