The Most Important Principles Of Productivity - Chris Bailey - #453

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Hello, friends, welcome back to the show. My guest today is Chris Bailey. He's a productivity consultant, researcher and a best-selling author. The world of productivity is messy. Overwhelming volumes of information and contradictory advice doesn't make it any simpler. I brought Chris on to explain the most important core principles that research-based studies and real world practice says contribute to better productivity. Expect to learn why time, attention and energy are your fundamental resources, how to maximize your deliberate-ness, why starting the day with a specified intention can change the way you work, Chris' nerdy advice for making green tea, why there's a tension between creativity and productivity, and much more. This is the direction that I think a lot of productivity advice is going to go in. For the last 10 to 20 years, maybe we've had hacks and sort of meme-ified strategies as the primary thrust of productivity advice, and now we're getting back to the minimum viable product. What is it, the minimum viable productivity? What does it mean to be able to get to your goals? How do you define your goals and how do you get rid of everything else that gets in the way? I really appreciate the fact that Chris is focusing on the research and real-world application and just making it easy. You know, compliance is the most important thing when it comes to any sort of strategy or implementation. So yes, I hope that you take lots away from today. But now, please give it up for Chris Bailey.
Chris Bailey, welcome to the show.

**Chris Bailey** (1:51)
Chris, yourself, how are you?

**Chris Williamson** (1:53)
I'm good. Tell me about what you're drinking.

**Chris Bailey** (1:55)
I am drinking a lovely green tea. I have cut out coffee from my repertoire, and I feel calm, I feel focused. It's the L-theanine, isn't it?

**Chris Williamson** (2:07)
I haven't had caffeine for 400 and something, 450 days or so now.

**Chris Bailey** (2:13)
How do you find it affects you?

**Chris Williamson** (2:15)
So I wanted to see what would happen if I cut it out at the start of 2021 And I didn't really notice any withdrawals, none of the headaches. A lot of people talk about you getting headaches and stuff. I would say a moderate user. So one coffee in the morning, maybe a Nocco, which is about 120 migs or 150 migs during the middle of the day. And then that would be it. So what's that? Probably about 200 throughout the day-ish, something like that. So I'd say that's probably a moderate amount.
Stopped, no headaches, no withdrawals. Did notice that I had a craving for it, but my energy levels didn't really seem to change all that much. Now, over the last year and a half, I've been stealth caffeineed a couple of times. You think that you're getting diet coke on the gun in post-mix that doesn't have caffeine, and it's come from a bottle that does have caffeine, and you get, whatever, 20 milligrams of caffeine. So I've been stealth caffeine, but purposeful caffeination hasn't happened. Sleep's better, energy levels are more consistent, but performance in the gym is a little bit difficult to get to, and the high that you get if you have a nice coffee halfway through the morning and you put some good tunes on for...

**Chris Bailey** (3:32)
The buzz.

**Chris Williamson** (3:32)
Yeah, that's something that I miss the most. So I think I'm gonna take it to 500 days, do a little report about an experiment, like this is, I quit caffeine for 500 days, this is what I found was good, this is what I thought was bad, here's some results or whatever. But you are a green tea fiend. I heard you talking about the fact that you shouldn't do it at 100 degrees Celsius as well.

**Chris Bailey** (3:53)
Oh, yes, absolutely not. That is sacrilegious to green tea. People think they don't like green tea. People think green tea tastes burnt and sour because they order it at a restaurant. first of all, half the people who serve at a restaurant, they don't even know green tea has caffeine in it.
Speaking of stealth caffeine, there's caffeine lurking in decaf coffee too. You know, Starbucks decaf has like 40 milligrams of caffeine. I think their espresso has a ton as well, but I love the calming effect of green tea. It has that L-theanine. And so even if you drink a coffee, I really recommend stacking that coffee with L-theanine, the L-theanine pills, which are, you can buy them anywhere pretty much. And it dampens the adrenaline response to the caffeine consumption, because caffeine increases, or coffee increases cortisol levels about 200% and adrenaline levels about 200%, but that L-theanine blunts the effects of that. And it's beautiful. So you get the presence that caffeine can cultivate with what you're doing. You can zero in on what you're doing in the moment, too. But you don't have that anxiety. You don't have that stress response. There's even a disorder called the caffeine-induced anxiety disorder, or caffeine-ism. And so if you find yourself anxious after consuming some coffee, anxiety puts a damper on productivity, puts a damper on focus, because it narrows our attentional capacity. It shrinks how much attention we have to give to whatever is in front of us in the moment. And if you find that, so it's kind of this balance, isn't it? That the increased narrow focus versus the increased anxiety, which can shrink how much attention we have to give to whatever is in front of us in the moment. So that's why I love green tea. I find it gives the presence, it gives the energy, but the L-theanine and it gives the calm as well, that that crushes that caffeine related stress response. So that's why I'm a big fan of it. I, you know, I drank a cup of coffee every once in a while for the buzz, like you were saying. But besides that, I'm good. I'm good with my green tea.