Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - Jim Kwik, Brain Coach, On Easy Tips To Improve Focus

Episode Date: August 15, 2023

It's not just us: brain performance expert Jim Kwik confirms it's getting harder and harder to focus. But, our mind is a muscle, and today Jim explains how we can use that muscle to improve focus, memory and productivity. Plus, Jim weighs in on whether Martha Stewart is right about remote work... Want to start investing, but don't know where to begin? Go to moneyassistant.com and meet Magnifi, your AI money assistant, designed to help you make a plan for your financial goals. Want one-on-one money coaching from Nicole? Book a meeting with her here: intro.co/moneynewsnetwork 

I love hosting on Airbnb. It's a great way to bring in some extra cash. But I totally get it that it might sound overwhelming to start, or even too complicated, if, say, you want to put your summer home in Maine on Airbnb, but you live full-time in San Francisco and you can't go to Maine every time you need to change sheets for your guests or something like that. If thoughts like these have been holding you back, I have great news for you. Airbnb has launched a co-host network, which is a network of high quality local co-hosts with Airbnb experience that can take care of your home and your guests. Co-hosts can do what you don't have time for, like managing your reservations, messaging your guests, giving support at the property, or even create your listing for you.

I always want to line up a reservation for my house when I'm traveling for work, but sometimes I just don't get around to it because getting ready to travel always feels like a scramble so I don't end up making time to make my house look guest-friendly. I guess that's the best way to put it. But I'm matching with a co-host so I can still make that extra cash while also making it easy on myself.

Find a co-host at Airbnb.com slash host. I'm Nicole Lappin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some money rehab. Before the pandemic, I used to get DMs from people who wanted productivity hacks. I don't get so many of those requests anymore. Now people reach out to me more for focus hacks and tell me they're having a harder

and harder time concentrating. I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel that too. So to help us work that muscle, I'm having my friend Jim Quick back on Money Rehab. Jim is an expert on making your mind work for you. He works with CEOs, athletes, celebrities, Will Smith, A-Rod, Gerard Butler, to name a few. He coaches them on increasing their memory and focus. And along the way, he's also written a casual New York Times bestseller. Today, we talk about strategies to use your brainpower to level up at work. Jim Quick, welcome back to Money Rehab. So good to be here, Nicole. Thanks for having me.

So I've known you for what, 100,000 years? Give or take. It feels like. Yeah. So when you first came on Money Rehab, we talked about your unbelievable speed reading work mostly. But today I want to focus on concentration and focus, if you will. So after 500 years of the pandemic, I've been hearing more and more from folks struggling with issues around concentrating. So with social media and a changing workplace, do you think we are in a concentration crisis?

I think we live in the age of attention, certainly. You know, even right now, people are listening to your show and maybe it's free, but they still have to pay attention. And I think the art of memory is the art of attention. And how do you get things done in a world full of rings and pings and dings and your app notifications are going off, social media alerts. And it's tough because we're being driven to distraction. You know, everything with TikTok and threads and just how many platforms are there. And we, every single time we're getting with every like and share, we're getting these hits of dopamine and, you know,

whatever you're doing on a regular basis, you're getting better at. And then I feel like technology is rewiring our brains to be more distracted. And so it compromises our performance. It compromises our productivity, our peace of mind, certainly our profitability, you know, because of our attention is, it is finite, like our time and whatever we're investing in regularly. And so, you know, I think that it's not so much about time management. I think it's more about mind management or even priority management. And I still think it's okay to binge watch things and to, you know, let your mind go in that default place where you just start daydreaming and people are creative and could come up with good solutions for their business or for their life.

But I also think it's good to build that other side of the pendulum where we concentrate and just do like 40 minutes of deep work. Let's define what deep work is before moving on, though. Yeah. So for me, I chunk my chunk my work day you know it's not perfect but i think with practice practice makes not perfect but practice makes progress and so for an example is i just i break my day into like three or four areas of focus so when you're focused on a specific task part of your brain is lit up, right? But when people are trying to multitask, it uses an immense amount of energy. We tend to make more mistakes. We know doctors, especially surgeons, make more mistakes when they're trying to multitask.

They make more errors during surgery. Yeah, I certainly hope they're not multitasking. Yeah, actually, I read recently a study where surgeons on their birthday, they actually tend to make more mistakes also as well because people are just trying to rush through things. And it's just, you know, we're human beings. You know, your brains are your number one wealth building asset that we have. But it doesn't come with an owner's manual. And a lot of us have it on default. It's just running off in the background. We're not like mindful about where we're putting our attention, where our thoughts are going, and that's leading how we feel at any given time and

what we're going to do. So when you batch your work, you basically put your phone on airplane mode or what? Yeah. So we know that there's usually a dip in people's focus after about 30 minutes, that our attention span pretty much is that of like a sitcom. And then after that, our concentration, our ability to be alert and focus starts to diminish. They call this the Pomodoro technique. So the Pomodoro technique says to set a timer anywhere from 25 to 45 minutes, then you focus on one task until that timer goes off. And then you could take a five minute break and like a brain break, if you will, to refresh your mind. And then you get back

to task. For me, how I chunk things is like one example lately that I'm experimenting with is three C's. In the morning, I tend to be in my creative mode. And so maybe the first third of the day, I want to be creative. I don't want to input anything in. I want to actually create an output. And then in the afternoon, I'll consume. So I'll go from a creativity kind of activating those parts of my mind, the imagination, the visualization, the more problem solving, and then I'll go later into consuming kind of mode, like maybe after lunch where I'll consume podcasts, I'll do my research, I'll do my reading. And then towards the evening time, I'll start to clear, meaning I'm looking to clear my mind. That's where I could just kind of turn off, I could binge watch something silly, I could journal, I could plan tomorrow's day, so I could kind of get those just kind of turn off. I could binge watch something silly. I could journal. I could plan tomorrow's day. So I could kind of get those thoughts out of my head. So the idea here is I'm looking to kind of clear my mind.

So that way I could just sleep better and then start fresh the next day. Okay. Create, consume, clear. Yeah. And then there'll be a fourth C, which is like communication. You know, sometimes I'll batch my communication also where maybe for a couple hours I will do all my calls, for instance. People don't realize how much energy is wasted or consumed by switching back and forth all the time.

Your brain is about 2% of your body mass, but it requires 20% of the energy. It's an energy hog. It requires 20% of the oxygen, 20% of the nutrients. So it uses up a lot the energy. It's an energy hog. It requires 20% of the oxygen, 20% of the nutrients. So it uses up a lot of energy. So if we're trying to multitask and we're trying to create, like maybe you're making a proposal and then also consume and then going back to communicate, then you're shutting down different parts. And that could take a lot of energy to turn on one part of your brain and then switch off and then shut that down, turn on another part and then switch again. And that's why multitasking tends to be counterproductive, tends to take more time. The thing you think

you're gaining, you're actually losing because it could take, what, five, 10 minutes to regain your focus. And when you're going from task to task, we make more mistakes, which I mentioned, and also use more brain glucose. And so if people struggle with mental fatigue or brain fog, sometimes it's because we're trying to do too much. So end the day with the last C, which is champagne. There you go. I always think you should have champagne every day. Every day is a celebration, but maybe that's not great for your brain. I think it's important to bring joy and to celebrate our wins. I mean, so many of us beat ourselves up over things and

we put so much energy and we get amped up because of all the things and we obsess about that and we ruminate at night and thinking about those things that we didn't do or we did wrong. And I think if we're going to do that, to be fair, we should put the same amount of energy and effort into celebrating the things we're doing, correct? That's fair. I think we tend to over index on these spontaneous combustions of tragedy. And at the same time, we can have spontaneous combustions of joy. So obviously, with the rise of remote work during the pandemic, there's been big debates around whether or not working from home affects your concentration. Right. Famously, celebrities, high profileprofile folks,

Elon Musk has said that working remotely is selfish. Martha Stewart said people can't possibly get everything done working three days a week in an office and two days remotely. Some studies say that people are more productive, though, at home. What do you think? So I don't think there's a silver bullet. And

maybe this is an easy answer, you know, kind of to cop out. Just like I think, when it comes to food, for instance, I think not everything's for everybody. We're not everybody's for everything. You know, I could talk about kale till I'm green in the face. But some people it just doesn't work for them. I think the same thing is with working styles. I know all the things I should do. You know that I wrote a book about this. And the truth is, I'm very honest about how I don't take my own advice most of the time. I know the things to do. I know I should wake up and do the creativity and stay away from the phone and all the things. And I don't. This morning, I found a fire that I needed to put out. It put me in like a shitty mood and then I just like couldn't shake it.

But I know the things I should do. I just don't do them. And I'm really honest about that. Yeah, and I think that's the starting point for any kind of change. And if you wanna create more change is just knowing how you are and not being judgmental about it at all.

I mean, sometimes it helps for us to put a little pressure on ourselves and to motivate ourselves to give us a little bit of ump and energy going into a certain direction. So basically, I should have a routine is what you're saying. It's optimal. I would say it's been my experience that the treasure we seek is often hidden in our daily routines. How's that for a quickism or a journalism? I love it. I love it too. Or the treasure we seek is hidden in the work we're avoiding sometimes.

Like we all know what we should do a lot of times, but we don't do what we know. I find that common sense is not always common practice, but focus is a starting point for anything. And so, you know, the things that I do tend to help enhance focus because I think focus is a muscle. In fact, I think that we hypnotize ourselves into submission sometimes. It happens at events all the time. People come to me, they'll say,

hey, I'm glad you're here. You know, I'm not smart. You know, I have a horrible memory. And I always say, stop. If you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them. I want to remind everyone, your brain is this incredible supercomputer and our thoughts are the program that will run.

So if you tell yourself, I'm not good at remembering things, I'm not good at remembering names, you probably won't remember the name of the next person you meet because you program your computer not to. But these are important skills in business, right? You know, I think two of the most costly words sometimes in work is I forgot. I forgot to do it. I forgot to bring it. I forgot what I was going to do. I forgot that meeting.

I forgot that conversation. I forgot that person's name. On the other side, though, memory will make anyone more money. When you could more easily remember facts and figures, client information, product information, give a presentation to the board or to a sales pitch and remember those things without relying on notes or a PowerPoint presentation or some kind of teleprompter. We live in the expert economy and the faster you can learn, the faster you could earn. And nobody who's listening to this, it's not like it was hundreds of years ago, like in agricultural industrial age where we're paid for more brute strength.

Today, it's our brain strength. You know, it's not our muscle power that we're compensated for. It's more of our mind power. And when's the last time we took time to really upgrade that? Is there a truth to like sitting at the same desk or the same kitchen table every day helps your brain to focus? Yeah, environment definitely affects our focus. And so you could control the controllables, right? We don't want to try to control things that we have no influence over because I'll be trying to control the economy or try to control the weather, but you could control your personal

finances. You could control your internal weather in terms of, you know, your mood generally. I mean, we all fall in the little highs and lows, certainly. The metaphor I use is just the difference between a thermometer and a thermostat. A thermometer, the only function is it just reacts to the environment, right? It reacts to whatever the environment's giving it. And sometimes as human beings, we react to the economy or react to how people treat us. We react to the weather. But the happiest people tend to not react.

They tend to identify more with the thermostat because the thermostat doesn't react to the environment. It gauges, it knows the temperature of that room. But what does it do? It could set a new temperature and then what happens in the environment, the environment reacts to it. And I just want to remind everybody

about the agency that they have, because sometimes we give up our power and our sovereignty to something else outside of us. It happens to all of us, happens to me certainly. But I feel like if we could remind ourselves that we alone are responsible for our lives, you know, taking that kind of radical ownership over our lives, our finances, our bank account,

you know, is a nice starting point, because that means you are responsible, which means you have the ability to respond, you have the ability to make things better. Hold on to your wallets. Money Rehab will be right back. I love hosting on Airbnb. It's a great way to bring in some extra cash. But I totally get it that it might sound overwhelming to start or even too complicated if, say, you want to put your summer home in Maine on Airbnb, but you live full time in San Francisco and you can't go to Maine every time you need to change sheets for your guests or something like that. If thoughts like these have been holding you back, I have great news for you. Airbnb has launched a co-host network, which is a network of high

quality local co-hosts with Airbnb experience that can take care of your home and your guests. Co-hosts can do what you don't have time for, like managing your reservations, messaging your guests, giving support at the property, or even create your listing for you. I always want to line up a reservation for my house when I'm traveling for work, but sometimes I just don't get around to it because getting ready to travel always feels like a scramble, so I don't end up making time to make my house look guest-friendly. I guess that's the best way to put it. But I'm matching with a co-host so I can still make that extra cash while also making it easy on myself. Find a co-host at Airbnb.com slash host. And now for some more money rehab.

I wanted to ask you about the two minute rule as well for listeners who might not know this is a productivity hack that was first established by David Allen in his book Getting Things Done. He says that if you have something on your to do list, and it takes less than two minutes to complete, don't put it on a to do list, just do it then and there. Do you agree with that approach? Or does that lead to distraction? I will do that. Some people will put things on their to-do list that they've already done just to give them a sense of accomplishment. So they get that kind of like little check mark on it, and that gives them a little level of completion. Yeah. For me, when something comes across,

if it takes two minutes, I'll do it. I really will just because I don't like something to hold power over me. So like, it's similar to, let's say you're not eating, you want to stay away from carbs. You're at a restaurant and they bring you bread and you know you shouldn't be eating that bread. But if that bread is sitting there, like, I don't know about you, but I'm thinking like 30 times that night, even when I'm talking to people, I'm thinking like, should I eat that bread? Should I not eat that bread? Right. As opposed to saying no once and then having them take it away. And I don't have to like ask that question anymore. But for me, the filter is the first D is I do it. If it's two minutes or less, or I'll defer it and I'll schedule it for some future date. I'll delegate it to somebody else in my family or

somebody else on my team, or I'll completely delete it and say, this is not important, but it's not, I didn't come up with those four D's. I don't know who to attribute it to. Do it, defer it, delegate it. Or delete it. But those are the only things that you could do, right? There's only so many things you either do it or you defer it or you delegate it or you just delete it, right? Or ignore it, I guess. Yeah. You defer it into some someday maybe file.

All right. We end all of our episodes with a question for our guests. A money tip you can take straight to the bank. Do you have any money tips for our listeners? It could be anything around how you've successfully saved, budgeted, changed your money mindset. Yeah. There's a quote in my book from a French philosopher who says, and this is my answer to your question, that says, life is the letter C between the letters B and D. B is birth, D is death, life is C, choice.

And so I believe we are the sum total of all the choices we've made up to this point, good, bad, or indifferent, right? Where are we going to live? What are we going to do? Who are we going to spend time with? What do we need? All that stuff, right? And I really do believe that these difficult times, they could distract us. These difficult times can diminish us or these difficult times, they could develop us. We ultimately decide. So one of the questions I ask all the time, because your brain is your wealth for your career, for your money and everything, is I ask myself, is this good for my brain or is this bad for my brain? Is what I'm watching, who I'm spending time with, what I'm eating, whatever, is good

for my brain or bad for my brain? And I would say the same thing about money. If you have a dominant question that says you're challenging yourself and you're charging that reticular activating system, and it's just like, where's the opportunity in this? Like, be conscious of the questions that we ask. How can I reach my 10-year goal if I have six months to do it in, right? You're going to get a different kind of quality question and answer. So I would say the thing that I would be conscious of in your choices are the choices around our thoughts, because thoughts become things and all behavior is belief-driven. So ask yourself these questions like, what's the best use of this moment?

And not where you're so analytical and so obsessed, but you can make it fun. Like, how can I make money and enjoy the process? Like for me, we donated 100% of the proceeds of the book, you know, a million dollars to women's Alzheimer's research in memory of my grandmother, to building schools for girls around the world in Ghana, Guatemala, Kenya. But I believe my formula is you learn to earn to return. And that makes it fun for me. That makes me want to help more people because

I have a moral obligation to do it. And knowing that part of it is going to not only make a dollar, but it'll make a difference in somebody's life. I really think the foundation for wealth is gratitude. And so many people wait for a greater life to feel grateful. I really do believe if you start feeling grateful, you'll have a greater life instantly. Like if you want to feel really wealthy, think about write down all the things you have in your life that money can't buy. Like I wouldn't trade our relationship and our friendship for money. I just wanted the fact that I could see you, that I could hear you. I wouldn't trade our relationship and our friendship for money. I just wanted the fact that I could see you, that I could hear you. I wouldn't trade that for money.

And then we start feeling that sense of abundance more. And I think what you appreciate, appreciates. You know, it grows. That was in my book. I know. Did you take that from my book? I do. Credit Nicole.

All right. Love you, Jim. Love you too. Money Rehab is a production of Money News Network. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin. Money Rehab's executive producer is Morgan Lavoie. Our researcher is Emily Holmes. Do you need some money rehab? And let's be honest, we all do. So email us your money questions, moneyrehab at moneynewsnetwork.com to potentially have your questions answered on the show or even have a one-on-one intervention with me. And follow us on Instagram at Money News and TikTok at

Money News Network for exclusive video content. And lastly, thank you. No, seriously, thank you. Thank you for listening and for investing in yourself, which is the most important investment you can make.