Charles Duhigg: How To Become More Productive In The Workplace

I spoke to Charles Duhigg, a reporter for the New York Times and bestselling author of both Smarter Faster Better and The Power of Habit, about why habits exist, why people make certain choices in their lives, the most important research he has uncovered and what you can learn from his new book.

Duhigg was awarded the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting as a member of the New York Times staff for the series “The iEconomy,” which examined Apple ’s manufacturing practices overseas and what those practices can tell us about the American economy. Duhigg is also the winner of the National Academies of Sciences, National Journalism, and George Polk awards, and a frequent contributor to television and radio, including PBS NewsHour, Frontline, Dr. Oz, This American Life and various programs on CNBC and NPR. He has been an in-demand speaker for organizations such as the UCLA School of Management, M.I.T., The Johnson Foundation and the Pasadena Art and Science Festival.

Dan Schawbel: Where do we learn our habits from? Why do they exist?

Charles Duhigg: The economic revolution and technological revolution causes a lot of uncertainty about what you should be doing to be more productive and successful. It's very easy to learn the wrong things from the technology that is emerging around us. It is much easier right now to become overwhelmed with information and to fall into a reactive mindset and what we know from studies is that people who are most productive tend to protect how they think much more actively. They tend to manage their thought processes much better and they use less technology or make sure they are using it to help them the way that they want to use it. We used to assert control over our brains and thought processes and that's actually what the most productive people do. People who are usually productive don't tend to work significantly more than their peers because they tend to work smarter than work harder.

What we do know is that people who are particularly good at managing their focus and prioritizing tend to build mental models. They tend to envision what is going to occur with more specificity than others or to anticipate different types of outcomes and in doing so it helps them choose what they should prioritize. There is no silver bullet about how to prioritize projects because someone in a hospital is going to confirm a different set of choices or priorities than someone who works in an office.

Schawbel: Why do you think people make certain choices in their lives about where they are allocating their time and how much time they are spending on work versus personal interests?

Duhigg: People tend to make very different choices and there is a lot of research about why people make good choices rather than bad choices. We know that the people who tend to make good choices often have trained themselves to think probabilistically. They try and envision what's to come in contradictory ways. When we look back we don't say "oh, I married my wife but I could have married this other woman" and think about what would have happened. We tend to look at our past as a series of choices that in retrospect seem a little bit inevitable. People who think probabilistically they are very good have trained themselves to think about contradictory outcomes and then they figure out which outcome is more or less likely. When they do that, they tend to become very well aware of what the different reasons are that would influence one thing to happen. They are comfortable with the uncertainty around not knowing what's exactly going to occur and that tends to be very powerful and help people make good decisions.

Schawbel: When writing your book, what was the most interesting piece of research you came across?

Duhigg: One of the important insights is that productivity means different things to different people and in different settings. On a Monday morning, productivity might be getting your emails answered and on Friday, it might mean being able to go for a run, and on Saturday it might mean, spending time with your kids or watching TV. There is no one definition or silver bullet for how you become productive. People who are unusually productive tend to be more conscious of how their brains works. They mark a template of what is going on inside their heads and there are eight ways in the book that the most productive people tend to govern their own thoughts. Once you learn those tools, those techniques it empowers you to become more productive.

Schawbel: How can learning about consumer habits make or break the launch of a product?

Duhigg: I'm not sure since the whole point of the book is not about free tips. It's about understanding how your brain works and how your mind works so that you can govern it better.

Schawbel: What do you want readers to walk away with?

Duhigg: What I want them to walk away with is this realization that anyone can be more productive. There is conventional wisdom that the most productive people are that way because their parents trained them in a certain way or they work for companies that are doing well that give them lots of resources. All the evidence shows that that's just not actually true. In fact, many of the most productive people are people who come from kind of unusual backgrounds.

There are people who are outsiders who came into an industry or the people who grew up and didn't have opportunities to go to fancy schools or were forced to work for companies that weren't leaders in their field. When you are in situations like that, you pay attention to how your brain works and you need to think and structure your life in a way that acts on your strength and not weaknesses.

The people who are most productive are people who think more deeply, get it, than other people about what they are doing and why they are doing it. They build structures into their day that gives them the opportunity to think about what is going to occur, to anticipate that the problems and opportunities are going to encourage and reflect on what went well and what didn't. That's the thing that makes people productive is building that structure into your life that allows you to be in charge of how you are thinking.