Chris Bailey > Quotes

“Rita Emmett, the author of The Procrastinator’s Handbook, summed this up well in what she labeled Emmett’s law: “The dread of doing a task uses up more time and energy than doing the task itself.”
― Chris Bailey, The Productivity Project: Proven Ways to Become More Awesome

“We are what we pay attention to, and almost nothing influences our productivity and creativity as much as the information we’ve consumed in the past.”
― Chris Bailey, Hyperfocus: How to Work Less to Achieve More

“Busyness is no different from laziness when it doesn’t lead you to accomplish anything.”
― Chris Bailey, The Productivity Project: Proven Ways to Become More Awesome

“an epiphany: every lesson I learned fell into better management of one of three categories: my time, my attention, and my energy.”
― Chris Bailey, The Productivity Project: Accomplishing More by Managing Your Time, Attention, and Energy

“An unfortunate truth is that the brain is not built to do knowledge work—it’s wired for survival and reproduction.”
― Chris Bailey, Hyperfocus: How to Manage Your Attention in a World of Distraction

“To be everywhere is to be nowhere. —SENECA”
― Chris Bailey, The Productivity Project: Accomplishing More by Managing Your Time, Attention, and Energy

“Many people forget that their smartphone, computer, and other devices exist for their convenience—not the convenience of everyone who wants to interrupt them throughout the day.”
― Chris Bailey, The Productivity Project: Proven Ways to Become More Awesome

“The lives we live are constantly changing, but we like to think that our stories will remain constant. They never do.”
― Chris Bailey, How to Train Your Mind: Exploring the Productivity Benefits of Meditation

“It’s how much space exists between the cars. The same is true for the tasks you work on throughout the day. It’s difficult to be productive when you try to cram as much into your day as possible, because you’ll inevitably create a mental logjam as unexpected tasks crop up. By simplifying how much you take on, you create more attentional space around your high-return activities, so you can focus on them much more deeply. Tasks are the cars on the productivity superhighway.*”
― Chris Bailey, The Productivity Project: Proven Ways to Become More Awesome

“The best time to take a break is before you need to.”
― Chris Bailey (author)

“When you feel tired or fatigued, more often than not it’s either because your brain has too much or not enough glucose to convert into mental energy.”
― Chris Bailey

“By seeing what triggers procrastination, and then making a plan to flip those triggers, doing your taxes becomes attractive. If I found myself putting off doing my taxes, I might sit down and make a plan to changes those triggers. For example, if the trigger is:
• Boring: I go to my favorite café for an afternoon on Saturday to do my taxes over a fancy drink while doing some people watching.
• Frustrating: I bring a book to the same café, and set a timer on my phone to limit myself to working on my taxes for thirty minutes—and only work for longer if I’m on a roll and feel like going on.
• Difficult: I research the tax process to see what steps I need to follow, and what paperwork I need to gather. And I visit the café during my Biological Prime Time, when I’ll naturally have more energy.
• Unstructured or Ambiguous: I make a detailed plan from my research that has the very next steps I need to take to do them.
• Lacking in Personal Meaning: If I expect to get a refund, think about how much money I will get back, and make a list of the meaningful things I’ll spend that money on.
• Lacking in Intrinsic Rewards: For every fifteen minutes I spend on my taxes, I set aside $2.50 to treat myself or reward myself in some meaningful way for reaching milestones.”
― Chris Bailey, The Productivity Project: Accomplishing More by Managing Your Time, Attention, and Energy

“When you work consistently long hours, or spend too much time on tasks, that’s usually not a sign that you have too much to do—it’s a sign that you’re not spending your energy and attention wisely.”
― Chris Bailey

“Productivity isn’t about doing more things—it’s about doing the right things.”
― Chris Bailey (author)

“It's impossible to be focused and bored at the same time.”
― Chris Bailey, How to Train Your Mind: Exploring the Productivity Benefits of Meditation

“It’s impossible to remember what we don’t pay attention to in the first place.”
― Chris Bailey

“...I conducted a number of experiments to get in touch with my future self. Here are my favorite three:
• Fire up AgingBooth. While hiring a programmer to create a 3-D virtual reality simulator is probably out of your price range, I personally love an app called AgingBooth, which transforms a picture of your face into what you will look like in several decades. There are also other apps like it, like Merrill Edge’s web app that shows you a live avatar of what you’ll look like at retirement (faceretirement.merilledge.com). AgingBooth is my favorite of them all, and it’s available for both Android and iOS, and it’s free. On the website for this book (productivityprojectbook.com), you can see what to expect out of the app—I’ve framed a picture of myself that hangs above my computer in my office, where I see it every day. Visitors are usually freaked out.
• Send a letter to your future self. Like the letter I wrote at camp, writing and sending a letter to yourself in the future is a great way to bridge the gap between you and your future self. I frequently use FutureMe.org to send emails to myself in the future, particularly when I see myself being unfair to future me.
• Create a future memory. I’m not a fan of hocus-pocus visualizations, so I hope this doesn’t sound like one. In her brilliant book The Wallpaper Instinct, Kelly McGonigal recommends creating a memory of yourself in the future—like one where you don’t put off a report you’re procrastinating on, or one where you read ten interesting books because you staved off the temptation of binge-watching three seasons of House of Cards on Netflix. Simply imagining a better, more productive version of yourself down the line has been shown to be enough to motivate you to act in ways that are helpful for your future self.”
― Chris Bailey, The Productivity Project: Accomplishing More by Managing Your Time, Attention, and Energy

“We find the internet and multitasking so stimulating because they’re candy for our limbic system.”
― Chris Bailey, The Productivity Project: Proven Ways to Become More Awesome

“When someone says they “don’t have time” for something, what they’re really saying is that a task isn’t as important or attractive as whatever else they have on their plate.”
― Chris Bailey (author)

“If our plan today is to write three thousand words, rock a presentation with our leadership team, and catch up on our email, and we successfully accomplish all of those, we were perfectly productive. Likewise, if we intend to have a relaxing day and manage to do absolutely nothing, we're again perfectly productive. Being busy doesn't make us productive. It doesn't matter how busy we are if that busyness doesn't lead us to accomplish anything of importance. Productivity is not about cramming more into our days but about doing the right thing in each moment.”
― Chris Bailey, Hyperfocus*

“Although you can download all the productivity apps in the world (and I have), no app will make you care about what you have to do like the Rule of 3. The rule is dead simple:
1. At the beginning of every day, mentally fast-forward to the end of the day, and ask yourself: When the day is over, what three things will I want to have accomplished? Write those three things down.
2. Do the same at the beginning of every week.
The three things you identify then become your focus for the day and the week ahead.
That’s it.”
― Chris Bailey, The Productivity Project: Accomplishing More by Managing Your Time, Attention, and Energy

“Doing mindless stuff at work or at home is not only unproductive but also a sign you don’t have enough important work.”
― Chris Bailey

“desconectar es una de las estrategias más poderosas para encontrar ideas nuevas y mejores.”
― Chris Bailey, Hyperfocus (2ª ed): Cómo centrar tu atención en un mundo de distracciones

“I’ve already revealed my favorite way to get in touch with my future self: through the Rule of 3. In the Rule of 3, your future self takes center stage. By mentally fast-forwarding to the end of the day and thinking about what you want to accomplish, you activate the planning centers in your prefrontal cortex, while you also step into the shoes of your future self. And you do the same when you plan out your three accomplishments at the start of every week.”
― Chris Bailey, The Productivity Project: Accomplishing More by Managing Your Time, Attention, and Energy

“Every minute we spend on something useless is a minute we lose working on something useful.”
― Chris Bailey

“the average knowledge worker opens his or her email program fifty times a day and uses instant messaging seventy-seven times a day.”
― Chris Bailey, The Productivity Project: Proven Ways to Become More Awesome

“The faster we work, the harder it becomes to work deliberately.”
― Chris Bailey

“The happier you are, the more productive you will become.”
― Chris Bailey

“Making the jump between knowing and doing is what productivity is all about.”
― Chris Bailey

“Dear Lord, thank you for being there for my family and providing for them when I can’t or when I feel I’m not doing enough. Help me to remember that as hard as I work to provide, it’s you who is and always will be the ultimate provider. Amen.”
― Chris Bailey, Men's Devotional for Dads: A Year of Prayers, Guidance, and Wisdom