Penny Zenker
It’s so good to be here. I’m excited.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m excited as well. I think you’re the first Focusologist that we’ve had on the show.

Penny Zenker
I can guarantee it since I made it up.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s like, “Yeah, the lawyers would have pursued them rigorously if anyone else came…” Well, that’s a really cool title. Tell us, where does that come from?

Penny Zenker
Well, it comes from, it’s as much for me as it is for everyone else, so, firstly, it comes from reminding me that the practice of controlling and directing our focus towards more meaningful results is a daily practice. An ologist is someone who practices and goes deep into the practice. So, it’s for me and my health and well-being, as well as for my success, but I realize we are in a focus crisis, so I really have it as well as a mission to help others to also make that a daily practice.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, we’re going to dig into some of these practices, absolutely, because focusing better is a key thing listeners have asked for, and, yeah, there’s a real need for that, certainly. Could you share with us, what is the state of this crisis you mentioned?

Penny Zenker
Well, I think most people would agree. I’ve done a lot of research of my own, but there’s also a multitude of statistics out there, like, we tap, touch, swipe, and scroll on our phones 3,000 times a day. That’s incredible. And people go to bed with their phones. They go to the bathroom with their phones. And what my research has shown me, as I’ve done a lot of research to kind of give people a distraction profile, and the highest level is a time zombie. And I’m happy to share that link. It’s a free quiz that people can take just to get some perspective.

And we’re finding that people are just two rungs below a time zombie. If there’s six different possible profiles, people are at the second and the third to the highest is what we’re looking.

Pete Mockaitis
So, you mean, like, that’s the average or median level of…?

Penny Zenker
Yeah, that most people define themselves after they go through this as squirrels, meaning that they’re distracted by this, that, and everything, that they’re having a really hard time staying attentive and focusing on what matters most. And it’s not just our phones. It’s also all of the fast pace of we’ve got to be, stay up with AI and we’ve got so many different things going on, challenges in the workplace with toxicity or burnout, too much being given to us at any one time, or just the state of social affairs in the world.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, well, can you tell us then, what is the possibility, if we’ve truly mastered our focus, and what are we missing out on? If this is just sort of our normal, like this is water, this is air, this is just sort of what is, what’s really possible for us in a world where we have gained true mastery of this?

Penny Zenker
Well, I think the first thing is not to accept this distraction as our new normal, is we have to take back control of the things that we actually can control, and that’s what I’m on a mission to do for myself. But what’s possible is this distraction is causing a lot of mental health issues. They’re showing links to the level of distraction that we have with the level of anxiety, with the loneliness epidemic that they talk about, and other mental health issues.

So, we would see a lift in our mental health, we’d be able to have deeper, more meaningful relationships, we’d be able to experience more joy in the work that we do, and in the time that we spend because we’d be spending it more on the things that matter most and things that give us energy, versus things that take our energy away, or splinter our energy into lots of different directions. So, we would just be happier and be more fulfilled if we would take back our focus.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, can you share with us, Penny, just how harmful is this distractedness, smartphone stuff? Is it a boogeyman? Is it just sort of a minor point? Or is it transformational?

Penny Zenker

Well, I think it’s transformational, and I think it’s also, if we look at a particular study that was done in 2018 from the Journal of Behavioral Science, at that point in time, and that was a long time ago, they said that people who use their smartphones for more than five hours a day are twice as likely to experience symptoms of anxiety and depression compared to those who use it more frequently. And I can tell you that if we were to look at how many hours per day, if we’d looked up that study, we would see a very significant number of people using their phones more than five hours a day.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. Yeah, this reminds me, I think it was a South Park episode about this, where people think the answer is more smartphone and it’s exactly the opposite that gets the job done. So, that’s a comedy show, but so we got some hard science there. And then tell us, what have you seen in terms of clients who have instituted some good practices and constraints around this stuff? What do they pull off in terms of being more awesome at their jobs?

Penny Zenker

Well, when they start to schedule themselves more effectively, well, let me put it this way first. The first thing that I have people do, and this kind of ties into some of the things I have in my new book, The Reset Mindset is I have them take reset moments, because stress is shown to compound, and so this stops stress from compounding, and stress can also come from distraction.

So, when people take these reset moments, they’re able to reflect more clearly on what’s working and what’s not working. They’re able to take time to schedule their day out so that their day is focused on the things that matter most. So, when they’re making time for these reset moments, and including what they’re going to do and how they’re going to use their phones, and when they’re going to block out those distractions, they’re finding, not just within themselves, that they’re more productive.

I have one CEO that I’ve worked with who said that he’s easily two times more productive because he now has these blocks where he’s not distracted because he has these practices of what I call gatekeepers, that he puts away his phone, and he directs and protects his time, and so, therefore, he’s able to get so much more done, and so much more of the right things because he’s really more intentional about it.

And not only that, but he says that his team is showing that they’re much more effective. They’re able to resolve problems quicker than they were in the past, and they’re able to be more creative in the solutions that they come up with, and so he’s really, really happy. Every time we meet, he says, “I’ve had yet another month that’s the best recorded month of revenue and profitability that we’ve ever experienced.” So, he’s been really seeing that in the bottom line.

Pete Mockaitis

Fantastic. Okay. So that sounds handy and wise. I’m curious, as you put together your book, The Reset Mindset and the revised edition here, any particularly surprising discoveries that made you go, “Wow, I didn’t expect to find that”?

Penny Zenker

I mean, I think that it’s the surprises that I’m hearing are about how I didn’t expect the language to be as sticky for people as it is, and really simplify their access to it. So, these words of reset moments is something that people are saying that now they’ve become sort of these professional noticers.

And they’re seeing these opportunities everywhere to take these reset moments, which I didn’t expect it to be as sticky and as impactful in the way that it is on a day-to-day basis and how people are putting it into practice, talking about it with each other, using it as a language within the organization. So those are some things that I didn’t expect.

And I think also what’s interesting is I didn’t expect this to be the book. I actually started writing a different book, and I started writing the book that was Living the 80/20 Rule, because, for me, that was one of the ways that we can block out those distractors and those things that are less important and focus on what really matters, is asking ourselves, “What’s the 20% that gives us 80% of the difference?”

And in every area, “How do I approach this conversation so that I’m focused on the most important thing? I don’t fight to be right. I remember that the most important thing is the relationship, so how can I interact with it?” So how could we sort of implement this 80/20 Rule in every area of our life? And as I started to dig in and write more about it, I realized that that’s just one of many practices that help us to reset, to rethink, to redirect our focus and reprioritize, to recharge ourselves, to help us to let go of the things that are less important.

And so, it became, “Oh, that’s a reset practice. So, what does that enable us to do? What is the overarching thinking practice that happens, the way of thinking?” And that’s where this reset practice was born in these reset moments. So that was a big surprise for me as well.

Pete Mockaitis

Yes. Well, I love the 80/20 Rule so much, and we had Perry Marshall on the show once talking about it, and I have found that often in the case in my own work and initiatives, like, sure enough, some things truly are 16 times as impactful as other things on a per hour basis of effort, so that’s huge. So, then your surprising discovery was that the reset moments are what enable folks to better deploy their energies into that vital few 20% of goodness? Is that right?

Penny Zenker

Yes, yes, exactly. Well said. Well said.

It also was an interesting discovery that that reset moment can be as little as 60 seconds to reset our brain that enables us to stop that compounding stress as well.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, this is exciting juicy stuff then. So, let’s kind of unpack the mechanism a little bit. So, we have compounding stress, and that is diminishing us. Can you maybe paint a picture of how that unfolds in practice perhaps over the course of a day?

Penny Zenker

Well, I think as much as I can go through an example, I think everybody can relate to that when they look at their own day. So, you start your day and the first diminishment happens when you hit the snooze button because you thought you were going to get up and you had plans to go to the gym, or to do something that was important, but you stayed up a little bit late and you feel tired, and so, therefore, you hit the snooze button.

There’s a small diminish that starts right there because we let go of something that we set the night before that was important to us, that now we’re putting, we’re procrastinating, or we’re going to say, “We’re not going to go to the gym today.” So, it’s all these times that we say we’re going to do something and then we don’t, that diminishes us in some ways, and it creates stress because we kind of, internally, it affects us when we say, “I’m going to do something,” and then we don’t follow through. It affects our confidence and our ability to follow through with things on a consistent basis.

And then we get a call that the meeting that we were supposed to have tomorrow was moved up to today, and now we need to prepare for that meeting because we don’t have that presentation prepared yet. So now everything gets thrown to the wind about what you might have planned for the day, and so these stresses, they build up as things change. We’re not as flexible or adaptable as we’d like to be, and so those stresses can come in a lot of different forms.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, so I get your point in terms of, like, the unexpected curveballs or disruptions, like sudden abrupt shifts of stuff are all forms of stressors, as is what you said is just not following through on our intentions creates a stress within us. And that’s really an intriguing perspective because, in some ways, it’s like we feel stressed and in need of additional rest in that world of, “I woke up and I hit the snooze button because I want to rest more.” You’re suggesting that extra rest is not going to diminish our stress as much as being true to our prior intention will bust stress. Is that accurate?

Penny Zenker

Yeah, I mean, sleep is important, and if you feel like you’re not getting enough sleep then you should decide the night before that you’re going to have a regular bedtime, for instance, and follow that so that you get enough sleep. But if you set an intention to do something, it’s kind of like how people, they set a New Year’s resolution, and the first couple of days they go to the gym and they feel good about it, but then they fall off and they don’t end up going, and they stop going. They feel bad about that. They feel bad that they set an intention and a goal and it affects people emotionally, even when you don’t realize it.

I think they call it cognitive dissidence when you’re failing to follow through on your commitments. It can create that. It’s sort of like this internal mental discomfort that we experience. It can impact our self-esteem. These impacts are like, they might not make sense to you. You might say, “Well, why should that do that?” It’s just that we’re emotional beings, and it does, right?

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. Well, so then let’s hear about this mechanism a bit more. So, we had a number of disruptions. Maybe we didn’t follow through with an intention, something got shifted around on us, some unexpected stuff, some disappointments, some bad news. Okay, so we’ve got a number of things, stuff went down that is contributing to our stress, and it’s compounded over the course of a day.

So then, tell us if, that’s the state, does that mean we are then less able to, I don’t know, 3:00 p.m., 4:00 p.m. able to tackle a bit of vital few 80/20, a big work as a result of having been zapped by this compounded stress? Can you expand upon that principle?

Penny Zenker

Yeah, think about also the decision fatigue by the time you’re at 4:00 p.m., you’ve had all these competing priorities and things that had to change, and decisions that needed to be made. So, it’s kind of like, by the time the afternoon gets around, if you’ve done nothing to address the stressors that have been around for the day, you had to work through lunch.

All of these decisions that you made that weren’t supporting your energy, it’s like having a cup that’s full of water, like a Dixie Cup, but then you take it and you poke holes in it, you continue to poke holes in it with each time that you’re experiencing some stress, or a decision that needs to be made, or can’t follow through with something, all of these different things, they cause leaks in our energy and in our ability to forge forward and make good decisions.

And so, that’s why we need to take these little resets. It might even be just a difficult discussion that took place. Maybe a customer called and was dissatisfied in how I dealt with that, but I might’ve felt a little bit attacked and taken that personally. It’s those little moments, when you can take those reset moments throughout the day that can make all the difference to revitalize you.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. So, then if I am not revitalized – unvitalized, what’s the opposite of it – so, if I’m drained, zapped from that stuff, and I said, “Okay, 3:00 or 4:00 p.m. that’s the time I had scheduled to work on this super critical initiative. I even put it on my calendar, like, Pete’s guest said I’m supposed to but I’ve got that stress buildup,” when the moment comes to execute, I am less able to do so, is what I’m gathering from what you’ve shared here.

Penny Zenker

Well, even if you push it off, because if it’s not urgent, but it’s the 20% because it’s moving and creating impact, but maybe it’s really not critical that you do it today so you push it off and you push it off, and you get caught up in these false urgencies, or just in this state of overwhelm. So, the first thing that I would say is, is you always place the most important things first thing in the morning, and do those 20% items first, and then everything else can follow. Then you know that you’ve done the thing that has the greatest impact and you’ve done that first. You don’t wait until the end of the day because the likelihood is you’re not going to do it.

Pete Mockaitis

Yeah.

Penny Zenker

You’re smiling. Why are you smiling? Has that happened to you?

Pete Mockaitis

Well, I’m smiling because it’s funny, you’re catching me in a good groove because I’ve observed the same phenomenon, Penny. And so, lately, I’ve had a nice little streak of within seconds of being aware that I am awake, I tell my phone, I’ve got a shortcut, I say “Marky Mark” and then it launches the Hallow app and Mark Wahlberg is praying the Rosary with me within seconds of waking up.

Now I’m not fully there with it yet, right, but it happens, and I like that it’s happening with perfect consistency. And so, I’m smiling because I am witnessing this principle in real time at the extreme. It’s, like, in the first seconds of consciousness, I trigger this, and, sure enough, it works with perfect consistency, and it’s like you’re gambling. The later something is scheduled in the day, the higher the probability of it, oopsie, accidentally, somehow perhaps not happening, even with the greatest of intentions and the most motivated and pure.

It’s like, “It’s on my calendar. This is really important to me. I really mean it. This is for real-sies, serious, no take-sies-back-sies,” and yet somehow, it’s like the forces of our environment and people and relationships somehow can manage to shove that off of there. In a way, it’s humbling in terms of our agency as humans, it’s like, “Shouldn’t I just be able to have the self-control or discipline to really hold firm to this 3:00 p.m. whatever appointment?”

And I’m learning “Kind of” is the answer, it’s like our capability here is somewhat limited, unless we’re just, like, brutal, like, “No, honey, I’m sorry that you feel sick and are vomiting everywhere, and are in no condition to take care of the kids, but I have an appointment with myself at 3:00 p.m. to think of some big-picture new product and services that I’m going to launch, so deal with it,” right? Like, I just can’t do that, and maybe that’s for the best as a human in the world with relationships that matter to me.

Penny Zenker

Well, absolutely. I mean, I think everybody is the same if their significant other needs them, they’re going to push it. But it’s not even just for that, that we’re pushing it. We’re pushing it for everything else. So, first, if you have a practice that you put into your calendar space to think, you’re already ahead of 90% of the people who don’t, who don’t plan that strategic thinking time. So, right there, that’s a reset moment to schedule in those moments to rethink and reconnect to what’s most important.

But if you do have the time, the best time to do it is in the morning. And there are some studies that also, and I don’t have the specifics in front of me, but I remember that you’re going to have fewer distractions in the morning because you’re just getting up, but they talk about some new science around flow. The best time of flow, because of the hormones that are activated from sleep that is in the morning, so you have the best concentration and you haven’t started to put holes in that cup, so your energy is full and you’re able to give better quality concentration in the morning.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. So, these mindset resets, we’ve got some, a few of them are popping up already in terms of try to do it in the morning, really schedule it in, that time to think. And then lay out on us, some additional ones. You said some can be done in just one minute to diffuse some of the effect of compounding stress that’s showing up for us.

Penny Zenker

So, Thrive Global, for instance, is working with different types of companies to embed these reset moments into the workflow. For instance, Synchrony is a company that handles credit cards, and so they work with their support team, who typically, when somebody’s picking up the phone and answering these support calls, are people calling to tell you how great you are? No. They’re calling to complain and say, “This is happening and this is happening.”

So, these people, you talked about “How does our energy, how do we get drained?” It’s they’re constantly listening to people who are unhappy, and they’re taking it in. So, this reset practice was brought into them and embedded into their workflow, that in between each call, there’s a 60-second app that’s launched with a breathing, simple breathing exercise that’s done, that walks them through that, and then will launch the next call.

And so, what they found through this is that the people who are the agents who are answering the phone, they’re much calmer in the next call because they’re not stacking those calls, and that negativity, they’re able to release it in that 60 seconds. So, they’re able to be more attentive. They’re able to handle the calls much quicker, and they, themselves, are happier. They feel happier and do a better job in bringing their best self. They’re more creative in their solutions.

And so, that’s the impact that it can have when you’re taking these reset moments, whether it’s to energize, or whether it’s to rethink things so that you’re working on the right thing. It just helps you to do your best work and be happier. And who doesn’t want that?

Pete Mockaitis

Oh, I love that. So, one minute of breathing. Well, Penny, you’re talking to a guy who pays for the Breathwrk app, so I’m going to ask you for the details. I imagine any number of slow, deep diaphragmatic breathing done for one minute will be great. But is there some magic prescription or formula you recommend for what goes down in that one minute of breathing?

Penny Zenker

No, I mean, their app is just a simple guided breathing app. So, “Take a deep breath in. Hold it.” You could do, the military uses the box breathing, which is four in, hold, four out, hold. So, you could do something like that. You could do, like, there’s a – I forget what they call it – like through your one nostril at a time, breathing in and out. Any type of focus on your breathing in that way will be incredibly grounding. So, I think if you’re not doing it to doing it, pick any one of the methods that are out there, find an app. I don’t know, what do you use? Do you use Wim Hof or any of those types of breathing?

Pete Mockaitis

Well, I’ve played with a lot of them, and Wim Hof is fun, although that’ll get you fired up. I mean, I don’t know if you want to do that in between customer service calls, maybe before battle.

Penny Zenker

Or holding your breath, that’s one part of his method is to hold your breath or to breathe in and out very quickly, so through your nose. When we breathe out through our nose, it’s activating the parasympathetic, which is helping us to calm the nervous system.

Pete Mockaitis

Certainly. So, okay, so simple breathing. That’s great. What else do you recommend for these resets?

Penny Zenker

Also, in that 60 seconds, our senses are our fastest way to our nervous system. So, it could also be just to get some essential oils, and maybe have a lemon, for instance, because that is energizing, or maybe lavender that is relaxing. And you can just take 60 seconds, taking a breath in of that scent; lighting a candle. It could also be something like taking a picture, and maybe it’s your favorite place to go.

Maybe you’re a beach person, it’s taking 60 seconds to just imagine yourself sitting on the beach and relaxing for that moment, putting yourself somewhere else. So, there’s lots of little techniques that you can use and that’s, if you have more time, great. But you can also do this in 60 seconds. Take off your shoes and feel your feet grounded on the floor.

Pete Mockaitis

That’s right. Or some decadent carpet.

Penny Zenker

Yeah, right? Feeling that fuzzy, nice carpet through your toes.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. So, 60 seconds of sensory stuff, deep breathing, that’s super. What are some other resets?

Penny Zenker

Well, some other resets are changing the types of questions that we ask. So, if we get caught, a totally different type of reset. Maybe we’re caught in self-doubt or getting lost in sort of a negative story that we might be telling ourselves after maybe an interaction with somebody, or maybe we made a mistake, or we didn’t get the result that we wanted, we didn’t get the job that we wanted, and we have this loop of “Why me?” or, “You’re so stupid” or whatever we may tell ourselves in our stories that are hurting us more than helping us.

We can also take a quick reset practice to change the question, is to say, “Okay, if I…” I use and I talk about in my book a question that I used to ask, like, when my father died in an accident, you know, “Why me? Why him?” And that just takes you down a terrible rabbit hole. And so, I realized over time that I shifted that question, since “Why?” was getting me nowhere, I shifted it to “What does this mean? And what else could this mean?” so that now I’m taking control of the meaning that I’m giving any interaction and choosing the best possible meaning for me to use because that’s going to influence everything.

It’s going to influence my attitude, my expectations, and my priorities, whatever meaning or perspective I choose to take. So just changing our questions, “What else could this mean? How else could I approach this? Who else could I contact?” Those types of things, they open up perspective and can, like I said, can just change and shift our mindset in the moment.

Pete Mockaitis

Absolutely. And it’s a tricky path when you have charged-up emotion, like in tragedy or extreme stress or difficulty, and then you add an unhelpful question onto that, and that can just start you down a trajectory into some places that are not so good for anybody. And so, a few of those questions certainly, right from the get-go, can start pointing you on to different pathways. So that’s really, really solid. Okay. So, we’ve got a number of these resets. Tell me, Penny, what are the other top practices we should utilize in order to focus truly on what matters most?

Penny Zenker

So, when you say top practices, what kind of context? Let’s get it so that somebody can see where and how they can apply it.

Pete Mockaitis

Let’s say someone is in their career, they want to advance and make a huge impact, and they want to get things fired up in a cool direction, such that they are generating a lot of cool results, folks are taking notice, and their career is energized and off to the races.

Penny Zenker

Okay, awesome. Great context. So, the first thing that I like to do is, “Are they clear of how they want to advance?” so that they know, like, the reset in itself is saying, “Okay, let me step back and make sure that I connect with the goal that I’m looking to achieve. And why do I have that goal?” Like, “I want to rise to the C-suite of this organization.” Okay, awesome. Why do you want that?

Like, get clear on what’s going to be different for you when you get there, so that you’re setting realistic expectations, and then you’re also able to connect to the fuel, because maybe you want to be there because you’re going to be able to really impact a great number of people and improve the leadership in the company, and take the company to new levels, and that company is supporting other individuals. So, whatever gives you the juice and the leverage is going to be really helpful.

And then when you’re stepping back to get some perspective on, “Okay. Well, who could help you to get there? Who are influencers in the organization that could speak for you when you’re not in the room?” You might also look at “What’s holding you back?” and these are all like, when I say, ways of thinking about things, these are resets in the way that you’re asking yourself those questions to challenge yourself to really rethink, a reset is to rethink, and maybe the approach that you’re currently taking to get ahead isn’t structured enough.

Maybe you’re not thinking of those people who could support you or what might be in your way. Have you had a discussion with your boss to find out what might be helpful? Like, what do they see as the next steps for you in getting to that next position? So, there’s conversations that can be had, there’s alliances that can be made, and seeing if there’s anything, like any limiting belief that you have about getting there. Like, do you see yourself as someone in that role? You could even visualize yourself as in that role.

And when you do that and visualize yourself, you might come ask yourself in that moment, when you see yourself four years, five years, three years down the road in that position, and just like really feel yourself in there, sitting in your office, having a conversation. And then ask yourself “What were the three things that made it even easier to get there?”

So, we have a lot of internal wisdom that we often don’t tap into, especially if we feel stressed or pressured, then we’re less intentional. And so, if we can really set up those things ahead of time, then we can be more intentional about how we go about getting to the next level.

Penny Zenker

So, one of the things that I also often talk about that is a lesson that I’ve learned over time, is that productivity isn’t the point. We spend so much time and effort trying to be more productive that sometimes what we don’t realize is that we’re being productive for productive sake. So, in a way, we’re just being busy.

I liken the quote from Confucius, that, “A person who chases two rabbits catches none,” and I changed that quote because I think, inherently, it may give us the wrong message because, when we chase the rabbits, and we get better at chasing the rabbits, we’re actually not accomplishing the goal, which is what? To catch the rabbit, right?

We can get better at the chase, but it doesn’t make us any more likely to catch one rabbit, let alone two. So, if we want to catch the rabbits, then we need to change that quote a little bit and say, “A person who chases rabbits catches none.”

Pete Mockaitis

Oh, yes. So, I’m hearing the emphasis. A person who chases rabbits catches none.

Penny Zenker

Not a person who chases two rabbits catches none, but a person who chases rabbits. So, the point isn’t what you might think, which is to chase only one rabbit and not two, and that way you’re more likely to catch it because you’re focused on one rabbit. But, actually, don’t chase at all because that’s not the point. The point is to catch the rabbits. So, build a trap.

But the point is that very often in work, this is what we do, is we get so focused on the task that we miss the entire point. If we’re more adaptable in recognizing and really connecting to what it is we’re looking to achieve, then we may find that spending more time doing that task is not productive, and that maybe we need to revamp the whole process. We have to be thinking about what we’re doing and how it connects to the big picture instead of just focused on the tasks.

Pete Mockaitis

But, yeah, it is easy to get caught up in it because it’s sort of fun. It’s like, “Oh, man, I am running way faster than I used to chasing these rabbits. Like, whew, that one evaded me by much less distance and time than before,” and it can be kind of seductive. Like, “I am cranking through more and more and more outputs over the course of a day. Go, me. I am such a winner. I feel productive.”

And yet, we may not actually be accomplishing the results that we’re after, but rather just getting seduced by the thrill of the chasing instead of just the maybe what sometimes is very simple, easy, boring catching. 

Penny Zenker

And look at it from also what we measure. So, we’re measuring that we get more productive in this chase. We talked earlier about call centers and help desks and things like that. So, if we take a call center and they’re tracking and measuring the amount of time that it takes to go through a call, then that’s what people are going to be focused on, and they’re going to be so focused on making sure that that call is as short as possible, that that’s going to be their focus, and they’re going to improve that and improve that, but they’re not really getting to the root cause of the problem.

And maybe that same problem comes up a hundred times, that if they just solved it at its root the first time and fixed it like that, then they wouldn’t have a hundred more calls. So, we have to be thinking about also what we’re setting as measures for people so that we’re driving the right focus as well.

Pete Mockaitis

Yeah, from a broader holistic perspective, your goal is advance a prospect as far as you can, whenever you have the opportunity is the main thing you’re after, as opposed to handle those calls fast.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Thank you. Well, Penny, tell me any other critical things we should know before hearing about some of your favorite things?

Penny Zenker

So, the critical thing that, I think, is important for people to know is that this concept is incredibly simple, but also incredibly effective. We talked about the 80/20 Rule before and its compounding impact, and also the ability for reset moments to reduce stress from compounding, but at the same time, it has a positive compounding effect of us getting to our goals faster and more effectively.

The more that we get perspective and focus on the right things, focus on that 20%, we’re leveraging off of that 80/20 Rule and compounding each time we choose and stay in that direction. So, I think that’s really important. And today, with how fast things are changing, that having what I call this reset mindset it’s built one reset moment at a time as it compounds.

It makes us ready for change or challenge or uncertainty. It changes our relationship with how we approach the uncertainty that we might face in the future or the changes or the challenges. So, it’s that, that we just need to be more comfortable, and happy to engage and embrace change as a catalyst and not a constraint.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. Cool. Well, now could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Penny Zenker

I recently came across this quote from Richard Branson because, as I’m looking for different types of resets and successful people who embody this reset mindset, I love his quote that I recently came across, which is that, “Every success story is a tale of constant adaptation, revision, and change.” 

Pete Mockaitis

And how about a favorite book?

Penny Zenker

Well, I think one of the ones that really influenced my way of thinking is The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Penny Zenker

One of the things that I love and I use every day is a tool called TextExpander.

Pete Mockaitis

Yes, our first sponsor.

Penny Zenker

I’m sorry?

Pete Mockaitis

They were our first sponsor, and I use them every day, yeah.

Penny Zenker

Oh, there you go. I love TextExpander. So, I use it all the time. So, it’s basically a way to have little templates and little snippets of text that I can just say #gig, and then a whole proposal will come up that I normally send out, or different types of links that I’m looking to get. If somebody wants my social posts, I just say #social and all my posts are there.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with readers and listeners; they quote it back to you often?

Penny Zenker

I think it’s just in my make more reset moments that I hear people saying that back, or what other people have said that they say in the organization, like after I come in and do a talk, that they’re encouraging each other to reset and make more reset moments.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Penny Zenker

They can go to TheResetMindset.net or PennysKeynote.com, and, of course, all the regular social channels. They can just look me up by name, Penny Zenker.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Penny Zenker

I think the final thing that I’d like to bring is one of the principles that I talk about in The Reset Mindset and that’s assume positive intent, something my mom taught me when I was a teenager. And I would say that I think, because relationships are one of the key things that makes us happy in our workplace, and it makes us better leaders. So, I would say that, really, with every interaction, just assume positive intent and really look for the bigger picture of looking for what you’re trying to serve.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Penny, thank you. I wish you much fun and focus.

Penny Zenker

Thank you so much for having me, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Mithu, welcome.

Mithu Storoni
Hi. Thank you so much for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Pete Mockaitis
I am excited to chat about becoming hyper-efficient. And I’m imagining, well, it’s in London where you are, so it’s been a few hours in the day. Have you hyper-efficiently already taking care of tons of tasks today, Mithu?

Mithu Storoni
I’ve tried to be as hyper-efficient as I can. Every day is a different one. If you have a different kind of day, depending on the kind of day you have, it’s all about tailoring your tasks and fitting them around your own rhythm. So, every day I do different things, and so every day I have a certain different timetable.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, I’m so intrigued to hear about that, and I understand that’s one of your core theses here, is we want to align our work with our natural rhythms of our brain as opposed to trying to contort ourselves to what is externally imposed upon us. Is that a fair synopsis?

Mithu Storoni
That’s absolutely fair. And if you want a little bit of background, so I wrote the book when I realized how the way we work today is very much a hangover from the era of assembly lines. So, when we had the Industrial Revolution quite a long time ago, we had assembly lines, we were producing quantities of things, of refrigerators, of cars, of hair dryers. And during that time, the number of items you produced decided how productive you were, and the longer you stayed on the assembly line, the more productive you were, because the more items you assembled.

When we then had the shift into knowledge work, post-Second World War, around the 1950s, where the majority of the work became office work, became sort of what we used to call white-collar, we actually changed the work but we didn’t change the way we did the work. So, our work hours, the way we measured work, continued in pretty much the same way. We still looked at how many hours we were sitting on the seat, we get paid on overtime, productivity is all about targets.

We then had another shift, which is the kind of shift we still have now, where we started producing intangible goods rather than tangible refrigerators. And so, when intangible goods, such as a software solution, such as other solutions, ideas, it created the bottom line, so they become principle. The principle thing you try to make a difference to your company, to your organization, you need to think about the quality, not the quantity.

So, it no longer matters how many software solutions you manufacture, or how many software solutions you think of, or how many ideas you think of, you could have a thousand mediocre ideas, they will be just as unproductive as having one mediocre idea. We now need to shift to thinking extremely well, so producing one exceptional quality solution, exceptionally creative idea, rather than a hundred bad ones.

In order to do that, the brain can no longer sit and work continuously as if it were producing, or assembling its idea parts on an assembly line. How long you sit on your chair and the way you sit influences how well your mind performs. But we have created a template around that, which is a hangover from the past.

Now we have technology doing all the monotonous, the routine, the sort of quantity-heavy jobs aspects of knowledge work, so now we need to be even better at creating ideas, at forming solutions. And in order to do that, we need to change the way we work in a radically different way.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Understood. That all seems to check out in terms of the way the world used to work and the way things are working currently. I’m curious, when it comes to us working at our finest to come up with these exceptional ideas and solutions, is there anything really striking or surprising you’ve discovered about what holds us back and what unleashes us to this greatness?

Mithu Storoni
Yes. So, I approached this subject from my background, which is in neuro-ophthalmology and neuroscience, and I’m very aware of the very, very exciting research field at the moment, looking at the brain’s dynamics. What we know is that the brain is a complex system, it changes state, and there is a network in the brain called the locus coeruleus norepinephrine network, which influences how alert you are, it influences how you pay attention. That’s one angle of the story.

We have uncovered quite a lot of data about this network and how the faster it fires, the more alert, the more sort of wired you become; the slower it fires, the calmer you become. If you take that, I’m diluting it a little bit, but if you take that you add in the cholinergic network, you add in the dopaminergic network, you know, you create the whole map. You realize that when you are performing mental work, knowledge work of any kind, your brain has to be, or your mind has to be, in a certain configuration in order to perform one particular type of task particularly well.

So, for instance, let’s take two examples of knowledge work. Let’s take creative idea generation and let’s take a different kind where you are focusing on something. So, if you imagine an organization, it has lots of teams but it has two sub-teams, one focusing on innovation, the other focusing on implementation. The team focusing on innovation is going to focus on coming up with ideas, original ideas. What do we know about how the brain works or what is optimal for the brain when this happens?

Well, we know that if you make the brain focus on one single target in front of you, such as a computer screen, your brain state is not going to be optimal to come up with those “aha” ideas because of the temporary structure of the brain at the time. Focusing is not conducive to gentle mind-wandering.

It’s not conducive to letting your attention wander and pick up fragments of data, fragments of thoughts wandering in your head, which you then assemble, or to just waiting for aha moments, for moments of insight to spring up inside your head. That’s one angle to it. So, detaching your attention is important. Not focusing is important.

The second angle to it is there is data that the time of day you work influences how well you work when you’re doing creative work. So creative insights, creative idea generation seems to be better first thing in the day and last thing in the day, not in the middle of the morning, and not in the middle or late in the afternoon. So, in order to really, really optimize idea generation, creative idea generation, perhaps working in a slightly different way for this particular sub-team is going to be more suited for their performance.

Similarly, if you take the second sub-team, which is working on logistics implementation, there they need to zone in, converge on ideas. Now if you are converging on ideas, focusing does help. So, their focused attention is going to be absolutely pivotal. We know focused attention, similar in the opposite way to creativity, focused attention, there seem to be some peak hours for that during the day. The middle morning, middle to late morning is one of them. Immediately after lunch is not one of them and later on in the day is a second slot.

When you’re doing focused attention, when you’re paying focused attention or doing work that involves focused attention, you have to, it helps to sit undisturbed, sit in a very, very attentive state of mind and get that work done. So, if you also think about how your mind is, when you’re creative, your mind is sort of very gently, slowly mind-wandering. When you’re focusing, you want to be sharp, you want to really zone in to what’s in front of you.

These two states of mind are very, very different. So, if you put all of that together, it shows you how you need to be in a certain state of mind that you can tell by looking at how well you focus, how well your mind can, or how easy your attention can wander, a particular time of day is also helpful. And the third thing we haven’t talked about is, as soon as you work continuously, and you measure this as time on task when you measure this aspect in psychological experiments, when your brain works continuously on some kind of intense work, it becomes tired.

When it becomes tired, its information-processing pathways inside your head become inefficient. And when they become inefficient, you can actually measurably or you can visibly see the effect that has on mental output. So rather than coming up with lots of original ideas, you’re much more likely to come up with ideas but they’re not going to be original. So how long you work for is a huge factor here, which is why you also have to put in this 90-minute, 90- or 100-minute ultradian rhythm where you work in slots, and even within those segments of work you pace how you work. That’s a very long answer to your question.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, it’s really beautiful and it matches my own experience in terms of the groove, the flow, the rhythms, the vibe of work. And you talked about the creative and innovative side of things versus the implementation side of things, and sometimes I think of this as creating versus destroying. And I don’t know if it’s just my raw kind of attitude, but it’s like, “I’m going to destroy my inbox,” and by that, I mean I’m going to process it with vigorous speed. We’re going to do a three-second sweep per message, a 20-second sweep per message, and we’re going to watch that baby shrink from 200 to 20 in short order, and that’s good, and that’s kind of fun for me.

But sure enough, that does require that I’m not distracted by other things, and my mind isn’t wandering to interesting, fun things to pursue that’s counterproductive to what I’m after, is shrinking this inbox in a hurry and dispatching messages so people would get what they need from me, etc. Which is totally different than the vibe is like, “Oh, this would be kind of cool if we tried this thing. And here’s a fun idea. And, oh, that sort of connects to this thing I’m hearing on a podcast over there.” And so, those are very different vibes. So, tell me, just to make this contrast all the more crisp and clear for us, do you have a name that you apply to each of these modes of brain operation?

Mithu Storoni
I have. So, in my book, I have created a metaphor, which is very helpful, and I describe the mind as being in three states in the specific context of knowledge work. And these are, I call them three gears: one, two and three. And in a very easy way of imagining them is slow, medium and fast. The mind-wandering state, so the seek and destroy that you just described, which is going through your inbox – I love that analogy, I think it’s a great way of describing it, creating and destroying – that state would be right in the middle of gear two, which is the middle zone.

Gear one – is the kind of state of mind you have when you are really daydreamy. So, maybe the first thing in the morning after you’ve woken up after a deep night’s sleep, you haven’t quite reached that sort of sharpness, you haven’t reached for your coffee yet, you are kind of in a slight daydreamy zone, there’s a sunrise in front of you, you’re sort of halfway, halfway, and your mind feels quite slow. Your attention is floating a lot. You don’t have the ability to make it focus. It’s very, very floaty. You think of thoughts, they come, they go.

Gear two is when you can focus. This is the middle zone. As soon as you reach gear two, you’re able to focus. Within gear two, you have a kind of a slow pace and you have a fast pace. The slow pace gear two is when you can both focus and you can let your attention wander alternately however you want. That is optimal for creativity where you can just detach from what you’re doing, let your attention wander a little bit, but soon as you come up with an idea, with an insight, you can quickly zone your attention spotlight on there, focus on it and bring it to fruition. That is gear two, a slow gear two.

And then you have middle gear two, which is what you described as really intense, powerful focus. And then you have, you leave gear two and you go into gear three. And gear three has, correlates with what is sometimes termed sort of a hyperarousal state. So, in gear three, your thoughts are faster, your actions are faster, but you can’t perform analytical difficult thinking and you cannot focus as well.

So, these are the three gears: gear one is where you just wander; gear three where your mind is very fast and you can’t focus; gear two is right in the middle. And in gear two you can navigate by playing with your attention, detaching it, letting it wander around to go into kind of a light, creative gear two or a really deep focused gear two.

Pete Mockaitis
Now when you say hyperarousal gear three, just to make sure I’m understanding this, I’m thinking about, is this like I’m enraged at a situation? Or what are some of the scenarios or illustrations of hyperarousal?

Mithu Storoni
We are diluting these into single terms, but these are all scales. These all have a range. So, if you look inside the brain, people in a state of hyperarousal, this particular network in the brain is firing very fast, and the faster it fires, the more your physiological arousal increases. But just outside this zone where you can focus, the moment, so let’s just say you’re sitting there, you’re focusing on your email, you’re doing really well, and then a colleague keeps making herself or himself a cup of coffee, and every time they do this, they come and give you one because they’re really kind, and so you inadvertently just keep sipping those espressos while you work, just because they happen to be there.

After one espresso, it’s great, your focus is even better. But after another five, which you don’t realize you’ve had, suddenly, the noise that you heard behind you, the noise of the drilling outside, or the traffic outside, or someone speaking on their phone, suddenly seems really sharp. You couldn’t hear it a minute ago, but after five espressos you suddenly can, and so your threshold for being distracted is suddenly lowered, so you can become easily distracted.

Then, by this time, you haven’t realized you’ve had those five espressos, some more espressos appear and you keep drinking those. And as you drink them, eventually, you reach a point where your focus is completely gone, and you’re simply just reacting to the situation. You’re doing very low-level cognitive stuff, and every sort of small distraction around you is grabbing your attention away.

And as you increase that, you can eventually get into the stage that we do term that falls under the canopy of the banner of rage. But that sort of gear-three state is where you become easily distractible, subtle things become amplified. You become more anxious, more vigilant, so it’s a hyper-vigilant state. And the more, the faster this network fires, the more you go into this state, the more amplified it becomes. So, it’s a scale. This whole thing is a scale. Gear one itself is a scale, gear two is a scale, gear three is a scale, and within those, you’re modulating yourself.

Pete Mockaitis
I hear you. It’s like we just got one very long continuum. It’s like the entirety of human experience, and we’re segmenting it into three-thirds to make it a little bit more workable to discuss and interact with. So, I guess I’m wondering now, this might be dangerous talking to neuroscience about this, but you mentioned, so we got some choline, some dopamine.

What is the, shall we call them biomarkers, or biochemical things, or heart rate, or brainwave frequency? What’s the stuff going down at our brain-body level within each of these three things in terms of it’s like a little bit in one, a medium amount in two, and a whole lot in three of these fundamental ingredients?

Mithu Storoni
So, very basically, let’s look at norepinephrine. So, norepinephrine, many of you will have heard of it, it’s associated with exercise. We talk about how we’ve got to get that adrenaline pumping or get that norepinephrine. 

And very, very loosely, these three gear states describe or correlate with three ways, patterns of firing of this, of a network in the brain, that is the brain’s headquarter of norepinephrine. So, in a very simple way of saying that, as norepinephrine levels vary in your brain, there’s a part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex that sits right behind your forehead. The prefrontal cortex is your brain’s seat for focus, attention, any kind of higher-level cognitive work. Analysis, thinking, remembering, working memory, you name it, the prefrontal cortex is the seat of higher thinking, okay? This entire region of the brain, prefrontal cortex, it’s absolutely pivotal for knowledge work and it becomes very, very active at middle levels of norepinephrine.

So, when you’re in gear two, it’s the Goldilocks zone of norepinephrine that brings your prefrontal cortex completely online. When you have too much norepinephrine, when you enter gear three, your prefrontal cortex goes partly offline, and this is why being in gear two is ideal and essential for focused work.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, this is cool, and so I’m curious. So, putting it in these terms, I can see that if you’re in gear one, yeah, that’ll bring you to gear two or gear three, the jumping up and down, the smacking your chest, you’re screaming, “Yes, yes, yes.” That’ll do it. Go for it.

Mithu Storoni
I was just going to say, so I think the three gears are a metaphor of three different mental states. But I would not think of it like a racing car. So, when you’re in gear one, it’s simply a description of a different state. So, when you’re in gear one, and you’re in this kind of slow, mind-wandering state, you can’t focus because you are just not sort of awake enough to focus then. Gear two is when there is more norepinephrine, your prefrontal cortex is engaged, you can focus, you can do high-level cognitive work. And gear three is when there is more norepinephrine, you can think faster, but you can’t do high-level cognitive work because your prefrontal cortex is partly offline. Now, when you’re doing any kind of knowledge work, you’re actually shuttling between these three states, in the sense that, for instance, if you are solving a problem, you have to be mainly in a state of focus, all right?

But as soon as you hit a wall, or your mental slate gets crammed with data, you have to briefly move out of that state into gear one to wipe your slate clean and to refresh the angle that you’re taking. So, if you’ve hit a wall, your brain needs to step back and look at the problem from afar, or from a different angle, that’s when you need to briefly foray into gear one to do that, and then you might see something you were missing, you might feel a little bit more refreshed, then you go back into gear two.

So, although your baseline is gear two, you’re going to keep coming back into gear one every now and again to change your mental state in order to overcome a wall or to just refresh your mind. So, it’s not like you are getting into these fast, high-powered, kind of racing track scenarios. It’s very much a way of your brain is mainly in gear two, but gear one is essential. And that’s why gear one is the mental state you have when you take a break.

So, as an example, if you’re focusing on your inbox, in your email inbox and you’re working through it, every time you close your eyes, your brain immediately goes into gear one for a bit. And then when you open your eyes, you’re back into gear two. What I’m describing here is the baseline you’re in for the majority of time.

The whole thing isn’t a flat line, and that’s how the brain is but the overall general state of the brain when you’re in a mode of focus versus when you’re in a mode of gentle daydreaming are very different, and these are the states I describe with gear one, two, and three.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Understood. So, then I imagine one of the things you want to do in order to accomplish a whole lot of stuff is to just schedule the kinds of activities when things are naturally going to be great for that. If I need to have some brilliant epiphany, aha, eureka moments, well, then let’s schedule some thinking, daydreaming, wandering time in the early morning or late at night, etc. So, there’s kind of working with our schedules and our rhythms and, you know, 90- to 100-minute cycles of stuff. That’s cool. And then, I’m curious, if the situation calls for us to be in a bit of a different gear than we find ourselves in, what do you recommend we do?

Mithu Storoni
So, if I give you a typical day, so just say you are a writer, you are looking for an idea. So, if that’s your job, if that’s your task for the day, what you would do is you’d wake up probably in the morning quite early, and once you’re up in the morning, you would tackle the creative aspect of things there and then. You wouldn’t wait for later in the morning. You’d use the kind of very gentle, relaxed, not quite committed state of mind you have, which would be perfect for that kind of work, that kind of idea generation.

And then once you have your idea, later on in the morning, you’d find you feel a little more alert, you can focus a little bit more and your mind is wandering a lot less. You’re kind of much less in that kind of gentle daydreamy more. There, you sit down, you focus and write or type. And then you continue that pattern as I describe. It changes slightly for the rest of the day.

So, if you’re entering one of those sessions, one of those work sessions, and you’re in the wrong gear, so let’s say you are doing focused work, you’re starting at 9:00 o’clock in the morning, and you are still in that kind of distracted, mind-wandering state of mind. If that’s the case, there are a couple of ways you can use your body’s physiology to make your mind think differently. So, for instance, we know that if you make your body active and alert, your mind becomes active and alert too. Intuitively, you know that to be true.

Physiologically, we know that if you do, for instance, a few sprints before you sit down, when you are feeling a little bit kind of slow and lethargic, that immediately wakes you up. It doesn’t have to be sprints. Any kind of exercise will wake you up. We know that intuitively. And when we say wake you up, it also changes your mental state. You go from feeling lethargic to feeling more alert, much more able to focus.

Conversely, we know that you can also use your body to relax your mind. So, if you are feeling very, very wired, if you’re working in an office where things are very, very, sort of deadlines are very frequent, activity is very fast, everything is very hectic, and you really need to calm down and you need to focus and you need to think about something, in that sort of situation you can use your body, you can use three elements actually, you can use your environment to calm you down.

So, we know that if you bring elements of your environment to be slow, low and soft and dark, your mind also climbs down. So, if you have, for instance, a background music or background sounds which have low frequency beats, sounds which are low pitch, not high pitch, like very slow drum beats or like ocean sounds. There’s a reason why we’re attracted to ocean sounds. So, slow beats, slow rhythms, low frequency, low pitch around you.

So, as an obvious example, if you listen to radio shows or breakfast shows first thing in the morning, people will be speaking very fast at a higher pitch. If you listen to radio shows very late at night, people will be speaking slower with slightly lower pitch, and that is to really match the viewer’s state of mind, but in the morning it’s to really draw the viewer into a more alerting state of mind to wake them up essentially. So, your environment can change in this way.

Colors and intensity of light also have a role to play. There is data that shows that warm, so redder, reddish tones, soft, warm hues are better for creative idea generation, whereas blue light or blue dominant white light, the kind of light you get in the middle of the day or in the middle of the morning even in most latitudes, that’s conducive to being focused and alert. So, if you’re doing a night shift and you really, really need to focus, then using light can help you be in the right state of mind.

So light, sound, your physiology, so muscle. When you contract muscle, you feel more alert, but when you release it, you feel more relaxed. Similarly, when you stretch muscle and release it, you feel more relaxed, and we know that people seek this kind of activity, whether PMR, whether yoga, any sort of stretching-relaxation activity also relaxes the mind.

We also have a third thing, which are breathing exercises, and there is now a lot of data to show that if you breathe at a frequency of around five breaths a minute with long exhalations, and Mara Mather, in California, has done amazing work on this with her team, you can also lower this, the gear, of your mind. So, bring your mind back to an optimal state.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, this is beautiful. So, then I’m thinking then, if we’re in a state where it’s just like, “Ugh, I don’t feel like doing anything,” that’s sort of like the sleepy state, and so more arousal would be helpful if what needs to happen is some smart focused work. And if, likewise, it’s like, “I’m freaking out about this thing,” you know, well, then we want to maybe do with some more of the stretching, the slow breathing, the low lights, etc.

Mithu Storoni
Adjust your environment. Modulate your environment.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, now you got me wondering, it’s so funny, I’m thinking about mindfulness meditation stuff, and there are times when it feels so amazingly wonderful, like, “Yes, this is just delightful.” And there are times in which my brain is just furious, which is like, “This is so boring! I can’t stand it!” And so, it seems like, is this kind of the fundamental dynamic at work? Or do you think there are some other dimensions to be considered in this context as well?

Mithu Storoni
So, I’m so happy you brought up the word “boring” because this is really, really important. Now when you’re working on something, when you’re doing knowledge work, you’re working on something, you can, in gear two, you’re in peak focus, you’re engaged, all right? But if what you’re doing is boring, then a little while through, a little while along, 10, 15 minutes, whatever, you suddenly feel your mind wandering and your focus slipping off, slipping away. Not because you’re tired, the work isn’t tiring at all, or let’s imagine the work isn’t tiring at all. You’re just noticing your focus just slip away.

In that sort of scenario, you’re sliding into gear one because you are bored, and there you need more stimulation or a bigger load to get you back into gear two. So, one way is, as you say, you need more stimulation, so maybe change the environment, go to a place that wakes you up. But you can also do it through the work, through the work you’re doing. So, for instance, multitasking gets bad press, but if what you’re doing is boring and you’re sliding into gear one, multitasking can actually keep you in gear two.

Because any form, anything that engages your mind, engages your brain, causes you to put in cognitive effort, will raise you back, will raise your gear. And it’s for the same reason that if you’re working very well, but you have an enormous workload, or you’re getting information you don’t want and you’re being forced to process it while you’re doing the work that you’re doing, you’re having to put in, you’re having to really step on the pedal.

You’re putting in more cognitive effort, and that requires norepinephrine, and there you’re shifting up to gear three to be able to cope. So, actually, you can modulate your gear with the work you are doing. So, if your work is very boring, actually multitasking and doing something in parallel can put you back into the right frame of mind.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Understood. And so, I guess I’m wondering if we don’t have the option of changing the thing that we’re doing, maybe we’re in a meeting and we think it’s boring, I suppose, internally, in our own brains we would maybe make up a game. Or what do you recommend there in terms of if it’s like here we are, we’re in a meeting, we’re supposed to be polite, and not whip out our laptops or phones or something? Any pro-tips there?

Mithu Storoni
So, if you’re in a meeting and you just have to attend the meeting, but not contribute or not take anything away from the meeting, then it’s a great opportunity to get into a creative state of mind, be in gear one, let your mind wander, and just use that as a break. So let your mind wander, let your attention wander, try not to dwell on anything, and just use that as a refresher, as a refresher palette for your mind.

If you have to stay awake during a meeting, and simply stay awake and not necessarily contribute, then doing something while you are in that meeting, so solving a problem with pen and paper discreetly while you’re there is another way of dealing with it. So, you add your workload, you increase your cognitive load to stay in the right state of mind.

So, the bottom line of all of this is really that we all function the best. We don’t just work the best when we do knowledge work. We actually function and we feel the best when we’re in this kind of middle speed, is a good way of imagining it, in this kind of middle speed, Goldilocks speed. And in order for the brain to put itself into that middle speed, you need, the brain needs, first of all, some kind of external stimulation, or the external urge to raise its own gear for some other reason.

So, for instance, if it’s receiving a lot of load the brain is going to work harder to cope with it. If cognitive load is very low, it’s going to get very bored and slip out of gear two. So, if that happens, then you can bring in extra cognitive load or bring in extra stimulation to keep the brain in this middle zone. Your mind, your brain is really an information-processing machine, and its optimal pace of processing that information is gear two. So, you need to give it enough information to keep it there. And if you swing over, if you overshoot, you end up in gear three.

So, if you’re going down from gear three to gear two, another way to look at it is you’re going down from gear three to gear two, then reduce the number of tasks you’re doing, reduce the difficulty of the task you’re doing, remove time pressure, remove uncertainty, and then adjust your environment to make it lower, slower, slower-paced, and then, of course, you can add in these physiological buttons through your muscle relaxation, through your autonomic nervous system.

So, ultimately, your brain, your mind is most efficient when it’s moving ahead at this middle speed of processing information. And the key, the art of being able to navigate yourself and stay in that zone while you’re doing knowledge work is a secret to hyper-efficiency because when you’re in that zone, the kind of work you’ll be doing will be the best you can do.

You can still do a lot of work while you’re bored. You can also do a lot of work while you’re in gear three. You can type hundreds of emails. You can even type them faster. But you won’t be able to solve a difficult differential equation in gear three, or plan a killer chess move in gear three. You’ll be able to play chess, but you’ll probably lose in the first 15 moves.

Pete Mockaitis
Thirty-second bullet games.

Mithu Storoni
Exactly. Exactly. In gear one, you’re not engaged enough to think, to analyze either. But in gear two, in this middle zone, when your brain is just awake enough, alert enough, but not too wired, that’s when it processes information the fastest, and hence, it does it in the best possible way.

Pete Mockaitis
You said the word “refresh” earlier, and I’m curious, if we’re doing these 90- to 100-minute bouts, a break is just necessary. Do you have any suggestions on what is a supremely, or hyper-efficient, or excellent means of breaking to restore our brains’ capacity and capabilities quickly?

Mithu Storoni
Yes. So, when you’re thinking of a break, just to give you a little bit of background, we now know through some very elegant forms of brain imaging that when you’re doing intense mental work, something that requires you to pay attention, something like solving math equations, as your brain cells work, they produce byproducts because they have little factories in them, they need energy to work, they break, they use ATP. They produce byproducts.

And as you’re working, these byproducts accumulate and then they get cleaned away. Now there is some evidence, and I mention where this data comes from, in the book, that one reason for fatigue may well be that the rate at which you’re producing these toxic byproducts is faster than your ability to clear them away. And so, when you take a break and you stop the intensity of work, you’re immediately giving your mind, your brain an opportunity to recover. So that’s a bottom line.

Now how should that break be? So, in this context, think of the difference between the brain and muscle. So, if you’re lifting weights in a gym, the moment you stop lifting weights, your muscle relaxes. So, when you stop working your muscle, your muscle rests. But when your mind is working on its office chair, as soon as you move from the office chair and you even go and sit on a beach, your mind has not moved one inch. It carries on working. There is no stop switch on your mind.

And so, the kind of break you take has to be tailored to the state of mind you are in when you were working. So, if your work was just very, very tiring, it wasn’t in any way emotionally draining, emotionally triggering, just very, very tiring, and as soon as you stop, imagine you’re having to read a hundred boring emails that don’t really mean anything, but they’re just, your eyes are glazing over, that sort of state. If that’s the case, then as soon as you take a break, as soon as you stop what you’re doing, your mind will be able to relax.

So, in that sort of scenario, you can break and just do nothing. Just relax, you don’t have to do anything actively. But if your work was, or is, in a situation where you have a lot of emotional tension, you have a deadline you’re working for, you have a problem you really can’t solve you’re still struggling with, the moment your break approaches, you’re very likely to be what I call tired and wired, which means you are tired, you’re physically tired, you’re mentally tired, but your mind is still trying to process that information, so it has stepped on the accelerator, taking you right up to gear three to work through and your gear just won’t slide back.

And, intuitively, your listeners and you will realize what this is because it’s the kind of feeling you have at the end of a day when you’ve just really pushed yourself to keep working beyond when you were tired by having coffee, by carrying on. And so, by the time you get home, you can’t really switch off. You feel tired, but your mind is still buzzing. That’s what I describe as tired and wired.

If that’s the case, and you’re taking a break in the middle of the day, and you’re feeling like that, then for the first few moments of your break, it’s much more helpful to do something really absorbing that distracts you completely from the work you are working on. So, play a game on your phone. Something like Tetris has been shown to be very effective in this sort of context, other games like Tetris. Play a game on your phone or watch a video, watch something immersive, until you momentarily forget the work you were just doing. As soon as you do, stop and then you relax.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, first, we get into the forget zone and then we stop and relax. Is there any way to relax better or should we just chill?

Mithu Storoni
So, if you are in that forget zone, you can relax. I mentioned two kinds of breaks in the book. So, I mentioned a break at the end of 90 minutes when you just need to refuel. I also mentioned a type of break, which I call a kind of a reset break, and this is the kind of break you would take within your work segment. So, if you’re doing a 90-minute block of work and your work is really intense, you would probably need to pause for a little while every 20 minutes or so, if your work is really, really intense.

Or if your work is really, really boring, you will be forced to just kind of take a step back every 20 minutes or so and just be like, “Okay, I need to kind of wire my mind back up to cope with this.” When you’re taking a break in that context, what you’re trying to do during the break is put your mind back into gear one.

So, as an example, imagine you are just watching paint dry, okay, you’re doing some kind of work, which is really, really boring. Your mind, you’re in the right zone when you started that work. But about 10 minutes, 15 minutes into the work, your attention just floats away. You cannot bring it back and everything just gets very slow, lethargic. At that point, take a quick five-minute break and do something to bring you back into that zone. So that can be something physical. Physical is usually the easiest.

So, at that point, doing a quick bout of exercise will put you back in the best kind of mental zone where you can go back to doing that work focusing. So, an applicable real-world scenario of this is anything that requires you to keep monitoring something. So, monitoring a camera, monitoring other machines working, monitoring a system. Every 20 minutes or so, your attention is going to float, melt away, and there you take a very quick break to actually not relax you but to actually excite you back into the right mental zone.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Understood. Well, Mithu, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Mithu Storoni
Certainly. So, another aspect of work today, as well as these three gears, is the idea of how everything we’ve always used to motivate us in the past are changing because the whole map of knowledge work is drastically changing at the moment. We are having to retrain, we’re having to reskill, we’re having to learn on the job, so there’s a huge amount of change taking place, and so this is a really great time to bring in the idea that has long been known as intrinsic motivation, and kind of repackage it and rework it for our era.

Because right now, we are working and living at a time where your job might not be guaranteed, the goal that you’re working towards might change tomorrow, a new LLM might come about tomorrow, a new version of the existing one might come about tomorrow, and everything you’ve been learning suddenly becomes obsolete the next day.

So, in this sort of landscape, you have to work with a different kind of motivation. So, we have to learn and we have to tailor and curate our jobs. Managers should be curating workflows, workloads, to generate as much as much of this intrinsic motivation as possible. And one way that seems to be a pretty powerful way of deriving it in any context, and intrinsic motivation is notoriously difficult to create, is by this phenomenon called learning progress.

It’s called learning progress mechanism. And one of the researchers behind Pierre-Yves Oudeyer from Paris, who is working with artificial agents, and his team has found how, whenever you’re working, you’re doing any kind of work, it’s really, really important to have physically kind of something that you can really physically, tangibly feel, obvious progress.

So, you have to be making rapid progress in something towards a goal and improving through skill or knowledge yourself in some way as fast as you can, as regularly and as solidly as you can, while you work. If you can engineer an element of this into one what you’re doing, you will have sufficient intrinsic motivation in your work, and that is going to be key in the workplace moving forward.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly, that rings true. That gets me fired up, no doubt. Well said. Now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Mithu Storoni
What I would say is my book was really heavily influenced by the work of Marshall McLuhan, who looked at technology and the effect it is having on our brains. One of the quotes that I really love, is that we have had a way of working all this time, where we’ve really been working like a marching soldier. We’ve been moving forward in regular steps in order. We need to change, and we need to now add flair to the way we work because that will help us get into these unique brain states and produce our best.

And he describes that as a transition from a marching soldier to working, spinning like a dancing ballerina. And that is really a metaphor for how our work needs to change in this new AI-assisted age of the knowledge age.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite book?

Mithu Storoni
So, The Medium is the Message is a great book that really gives you a wonderful overview of technology.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Mithu Storoni
So, I have a website, my name, www.MithuStoroni.com. I’m on LinkedIn, Mithu Storoni. I’m also on Twitter/X as @MithuStoroni.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Mithu Storoni
Tomorrow, whatever your routine is, just think about this conversation and tailor your day completely differently, adjust it to your routine, and then give us a feedback the day after as to how it went.

Pete Mockaitis
All right, Mithu, this is fun. I wish you much hyper-efficiency.

Mithu Storoni
Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.