Break the Pattern of "I Should Be Doing More" | Dr. Ellen Langer & Dr. Andrew Huberman

00:00:00.000 | The pattern that I seem to be perpetually in

00:00:04.600 | is one of whatever I'm doing,

00:00:06.200 | unless I'm podcasting or reading a research paper,

00:00:10.140 | that my mind is constantly flitting to the other things

00:00:14.080 | that I think I should be doing.

00:00:15.640 | - Yeah, that's sad.

00:00:16.480 | - It's sad, and it's something I've been working on

00:00:19.160 | for a very long time.

00:00:20.320 | And I'm able to hold my, for lack of a better word,

00:00:22.800 | attention on things to accomplish tasks in my life,

00:00:26.520 | and to be present with people, as it were.

00:00:28.700 | But I thought--

00:00:30.200 | - No, no, no, let's go back a step,

00:00:31.960 | 'cause we both said it was sad.

00:00:33.240 | Why is it sad?

00:00:34.200 | I'm reconsidering, you know,

00:00:36.280 | that to be able to think of five different things

00:00:40.440 | instead of one could be an asset.

00:00:43.960 | - Right, it could be an asset.

00:00:44.980 | I think that, for me, what I realize is

00:00:47.860 | most of the shoulds are just total lies.

00:00:50.240 | - Yeah.

00:00:51.080 | - They don't, and also they don't--

00:00:51.920 | - Exactly, exactly. - They're just lies.

00:00:53.320 | Like, they're not actually coming from a script.

00:00:55.920 | I'm not hearing other people's voices in my head.

00:00:58.560 | Yeah, you should do this.

00:00:59.620 | It's, you know, not parental narrative or anything.

00:01:02.380 | It's just contamination of a useless type.

00:01:07.380 | It's not like listening to the radio.

00:01:11.260 | I used to listen to the radio

00:01:12.180 | while I'd make dinner or something.

00:01:13.540 | And it was so pleasant, right?

00:01:14.700 | You know, hear an evening discussion about the news

00:01:17.260 | or talk show or whatever on the radio while cooking.

00:01:21.180 | And so that kind of quote-unquote distraction

00:01:23.780 | felt really meaningful.

00:01:24.660 | I felt like when I lived alone

00:01:26.500 | that I had other people in the room with me.

00:01:28.020 | This is different.

00:01:29.260 | This is, it feels as if it detracts

00:01:31.640 | from some essence of the behavior that I'm in,

00:01:34.980 | even if the behavior is just getting out of bed

00:01:37.120 | in the morning.

00:01:37.960 | - Wait, so let me be clear.

00:01:39.820 | You get out of bed or start to get out of bed

00:01:42.300 | and you have several thoughts.

00:01:43.740 | - Yep.

00:01:44.580 | - And those thoughts bother you?

00:01:46.200 | Do they prevent you from getting out of bed?

00:01:50.700 | - No, but they feel intrusive.

00:01:52.940 | They don't feel welcome.

00:01:56.740 | Because I know what I'm gonna do each day.

00:01:58.220 | I have a policy for myself of doing one work thing each day,

00:02:02.500 | maybe in one or two blocks.

00:02:03.700 | And I try and really put everything I have into those.

00:02:06.340 | It's kind of a recent evolution

00:02:07.940 | of not trying to do three things in a day.

00:02:10.120 | Maybe it's a function of getting older,

00:02:12.580 | but I get so much more satisfaction

00:02:14.700 | and get truly so much more done

00:02:16.700 | from just doing one thing in my work life each day.

00:02:18.940 | - I don't even understand the one thing idea.

00:02:21.220 | You know, that people talk about multitasking,

00:02:24.980 | which is what you're saying.

00:02:25.900 | And you're better not to multitask,

00:02:28.020 | but you're always multitasking, right?

00:02:30.500 | I mean, I'm moving my hands while I'm talking to you

00:02:33.260 | and I'm sort of thinking and, you know,

00:02:36.380 | fixing my back at the same time.

00:02:38.380 | There are always lots of things going on.

00:02:40.660 | And I think that also tasks, you know,

00:02:45.620 | so let's say you're a kid

00:02:47.220 | and you're doing your social studies homework.

00:02:50.020 | And then you're doing your math homework.

00:02:53.700 | And so, and you go back and forth.

00:02:56.020 | So are you multitasking?

00:02:57.980 | It depends.

00:02:58.820 | If you see yourself as multitasking,

00:03:00.900 | then you're drawing boundaries

00:03:02.420 | between your math and your social studies.

00:03:05.620 | If you see yourself as doing homework,

00:03:08.140 | it's all part of the same thing.

00:03:10.780 | And so there's always a way that the tasks can be grouped

00:03:15.420 | as a single unit, or you can see anything as multitasking.

00:03:19.420 | When you see it as multitasking,

00:03:21.220 | you're suggesting to yourself that

00:03:23.700 | there's going to be some conflict.

00:03:25.700 | There's some reason I'm leaving this to go to this.

00:03:28.500 | Well, maybe I'm running the script backwards.

00:03:32.760 | Let me put it differently.

00:03:35.100 | The level of satisfaction that I feel

00:03:40.020 | from having, say, worked on a chapter of my book

00:03:42.980 | for a couple of hours or even 45 minutes,

00:03:45.820 | or from going for a run without my phone

00:03:49.380 | and just enjoying the run,

00:03:51.380 | it still blows me away

00:03:56.180 | how much I enjoy things

00:03:58.540 | that would fall under the category of simple things

00:04:01.820 | or things that I experience in isolation,

00:04:05.100 | as compared to how little I enjoy

00:04:09.020 | and sometimes reflect on how punishing

00:04:12.460 | quote-unquote multitasking is,

00:04:15.540 | like being in a text conversation

00:04:18.060 | while I'm walking on the beach.

00:04:19.420 | - No, no, but when you're texting while you're on the beach,

00:04:22.100 | probably it's some kind of work text, right?

00:04:26.860 | There's something about it,

00:04:29.020 | and why are you doing it when you're on the beach?

00:04:30.980 | It's not, because I can easily imagine,

00:04:33.500 | oh, I'm on the beach, it's wonderful.

00:04:35.660 | Let me text Andrew and say,

00:04:37.660 | Andrew, you're right, this time on the beach is wonderful.

00:04:40.820 | And texting wouldn't take away from it.

00:04:43.460 | You know, my life is much simpler.

00:04:46.860 | To me, all you have are moments.

00:04:49.660 | That's it.

00:04:50.500 | And if you make the moment matter,

00:04:52.140 | then the moment matters.

00:04:53.220 | And you can't make it matter more.

00:04:55.180 | It matters or it doesn't matter.

00:04:57.540 | And so the question, you know,

00:04:59.500 | when you're lost doing or found, really,

00:05:02.380 | I don't want to say lost when we're writing.

00:05:04.220 | I find myself while I'm writing.

00:05:06.300 | But when you're engaged in an activity,

00:05:09.420 | you know, you're making each of those moments matter,

00:05:13.620 | but, you know, they should matter as much.

00:05:17.660 | I had this thought that I would help people who were stressed

00:05:21.500 | and I would say to them, okay,

00:05:22.860 | so assuming that their vision is reasonable,

00:05:27.100 | just thread a needle.

00:05:28.380 | Threading the needle.

00:05:31.460 | And then I'd ask them how they felt.

00:05:33.780 | And everybody's gonna feel fine

00:05:35.340 | because you're actively engaged and doing something.

00:05:39.980 | You're not engaged in what people call monkey brain

00:05:43.060 | or whatever, worrying about tomorrow,

00:05:45.420 | worrying about, you know, so on.

00:05:48.060 | So to go back to your three things,

00:05:52.620 | you know, it's like the text on the beach

00:05:56.260 | is not an I love you text

00:05:58.980 | 'cause I don't see why that would distract you.

00:06:02.740 | I can imagine being anywhere, doing multiple things

00:06:05.980 | where I'm sharing what I'm doing,

00:06:08.020 | but I'm not seeing them, you know,

00:06:10.420 | oh, I have to do this work thing.

00:06:13.340 | And then the question is why see the work thing that way,

00:06:16.860 | and especially someone like you

00:06:18.980 | where you don't need any of this anymore anyway, you know?

00:06:22.660 | Well, yeah, that's a discussion unto itself.

00:06:24.660 | No, no, no, but no, but it's important, you know,

00:06:27.780 | and so that if it's all fun, it doesn't matter.

00:06:31.380 | I was on this panel in Australia.

00:06:33.940 | Well, first, each of us gave a talk, some big shots,

00:06:36.740 | and then unbeknownst to us, they brought us all out.

00:06:40.020 | And so we're sitting there

00:06:41.620 | and I'm the last one to be asked.

00:06:44.180 | And the question was, what's on your bucket list?

00:06:47.620 | And so the first person answers what's on the next person,

00:06:51.060 | and we get five.

00:06:52.100 | Now it's my turn.

00:06:53.300 | So I've had some time to think about this.

00:06:55.420 | And you know, my first thought, I don't have a bucket list.

00:06:59.060 | But of course, you know that I'm gonna say,

00:07:00.700 | well, it's good not to have a bucket list

00:07:02.340 | or else I'd have a bucket list.

00:07:04.060 | So then I'm able to say why I don't have a bucket list.

00:07:07.540 | You know, if you imagine you're like a glass,

00:07:11.300 | you know, and the water is full or whatever,

00:07:15.100 | you know, vodka in this case, you know,

00:07:17.740 | that it's full, it's full, you can't do more than that.

00:07:20.860 | And so if the moment is meaningful,

00:07:24.020 | you don't have to be writing that book,

00:07:26.460 | being in love, on a vacation in Paris, you know.

00:07:31.460 | And so I think we have all these crazy notions,

00:07:37.340 | even the idea of, and I've talked about this before,

00:07:40.340 | work life balance.

00:07:42.020 | Ooh, that's scary to me.

00:07:44.180 | What that says, you know, what life really means

00:07:47.180 | is some, you know, joy, right?

00:07:50.340 | Other than just being, you know, doing work 24/7

00:07:53.740 | or however long people work, not 24/7.

00:07:56.140 | What is it, three and a half hours?

00:07:59.620 | Anyway, that it suggests that we,

00:08:04.620 | the work that we're doing has to be aversive.

00:08:09.100 | And because it's aversive, the only way to have a good life

00:08:13.300 | is to add this fun time.

00:08:16.140 | And I think that's sad.

00:08:17.940 | I think it's sad that people think life has to be stressful,

00:08:21.940 | that work has to be unpleasant, you know,

00:08:26.060 | that no matter what you're doing,

00:08:28.740 | I believe there's a way of doing it so that it's fun.

00:08:32.540 | (upbeat music)

00:08:35.980 | (upbeat music)

00:08:38.580 | (upbeat music)

Break the Pattern of "I Should Be Doing More" | Dr. Ellen Langer & Dr. Andrew Huberman

Chapters