Something You Should Know - SYSK Choice: How to Overcome Distractions & Why It Pays to Lighten Up at Work

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Starting point is 00:00:34 hearing that it's illegal to kill a praying mantis? I'll tell you what the law really says. Then, why do distractions suck up so much time and keep you from doing what needs to be done? There's kind of three things that our attention gravitates to by default. The first is anything that in the moment we find pleasurable. The second is anything that in the moment we find threatening. And the third is anything that in the moment is new and novel. Plus, why you need to put a picture of a baby in your wallet. Any baby.

Starting point is 00:01:06 And levity and fun in the workplace. Do they belong there? The vast majority of people look at levity and they say, oh, it has no place at work. Now, we're very serious about our mission here at Acme, Rivet, and Bolt. The fact of the matter is, most people will never suffer from having too much fun in their workplace. All this today on Something You Should Know. Metrolinks and Crosslinks are reminding everyone to be careful as Eglinton Crosstown LRT train testing is in progress. Please be alert as trains can pass at any time on the tracks. Remember to follow all traffic signals. Be careful along our tracks and only make left turns where it's safe to do so.

Starting point is 00:01:52 Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life Today, Something You Should Know With Mike Carruthers You know, just yesterday

Starting point is 00:02:13 I saw a praying mantis on my bathroom window And I don't see them very often And when I saw it My mind immediately flashed back to when I was a kid And I remember hearing And I bet you have too I remember hearing when I was a kid, and I remember hearing, and I bet you have too, I remember hearing when I was a kid that killing a praying mantis was illegal, that you could go to jail or have to pay a fine.

Starting point is 00:02:34 So I decided to look that up, and it turns out that it is not illegal, it's a little cruel, but it's not illegal to kill a praying mantis. The rumor's been around since the 1950s, but there are no laws on the books anywhere that say that killing a praying mantis is against the law. What is interesting, though, is some experts believe that that rumor has helped the species prosper over the years. But why would you want to kill one anyway? I mean, they're pretty cool to look at, and they devour bugs you don't really want around,

Starting point is 00:03:08 like mosquitoes and moths. And what is true about the praying mantis is that after mating, the female kills and devours the male, and that is perfectly legal. And that is something you should know. I would like to believe that when you listen to this podcast, you are paying attention, that I have your undivided attention. But I'm well aware of the fact that I am competing for your attention with a lot of other distractions. For most of us, our attention is easily diverted to something else, which may be fine in some circumstances, but when you really need to stay focused on what you're doing, those distractions become a real problem. So how do you stay with the things you need to be paying

Starting point is 00:03:57 attention to and keep all those other tempting distractions at bay? Well, that's what Chris Bailey is here to talk about. Chris is one of the big productivity gurus around, and he is the author of a book called Hyperfocus, How to Be More Productive in a World of Distractions. And he joins me via Skype from Canada. Hey, Chris. Hey, thanks for having me, Matt. So I get the problem that you're trying to solve,

Starting point is 00:04:24 but the term hyperfocus is a little intense. So why don't you explain what you mean by it? This is a term that I use to refer to a mental state where we bring our complete, deliberate attention to something. And that deliberate part, I think, is the key here, because we rarely choose when we pay attention to something. The world kind of decides for us. And so, you know, it's an intense term, hyper-focus, but I think it's just basically about bringing this thoughtfulness to where we direct our attention. Well, I think that's so true, that there are so many different things you could divert your

Starting point is 00:05:02 attention to. Hey, look over here at this thing. And it does seem that the more you need to be focused on something important, the more attractive those other distractions become. Yeah. And by the way, like, I think we're hard on ourselves when we get distracted. But the one thing that I realized that kind of took a lot of weight off of my own shoulders, because, you know, this book very much came from a place of noticing that I was distracted. And so I figured, okay, if I'm such a big geek about productivity, and I've been studying this stuff, maybe there's a bigger picture that I'm missing that everybody else is missing too. And maybe this is something that other people struggle with as well. And, you know, this led me to a lot of curious findings, but one was precisely that, that this isn't necessarily our fault. It's just

Starting point is 00:05:52 simply the way our mind is wired. We're wired for distraction. In fact, there's kind of three things that our attention gravitates to by default. The first is anything that in the moment we find pleasurable. The second is anything that in the moment we find threatening. And the third is anything that in the moment is new and novel. And so we even have a novelty bias embedded within our brain's prefrontal cortex where it releases a hit of dopamine for every new and novel thing that we focus on. And so when you add these things together and you look at what the most pleasurable and threatening and novel things around you are, it's really not what you want to be doing. It's not the Excel budget that you're updating. It's

Starting point is 00:06:35 not the big, long email tome that you're responding to. It's Instagram, it's Facebook, it's Twitter, it's social media, it's the news. So, you know, A, it's not really our fault, but B, you know, I think this, because of that, it is an impulse worth getting out in front of. Well, but it may not be our fault, but we can set things up or not to be more easily, if you turn your phone off, then guess what? You can't be distracted by it. You know, a distraction is essentially just something that in the moment is more tempting and attractive to us than what we truly ought and want to be doing. And so when we tame those things ahead of time, we give our mind no choice but to focus on what's important in front of us.

Starting point is 00:07:21 So, you know, my distraction-free mode when I write, I put on noise-canceling headphones. I leave my phone in another room. I have a distraction blocking application on my computer called Freedom, where when you enable it, if you try to access social media or any sites on your list of problem websites, Reddit is one of mine. I'm a big fan of the mechanical keyboard and knitting subreddits, two of my favorite hobbies. You know, these things will suck up a lot of time and in the moment are more attractive than the words that I want to crank out. But the idea is that by taming them ahead of time, you give yourself no choice but to focus.

Starting point is 00:08:00 But don't you ever wonder what you're missing when you turn it all off? You do. But I think one of the things that is really helpful with that is keeping a distractions list. And so, you know, I have a sheet of paper right here that like I make a list of the things that come to mind. So if I want to check social media, I'll add that to the list of things to do when my focus timer goes off. So after the 40, 45 minutes that I usually schedule in a writing block, I sometimes treat myself to an all-you-can-eat buffet of distraction. And this is a tactic that is actually backed up in

Starting point is 00:08:38 the research where it makes us significantly less stressed when we're focusing because we know that the distractions await us when we're done being so productive. I like that idea because then you have a reward for doing what you're supposed to be doing. Yeah, like this stuff should be fun. Like that's the point of investing in a product. I think, you know, this term productivity, it turns a lot of people off because it brings to mind something that feels so cold and corporate and all about this efficiency. But it's really just accomplishing what we set out to do. That's, in my opinion, a perfectly productive day. at the start of the day is to put your feet up because you're on the beach and you're on vacation and you're sipping a Long Island iced tea and you're reading a good book and then you accomplish all that, I would argue that you're perfectly productive. And the same is true if that intention is to have a big day at work. And that's what you want to accomplish. Ultimately,

Starting point is 00:09:40 we should be kind to ourselves as we invest in our productivity. And this is kind of the ironic thing about this topic is the idea that you want to become more productive. And, you know. And so that's kind of the art of productivity, is finding ways to be kind to yourself and reward yourself, treat yourself, make things easy on yourself, so that you can get more done without disliking your work, and so you can enjoy your work even more. You talked about how you block out 45 minutes. And that brings up the question of, you know, you can't go 100 miles an hour all day long. So how do we know what does the science tell us or what do you say about how we break up the day?

Starting point is 00:10:37 You know, I highly recommend shrinking how long you focus for until you feel less of a resistance to doing that. And so you might ask yourself, okay, I have this report to crank out. How long do I think I could focus on just this one thing? Could I focus on the report for an hour? No, the thought of it puts me off. Okay, 45 minutes? It's a bit better, but still 30 minutes, still 20 minutes? Yeah, I could write this report for 20 minutes. And so you get over that initial resistance. And once you go for 20 minutes, you're able to keep going because usually the resistance we have to doing things is stacked at the beginning of a task. You know, our attention kind of gravitates, it flows in these 20, 25 minute blocks of time. So that's kind of a natural rhythm of our body that we can follow.

Starting point is 00:11:29 But I highly recommend, you know, notice your own energy, notice your own focus, notice your own resistance. Because a big part of that is realizing how stimulated your mind is by default. You know, because of that novelty bias where your mind releases dopamine for each

Starting point is 00:11:46 new and novel thing you focus on, that's going to train you into chopping up your attention into smaller bits. One alarming study I encountered was that on average, when we're doing work in front of a computer, we focus on one thing for only 40 seconds before we switch to doing something else. And so depending on how close you are to that 40 second mark, maybe you're a bit below it, you're a bit more distracted than average, maybe you're a bit less distracted and you're able to think and focus more deeply, you know, you'll find that the amount of time that you naturally have for something is maybe a bit shorter, maybe a bit longer. So work within that limit and enter into your distraction-free mode during that time. But be kind to yourself at the same time and don't try to go overboard and treat yourself

Starting point is 00:12:35 after because it's supposed to be fun. But it is interesting that when your back's against the wall, when the deadline's approaching, somehow you can be really productive for long periods of time. I think this is an uncomfortable truth that a lot of us need to face with our work is sometimes the fact that we're distracted quite often is a sign that we don't have enough work to do. There's this phenomenon in productivity circles called Parkinson's law, which states that our work tends to expand to fit how much time we have available for its completion. And so if you have, you know, three or four hours of real work to do over the course of the day, and you have an eight-hour

Starting point is 00:13:14 chunk of time to do it in, you might not take on more complex projects. You might not say, okay, you know, sign me up for that event later on in the day, you might instead fill that time with email and kind of wasting time on the internet, anything that's pleasurable and threatening and novel. And so, sometimes the fact that we tend to a lot of distractions is a sign that our work is expanding to fit how much time we have available for it. Because like you said, focus comes easy when we're on a deadline. Our work becomes more involved. It becomes more immediate. There's that feedback that we feel ourselves progressing towards that deadline.

Starting point is 00:13:53 And plus, our work becomes more novel. It's more threatening because we can feel that deadline a quick, short time away. And so I think that's something to be cognizant of, is if you find yourself falling victim to distraction a lot, maybe you have the capacity to do even more than you are already, which will make you naturally more productive. And therein lies a problem for many people. And one of my criticisms of the whole productivity thing is, it never ends. Like, okay, so if you step up and do your work more productively, you get more work done in less time. And then you go to your boss and say, oh, my work's done. I got all this time.

Starting point is 00:14:36 I've got no more work. He's just going to give you more work to do and try to get you to do it in less time. And if you're working for somebody else, there's no payoff to that. It's just more work, less time, more work, less time. To what end? What's the incentive? I think this is how you level up in an organization, though. And maybe it's time to find a different boss if they just want you to be busy and not actually accomplish things. You know, the best bosses measure productivity, not based on how busy somebody is, but how much they actually accomplish, you know, what projects they ship,

Starting point is 00:15:10 which ones they lead successfully. There's a great quote where it says, there is no love, there are only proofs of love. And I think a similar thing relates to our productivity too, where, you know, there is no productivity, There are only proofs of productivity. So, you know, kind of a big part of it is managing other people's expectations and showing them that we're hunkering down on important stuff and shipping it. But it's, yeah, that's kind of where productivity is less of a science and more of an art. Productivity expert Chris Bailey is my guest. He's author of a book called Hyperfocus, How to Be More Productive in a World of Distraction. This winter, take a trip to Tampa on Porter Airlines. Enjoy the warm Tampa Bay temperatures and warm Porter hospitality on your way there.

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Starting point is 00:16:38 Unfortunately, life doesn't come with an owner's manual. That's why there's BetterHelp Online Therapy. Connect with a credentialed therapist by phone, video, or online chat. Visit betterhelp.com to learn more. That's betterhelp.com. So Chris, how important is it, do you think, the way you approach and schedule your day? I think it totally depends. Some people find that they focus best when they choose at the beginning of the day what they want to accomplish. And that's enough for them. And other people find that they focus best when they choose the main things they want

Starting point is 00:17:14 to accomplish that day, but also schedule two, three hour blocks of time to just hunker down on those projects. And so I think depending on your need for structure, depending on your level of, you know, OCD or, you know, how much control you like over your own life, that's something that everybody kind of needs to play around with. One fascinating study, you know, looked at the socioeconomic standing based on people who wake up early and people who wake up later on in the day. And the researchers found that there was zero difference in socioeconomic standing based on what time people woke up at, but rather it's how deliberately they spent their time after they woke up that made the difference in how much money they made, how successful they were, what they did for a living. And I think

Starting point is 00:18:01 that's the key to productivity is that deliberateness, that intentionality that has to precede the things that we do. But don't you think though, and maybe it's just me, but I suspect it's more human nature that if you write down what you're going to do today, you're much more likely to get it done than if it's some ideas floating around in your head. You know, one of my favorite daily rituals at the start of the day, I call it the rule of three. And it goes like this. You know, I look at the beginning of the day,

Starting point is 00:18:32 and I think, if it's the end of the day, what three main things will I want to have accomplished by the time that this day is done? And it's like a simple rule. It's almost stupidly simple. But I find that three is this magical number. And it's actually, you know, related to attention, where three or four things is the amount of things that we can keep in our working memory at one time. We used to think we could keep seven or eight, but now researchers find that it's about three or four. And you can see that the world around us is structured around this limit. You know, if you ask me like, Chris, what's your phone number? I won't say it's, you know, 1,613,898,000, you know, so on and so forth. I'll say it's like 1-898-da-da-da-da-da-da-da in groups of three and four. And we have sayings like we divide events into three parts, like even a story,

Starting point is 00:19:27 which is a sequence of dozens of events. We divide into the beginning, the middle, and the end. We have sayings like good things come in threes and celebrities die in threes and the third time's the charm. And so it kind of fits with the way that our attention is wired, where if we define the three things that we'll want to accomplish by the day's end, we get that intentionality. Talk about multitasking, because I think people think that they multitask and that they're good at it or not good at it, but what does the science say? So there's this kind of unwritten rule in the productivity space that we can't multitask. But the truth is that we can multitask, but in very, very limited capacities. So I'll give you an example. Habits we can multitask with. So we can walk down the street

Starting point is 00:20:14 while we chew bubblegum, while we avoid the cracks in the sidewalk, things we can do largely out of habit, while we listen to a podcast like this one. So, you know, while a podcast kind of sops up most of our attention, the other habits we can do largely on autopilot mode. But where we run into trouble is when we try to focus on too many complex things at one time. So we can't, this is the fascinating thing about our attention, we can't actively focus on more than one thing at one time. We can't focus on having two conversations at once. We can best bounce between them. And the reason multitasking is so inefficient is really we're just switching between things rapidly on the fly. It's kind of

Starting point is 00:20:59 like a movie where a movie is, you know, it's essentially 24 pictures a second played so fast in rapid succession that it creates the illusion of movement. That's kind of like what multitasking is, is we switch between things so often that we feel like we're doing them at the same time, but really we're just rapidly switching between them. And the reason that multitasking doesn't work is because of a phenomenon called attention residue, where it's actually impossible to cleanly switch from doing one thing to doing another thing. And so we're having this conversation right now if right after we check our email. We can't completely focus on checking our email because a part of us will be remembering this conversation. But this happens for things that we say switch between every 40 seconds or so, where we're always remembering and

Starting point is 00:21:51 a part of our attention is always devoted to what we were just focusing on, which prevents us from getting immersed in whatever's in front of us. And in research, like if we could focus from one thing to the next to the next seamlessly and cleanly, this wouldn't be a problem. You know, we could easily, you know, multitask. But our work has been shown because of this attention residue to take about 50% longer as opposed to when we just hunker down on one thing. When we get into that distraction-free mode. When we tame distractions like our smartphone ahead of time, when we leave it in another room when we're writing or working or in a meeting.

Starting point is 00:22:30 These are all things that we can do. And so the longer we can focus on one thing for, I think this is one of the best measures of the quality of our attention because that's everything. That dictates how stimulated our mind is by default. That dictates how meaningful our experiences are because we're able to process them in the first place. And, you know, productivity is kind of a side effect of doing all that well. When I think about productivity, I think about that term. I think, you know, that's all about getting more things done in less time. But equally as important is to get things done better, the quality of the work. And I wonder what in the productivity world does the research say about getting away from work, sleeping on it, distracting yourself to get good ideas.

Starting point is 00:23:21 Is all of that just anecdotal or is there real science there? There's science there and actually fascinating science. In fact, deliberately letting our mind wander is one of the best things that we can do for our creativity. And, you know, frankly, most of us have enough data at our disposal. If you think back to when your last most brilliant light bulb insight struck you, you probably weren't focused on anything. You were probably, you know, maybe you were taking a shower. Maybe you were swimming laps at the pool. Maybe you were having your morning coffee with just a notepad. Or, you know, chances are,

Starting point is 00:23:57 you were doing two things. You were doing something that was relatively habitual that didn't consume your full attentions. And so because of that, second of all, your mind had the chance to wander. And the reason this mode is so productive is our mind wanders to some fascinating places. In research, it's called our mind's prospective bias. We think about our goals 14 times as often when our mind is wandering versus when we're focused. And so it's when we're focused that we move our work forward, but it's when our mind is wandering, especially when we're doing something simple and habitual at the same time, that we think about the future, that we set intentions. It's in the walk down the hallway when we're on our way to a meeting

Starting point is 00:24:42 that we think about what we want to get accomplished in that meeting if we're not looking down at our phone. So, you know, in addition to wandering to the future, we also wander to think about the present a little bit as well. We think about the present about 28% of the time. So, this is when we're thinking more strategically when our mind is wandering. Well, great. You've given us some terrific information about how focus really does work inside the brain and how to use it to your advantage. Chris Bailey has been my guest. He is a productivity expert and he's author of the book Hyperfocus, How to Be More Productive

Starting point is 00:25:18 in a World of Distraction. There's a link to his book in the show notes. Thanks, Chris. Yeah, thanks for having me. It was fun. This episode is brought to you by Melissa and Doug. Wooden puzzles and building toys for problem solving and arts and crafts for creative thinking,

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Starting point is 00:26:02 Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy,

Starting point is 00:26:32 it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes. Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back, and in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed critical thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Kind of by definition, workplaces tend to be pretty serious. After all, it's work, and we're trying to get things done,

Starting point is 00:27:12 and there isn't a lot of time for joking around. Well, maybe there should be some time for joking around, because there are some big benefits to a little humor. That's the message from Scott Christopher. He is the co-author of the book, The Levity Effect, Why It Pays to Lighten Up. And he's looked into the research regarding

Starting point is 00:27:31 humor and work. Hey, Scott, so what do we know? What are the benefits, right off the bat here, what are the benefits of humor in the workplace? What do we know? We've found that those who possess a sense of humor, or at least an ability to appreciate humor, tend to climb the corporate ladder quicker. They actually end up making a little more money. They're perceived by their peers as being able to climb that ladder faster as well. And plus just the sense that, you know, you laugh a lot, you enjoy life. It's great for the brain. You know, your body's more oxygenated, the vasodilatation of the arteries and blood vessels carries more oxygen. When people are lightened up, when they're relaxed, they tend to do better work. And yet I think the attitude in so many workplaces is that we need to

Starting point is 00:28:22 nose to the grindstone, let's get business done. We don't have time for that. Yeah, there is kind of that stigma that, hey, you know, if you're the joker, you're probably lazy. Or if you're a goofball, you possess zero credibility. And that's, you know, that's basically, that's the mountain we climb when we went out to do this research. For many people, they'll say, this is just a big, fat duh. Like, we knew this all along, that there are people that have a great sense of humor and kind of a lightness of being, and naturally people are more drawn to them. But like you're saying, really the vast majority of people look at levity and they say, ooh, it has no place at work now.

Starting point is 00:29:04 We're very serious about our mission here at Acme, Rivet, and Bolt, where our aim is to save the world. The fact of the matter is that most people will never suffer from having too much fun in their workplace. Well, it all sounds good, and I think we'd all like to think that a fun place to work would be a good place to work and be a productive place to work, and that's what you're saying, but how do you know that? Where's the proof of this? You know, a lot of people are familiar with the best places to work

Starting point is 00:29:35 in America list. Fortune magazine puts it out every year, and it's the top 100 places to work based on things like camaraderie, trust, fun at work, friends. I mean, there's different factors that go into being part of this best places to work in America. And we were able to have access to a lot of the research that goes into coming up with this list. And interestingly enough, we found a connection between the companies where employees say, this is definitely a fun place to work, where there is humor and lightness. We found the connection that the majority of those that are on that top 100 list outscored the other companies that just made the good list by, in some cases, 20 to 25 percentage points.

Starting point is 00:30:16 And when the statisticians went back in, they said, you know, this is a fairly significant finding. This even made us kind of raise our eyebrows. This is what they're telling us is, wow, there's a correlation between having fun at work and having a stronger work environment. For many people, that won't be a surprise. But what's interesting is those companies that are on that Best Place to Work Institute aren't necessarily in the poorhouse. In fact, they did a little bit of research and they said if you were to take your retirement funds, your investment, and put it into the best places to work companies,

Starting point is 00:30:51 over a five-year period, you actually get a five times greater return than if you just left it in the S&P 500, for example. So these companies that are considered great places to work actually outperform other companies. And a big factor to that is this sense of levity within the actual workplace. So what does that look like? How is it different to go to work in one of these fun places compared to a more conventional workplace? Well, you know what? You're equally as excited to get to work as you are to turn around and leave work. You know, you feel like you have friends there. You know, most of us, our dream job is to just enjoy what we do. You ask somebody, what is it that you'd love to do? I just want to find something that I'm good at and that I really enjoy. And that, for me, would be the ideal job. And part of enjoying what you do

Starting point is 00:31:42 is enjoying the people that are around you. And a lot of that starts with, in most cases, management. You know, if they can learn to lighten up a little bit and allow levity to happen, it doesn't mean that they have to be stand-up comics. But if there is a stand-up comic, allow this person to bring that a little bit. Obviously, there's time and place rules. There's appropriateness and things like that. But generally speaking, it feels great. I work in an environment myself where we have a lot of fun.

Starting point is 00:32:14 We just got done playing foosball upstairs after our lunch break. And I come back to my desk and I feel reinvigorated. I'm a little more excited to go after my work. And ideas tend to flow a little more smoothly. But if you work in a workplace that is more conventional, there isn't a lot of joking around. How in the world are you going to go in tomorrow and say, hey guys, hey, we're going to yuck it up today. I mean, how do you introduce this if it's never been there? That's a good question. You know, there's a few things you can do to kind of just work your way into it. One thing that we suggest is when you, maybe on that first morning you come to work, maybe stop off and grab some donuts and coffee or whatever for people, just as a gesture of goodwill and that, you know, bringing in snacks and treats isn't anything new, but it is an indication that you're

Starting point is 00:32:58 willing to kind of make things a little lighter. Another thing, you know, is that, you know, change up your voicemail greeting. A lot of us have kind of these robotic, very staid, basic greetings that we have on there. And I think there's a way without turning it into shtick, you know, there's a way to just be a normal person. In fact, there's a way to put a phone greeting on that sounds like you talking to someone face-to-face rather than just into a machine. Some companies will put together a fun bunch, if you call them whatever you will, but maybe a rotating committee of people whose task is to come up with some ways that we can have fun within our work group, things that people agree on, stuff that we can do together. Maybe we go bowling once a month during lunch, or, you know,

Starting point is 00:33:51 we blast music really loud at three o'clock, and on Thursday, that's your day. So you get to choose from your iTunes. It's something, you know, that ties back to who these people are in terms of their relationship as workmates. It's not necessarily programmed and forced upon them. It's more organic. It's born of who they are at work. Well, what about the actual work itself? I mean, it sounds, if I'm hearing you right, it sounds like, you know, okay, you're stopping work to go play foosball, that you're not injecting humor into doing the work, you're stopping work to have fun. The two are oil and water and they don't mix. Or do they?

Starting point is 00:34:27 Yeah, again, it kind of depends on each organization. You know, where you're stopping down, many organizations allow, obviously, for breaks anyway. It's not something that we'd suggest you do every single break or every single day for that matter. And one thing that we do think is critical, as you mentioned, Mike, is to link the humor, link the levity to work, if at all possible. One way to do that is to allow levity to happen

Starting point is 00:34:52 in meetings, in brainstorm sessions. You know, start things off with pizza and pop or whatever, and let people just kind of catch up on what's going on. Kind of get things loosened up. And in fact, more creative ideas can come from that. You know, occasionally people might get outside on a nice spring warm day and throw a frisbee around. Now, will they do that as a recess every day? Probably not. But occasionally if your people come to you and they have suggestions for ways that they just need to lighten up and loosen up, allow those things to happen.

Starting point is 00:35:24 Because chances are they won't overstep those boundaries. They respect the fact and appreciate the fact that you're allowing them a little rope, and they don't want to bite the hand that feeds them. You know, they won't overdo it. And yet it's just that little gesture that I think helps build a great leader in terms of levity. Do you ever find, though, that when you allow levity between people in an organization, when you lighten things up, that then there's a tendency to want to take that levity and lightness in interactions with people in other organizations where maybe this isn't so appropriate and that that could cause trouble? Well, I'm sure that's possible, yes. The idea here is to allow people to have levity within their comfort zone. You're certainly going to have people, regardless of how much you try to do,

Starting point is 00:36:14 that simply aren't comfortable with having fun at work or that maybe step aside. And to that we say, let them be. As in all things, it's lightening up. So lighten up with those who don't want to lighten up. If they don't want to, that's the beauty of it. And so obviously, where we're trying to keep things appropriate, where we understand that there's a time and place rule involved, it does require that you've hired people with a sense of judgment as well as a sense of humor. And so hopefully they understand who they know, who they are,

Starting point is 00:36:45 how they represent the organization. So when they're dealing with outside clients. Anybody who's worked in a place that allows this, and I know I have, I can recall early in my career working in places where, you know, Friday afternoons, things were a little looser and we used to have fun and do things. People remember that. People remember that fondly. And I think they would say that, yeah, there was a real payoff to that. I think so. You know, you said it. You know, who was your favorite?

Starting point is 00:37:15 Let me ask you this. Who was your favorite boss ever? You know, think about the one person you reported to that just went down in history as your most favorite ever. Chances are they probably led with a degree of levity. Typically, those were your favorite bosses. Yeah, the informality of it made everybody seem a little more real, a little more human, and it made things less stressful.

Starting point is 00:37:37 Right, you're not stressed out. You don't feel as much pressure. You don't have that gnawing in your gut like, oh, honey, I'll see you later. I've got to go to work, work and I got to face the boss. When there's levity, when there's that sense that everything's okay, you know, the world's not going to end, it makes it that much easier, in fact that much more fun, to want to get to work. You don't want to miss out on what people say today or what little viral email might go around. That's appropriately funny. You want to

Starting point is 00:38:04 be there. So if you want to be there for that. So if you want to institute this culture of levity into a workplace, it would seem to me that that would have to come from the top down, that average Joe grunt worker guy, who's probably the funniest guy at the company, can't just walk in tomorrow and start yucking it up and telling jokes, because I think isn't it more of a cultural thing? Well, you'd be surprised. You can't just walk in tomorrow and start, you know, yucking it up and telling jokes, because I think isn't it more of a cultural thing? Well, you'd be surprised. You can't.

Starting point is 00:38:29 I think a lot of grunt workers, so to speak, probably possess latent, you know, howling, side-splitting senses of humor, and they're afraid to unleash them for fear of a lack of credibility. By the same token, leaders face that same dilemma. You're right, though, that it has to be at some point this kind of trickle-down effect. And so when we, you know, we rewrite and we speak to companies, we always try to include those senior-level bosses, the CEO, etc. In fact, a lot of the research that's been done, some of it at least, talks about, you know, a CEO's desire

Starting point is 00:39:03 to hire people with a sense of humor. In fact, one study found that 98% of North American CEOs would prefer to hire someone who has a very apparent sense of humor over someone who is a little more dour, who takes things a little more gravely. They want that within their organization. So we're hoping that they also possess that same quality. By the same token, 84% of coworkers believe that their coworkers that have humor actually do better. They might not necessarily be sneaking in and looking at their paycheck and payroll and seeing how much money they're making, but they tend to believe this guy's going places. He probably makes more than I do. He'll be promoted faster. And so, yeah, as a regular day-to-day worker, you know, bring some of that. You don't have to force it on an unsuspecting audience, but just bring the general demeanor. Well, it's a good message, and it's one I think people like hearing because it validates what I think a lot of us like to believe, that fun has a place in the workplace, and it does have benefits that really do pay off.

Starting point is 00:40:09 Scott Christopher has been my guest. The name of his book is The Levity Effect, Why It Pays to Lighten Up. And there's a link to his book in the show notes. Probably one of the worst feelings there is, is that feeling when you realize you've lost your wallet. You've looked everywhere, and it finally dawns on you, it's gone. You've left it somewhere, you dropped it somewhere, and now whether or not you get it back is entirely up to the kindness of strangers. Well, one thing you might want to do is put a picture of a baby inside your wallet.

Starting point is 00:40:46 A group of researchers scattered phony lost wallets around to see which ones were most likely to be returned. And get this, 88% of all the wallets returned were the ones that had pictures of smiling babies in them. Dr. Richard Wiseman, author of the study, says he chalks this up to an evolutionary quirk. Human beings naturally feel more responsible towards babies even when the baby isn't their own. Here's how the other wallets came back. Those with a picture of a puppy, 53% of those wallets came back.

Starting point is 00:41:21 And a picture of a happy family, just 48% of those wallets came back. And a picture of a happy family, just 48% of those wallets came back. And that is something you should know. Questions, comments, or just want to say hi, you can always get me at my email address, which is mike at somethingyoushouldknow.net. I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Hey, hey, are you ready for some real talk and some fantastic laughs? Join me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa Demonts, for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong?

Starting point is 00:41:52 We're serving up four hilarious shows every week designed to entertain and engage and, you know, possibly enrage you. In Don't Blame Me, we dive deep into listeners' questions, offering advice that's funny, relatable, and real. Whether you're dealing with relationship drama or you just need a friend's perspective, we've got you. Then switch gears with But Am I Wrong?,

Starting point is 00:42:11 which is for listeners who didn't take our advice and want to know if they are the villains in the situation. Plus, we share our hot takes on current events and present situations that we might even be wrong in our lives. Spoiler alert, we are actually quite literally never wrong. But wait, there's more. Check out See You Next Tuesday, where we reveal the juicy results from our listener polls from But Am I Wrong? And don't miss Fisting Friday, where we catch up, chat about pop culture, TV and movies. It's the perfect way to kick off your

Starting point is 00:42:38 weekend. So if you're looking for a podcast that feels like a chat with your besties, listen to Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Hi, this is Rob Benedict. And I am Richard Spate. We were both on a little show you might know called Supernatural. It had a pretty good run. 15 seasons, 327 episodes. And though we have seen, of course, every episode many times, we figured, hey, now that we're wrapped,

Starting point is 00:43:12 let's watch it all again. And we can't do that alone. So we're inviting the cast and crew that made the show along for the ride. We've got writers, producers, composers, directors, and we'll of course have some actors on as well, including some certain guys that played some certain pretty iconic brothers.

Starting point is 00:43:29 It was kind of a little bit of a left field choice in the best way possible. The note from Kripke was, he's great, we love him, but we're looking for like a really intelligent Duchovny type. With 15 seasons to explore, it's going to be the road trip of several lifetimes, so please join us and subscribe to Supernatural then and now.

Something You Should Know - SYSK Choice: How to Overcome Distractions & Why It Pays to Lighten Up at Work

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