Steven Kotler
5 things in productivity Steven uses or recommends, from 1 episode.
Steven's top picks in productivity
What Steven uses or recommends most, ranked by how often and how strongly. Paid ads are left out.
Uses and recommends it · 1 episode
"I always talk about the importance of non-time. I get up and start my writing day about 3:30, 4:00 every day. And one of the reasons is nobody bugs me. Nobody owns 4:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. ... there are days I got to spend an hour or 2 hours on a sentence. And if you're asking me to spend 2 hours on a sentence at 9:00 a.m. in normal business hours... I cannot do it."
Recommends it · 1 episode
"You have an awake and alert cycle. It's the exact same, like this 90 to 110 minutes long. Your brain is biologically designed to focus for 90-minute slots. So I always tell people, when we're training them in flow, start by starting. If you can only focus for 10 minutes at a time, start there... when you start to get better at this, you will find that your brain will naturally move."
Recommends it · 1 episode
"We pay the most attention to the task at hand when the challenge of that task slightly exceeds our skill set. So, you want to stretch but not snap... what we discovered is if you stayed in that sweet spot, you never plateaued. You would get more flow and more flow and more flow, and you made way more progress over the course of a season."
Recommends it · 1 episode
"If you're outside of a bounded discipline, which is pretty much almost everything else other than like musical instruments and a couple other things, deliberate play outperforms deliberate practice significantly... when we play versus when we repeat the same thing with incremental improvement, we get way more neurochemicals... So you asked for one thing that most people can do to increase learning and peak performance: be more playful."
Recommends it · 1 episode
"So, limit communication channels, keep one channel open for emergency. So, like your boss or your wife or whatever. One channel for emergency. Get rid of the others, batch communications. So communications in the morning, the end of the day."
All 5 of Steven's productivity picks
- Non-time (early morning writing) Uses and recommends it "I always talk about the importance of non-time. I get up and start my writing day about 3:30, 4:00 every day. And one of the reasons is nobody bugs me. Nobody owns 4:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. ... there are days I got to spend an hour or 2 hours on a sentence. And if you're asking me to spend 2 hours on a sentence at 9:00 a.m. in normal business hours... I cannot do it." Only Steven
- 90-minute focus blocks Recommends it "You have an awake and alert cycle. It's the exact same, like this 90 to 110 minutes long. Your brain is biologically designed to focus for 90-minute slots. So I always tell people, when we're training them in flow, start by starting. If you can only focus for 10 minutes at a time, start there... when you start to get better at this, you will find that your brain will naturally move." Only Steven
- Challenge-skills balance (4% rule) Recommends it "We pay the most attention to the task at hand when the challenge of that task slightly exceeds our skill set. So, you want to stretch but not snap... what we discovered is if you stayed in that sweet spot, you never plateaued. You would get more flow and more flow and more flow, and you made way more progress over the course of a season." Only Steven
- Deliberate play Recommends it "If you're outside of a bounded discipline, which is pretty much almost everything else other than like musical instruments and a couple other things, deliberate play outperforms deliberate practice significantly... when we play versus when we repeat the same thing with incremental improvement, we get way more neurochemicals... So you asked for one thing that most people can do to increase learning and peak performance: be more playful." Only Steven
- Batching communications Recommends it "So, limit communication channels, keep one channel open for emergency. So, like your boss or your wife or whatever. One channel for emergency. Get rid of the others, batch communications. So communications in the morning, the end of the day." Only Steven