Podcasts about two awesome hours

Today's episode is not so much about starting a business, but a glimpse into the neuroscience of influence and the power of Neurolinguistic Programming. My guest is Dr. Josh Davis, PhD in psychology and neuroscience from Columbia University. He's the international bestselling author of Two Awesome Hours and an upcoming title The Difference that Makes the Difference.Josh is the founder of the Science-Based Leadership Institute, a sought-after keynote speaker, and his writing has appeared in Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Psychology Today, Inc., and more.In this interview, explore the fascinating world of Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP)—what it is, how it can help us connect, communicate more effectively, lead with greater empathy, and shift self-limiting beliefs.Subscribe on Apple Podcast , Spotify or YouTube.Let's connect!Subscribe to my newsletter: Time To Live: Thriving in Business and BeyondWebsite: https://www.annemcginty.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annemcgintyInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/annemcgintyhost

In this episode of Beltway Broadcast, your Metro DC Chapter of ATD hosts Josh Davis. Josh is the author of the international bestseller, Two Awesome Hours, which has been translated into 10 languages. He was a professor in the Psychology Department at Barnard College of Columbia University, and has taught courses or regularly guest lectured at NYU, Columbia University, Columbia Business School, and UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. In this episode, Josh shares science-based strategies to get the most important work done and explains how to create conditions for two awesome hours of peak productivity per day. If you'd like to learn more about Josh, visit his website. For more info about the Metro DC Chapter of ATD, visit DCATD.org.  Episode Credits: Series Announcer: Julie Waters Hosts: Christina Eanes, Stephanie Hubka, and Halyna Hodges

Today's Heroic +1 features wisdom from Kevin Kruse's "15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management". See the full +1 here: https://www.heroic.us/optimize/plus-one/15-secrets-of-time-management Get more wisdom in less time with a Heroic membership. Get started for FREE today: http://heroic.us Ready to actualize your Heroic potential? Join 12,500+ Heroes from 110+ Countries by becoming a certified Heroic Coach: https://heroic.us/coach About Heroic: Heroic integrates ancient wisdom, modern science, and practical tools into a beautifully-designed app to help activate your best. Premium Heroic members have access to 600+ of the absolute greatest personal development books distilled into 25-min PhilosophersNotes and 50+ hour-long masterclasses on all areas of a flourishing life. #timemanagement #productivity #creativity #wisdom #morewisdominlesstime #personaldevelopment #heroic

On episode 80 of Outside The Studio: A spa day and face mask does wonders for the body, but what can we do to help rejuvenate our careers? Minda Zetlin and Tessa talk about what it means to have self care and boundaries in our jobs, the problems with most workplaces today, and how we can keep our brain health in top shape. Minda Zetlin is the author of Career Self-Care and writes the highly popular 'Laid-Back Leader' column for Inc.com. Her articles and workshops offer research-backed advice to help ambitious people get the most out of their careers and their lives. Timestamps: (00:00) Who is Minda? (00:50) What is self care? (03:00) How do we set limits for ourselves in the workplace? (10:30) Examples of self care (12:20) Taking breaks make us more efficient (18:15) The dirty little secret to success (24:30) Power journaling (31:05) I hate my job, what do I do? (35:15) What"s wrong with most workplaces today (37:45) Final thoughts Key Takeaways 1. Self care in a career is all the things that make us feel, as Minda puts it, “Happy, healthy, and at ease.” Examples of self care would be taking necessary breaks, getting plenty of sleep, brisk exercise, and keeping our brain health a top priority, so that we may be healthy as humans, but also put out higher quality work. 2. There is no dirty little secret to success; there is no destination in which we say, “Welp, I finally made it!” Success is here, it is now, and where we are needs to be celebrated and feel good because that future success isn"t going to happen. 3. Power journaling is where you write down everything you feel and need or want to do such as ambitions and goals. It"s like a blend of traditional journaling, bullet journaling and a planner, but doesn"t need to look like anything specific. Whatever the form like doodles or a video camera that you talk to, the point is to examine your thoughts. 4. The main issue with workplaces is that they do not want to acknowledge that we are human beings, period. We have moods and we have needs that, when they aren"t met, will have consequences. Our feelings need to be taken into consideration because sometimes we argue and sometimes we goof around. The idea of not bringing your outside problems to work isn"t realistic as those issues we have are a part of us. If the workplace expects us to be all in, the workplace needs to accept and support us for all that we are, because we can not be expected to revolve around our jobs. Two Awesome Hours by Josh Davis: https://www.amazon.com/Two-Awesome-Hours-Science-Based-Strategies/dp/0062326120 Connect with Minda Zetlin Website: https://mindazetlin.wordpress.com/ Book: https://mindazetlin.wordpress.com/about/ Email: minda@mindazetlin.com Connect with Tessa TovarWebsite: https://tessatovar.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tessamarietovar/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tessa-tovar-baa27613 Twitter: https://twitter.com/TBenedicktus

Overwhelmed? Not getting the work that matters the most done? Efficiency, multitasking and all your fancy apps and devices won't help. The answer is two awesome hours a day of peak productivity. It's hard to find someone who doesn't feel overwhelmed with work and life demands. Most of us respond to our out - of control to - do lists by focusing on how to be more efficient. According to Josh Davis, a NeuroCoach and director of research at the NeuroLeadership Institute, we're barking up the wrong tree. Efficiency works for computers - but not for people. The answer is not to cram more hours in the day and get more done faster but rather to create the conditions for two awesome hours of peak productivity. We are capable of impressive feats of comprehension, motivation, thinking and performance when our brain and biological systems are functioning optimally. Two Awesome Hours will show you how to stay on top of your mental game.

Feeling overwhelmed with work and life demands? Rushing, multitasking, or relying on fancy devices and apps won't help. The answer is to create the conditions for two awesome hours of peak productivity per day. This episode is from my Podcast : NZR وجهة Season 2 is all about : كتب مش فلمناهج To get notified of new episodes' video version, subscribe to my YouTube Channel here : https://www.youtube.com/c/NevineZaherRostomeNRich & for the audio version, subscribe to your choice of Podcast platform here : https://anchor.fm/nevinezaherrostom To join eNRich© Clubs , learn more here : https://nevinezaherrostom.com/clubs

Feeling overwhelmed with work and life demands? Rushing, multitasking, or relying on fancy devices and apps won't help. The answer is to create the conditions for two awesome hours of peak productivity per day.

Listen to Dr. Josh Davis (Columbia Psychology/Neuroscience Ph.D., Author of Two Awesome Hours) in conversation with Prof. Hitendra Wadhwa, exclusively on Intersections. They share practical insights on how to manage the many demands on your time so you can do your best work in these pandemic times. You will discover practical insights from neuroscience, C-suite experiences, and studies of great leaders on how you can consistently do your best work and avoid common time-wasting-traps.

Today, we are delighted to have a conversation with Janet Sperstad, another icon in our industry. Janet has had a huge impact on the entire meetings and events industry. She is very knowledgeable about neuroscience, and she is currently involved in academia, teaching our future colleagues in the Meetings and Events Industry.   Janet is joining us today to talk about the way our brains work, risk and reward, optimizing the way you perform, and the importance of being authentic.  About Janet Janet is all about driving excellence in meeting and event management execution and education. She has dedicated her career to defining the competencies and career pathways that communicate meeting planning as a discipline that requires skills in the social and cognitive sciences, as well as in executive leadership. Janet is currently serving as Faculty Director at Madison College in Wisconsin, where she created the very first Associate Degree in Meeting and Event Management in the US. She was also instrumental in developing a graduate program in meeting management through the Copenhagen Business School. Janet has made several important contributions to the industry, and her voluntary service includes some high-profile leadership roles that have had an impact on the Meetings and Events Industry as a whole. She has served as Chair of the CMP Governance Commission, Member of IAEE Faculty and Education Committees, and as a member of the PCMA Convening Leaders Content Committee. And, in 2016, she was named Changemaker, and one of the 25 Most Influential People in the Meetings Industry. Gaining recognition and awards Janet has been in the industry for more than thirty years. Her dedication to the industry has resulted in numerous awards. And she has been recognized for the culmination of her life's work.  A quiet and successful influencer Janet is a quiet and steady influencer who prefers to look at the long game. She attributes a lot of her success to having been ready when the right opportunities came up.  A recovered event planner Janet worked as an event planner for a long time, but she eventually became bored with it. She describes herself as a recovered event planner because she found that the boredom was making her lazy, so she was not doing the same quality of work that she had always done before.  Working in academia Working in academia, Janet constantly sees people pushing themselves beyond their comfort zones to learn something new. In seeing that, she knew that it was time for her to return to school. So she became inspired to get a Master's Degree in the discipline of neuroscience because it has relevance to what gets done in the industry beyond logistics and strategic meetings management.  Event professionals are in the business of people Because event professionals are in the business of people first, Janet thinks that they need to look at the disciplines of cognitive science, physical science, and psychology before looking at the data and financials, to help the industry move forward. Looking at the industry through the lens of neuroscience Looking at the industry through the lens of neuroscience, some things stood out for Janet. The first thing she noticed was that we're all the same, in terms of our brains, so we all tend to act similarly, across the globe. Also, we're all driven by threats, and our brains are hard-wired to keep us safe.  Uncertainty Currently, with COVID, the uncertainty is driving people's behavior more than anything. So people are willing to do things outside of the norm that will make them feel safe.  Data predicts Data helps us minimize risk and maximize reward. Humans love data because it predicts, and our brains cannot do that. A profound discovery Ten years ago, Janet discovered that the two things that drive our brains are minimized risk and maximized reward. She also noticed that the threat of loss drives her students' behavior more than the opportunity for reward does.   This profound discovery has influenced how she thinks and what she does. Some tips for meeting planners and event organizers To cope with the current situation, Janet suggests that you center yourself and focus your attention. And remind yourself of all the qualities and skills that you have today, that you had three months ago, and that you will have in three months.  Learn to work smarter, not harder, and when you're exhausted, stop or take a break. Prioritize Our human brains cannot multi-task. So it also helps if you make a list of all the things you need to get done and then prioritize the most important things for the day.    Links and resources: About Janet Sperstad   Recommended books: Two Awesome Hours by Dr. Josh Davis                                  The Medici Effect by Frans Johansson                                  When by Daniel H. Pink   Connect with Eric: On LinkedIn On Facebook On Instagram On Website If you'd rather watch the video of this interview, subscribe on YouTube

Josh Davis received his bachelor’s from Brown University and his doctorate from Columbia University. He is the director of research for the NeuroLeadership Institute (NLI), a global institute dedicated to synthesizing scientific research and guiding its use in the business and leadership fields. Josh produced a wonderful book in which he shares this wisdom: Two Awesome Hours: Science-Based Strategies to Harness Your Best Time and Get Your Most Important Work Done. Josh talks with Stew about strategies for creating the best conditions for two hours of extraordinary productivity each and every day in order to avoid feeling overwhelmed and, instead, to be more efficient, effective, and productive, with more of your attention available for the non-work sides of life. Among the useful strategies Stew and Josh discuss are stepping back to see the whole picture of a situation before acting and the power of daydreaming to increase creativity. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Lauren speaks with American author Josh Davis about his international bestseller titled, Two Awesome Hours: Science-Based Strategies to Harness Your Best Time and Get Your Most Important Work Done. If you are feeling overwhelmed with life and work demands, Josh argues that the answer is creating the conditions for two awesome hours of peak productivity every day. He shares simple steps to help you maximize your daily performance and avoid the risk of working on autopilot. The key framework is as follows: 1) identify your most important work, 2) decide on the best time of day to do deep work (which may vary each day), and 3) create mindful conditions (i.e. physically and mentally) to help you be at the top of your game.    To close, you will learn the surprising cognitive and performance benefits of letting your mind wander. Two Awesome Hours

Do you feel overwhelmed and think that if there were just more hours in the day you could get it all done?  Instead of managing your calendar, manage your energy.  Learn how one minute can save hours with my guest Josh Davis, PhD and author of the international best-seller, Two Awesome Hours. He is Sr. Director of Research and Faculty at the Institute for Personal Leadership.  He is a trainer at the NLP Center of NY, and teaches The Art of Public Speaking.  He received his doctorate from Columbia University, then joined the psychology department at Barnard College of Columbia University, prior to working in leadership development.  His writing has appeared in Harvard Business Review, Business Insider, Fast Company, Huffington Post, strategy+business, Training + Development, People & Strategy, Psychology Today, and others. He or his work has been mentioned in the Times of London, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, and other major media sources. Well. Josh, thank you so much for joining us today. I really look forward to what you're going to be sharing with us on the podcast. My pleasure. It's really nice to be back with you. Well, Josh, why don't you tell us - what is the science that you're going to share with us today? I'm looking forward to sharing something about how the brain works that we can leverage in order to get ourselves out of that state of overwhelm when we're stuck at it being like, oh my God, it's just so much to do, right? That kind of a state and instead be able to get us to a place where we're putting our efforts into the things that really matter. I love it. That's something I hear all the time with the executives I work with. They're overwhelmed. There's not enough time in the day and this is definitely something that is going to resonate with a lot of people. Excellent. It just seems to be getting worse. Actually. There's more and more on everybody's plate is no longer a nice to have and I think it's becoming clear to many people that it's not going to be possible to solve this problem by trying to cram everything into the calendar. I don't know. Some of your listeners may have already come to that conclusion, but if they haven't, that's also something that I'm going to suggest. That's great. Why don't you share some of the hacks that you have around how we can become less overwhelmed and really be more effective with our time? Okay, so first of all, I think it's helpful to draw a contrast between what many of us do and you don't have to admit publicly that you do this, so you may recognize this behavior in yourself from time to time that you know when we get overwhelmed, what we tend to do is to just think like, well look, there's so much work to do. I just have to keep myself working constantly. I've got to work every minute. I've got to work more hours. How else am I going to do it? And logically, it makes a lot of sense. It's simple math, right? Do you have a team? You get them to do more work as well and have no downtime as much as you can. That would be a fantastic solution if what you were talking about a factory where you get the exact same output every time you run the machines and then you should just keep that thing running. But human beings are not anything like a factory. Yeah. When it comes to this, we are different in a really important way, which is that we can be phenomenally creative, productive. We can make clearheaded decisions, we can map out plans, we can think about how to influence others, all of the things that are so key to knowledge work. We can do these things just exceptionally well at times and very quickly. You could have a morning where you're just hitting it out of the park. You're taking care of everything that was on your list, and then at other times, if you're anything like me, you can spend three days where you're, you're practically worthless. So the solution is not going to be that what would seem obvious if we were thinking about something where you get the same output every time you run it. Instead, what we need to do is to work with the way that human brains and bodies work now because we can be so quiet, impressively productive and creative at certain times and not at others. It means there are certain conditions that helped to set that up and when you turn to the research you can learn what some of those conditions are. Some of them have to do with things like rather than trying to manage your calendar, you can be trying to manage your mental energy. You can be trying to manage your attention. There are times in the day where if you've just been through a really tough meeting, you might be highly emotional. It's actually harder to think clearly in those contexts that in those moments you actually are not as capable and you may not realize it of making good clear decisions or making them as quickly or even taking into account the same information you would under different circumstances. If it's later in the day and you've been making a lot of decisions, it has been shown with judges, for example, that they tend to make worse decisions as the day goes on and now these are decisions that have major implications for people. Parole decisions for example, that are made later on in the Judge's day, or this side or that side of lunch, they tend to be either better or worse for the people seeking parole - that what happens is when the judges are more fresh, they are capable of and motivated to take into account more information. Now the judges are not aware of doing it differently. They still think they're doing the best they can and being very fair. Right, right. This is all happening often outside of their awareness, the brain is simply operating differently. Once you have accumulated a certain amount of mental fatigue, it is just simply harder to make those kinds of decisions. The thing is, we can take this stuff into account. Now, you can take it into account when you're about to start an important task. You could take it into account when you're planning ahead, you can say, look, this is going to come late in the day. Then the really important negotiation, I'm going to create a space for myself to be able to refresh before that. Get a little exercise, take a nap, something like that. But Carl Icahn, famous billionaire, he is said to have scheduled frequently his really challenging negotiations in the afternoon because he knew that the other lawyer he'd be interacting with would be fatigued and then he would schedule a nap beforehand. I mean, the thing is, it's evidence. So simple. You might say, well yeah, of course I'm fresher. Of course I'm better, but yet you know what the science says you are so much fresher than you realize, the difference is extraordinary in terms of making that an incredibly productive and effective time period or not. Now you can also in the moment, when you're about to sit down to do something, say, is this the right time for it? And now you might say, well look, I'm tired all the time. As time goes on. If you're focused on setting up these periods of time when you can be at your best and the most important work, you will find that you started doing things that enable you to not just be tired all the time, that it actually starts to lead to greater work life balance and what happens is not that you're doing everything on your list, but you're getting to that elusive goal of saying no to the things that are not as important because you're able to think more clearly about it. So I'll pause here for a moment. I've been weaving together a few different pieces. Yeah, I really liked the fact that you talked about not managing your calendar but managing your attention and managing that calendar is something that I struggle with and other leaders struggle with. What are the things from a leadership perspective that you would recommend be on the calendar earlier in the day when you're fresher to really be more effective leading yourself and leading others? Yes, I do have an answer for that. That I think is really an essential piece. We have to step back for a moment and think about what's really important to do day-to-day. And if you're a successful person, you could probably, you know, if we're having a conversation over beers and we were just on the weekend, at some point you could tell me, well look, these are the things that are important for me to do. You know, there's certain relationships I want to build. There's this new marketing platform I want to invest in. These articles I want to write, whatever it is, the important stuff. You could tell me that and then I could ask, how do you spend your time? How long have you been saying to yourself - that's the important stuff, right? So you know what the important stuff is usually from time to time, sure it may not be clear, but you know what the important stuff is usually. And then we find ourselves saying, how did I just spend three hours on that, on these forms or these things that I should have outsourced that to somebody else? Or you know what? I didn't even need to do some of those , to respond to some of those emails. What, you know, what's wrong with me? Right? Right. And so we, we look at it and say like, my calendar is so packed but back to back. Right? And you know, these kinds of ways of talking to ourselves and yet at the same time we can have these experiences of wasting time feeling like we actually wasted the afternoon. We didn't get to the important stuff. So what I'm going to suggest is that the issue is not a calendar issue. The issue is that we're not finding a way to connect with what's important. Now it's not that you don't know what's important and it's, and you've probably have read Covey and you know that you should be putting x percentage of your time into the stuff that's important and not urgent, right? You know those things. But for some reason you're not doing it well. Here is what's going on. Once you get started on a task, you get into this reactive mode. You're kind of on autopilot. You're leveraging parts of the brain that are relatively less conscious, where you're going to be relying on parts of the brain that has to do with habits, behavioral habits, habits of thought. And the thing is as we go through life, we accumulate more and more habits. And the whole point of that is that we don't have to expend as much mental energy conscious. Deliberate focus is very energy intensive and so we avoid it whenever we can. So whenever there's some kind of way of being on autopilot, we do it well. What happens is that let's say you flip open your email and you started checking it, you get on autopilot, right? That takes over and you become reactive. As soon as, that is another way of talking about it, this reactive mode, as soon as you, you're in that reactive place, all of a sudden it's just much harder to be in touch with what's important. It's that it's hard to even recognize that you need to take a moment and step back and think about what's important and whatever you're doing in the moment. Yeah, there's some importance to it. So it's going to feel important in that moment. And so this is why we have to create opportunities and we have to start practicing doing this. To make it a habit, you have to create opportunities to break out of autopilot, to step out of that reactive mode, bring back online this conscious, deliberate attention and focus that attention on the question - "What's really important today?" You know, by the end of the day, which thing am I going to be happy that I spent some time on at the end of the week, by the end of the month, even by the end of my life, which are those things and leverage that conscious, deliberate focus that we can have when we break out of autopilot. The thing is to break out of autopilot, you can't just willfully do it in the moment. It's so strong, it's very hard to willfully break out of it. So you've got to plan ahead. And one of the things you started out by asking me "What can you do first thing in the morning?". First thing in the morning, and I would actually recommend doing this a couple of different points in the day, like first thing in the morning and then right before you actually started your first task in case things have shifted or just to help you refocus is to how, it can even just be one minute. It could be 10 minutes, but it could even just be one minute where you have freed yourself out from being reactive. The computer is not open so you couldn't be responding. Your phone is not in your hand, so you can't be responding to it. When there are not other people in front of you, so you can't just be reacting to them, but you create a space where you can actually step back, often physically, I encourage you to physically step back from the desk if you can and just pause until you can connect with and remember, okay, what is that important stuff? Once you have that in mind, then if you're a competent person, you're going to be able to find ways to think about -  okay, you know, what? Could I afford to spend some time on that right now? If not, when can I do that today and how can I make it so that I'm going to be mentally fresh when I get to that point? Does it mean that I want to do it after lunch, before lunch? Create a little bit of a break, do some exercise right before to reset. That, if that's the important stuff, then it's the important stuff. And what happened is that it also becomes much easier to say, look, here are some of the things that I'm, I'm going to save for when I'm fatigued or I'm just not going to get to, right? Because it's not the important stuff. But the thing is you've got to leverage those moments that you build into the day to do that because you're not going to be able to catch yourself and think about it as you're going through the day. Once you are in reactive mode, you're in reactive mode. So that's something that I think is absolutely critical to do at the beginning of the day. And of course you can do it multiple times a day and should, you know, put it on your calendar or the beginning of any new task or the end of the meeting. Have one of those moments where you step back and you'd do that. I call them decision points. So I think that's perhaps the most important thing that I can offer actually in terms of reclaiming your day and doing the stuff that matters and doing it well. Yeah, I love that. I got that from your recent book, Two Awesome Hours, where it talks about those key decision points and knowing when you have to make those decisions on either, like you said, going forward with the work you're doing or stopping and saying, is this really where I need to spend my time? That's really powerful. In those decision points you can also, after you've connected with what's really important, you can also just quickly check in and think about how, how mentally energize or fatigued to am I right now? Because I don't know about you, but I can sometimes, if I'm sitting at the computer and I am in reactive mode and I'm doing stuff, I can think like, you know what, I feel fine. I could keep going for another couple of hours, but once I step away and I go get that coffee or something and I'm standing there, I realized how clouded my thinking is. Yeah. And I realized this is not the time to tackle those challenging issues that I'm going to do it in half the time if I wait till the morning, you know, or if I wait till a little bit later and I'm going to do it better and this is the time for me to do something else. So, so you can also check in on your mental energy in those moments you can make a big difference. Yeah, I think that's a great point. Especially the standing up, moving around, catching yourself, even if you took a minute, right, you said, this isn't a, you're not talking 15 to 20 minutes meditation, you're talking one minute, get up and really move yourself away and, and check with what's going on. I think that's a really powerful tip and something that I know I need to do more myself and I know it makes a big difference when I get up and walk around throughout the day, keeping me fresh. One minute to save hours. Right. Especially if you got in that rut, that rut of maybe checking email or focusing on something that's more of a tactical task in the morning. So Josh, how have you applied this to yourself? Oh, you know, that was one of the wonderful things about writing this book. You know, I already had some ideas. There were some things I had experimented with, but when I did the research, I started to, you know what? I started to believe it a lot more to be honest. Yeah. And so I would actually go and experiment. I mean, I was like, oh wow. You know, these things do make a difference. So, for example, , and this was something that you shared this with me earlier, that you went ahead and and redesigned your office. Right? That's so me. Even now that I know that essentially my attention systems are designed to pick up on things that are sitting around precisely, you know, that's what it is for. My attention systems are not designed to stay focused, they are designed to pick up on whats changing, what needs attention, what is threatening, things like that and all the things that are sitting on my desk are things that I owe to somebody or I forgot to do, or it was important or it seemed hard. They're exactly the things that are going to take my attention. It is simply not fair to myself to sit down at a desk littered with these things. It's so much extra mental work. I'm fatiguing myself unnecessarily. Every time I get distracted, my mind's gonna wander to one of those things instead of wander to creative solutions on whatever I'm doing, right? And so I've just gone ahead, you know, I was not somebody who cleaned up my desk and cleared things away all the time. And now you walk into my office and there's nothing on the desk. You know, even like people see it and they sort of, they comment on it. They're like, oh wow. You know, and, and whenever there is a shared space that I'm using, you know, people come in, they always want to sit down on my desk because it's the cleanest one, because they're drawn to that too. They know it's going to be easier for them, right? And it's easier physically to sit down, but also mentally it's easier. So I mean those are some of the things. And there's another one was like learning about how exercise, you know, we think of exercise as this thing that it's like, well if I exercise I'll probably be healthier long term. And of course that'll help my work. Cause if I'm healthier I won't miss work and blah, blah, blah, Right? That's motivating to some degree. You know, it's like I don't want to die young. Yeah. Right. There is some motivation. But what that motivates me to do is a few times a week go and try to work out for an hour, an hour and a half, really hard, right? And it could happen anytime. I could do it right before going to sleep, but now I've seen that exercise is one of the most reliable ways to reduce anxiety in the short term. Meaning like in the next few hours. So if I want to reduce my anxiety and have an easy time paying attention, easy time staying present, essentially letting go of the things that don't matter, exercise is a virtual guarantee, and it doesn't have to be for an hour or two hours. Moderate exercise, 20 minutes on the treadmill, working up a little bit of a sweat breathing heavily, that's going to give me those psychological benefits actually better than if I'm really pushing hard and then I don't want to waste those on sleeping. I mean, sure it will help me sleep. It's nice, not a waste. These are the things I want to strategically use for the immediate benefit. All of a sudden I can just switch into a state where I'm less anxious and more present and have an easier time focusing. Anytime I'm doing important work, that's where I want to be. So now all of a sudden exercise become something that I'm using strategically. I was able to exercise every day. You know, I really, I exercise every day, sometimes a couple of times a day, just briefly if it's going to be key for work, I use it as a strategic tool. So actually thinking of exercise as this strategic work tool has gotten me to exercise more regularly then when I was exercising for its own sake. So as a result of having the health benefits too. That was a big shift for me, was that exercise is a strategic tool to be used for that day or your work capability that day and it's a reset button. You can do it anytime if you need to reset, there's an important thing later in the day, you're having a tough morning, you can build it in. Those were a couple things I think were really unexpected that were kind of real pleasures of doing this research. Changed how I function. That's great. What's the exercise? Can it be 10 minutes walking? Maybe brisk walk outside if you don't have a treadmill or something available for you throughout the day? So there's a slightly more nuanced answer to that. Short answer is yes, but the longer answer is that some of the psychological benefits will occur from something like just 10 minutes of something that you do have to get your heart rate up. You do have to, you know, you want to be breathing heavily. Maybe getting to the point of almost breaking a sweat, but it should not be more than moderate. So if you want all of the benefits then moderate exercise is key. If it's a brisk walk, often it doesn't need to be longer. Like if it's a brisk walk and you're not actually breaking a sweat, then what would get to that level of moderate exercise from, in terms of the physiological factors that are changing, it would probably be more like a 40 minute walk. You know, like going for a brisk walk at lunch kind of thing or a brisk walk while you're having a meeting or something like that. You know, a walk and talk kind of thing could be done if you've got somebody else's really on onboard with that. Something really brief. 10 minutes, you know, going up and down the stairs, doing a few jumping jacks, that kind of thing. But you know this also depends on the person, what's going to count as something that requires exertion. Great point to mention how in shape you are, how far you can walk in and what it will take to do that. I know people who might be in less good shape might have an advantage here because there's a little bit less time they could put it into it and still get some of that. I haven't experimented with that. I just had that thought in the moment. One of my favorite executives that I worked for, every morning he made sure that there were not meeting scheduled before eight o'clock. It was a rare exception because it was so important for him to make sure that he did get exercise and work out that morning because it just made a difference in his day. Yeah. That's great that you have that have that reference experience. Nelson Mandela made it a part of his daily routine in jail. He would actually run in place for 45 minutes cause he knew that it made him so much mentally sharper, is how he described it. Yeah. Well Josh, have you worked with any other leaders or organizations to implement some of these techniques to help them with overwhelm or just be more effective? So I have had a number of opportunities to go in to companies, share these ideas and the different ways that people apply it are just to me, kind of extraordinary. Ways that I wouldn't have expected, you know? So you've got some people, let's say salesforce, that might be in cars all the time, right? And so you think like, oh, well how are they going to apply some of these things, right? They have these very restricted physical locations. And here I've got people talking about how they're able to take exceptional advantage of the idea of these decision points because they have this forced time when they can't be writing, they can't be staring at something else. And so rather than just putting on something to listen to, they're deliberately taking some elements of that time to do some of these decision points and as well as some elements of the time to do something else I talk about in the book, which is really great for fostering creativity and then ending up working less. And I have had, now this will sound like bragging a little bit. I've had people come back to me and say, I have a new problem. Some of my colleagues are getting frustrated with me because they feel like I'm not essentially overworking myself. I'm not, you know, it used to be a badge of honor for everyone to talk about how hard they're working, how many hours they're putting in, how exhausted they are. And to be honest, I'm getting what I need to get done. In fact, I'm getting more of it done and I'm not as exhausted and I'm not staying late all the time. And I've had a couple of people who were sort of frustrated with that, what do I do about that? And I, you know, so there's a famous psychotherapist who once said "progress is moving from the same damn thing over and over again to one damn thing after another." So that's where we want to get. It's like, let's get to that point, let's change that culture. Let's start deciding, well what is it for me, that counts as success and look, some people have been very clever, right? You know, there are some situations, and I've been in these from time to time who I've learned to not let people see that I have work life balance because I know they're not ready for it. So, I don't know if that's where you're going with the question, but those are some of the things that I have heard and worked with people in financial institutions and the big names places and then worked with people in pharmaceutical companies and various different types of industries and different types of levels as well. There's one group that made it a big part of their onboarding program based on this book. You know, there's been different ways that people have implemented this, but those are some of the kinds of things that I'm, I'm very happy to say do really seem to make a big difference. And I also kind of want to let people know it is possible. That's a great problem to have that you know, people look at you and you are so put together, you know, don't seem to be stressing as much as they are. But tell me a little bit more about some examples of decision points that they were making - the salesforce. So I did not in this specific example I was offering, I didn't actually probe and get a whole list of the specific decisions. There's a couple of things that I did get that I can share it so I don't have a whole lot of examples in this case. But one example would be there are certain key accounts and look, everybody knows they need to be putting in, every salesperson knows they need to be putting in more into their key accounts, right? Because these are going to have an outsized impact, right? And therefore need outsized attention and yet it doesn't always work out that way because of the amount of time, the amount of effort that can just go into these other leads. And I'm like you don't know exactly where they're going, right? It can draw your attention and can really like, you don't want to leave any stone unturned. And so it's actually a very disciplined, conscious decision to actually come back and be able to say, "All right, let me step back and look at the big picture here and be very strategic about where my attention is going and about which relationships I want to nurture so that these key accounts, they are getting the love from me that they need on a regular basis." So some days where it could have been days that would go by without them getting the attention because you're attending to these other things, but ultimately you actually don't think need as much attention - its that kind of a shift. Actually intentionally looking and saying, where am I spending my time? And there's a lot of mental offered on client that's not as high a return as others. And it's about being intentional. And the thing is, nothing I'm going to say here, is going to be rocket science, you know? And that's, but that's the point, these are things that we can know ...we're just not doing them. So what I want to suggest is that if we want to learn to do them, we can take advantage of understanding how the brain works and how, where we get into these pitfalls, how we get stuck and when we have the opportunities to think differently, what we would have to do to be, to step back and connect to what matters. That's great. I love that. So as leaders listening to this podcast and thinking about, Gosh, I am at the overwhelmed stage, or I'd love to have that work life balance problem where it, you know, I've got it pretty much under control. What's one thing that they could do right away after listening to this? One small thing that could make a big difference? So there's also a phrase from psychotherapy that "You're looking for the difference that makes the difference". So I will suggest that the thing that makes the difference may be different for different people. But if this is something you're not already doing, then I would say see what happens this week. If you give yourself one minute when you get to your office, when you sit down, before you look at any media, before you look at email, before you open your computer, where you pause and you think about "what's the really important stuff that matters to me today and when during the day am I going to do that?" If you just give yourself that one minute, once a day, each day this week, just try it and notice what happens. Now if that is something that you're already doing, then what I would invite you to do is to go to the next step and during that one minute to ask yourself, "what's my mental energy like right now and as a result, do I want to reorder how I'm doing things?" If there is a really important presentation coming up in an hour and I don't want to be fatigued for it, maybe now is not the time for me to go and make a whole lot of meaningless decisions about emails that are just going to get me kind of frustrated. Maybe now is the time for me to go and do something creative. That's going to get me energized for this and you might end up coming to a different decision if you're thinking about what's the mental energy I want to show up to that meeting for. So that's the second thing you might do during that minute. I love that. Yeah, just that short reflection time, if they're not doing, can make a big difference. And sometimes it's right after you wake up because that's when people check their media. Yes, yes. Most of us have our phones as our clock right by the bedside and pull it up and you know, you're curious and sometimes it's exciting, sometimes even want to see what there is. And regardless if you pull that up, just realize you'd get into reactive mode and look, you can recover from that, but you'll need to have some planned time to step back. But at some point that morning before you really get into things, I recommend if you're open to it, to experiment with not even looking at it until some specified time of the day, like 10:00 AM or even later, you know, just to discover what happens for one week. Just discover, do I actually survive the week? Am I still alive at the end? Do I still have a job, right? Did I end up making different decisions as a result of giving myself that mental freedom in the morning? Yeah. So if you're willing to try that, I encourage you. That's great. I think that's a great tip to start and you have so many great tips in here too in your book Two Awesome Hours. Like I told you, I did read it and I have been applying it and I like that you've got tips in here, not just for yourself but from almost an organization perspective and environment and a space perspective. So I'd really recommend everyone get a copy of Two Awesome Hours and read that. Its a really easy read as well and it's very practical and it's not sciencey. So you did a great job with that too. Thank you. Thank you. I, you know, I worked hard on all of those things. I'm glad to know that you had that reaction. And you know, you remind me of one thing also is that when everybody else in your environment knows the same thing, you can support one another in it. Right? You know, you can know, you can leave one another alone when you're thinking, for example. From a culture perspective, what you uncovered I think has a lot of implications that leaders and HR leaders too can really be thinking about, to set the right environment for their teams. Oh, wonderful. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time today and I just wanted to check in with you and say, was there anything else that you wanted to share? Anything you've, maybe you're working on next? Oh, thank you. Thank you. Yes, for those people who do find public speaking to be a challenge, I'll just put this out there as a teaser that, it is possible to actually learn to not just get through it, but to enjoy it. And so if you're curious about that, then you know, look me up on Linkedin and you'll see the next time I'm offering the course. I've been teaching it for many years and it's a very different approach to public speaking. It's about how to learn how to enjoy it. And it is also science based, research based, drawing on tools from the behavioral sciences and psychotherapy as well. Oh, that's excellent. And so they should just look up Josh Davis on Linkedin. Josh Davis, Phd, there's a ton of Josh Davis's, everybody had the same idea to name their kids that at the same time, but, but Josh Davis Phd will take you there and that way you'll see the next time I'm doing it, I do them in LA and sometimes in New York. Great, and I'll put your information on the transcripts as well. Well Josh, I really appreciate you spending time with us. I look forward to having you back to share more of your work. Maybe your next book. I'm sure you're working on your next book at this point, right? Yeah, just beginning it. Oh, okay. Yeah, just beginning the process right now, so yes, I would love to come back. All right, well thank you and I hope you have a great day. All right, thanks. Take care. So to recap, to get ourselves out of that state of overwhelm when we're stuck thinking we have so much to do, we can utilize decision points to get us to a place where we're putting our efforts into things that really matter. The issue is not a calendar issue. The issue is that we're not finding a way to connect with what's important. Avoid getting into that reactive mode or autopilot. Create decision points and put them on your calendar because you're not going to be able to catch yourself and think about it as you're going through the day without being intentional. You have too many habits that you've built. Josh also reminded us of the psychological benefits of exercise, even 30 to 40 minutes of moderate exercise to keep your mind fresh. Here's one thing to try over the next week. Give yourself one minute when you get to your office, when you sit down, before you look at any media, look at any email and before you open your computer.  Pause and think about what's the really important stuff that matters to me today and when during the day am I going to do that? If you just gave yourself that one minute once a day, each day this week, just try it and notice what happens. As Josh shared one minute to save hours, I really recommend reading his book Two Awesome Hours: Science-Based Strategies to Harness Your Best Time and Get Your Most Important Work Done, it has some great tips in there. I hope that this was helpful to you and I would love to hear how you're implementing these tips yourself. I use these myself and share them with the leaders that I coach. Want to know more about what Josh is doing - www.twoawesomehours.com is the place to go.  Linkedin is also a way to connect with Josh. If you're interested in coaching or leadership development for yourself or your organization, please reach out to me directly by email at jillwindel@talentspecialists.net Have an amazing day.  

If you've ever wondered whether or not you're committing your time to the right tasks, then this episode is for you. This week, we're joined by author, speaker, and consultant Josh Davis, PhD. Josh Davis, PhD, is the author of the international bestseller Two Awesome Hours. He is Faculty and Senior Director of Research at the Institute for Personal Leadership, and he teaches "The Art of Public Speaking" at the NLP Center of New York. I brought him on the show to walk through the differences between efficiency and effectiveness. Some other topics we walk through on the show include: how to cope with never feeling productive enough the benefit of distraction why efficiency is a terrible metric for humans the importance of momentum vs. magic what are the basic circumstances we can setup to be more productive. Also, you can keep up with Josh's work and purchase his book at the links below. https://neuroleadership.com/personnel/dr-josh-davis/ https://twitter.com/joshdavisphd?lang=en http://www.twoawesomehours.com/

What topics or guests would you like to hear about on The Mark Struczewski Podcast? Take my survey and tell me!    Josh Davis, PhD, is the author of the international bestseller, Two Awesome Hours. He is Sr. Director of Research at the Institute for Personal Leadership. He teaches Public Speaking and NLP at the NLP Center of NY, and he coaches individuals on public speaking and productivity.   On this episode Josh and I talk about the importance of decision points, reactive/autopilot mode, mental fatigue and mental energy, starting on the wrong task and when judges make the worse decisions.   Where you can find Simon: twoawesomehours.com Mastering the Art of Public Speaking with Dr. Josh Davis personalleadership.com Fast Company Author Page Harvard Business Review Author Page   What did you think of this episode? I want to know. Go to MarkStruczewski.com/davis and leave a comment.   To leave feedback about the podcast or give suggestions for ideas for future episodes (including guests you'd like to hear me interview), go to MarkStruczewski.com/mypodcast or email feedback@markstruczewski.com. If you are looking to take your productivity to the next level or if you are interested in bringing me in to speak at your event, visit MarkStruczewski.com. Take my Podcast Survey. Follow me on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. Subscribe to my weekly Next Level Productivity Digest newsletter. If you love the show, share it with a friend on Apple Podcasts.

Author of Two Awesome Hours, Dr. Josh Davis, about how we can become super effective and improve our productivity for both career tasks and fitness goals. We’ve got lots of great pieces of advice and examples for you this week to help you manage your time better and be more efficient! From avoiding distractions, how to take a healthy break; and how to fit your workout into your busy schedule and more. We hope you take a lot away from the Open Sky Fitness podcast this week. Click here for the original show notes! Please leave us a review at http://openskyfitness.com/review Learn more about the Sky Fit Challenge Check out the 7 Day Paleo Reset Join our Open Sky Fitness Podcast Facebook Group   ABOUT DR. JOSH DAVIS Josh Davis, Ph.D. is the author of Two Awesome Hours: Science-Based Strategies to Harness Your Best Time and Get Your Most Important Work Done. He holds a bachelors from Brown University and a PhD from Columbia University. His past work has included mechanical engineering, teaching in a Brooklyn Public High School, and serving on the faculty in the Department of Psychology at Barnard College of Columbia University. Currently, he is the Director of Research and Lead Professor for the NeuroLeadership Institute. He also coaches and trains individuals in the art of public speaking and managing being overwhelmed. His writing has appeared in Harvard Business Review, Business Insider, Fast Company, Huffington Post, strategy+business, Training + Development, People & Strategy, the NeuroLeadership Journal (which he co-edits), Psychology Today, and others.

Today’s guest is Dr. Josh Davis, Director of Research at the NeuroLeadership Institute and author of the international bestseller ‘Two Awesome Hours’.  “Even if you decide, actually that was the right task, it’s an opportunity to think about, how do I want to approach that task? Was I working on it in the most effective way?” - Dr. Josh Davis Learn more about this episode of Inside Mastery at www.martinsoorjoo.com/09

Ever wish you could figure out how to get more done? What if working smarter meant working with the way your brain is wired instead of against it? Today we are digging into how to gain two AWESOME hours a day instead of working more to accomplish your objectives. In this episode, we uncover how. Josh Davis, Ph.D. is the author of the international bestseller, Two Awesome Hours: Science-Based Strategies to Harness Your Best Time and Get Your Most Important Work Done. Josh coaches and trains individuals in the art of public speaking and managing being overwhelmed. His writing has appeared in Harvard Business Review, Business Insider, Fast Company, Huffington Post, strategy+business, Training + Development, People & Strategy, the NeuroLeadership Journal, Psychology Today, and others. Josh holds a bachelor from Brown University and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. He is the Director of Research and Lead Professor of the NeuroLeadership Institute. His past work has included mechanical engineering, teaching in a Brooklyn Public High School, and serving on the faculty in the Department of Psychology at Barnard College of Columbia University. Highlights - 5 strategies to be highly productive Managing obstacles Working with the unfocused mind Implementation Intention Thinking clearly when you are overworked Resources - Free Webinar: I'll be sharing how to leverage your creative side and use it as an advantage in business. Join me for my free webinar, How To Succeed In Business When You're Marketing Yourself and Your Talent. Register here[cwwebinar.com] or text warrior to number 33444 to unleash your creative thinking to propel your business forward. Regain time and transform your commute, workout or chores into fun, productive ME TIME! Audible books are offering a free audio book, try it, like it and stay or cancel and keep your free Audible book. Go to http://www.audibletrial.com/Warrior Guest Contact - Website: http://www.twoawesomehours.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/joshdavisphd Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JoshDavisPhD LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshdavisphd Books: Two Awesome Hours: Science-Based Strategies to Harness Your Best Time and Get Your Most Important Work Done http://amzn.to/1SOTmaX Mentions - Coming of Age in the Milky Way Timothy Ferris http://amzn.to/1VWQugi First Things First Stephen Covey http://amzn.to/1TAmAKL Thinking, Fast and Slow Daniel Kahneman http://amzn.to/1VWQMnt Gift: Are YOU a Creative Warrior? Find out and take the Creative Warrior Assessment for FREE ($10 Value) Peaceful Warrior Quote - “Decision-making points are a gift when they come along seize them.”

On this week's episode of "The Science of Success", we speak with Columbia Ph.D. Josh Davis, who is currently the director of research for the NeuroLeadership Institute, a NeuroCoach and Master Practitioner of NLP. Josh is also the author of the recent international bestseller Two Awesome Hours, in which he shares science-based strategies to get your most important work done.     In today's episode you will learn:Why working all the time means you actually get LESS done.How to conquer overwhelm (using scientific findings, not advice)How to snap out of auto-pilot and make effective use of your timeHow to leverage negative emotion to be more productive A surprising finding about how music impacts your work flowAnd much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

# **Summary:** In Episode #164 Ari invites PhD and author of [Two Awesome Hours](http://www.twoawesomehours.com/), Josh Davis, on the Less Doing podcast. During this week's interview, Ari and Josh go in-depth on the subject of brains, neural programming and why working for great lengths of time is far from being the _right _way to tackle a busy schedule. **Special Announcements:** ## Fuel the Fire Come watch Ari light-up the Drake Hotel in Chicago on Wednesday, August 5th as he delivers a rousing keynote speech for IPPA Business Excellence Conference: _Fuel the Fire_. This will be a great opportunity to watch Ari translate the lessons of Less Doing into terms business leaders can take to the bank. ## [Rockefeller Roundtable](http://helmsociety.com/ari-meisel-ceo-roundtable-nc/) Come watch Ari regale a roundtable of avid [Helm Society](http://helmsociety.com/) listeners with the lessons of Less Doing on September 9th from 10AM to 2PM in New York City. ## Subscribe to the Podcast or Leave Us a Review! Hey Less Doing Podcast Listeners, we want to hear from YOU! Visit us on iTunes and leave a review or subscribe to the podcast if you're not already a dedicated follower. **Time Stamped Show Notes:** - 30:46 – Introduction of Josh Davis of [Two Awesome Hours](http://amzn.to/1HnFnX9) - 31:05 – Josh defines the [NeuroLeadership Institute](http://www.neuroleadership.com) - 32:47 – Josh's background is varied but he eventually fell into psychology and research - 34:15 – The genesis for Two Awesome Hours - 34:30 – More and more—people are being _overwhelmed _with work and the natural response is to work harder, longer and more frequently—this is a terrible solution for a human being - 35:15 – What we _can _do, is be very effective for short bursts of time—we're sprinters - 36:23 – You don't need to be “ON” all day long - 37:12 – People who brag about how much work they do or how little they sleep are (for lack of a better word) foolish - 38:52 – The strategies Josh recommends - 38:58 – There really are only a handful of moments throughout the day where we can make decisions about what task to do next - 39:39 – Most of the time we're rolling on auto pilot so recognize those few moments when you're fully aware and present - 40:39 – Do what's important, not what's urgent - 41:12 – Time isn't wasted during those moments we're “in-between” tasks…time is wasted when we get started on the wrong task - 41:30 – Josh's routine - 43:46 – Exercise has incredible short-term benefits - 46:00 – Things that we need to do “well” are things where we need to be _fully present_ - 48:04 – The importance of environment and how we can improve _any _workspace - 49:03 – ADD isn't a problem—that's how your brain, your attention system, is supposed to work - 51:59 – Josh's _Top 2 Tips to be More Effective_: - 52:07 – Learn some self-compassion - 52:48 – Understand that mind-wandering is completely healthy - 53:30 – Check out the [NeuroLeadership Institute](https://www.neuroleadership.com) and [http://www.twoawesomehours.com/](http://www.twoawesomehours.com/) **7 Key Points:** 1. Enjoy the moments when your mind decides to wander—let it happen. 2. Your brain is naturally wired to have what essentially amounts to ADD—it's not a problem. 3. Obtain self-compassion. 4. You can't be “ON all day and, more importantly, you don't need to be. 5. We can be incredibly effective for short periods of time. 6. Time isn't wasted in-between tasks, it's wasted when the wrong task is started. 7. Exercise has amazing and oft-overlooked short-term benefits. **Resources Mentioned:** - [Warrant.ly](http://warrant.ly/?ref=producthunt) – Paper warranties are no more! Scan or snap a picture of your warranty and upload it to the app - [Ultradox](http://www.ultradox.com/?ref=producthunt) – Like IFTTT or Zapier but for documents - [Build Fire](http://buildfire.com/product-hunt/?ref=producthunt) – --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/lessdoing/message

Moe and Josh Davis talk about how to leverage our complex biological needs and be your most productive every day.

May 14, 2015 Relationship Guru Susie Miller & Two Awesome Hours Josh Davis