I Am Performance Expert Charles Duhigg and This Is How I Work

What most of us think of as advice is actually not advice at all. Useless advice, at least. This is perhaps the most important takeaway from my recent interview with bestselling author and productivity expert Charles Duhigg, host of Slate How To! the podcast aims to solve life’s problems one issue at a time. Good advice – powerful, resonant, life-changing advice – has less direction or direction than stories. Stories, Duhigg says, are critical to understanding and internalizing tips to improve your life in any meaningful way. I spoke to the author of The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better Better to celebrate How To!

Name: Charles Duhigg Location: Santa Cruz, California Current talk: Podcast host Current computer: MacBook Air Current mobile device: iPhone 11 A word or phrase that describes how you work: Just get started.

I want to discuss productivity in a context that has not yet been covered in depth in your books, but it will be difficult to avoid, right?

There is actually something interesting that came out of the podcast after writing Smarter Faster Better . I thought I knew a lot about productivity, and this book is out now and I’ll probably get eight to nine thousand letters from readers with questions that have been answered in the books. They asked something about procrastination or something about focus, and the answer was in the book, so I told people, for example, “read chapter three” or “we talked about this in chapter two.” And they said, “Yes, I read this chapter, but it doesn’t work for me.” And I tried to understand why this is so. And what I think I finally figured out – and that’s kind of the essence of How To! a podcast is that if you give someone advice, productivity tips, or any other advice, and it’s not built into the story, then it’s not really advice. Like, we think of it as advice – I’ve read Lifehacker or David Allen’s website – and I think, “Oh, I have to do this completely.” But I think there is something where, if you don’t have a story, if you are told what to do, and they can’t show you what to do, and you see the process of discovering what to do, then the advice just doesn’t matter. ” … t take root in most people’s brains. So, I came to the conclusion that, in essence, the correct way to give advice is to figure out what the correct answer is, and then figure out how to answer in a story that really applies to people’s lives. There is something about watching someone change, or watching someone have a problem, learn from an expert, and then come up with a solution that makes the advice much, much more powerful and really useful.

Can you give an example?

We filmed this episode called ” How To Happily Lose 155 Pounds .” And there was a woman who had gastric bypass surgery and lost 155 pounds. But she was still very unhappy. And we put her in touch with Brittany, the woman from [the movie] Brittany Runs the Marathon , who also lost a lot of weight. Basically, Brittany told her story of what happened after she lost weight. And what Brittany said isn’t terribly new, is it? But she told both the story in a way that is totally relevant. It was like “oh yes, now I understand what it means when you say that you have to love yourself.” It was a really powerful episode.

And we did this other episode, it was with trainer Ryan Reynolds and it was called How To Look Like A Superhero . It was a good episode, but this dude didn’t have a bunch of stories, he basically had like, you know, you have to eat that much protein and that much fat, and here are a couple of exercises to do. And the streak went really, really well, but after that, absolutely no one emailed me to say, “Oh, this advice really helped me lose weight” or “This advice helps me get better.” I think it’s because he had great advice, but he didn’t make history. It was literally just advice. So my main takeaway from this show is that if someone really wants to make a difference in their life, it’s not enough to find the right advice, you need to find the right story that explains how that advice is being implemented.

Has this happened to you personally? Have you recently heard a story that made you understand the advice the way you did before?

Here’s a great example. We shot the episode “How to Sleep”. I think that probably everyone who reads your work knows two things: firstly, we know that we should sleep more – everyone told us that we should sleep at least seven hours a day – and Secondly, we know how to fall asleep because we literally do it our whole life, right? On the periphery, there are small nuances: don’t drink caffeine before bed, don’t eat anything, learn to calm your mind, etc. But then again, none of this is revolutionary, and that’s what I’ve heard for years. … So there is a listener, a psychologist from San Francisco, who says he literally stayed up all night for nine years. He did everything: he is semi-professional in jiu-jitsu, so he trains all the time, he went to therapists, he took medication. He did the best he could. And our expert on the show was Andy Paddicomb, the guy who helped launch [the meditation app] Headspace. And Andy’s story is a very interesting story because he had serious psychological problems and went to India to try and figure it out. So he discovered meditation. And his approach to meditation is that meditation is training to try to let go of things. This is work, not leisure. By the end of this episode, he literally didn’t say a single piece of advice that I hadn’t heard at least two dozen times before, but all of a sudden he was really hooked upon hearing the story. I thought, “Oh no, I meditated wrong.” I tried to relax, clear my brain and focus on my breathing, but that’s not really what this is about. It works. This is practice. You should be able to say, “Here is one thought that bothers me, I would like to drive her into a corner where I can turn away from her.” And it changed the way I fall asleep. Again, he didn’t tell me anything new; he just told me this in the context of a story about himself, and suddenly I could really hear it for the first time.

When creating productivity, is the support system good or just necessary?

Oh, absolutely necessary. We know that. And I think that brings us back to why stories are so important. There are many reasons why this is necessary: ​​getting positive reviews from friends is really important, having someone to keep you informed is really helpful. And so there are reasons why social support in this context would be desirable to have, because it facilitates change. But here’s what I think is a necessity, which is different from what I just mentioned: if you can’t fit your change into the context of the narrative – for example, you started in one place and you tried something, but it didn’t work. ” It worked, and then you tried something else, and it started working, and now you are changing and you are a new person – if you yourself do not see this change, it is very difficult to continue on the path that requires self-control. the discipline that change requires. And this is the only way to see that the story is reflected in the eyes of others. Here’s what’s interesting about storytelling: we can’t tell a story without imagining an audience. Even if this audience is us in five years or a week when we are keeping a diary, the act of storytelling requires a psychological audience. This is where communication becomes an absolute necessity, because in order to create our own story about ourselves, we can only do it in conversation with someone else. And if we don’t have a story about ourselves, we cannot change.

What is your workspace?

I have a coworking office and then I have a home studio where I write podcasts. But, you know, to be honest, I have nothing special. I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the space in which I work. Basically I only need a desk and a computer.

And I love to read things like How I Work, right? I like to see other people say, “My computer is set up like this,” “I have three screens to help me do X, Y, and Z,” and “I need a special background light.” I enjoy reading this, but I don’t think it’s true. I don’t think these are the determinants of productivity. I understand that people will believe that this is a critical factor in their own productivity. And it is certainly good to be in a space in which we feel comfortable. But I really don’t believe anyone is more or less productive because of the way their office looks. I think it’s much more important that they understand what helps them feel in control. And if you have a good office this is worth focusing on, but it really doesn’t matter to me. My office never looks so pretty. It never looks special.

What is the main factor affecting your productivity?

I think the goal here is to find things that make you feel in control of the decisions you make and help you think more deeply. This is the essence of Smarter Faster Better : True productivity lies in thinking more deeply about the choices you make so that you decide to focus on the right things rather than just react.

So, for me, the things that make me feel in control and allow me to think more deeply are number one, I must have a place away from my children and other people. It doesn’t matter what this space looks like, but I don’t want to be in the same house with my children, because they love to make noise and drive me crazy.

Secondly, I like to walk. This is why we moved to Santa Cruz; I do not just walk, but I believe that I can easily walk. This is really very helpful.

And third, for technology to work. For example, last year we lived in Costa Rica for a bit and what confused me was the internet shutdown. Not only because there was no Internet, but also because it seemed out of control. When technology doesn’t work, it completely confuses me.

What problem are you trying to solve?

There are two of them. So the new book I’m about to write is about communication and understanding why we sometimes have communication problems. And one more thing I’m trying to figure out is how you can tell really great stories without wasting time telling so much time.

There are all these great podcasts that come out with about 10 episodes a year. Our podcast comes out weekly, and one of the reasons we do it weekly is because there are many problems and we want to address as many of them as possible. So I want to try to figure out what elements of storytelling and entertainment affect someone’s life – what elements matter more than others? How can you make it faster?

Who else would you like to hear answers to these questions from?

Michael Lewis. I would definitely like to hear how Michael Lewis organizes his time and work for several reasons. A, he is clearly very talented, but B seems to have a very strong opinion on how long something deserves. Like, as soon as he reaches this time limit, he just stops.

Likewise Malcolm Gladwell. I would be very curious how Malcolm arranges his time, he would be really interesting.

The other person might be Jennifer Egan, a writer who I think does an incredibly beautiful job, and I wonder how much time she needs to spend on work, not play, in order to be as creative and impressive as she is.

This interview has been edited for clarity.