Productivity and Calm (Replay)

Intro: Duration: (04:48)

Opening music jingle & sound effects

Jeff Hunt:

Hey listeners this is Jeff, coming right of the Thanksgiving buzz, I wanted to re-share one of my favorite episodes from 2023. This is one that hits close to home during this hectic time of year, managing stress and staying centered. In this encore I chatted with Chris Bailey who is a best-selling author and productivity expert. We delved into the science of building a more intentional life, connecting the dots between staying calm and being more productive. And Chris breaks down the impact of dopamine on our piece of mind, and shares straight-forward strategies to ease anxiety at home and work leading to a deeper sense of peace, we could definitely all use a little bit more during the holidays. We discuss six factors that often lead to burnout. We explore the idea of dopamine fast, we chat about making wiser decision when juggling our time between the digital and analog worlds. So, if you’re feeling the holiday pressure, have a listen to Chris and myself in this replay episode, uncover some practical tips for a calmer more intentional approach at work and home, and lets navigate the holiday season with a bit more ease, I hope you enjoy.

Jeff Hunt:

Today on the podcast we're gonna talk about reducing stress at work while achieving higher productivity. This concept seems counterintuitive, but my guest will share how peak performance and a sense of calm can live together. For many people, it feels like a fantasy, especially when global events have increased stress so much over the past few years.

Speaking of stress, here are some meaningful statistics about how it's playing out at work. 83% get that 83% of US workers suffer from work-related stress with 25% saying their job is the number one stressor in their lives. Every day, about 1 million people in the US miss work because of stress. 76% of US workers report that workplace stress affects their personal relationships and the main cause of workplace stress is excessive employee workload.

There are many stressors we can't control at work, but there are also several things we can control. When we are intentional, it can lead us to having a better sense of calm on a regular basis. And my guest today, Chris Bailey, is going to help us unpack this concept. Chris is a bestselling author and a lecturer who explores the science behind living a deeper, more intentional life.

I'm excited to talk with Chris about his new book: “How To Calm Your Mind, finding Presence and Productivity in Anxious Times”. Chris has written hundreds of articles and has been on countless media outlets, including The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Ted, Fast Company and life hacker just to name a few.

Chris is also the author of the Productivity Project and Hyperfocus and his books have been published in 35 languages. And Chris hosts a fantastic podcast called Time and Attention, which is streaming on all platforms. So, hop on over and have a listen. He lives in Ottawa, Canada. Welcome Chris!

Chris Bailey:

Good day to you. How are you?

Jeff Hunt:

I'm doing great.

So as we begin the show, I have to ask you, how calm are you feeling right now?

Chris Bailey:

I am pretty calm. I have my green tea next to me here, which is calming in and of itself. It's a lovely cold as hell day here in Ottawa. Snow is falling, we have some freezing rain coming tonight, so I'm getting ready to get cozy tonight, first of all and invest in calm. It's nice.

Topic 1. Who or what inspired you the most along the way? A thumbnail of the guest’s career (04:49)

Jeff Hunt:

Nice. I love the perspective. Chris, I mean, I shared some sad statistics in my intro, and we're gonna get into these because I know you have the antidote. I'm halfway through reading your book, and I love it so far. And by the way, podcast listeners, I'm gonna put it on my books list on the Human Capital Podcast website.

So, if you're looking for it, go there. But before we dive into how we can achieve a better sense of calm, let's start out by having you share a little bit about your career journey and what led you to write this book. You've written a bunch of different books but share a little bit about that.

Chris Bailey:

Yeah, so I've always been most interested in personal productivity and some people have these normal interests like sports, like literature, like music for some odd reason, I've always been obsessed with this idea of becoming as productive as possible each and every day. I can look back well over, well, well over a decade, maybe even two ago picking up a copy of getting things done by David Allen and remembering the feeling that I had integrating those strategies into my life.

That was the book that once I was bit by the productivity bug, I couldn't stop. Cuz we only have so much time every day. And also I'm quite lazy. And so I wanna use what limited time I have every day to my advantage, to accomplish the things that I set out to do to live in a way that's more true to who I am.

And so this idea of intentionality, this idea of making room for productivity in our life, prioritizing productivity, because that saves us time overall and lets us align towards what we find meaningful. This is one I've been really obsessed with over the last probably decade or so that I've been doing this full-time.

And it got to the point where at, at the start of this journey, I was graduating from college, university, with a few full-time job offers cuz I'd worked hard up to that point, but I thought if. Ever a time to experiment with what I'm interested in it was them. So, I declined the jobs a decision that was impossible to explain to relatives, especially older relatives, but essentially to separate out the productivity advice that works from the stuff that doesn't.

And cuz there's a lot of fluff out there. Of course, we need to earn back the time we spend on productivity. And so that led to the first couple of books that you mentioned and kind of talking about this topic in front of an audience, which was something that I do and did often. I noticed that once I got up on stage that it felt as though there were like a dozen marbles in my mouth that my tongue had to dance around.

I noticed beads of sweat starting to form on the back of my neck. I noticed my heart rate escalating, you know, spiking and deconstructing this particular talk after the fact, I was having an anxiety attack on stage on this particular day. Luckily, I'd rehearsed the talk, so I made it through the rest of it on autopilot mode.

But deconstructing this, I realized that I was incredibly anxious in ways that I didn't quite realize. And this led me down this whole other unexpected dare I say rabbit hole, but it ended up being quite a fruitful place in the end of the day. Deconstructing, not productivity, but subjects like burnout, like anxiety, like how calm aids are.

Cognitive performance, which I think is one of the most underrated ingredients and productivity today. Snd yeah, this is not a book that I expected to write, but it's a book that ironically, this journey to greater productivity led me towards, and I'm so grateful that it did.

Topic 2. What does it mean to be calm? The link between calmness and productivity (08:40)

Jeff Hunt:

So before we really get into this, I think people are coming to this place perhaps with different definitions of what Calm actually is. So, can you take a minute just to share what your thoughts are about what calm is?

Chris Bailey:

Well, yeah, that's such a good question because one of the things you quickly realize is when you look at the research on this subject of calm is there is very little on the subject of calm. You can pour over, you know, if you hop on Google Scholar and, and search for calmness or calm.

Serenity, which is kind of tangentially related, but often has a spiritual element to it, which is not what I was go, I was going for the opposite of anxiety. There's not a lot of research out there on calm, but the research that does exist luckily for us, suggests that it's on the same spectrum as anxiety.

And so we think of anxiety as something that is a spectrum that goes from super, super anxious, having a panic attack on stage, responding emotionally reactive to airplane turbulence, whatever it is on this side of the anxiety spectrum, we think of it as a state that goes from high anxiety all the way.

To low anxiety or no anxiety. But the research on calm is quite fascinating in that it shows us that this point of no anxiety actually exists in the middle of the spectrum. And so high anxiety on one side, then we can go down the spectrum past that midpoint of no anxiety all the way down to a.

High state of calmness where we react to our thoughts. We relate to them in a much more positive way and we're much less emotionally reactive to situations as they change around us to our environment, whether that's external or internal. And so, we have some negative self-talk maybe, and maybe we can get back on track quickly.

When we're with a calm state of mind two emergencies arise when we check our email inbox and we can become less reactive and see problems more as puzzles than they are as threats. There are countless examples of how calm aids us, but it's that emotional reactivity component that is so critical in the main variable, as well as how we relate to our thoughts in a positive or a negative way.

Jeff Hunt:

Think so many people confuse the state of calm as being one where you cannot be productive so that those two can't live in the same space, and that's not the case, is it?

Chris Bailey:

No, and that's the fascinating thing to me. I was investing in calm, first of all, as just kind of an antidote to the anxiety that I was experiencing at the time, purely for that reason. But it was surprising looking at the actual research on how calm and anxiety influence our cognitive performance.

It's really quite remarkable. So let's. You have to give a presentation to 10,000 people live in five minutes from now. So, you have nothing else in your mind. You're in this anxious state, and I asked you in this anxious state of mind to multiply, I don't know, 84 by 62 in your head.

It would probably take you two, three times as long to multiply those numbers when you're in that anxious state of mind. Think about airplane turbulence. You know the example I mentioned a little bit ago. Let's say you're reading a book or watching a movie or reading some report, and then the airplane near in hits this heavy pocket of turbulence.

Good luck maintaining your focus in a condition like that. You'll probably have to rewind the movie. You'll have to go back in the passage you're reading. You'll have to scrub backwards because that anxiety will essentially wipe your working memory clean of anything productive, invaluable, that is related to what you intend to be accomplishing in that moment.

And I'm of the mind that productivity is all about intentionality. And so, it's in this way that anxiety pulls us away from our intentions because of how cognitively expensive it is. And there, there have been studies that have looked at just the extent to which our working memory capacity shrinks in response to a stressful situation.

And the moderately minor sources of stress reduce our cognitive capacity by 20 to 25%. Which might not sound like a lot, but if you work nine to five, your work takes 20, 25% longer, and so now you're working nine to seven or if you want to contain the work in the nine to five. You're working evenings, you're working weekends, you're taking fewer vacations.

And so, you know, we feel less busy when our mind is calm and we're terrible at measuring how productive we are usually because we look at proxy measures like our busyness, like how exhausted we are at the end of the day, like how many emails we have left in our inbox without really looking to how much we actually accomplish what's different in our life, in our work, because we lived a day of our life.

A, that's what productivity is about, but B, calm helps us get there because of how cognitively expensive anxiety is. And that's not only to mention the working memory component of how anxiety affects cognitive performance. We have more negative self-talk. We pay more mind to threats. So when we get a hundred emails and one of them is negative, we think about that negative one more than the other a hundred combined.

And so you add up all these factors and our work takes longer, calm, saves us time. And I think that's such a critical thing to communicate because this almost absolves us of the guilt that we experience when we invest in calm. Cuz we feel like we're acting in a way that's selfish. You know?

Because we're investing in our positive state of mind. We're relaxing, we're actually resting our mind, but you know, I love to make the argument that this saves us time. When you look at the research, it really truly does bear out.

Jeff Hunt:

Well, and I love your examples because there are examples of things like airplane turbulence or the car that cuts you off or and almost causes an accident. These uncontrollable events happen in our lives, but there's also a very large segment of things that we can control with intention, and we can be the cause of some of this anxiety and this stress, and prevent ourselves from truly achieving a state of calm, isn't that right?

Chris Bailey:

Yeah. And this was one of the most remarkable kind of ideas is we tend to pay attention to a lot of stress by choice. And so, we choose to engage with things that we find stressful, which, you know, chronic stress, when we face it repeatedly, it makes us more likely to burn out. Burnout is the ultimate manifestation of chronic stress.

When chronic stress is threatening. It also leads us to anxiety. And so we have that kind of double-edged sword there. But it's fascinating how much hidden stress there is in our life. The news is a really good example of this actually. There is a study that I referenced in the book about the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings.

And a team of researchers looked at two groups of people. The first group of people were those who were runners in the actual marathon, and the second group of people were those who watched six or more hours of news coverage about the Boston Marathon bombings and what the researchers found. Was that those who watched the news coverage experienced a greater level of stress than somebody who's in the marathon and personally affected by it.

And I find this study sad, illuminating, fascinating, a whole bunch of things all at once because we replaced Boston Marathon bombings with Covid News, with, you know, pick your poison these days. It adds to the chronic stress that we face and ironically robs us of the mental resources that we need to be able to mobilize to deal with the news that actually affects our life in the first place, and to make a positive difference in the world because of issues like these arising.

So the news is a big example. One thing, I describe in the book subscribing to the physical newspaper. I think I'm the only person my age in Ottawa that gets the physical newspaper, but I love it. It's my favorite subscription service. Somebody essentially summed up everything happening in my city, in my province, in my country, around the world, in a daily briefing, printed it off and dropped it off on my doorstep.

It's a bit old, of course, the news, it doesn't refresh every two to five minutes, but we usually don't, or at least I don't have a job where I need to be responsive to world events as they change every two to five minutes. Yet, that's what the news leads us to crave and pay attention to. Social media, of course, is another great example of stress that we choose to pay attention to.

Our comparison mind is activated. And when we see other people doing better than we are, whether that's more fit, whether that's richer, whatever currency in your life that you're choosing to compare yourself against somebody on, we feel threatened. That's a source of stress that's hidden because it's so familiar.

There comes a point where stress becomes familiar and comfortable at the same time. And so social media is fascinated. One quote that comes to mind was from Francis Hogan the Facebook whistleblower, in her congressional testimony, she said that basically the Instagram algorithm is about two things.

Bodies and comparing lifestyles, and it's fascinating because, think of two things more basil and comparative than bodies and lifestyles. It's hard to come up with something and so it's really, really interesting that, under this umbrella of chronic stress, we have the stress that we can't control as you were mentioning.

We have the financial concerns, we have economic concerns, we have daily traffic that we face on our way to work. We have arguments, we have toxic relations, you know, things that we can't do much about sometimes. Layered on top of that amount of stress is this layer of stress that's hidden within the depths of our life.

And because things like anxiety, because things like burnout are the ultimate manifestation of this chronic stress, that's kind of the low hanging fruit that we can do things about immediately with the news, with social media, with hidden stress.

Topic 3. Dopamine fasting, strategies to deal with dopamine at the workplace (19:55)

Jeff Hunt:

That's such a great reminder. And also in your book you talk about this in the framework of the analog and the digital world, which I really love, and you also share about. The impact of dopamine this this incredible brain neurochemical that's often misunderstood. And I think you even mentioned that you took a dopamine fast in the book. Maybe you could share a little bit about, for listeners that are coming at this, especially from a workplace perspective, because technology is pervasive at work and we have to use it and it has incredible benefits, but yet it can also lead to burnout or it can lead to additional stress. And so what are some strategies for leaders and what have you done personally?

Chris Bailey:

Yeah, for sure. Well, dopamine is fascinating in and of itself, and it's very misunderstood when you compare the research that's been done on the neurochemical with the current sort of understanding that we have, and at least that I had going into this calm project. Because we think of dopamine as, oh, that's the chemical of distraction or the happiness chemical and you know, there's a lot of kind of misconceptions surrounding it.

Dopamine is really a chemical of anticipation. And so when we experienced dopamine, we feel as though pleasure is right around the corner and we just need to turn this corner to arrive at it. And so, it's really this anticipation that propels us forward and we get a hit of dopamine whenever we tend to something novel in our environment.

In fact, there's a, something called a novelty bias that's embedded within the logical part of our mind, the prefrontal cortex by which for every new and novel thing we direct our attention at, we get rewarded with the hit of dopamine. So we wake up, we check Instagram, we get a hit of dopamine, 40 seconds after that, maybe a minute after that.

We check Twitter, we get another hit of dopamine. We then go to the news because that refreshed in the last two to five minutes, we get another hit of dopamine. We check email, we get another hit of dopamine. And so it's this chemical that propels us forward into distraction. But it isn't all bad actually.

It gets a bad rap, but we need dopamine to, to function on a biological level. We get a rush of it when we do work that's creative, when we do work that is logical. And so it's more of a matter of eliminating the dopamine in our life that is the most stimulating where we engage with it because of that dopamine hit itself, not because we feel connected with other people through, you know, a chemical such as oxytocin or because we're creating something we're proud of because of a chemical like serotonin.

It's the novelty that we can't seem to resist in the moment. And so, one of lowering our level of novelty in our life is a dopamine fast, which I think of as a stimulation fast, because if we fast it completely well, it's, it's impossible, our body needs dopamine to, to breathe, to function.

But essentially the experiment is you pick a period of time. I like doing this for about a month, and you eliminate the most stimulating parts of your life that are just those empty sources of dopamine. And so that's the hidden stress layer. That's social media, that's digital news, that's any you know, novelty that you tend to online, that stable of apps.

If you have those five or six websites or apps that you bounce around when you're looking for a hit of dopamine to, to boost the stimulation level of your mind. You cut it out, and then you, you make a list of substitute activities, which is where the analog world comes in and where it should come in my opinion.

And so, this part is critical and it's the most fun because there will be a lot more free time in your day during this experiment. Because you're gonna get rid of this layer of unnecessary busyness in your life. We spend on average of over an hour a day on social media. You'll get that time as well as the news time, as well as all these other pieces of time scattered throughout the day.

And so, make a list of things that you wanna substitute in. I love playing the piano, so that was on my list. I love reading hardcover books. Connecting with friends, playing board games, walks of brown town outside winter runs, you know, whatever's on your list and call from the substitute list when you find yourself with a bit of time to spare because you will.

And over the course of the experiment, you'll probably find the first few days quite frustrating as I did. After that though, you'll clear a bend. And this is where the beauty of the experiment comes in. You'll find this effortless presence and focus with whatever it is that you plan to do.

And you'll also find that sense of calm and I started to think about the analog and the digital worlds quite differently after embarking on this project. We need both. And I love the digital world. It adds a lot of features and efficiency to my life, but it also has a lot of drawbacks. And so the rule that I like to follow, and it's a general rule, take what works for you, leave the rest as with all advice.

But when I want something to be meaningful, I'll do it the analog way and when I want something to be efficient, I'll do it the digital way. And it's a simple dividing line, but it's one that I've found makes me more productive and leads to more meaning at at the same time.

Jeff Hunt:

Such a great illustration for us, and it's making me realize that your strategies that you're recommending in the analog world are really bringing us into the present?

Chris Bailey:

Yeah.

Jeff Hunt:

I was thinking about, my wife and I were recently at the San Francisco Botanical Gardens. It's a beautiful place to walk through, and I was absolutely struck by the number of people that still had their iPhones out and were scrolling even as they were walking through this incredible place.

And so, going back to your original comment about the regrets, the dying, and you know, are we gonna have regrets that we were scrolling through our mobile devices as we're walking through the botanical garden? I think we will, if we put the device in our pocket or we leave it in the car, which is maybe even a bigger stretch for some people. But leaving it in the car removes you from that digital temptation, and then literally walking through the gardens, you will experience things that you wouldn't otherwise, right?

Chris Bailey:

Yeah. Oh, it's so true and this is something that I found looking back at my own memories, is how few of the things I've done on my phone actually mattered.

And how often I lost control of my behavior using the device and how infrequently I felt happy and elated using the device. And I think we all need to confront this truth, that technology is a mixed bag when it comes to productivity, when it comes to meeting.

Over time because of this dopamine that hijacks our, our brain, especially through novelty. We find it very difficult to resist whatever's novel in the moment. It's in fact, our responsibility to clean up the mess that we find ourselves in. And I found the stimulation fast idea to be a bit gimmicky at the start.

I resisted doing it for that reason, but I truly haven't really found anything better for de stimulating our mind. Meditation is up there, but substituting slow activities for the meaningless fast ones has been some of the best progress I've, I've personally made in finding calm.

Topic 4. How to measure a day in our life? Making decisions around technology (28:03)

Jeff Hunt:

And one of the questions you have in your book that is related to this that I love is how do you determine whether a day of your life went well? And it feels like if we're gonna answer that question well. It becomes easier to make some of these decisions around how we use technology, right?

Chris Bailey:

Yeah. Oh, completely. Yeah. And we tend to, we all have different values, of course, which is one of the beautiful things that, that makes us human. Some of us care about self-direction. Some of us care about tradition. Others of us care about benevolence. We ha we have these universal values that we all kind of have in varying amounts, which I find fascinating.

But when we look at how we measure a day of our life or reflect on whether it went well it's interesting to me how we tend to assume the default values of the culture that we find ourselves in. Especially traditional measures of success like accomplishment, like achievement, like anything involving the pursuit of more. More money, more recognition, more fame, more followers, more, more, more and we have this, this architecture of the values that comprise society where more is really ingrained in that.

And I think that's also kind of a mixed bag. We evolved to survive through today because of that striving for more because we value progress. But it's that idea between enjoy in the moment, like you were saying and making progress. How do we strike a balance between the two? Between striving and savoring?

You know, we tend to strive, strive, strive, and never truly enjoy what we're doing in the moment. In fact one of the most fascinating research fields I had the opportunity to encounter in writing the book is that field of savoring. And so savoring is a word that a lot of us have heard, obviously, but there's actually a science behind how we can enjoy our life more fully as well as everyday experiences more fully.

So, you know, I'm drinking a cup of jasmine tea here while we chat today. This could be the most delicious cup of Jasmine tea that has ever been created in the history of the world. And there's a chance, even if that's the case, that I could derive zero satisfaction from the cup whatsoever if I'm not paying attention to it.

If I'm not ruminating on how delicious it is a whole host of factors can get in the way. And so savoring is this process of converting a positive experience into a set of positive emotions. And research shows it's a skill that we can get better at. Wealthier people find it more challenging to savor everyday experiences.

In fact, as an experiment, you know, if you ask the well-off people, you know, what in life do you savor? And then you ask that same question of people who are considered less well-off by traditional measures of success, the people who are less well-off will probably come up with more things that they enjoy in their life, than somebody who is doing objectively well by the measures that we usually use.

And there are countless ways to practice this skill. We can get better at this skill over time. We can marvel at the ocean or the stars or a beautiful panorama. We can luxuriate in an experience by, you know, think of a cat lying in the sun.

We can relate to a positive experience in that same way we can practice gratitude, which is also a form of savoring. We can savor the past by reminiscing on it. Then it counts as savoring cuz we do it in the here and now. You know, looking through old photos, we can savor the future by practicing anticipation.

So, counting down the days to an event or a concert or a trip or researching things that are upcoming. Maybe something that we're saving up. Reading reviews on it about a set of headphones or whatever it is that we intend to buy, so there are countless ways we can convert positive experiences into positive emotions.

It's a skill that we can get better at, and it counterbalances that, that constant striving that we tend to overinvest in which. Productivity is great, but we have to set it aside or else everything feels like work or else everything we do becomes some means to an end instead of something to enjoy in and of itself.

And that's where savoring comes in. And ironically, we find greater calm when we savor, we activate what is called our brains here and now network. Which leads us to practices, skill of presence. We become more focused, happier, and ultimately more productive. And so, yeah, it's a fascinating process.

Topic 5. The six main factors that lead to burnout (33:01)

Jeff Hunt:

Yeah, and I think of it in the context of work and our jobs, and we do have the ability to savor certain things at work. We do have the ability to be productive and achieve values-based goals together, and we do have the ability to show up and be engaged with one another and appreciate things like relationship and who I connected with today at work, isn’t that the case?

Chris Bailey:

Oh completely. And here's the fascinating thing, and you know I mentioned burnout briefly. And the interesting thing about burnout is there are six main factors of our work that cause burnout. And just as calm is on a spectrum with anxiety and high anxiety on one end, calm, high, calmness on the other.

Burnout is on a spectrum with engagement. And so, on one end we're burnt out, we're exhausted. We feel cynical, we feel unproductive. Those are the three core attributes of what it means to be burntout. But we can move from that burnout point to that engagement side of the spectrum where instead of feeling unproductive, we feel like we're making a big difference.

Instead of feeling cynical, we feel as though there's a light behind what we do, and instead of feeling exhausted and just totally depleted. We feel fired up. We feel good to go. We feel ready. The thing about burnout is there are those six things that cause it, and you mentioned community. Community is one of the factors.

The more closely we can relate to the people that we work alongside, the more engaged we are, the less burnt out we are. Values is indeed another factor when we feel as though we can manifest what we truly value through the work that we do. That is the process through which meaning is made in any context of our life.

It's that manifestation of values. So that's a critical factor too. Fairness is another factor of this six. So how fairly we're treated at our workplace. You mentioned workload. I think in the introduction for the episode pretty early on. Decreasing our workload level if we're feeling burnt out, that's the most common intervention that is recommended.

And the more our workload eclipses our capacity to get it all done. The more stress we experience from work, the more exhausted, cynical, unproductive we feel, the more likely we are to burnout. Control is another one. So how much control we have over when, where, how we work on things. And insufficient reward is another burnout factor.

So, this is financial reward, but this is also social reward, it's being recognized for the contributions that we make. And so, this burnout idea and this engagement idea, the opposite of burnout to spin it in a positive light, the more we invest in having a manageable workload, the more productive we become, we feel we can tackle it all.

The more control that we can find and fight for, and the more autonomy we have, the more engaged we become. The more fairly we're rewarded, the more community we have, the greater fairness we have in general, as well as value alignment. We have the more engaged we become as well. But it's interesting how the chronic stress that we face from work tends to come from these six places that produce this feeling of burnout but can lead to engagement as well.

Jeff Hunt:

So just to recap on the burnout, it's workload, lack of control, insufficient reward, it's community, it's fairness and it's values. And if you look at those six, it's almost as if, if somebody is feeling burned out, it could be helpful for them to take an inventory on each of those six and figure out which one of those are within their control, which aren't, and then see if they can affect some change, right?

Chris Bailey:

A hundred percent. Yeah. One activity that I'd like to recommend is just rank these out of 10 rank how much chronic stress you feel you experience from each of these six dimensions. And if you're anything like me when I burnt out a few years ago, not every factor is out of whack for me, especially during the pandemic, right?

The level of stress we face because of a lack of community goes up. The level of workload that we have goes up because our work takes longer. Working with an anxious mind. And so just ranking how well you feel on each out of 10 works really, really well for keeping tabs on that. And you can chart it over time too.

I don't. Make this calculation every week or every month. I make it probably about four times a year every quarter. So as the different elements of my work shift around, and it's a good way to keep tabs of how much stress you face and how productive you are too, because of how burnout detracts from productivity, just as anxiety does.

Jeff Hunt:

Also recognizing that burnout can be associated with a bad culture at work or some sort of a systematic dysfunction that is happening at work. And so if that's the case and there is no light at the end of the tunnel, then maybe it's time to make a move, right?

Chris Bailey:

Oh, a hundred percent. And you'll probably be more productive somewhere else. When we're naturally motivated by the work we do it, it's not as much of a, a chore to be productive and make a contribution. And if you're in a management position as well, and I know a lot of managers listen to this show as well these are the six levers that you can apply pressure to, to make your team happier, less burnt out, more engaged.

And burnout is such a severe outcome for an employee, not just for their own mental health, but also for the health of the team overall because of how contagious these conditions are, and how it's indicative of something that's deeper and more structural. And so, you know, I hate to make it about a mental health idea about productivity, but from a pure cold calculative perspective, it's worth investing in overcoming the stress from these six factors, not just for you, but for your team as well.

Topic 6. Lighting round questions (39:14)

Jeff Hunt:

No question. Okay. Chris, you ready for the lightning round?

Chris Bailey:

Oh yeah, that sounds fun.

Jeff Hunt:

All right, let's go.

Chris Bailey:

Tea is just kicking in. I'm good to go.

Jeff Hunt:

My first question for you is what are you most grateful for?

Chris Bailey:

Oh, the people in my life. People is what everything is about. It's why I do everything. It's my biggest source of meaning, especially Arden. Shout out to Arden again.

Jeff Hunt:

What's the most difficult leadership lesson you've learned over your career?

Chris Bailey:

The importance of training and not expecting innate knowledge of things that I am aware of, that I expect other people to be. I guess stepping outside of my own biases and skills and realizing that not everybody thinks and acts and knows the same things that I do.

Jeff Hunt:

Who's one person you would interview if you could living or not?

Chris Bailey:

I would, I find Barack Obama fascinating. I would love to know more about how he thinks and what he's doing now. What is he doing now? I don't know. I'd love to know. I'll ask him. Maybe. Probably not.

Jeff Hunt:

What's a top book recommendation other than the books that you've written? Cuz you've written some great books, but what have you read recently that has been a good read?

Chris Bailey:

Good question. I'll have to look around here. I would say, you know what I'm gonna say, getting things done. Yeah I don't see it behind me on the bookshelf. But it's the book that got me inspired to explore productivity. It's a bit dry, so do know that going in. But I loved it and I think, it's considered the productivity bible by a lot of people and yeah, I'd recommend it.

Jeff Hunt:

And what's the best piece of advice you've ever received?

Chris Bailey:

That happiness is nothing more than coming to terms with how things change.

Jeff Hunt:

Wow. Can you say that again?

Chris Bailey:

Yes, that that happiness is nothing more than coming to terms with how things change.

Jeff Hunt:

I love that. Thinking back on our talk, which is much too short, like we could go on for another hour, what's the most important takeaway to leave our listeners with today?

Chris Bailey:

Oh there's so much. Can I give three really quick ones? Know the six burnout factors. If you're feeling any combination of exhausted, cynical, unproductive, mind those for you and for your team. Savor things. Find something to savor today. Whether it's a cup of coffee, whether it's a conversation, just an experience that you can sink deeply into, make a saver list.

If you find that's a tactic that connects with you. And mind your accomplishments, not your busyness. Busyness is so, especially when it's connected to anxiety. Busyness is often no different from an active form of laziness when it doesn't lead us to accomplish something of importance that we intended to do.

And so, I think realigning our focus around our productivity, around intention around accomplishment rather than busyness and moving kind of deck chairs around. I think anything we can do to move in that direction is extraordinarily helpful.

Jeff Hunt:

Great advice for a more meaningful life. So, thank you Chris, so much for coming on the podcast today.

Chris Bailey:

Good to be here. Great to meet you and thank you for having me!

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Outro(42:16)

Closing music jingle/sound effects

Jeff Hunt:

Thanks for listening to Human Capital. If you like this show, please tell your friends and also take the time to go rate and review us. Human Capital is a production of Goalspan, your integrated source for performance management. Now go out and be the inspiration to other humans. And thank you for being humankind.