It's the power of buckets.
This allows you to get work done at work,
and it's based on neuroscience
that aligns with three different types of work.
And for today, my pro tip with the power of buckets,
what I have found in using buckets
is that they maximize my productivity
and they lower switching costs.
We talked about that a little bit,
switching costs from going from one task to another
that are not related.
It also allows me to get the most important work done first
and limits distractions,
even self-imposed distractions.
Any of you guys do self-imposed distractions?
I think I've got to go change the water cooler water first.
And it eliminates multitasking,
and you're going to hear from Dion
why that's so important in just a little bit.
But for me, the QBook along with buckets,
you guys, that's a power couple right there.
That just empowers you in your work and your tasks.
And when we first started with buckets, for me,
it really helped me give order to everything that I was doing
and to prioritize the very most important things
that would move the business forward
and to not get distracted with little things that can arise
that are important, but they are distractions,
and they can all be...
The thing that comes to my mind is a saying,
everything has a place,
and it really does put everything in its proper place
to benefit you and your work.
And so I think it would be fun if right now,
because we at Brilliant,
we've been utilizing buckets for, what is it now?
Almost three years, two and a half to three years,
we've been practicing this,
and it was definitely not an overnight success.
It took repetition, it took practice,
and it took intentionality on the part of our team.
We actually kept reminding each other about buckets.
Did you use your buckets?
What bucket does that go in?
So I thought it would be fun for you all to hear
that after two and a half years of practicing,
a new member, Jalen, who came into our company culture
where this was already established,
what that was like for her,
what that experience was like for her.
Jalen, you want to go ahead and share?
Oh, you're muted.
Jalen is muted.
Can you unmute?
Nope, you're not unmuting.
Well, I'm gonna, while you're working on that,
I think, is Danielle on the call?
Danielle, can you share a bit
about how buckets worked for you?
I'm here, I can share.
Sorry about that, Jalen, upstaging you.
I guess what I would say about buckets
is it's the most efficient way I've found,
and I'm a serial multitasker too,
still working on complete reform from this habit,
but I think it's the best way that I've found
that anyone's suggested to me
to really focus on what you need to focus on,
especially with deep work.
Deep work is revolutionary.
I can't wait for Dionne to tell you about it.
Without it, before, I was just sort of like
scratching the surface on everything
and kind of forgetting where I was
and starting something and then getting distracted
and putting a pin in it for months
and then coming back and being like,
what was I even doing and happy to start fresh?
Tons of wasted work.
That's the danger of multitasking,
as I'm sure you're all well aware,
so I can't wait for Dionne to tell you more about deep work.
That's completely revolutionary,
and then you can still do your multitasking
during your general work sessions
and still scratch that itch if you have to have it.
Thank you.
That was really good.
Was that helpful to you guys to hear that?
Does that make you even more excited for today's teaching?
Because I've already been through it,
and the way that Danielle just explained it,
I want to go through it again.
So thank you, Danielle, for sharing that.
All right.
Well, is everyone ready to dive in
and to learn about buckets, the power of buckets?
Yes.
Give us a thumbs up.
All right.
Dionne, we're going to go ahead and hand that over to you.
Everyone, would you give Dionne a warm welcome in the chat?
Thank you.
Thank you, guys.
Really appreciate it.
I'm really enjoying going through this with you.
I've also been connecting with your leaders.
and seeing how it's going for you as team.
So appreciate the feedback.
So I think we wanna get straight to this whole problem
of what researchers refer to as cognitive control.
That's you can, cognitive meaning the mind
and control feeling in charge of the work
as it's flowing through your mind.
And here's the fascinating thing
is anybody can learn cognitive control.
So research shows that when you're trying to complete
a difficult task, it's all about cognitive control,
how you can manage that whole process.
And typically where people,
the three big areas people struggle with
when they have to do bigger tasks.
So we're going to be talking for the next three weeks
about this particular topic because it's a big one.
And next week, we're gonna formally introduce
the concept of deep work.
And when you look at what really hinders people,
why do they struggle so much with managing difficult?
Or so think about if you're writing an article
or you need several hours, excuse me,
to do a more complex task that has multiple steps to it,
requires some deep thinking.
Usually the number one problem is getting started.
The second big problem is getting interrupted.
And then once having interrupt, go back and restarting.
We're gonna share for a moment about why
that is such an exhausting process.
And so we're gonna talk through how you can get
to the end of your day and feel not so mentally fatigued.
And so, as we go through these different techniques
and solutions, we've tried to simplify all the neuroscience
and stuff to make it really practical and useful.
And so keep throwing your questions there in the chat,
that's really helpful.
So the first thing that we do in starting
to develop cognitive control is we divide our week
into 10 buckets, so 10 four-hour buckets.
So unless you work at Brilliant,
we don't work on Fridays anymore.
They now do this Monday through Thursday.
But you have 10 buckets of four hours each.
So think of a morning and afternoon session.
They don't necessarily have to be morning and afternoon.
Some of you may work different hours
or you may not actually work a full 40 hours,
whatever your allocated work time is.
So if you have allocated work time of 32 hours,
the idea is to create four-hour buckets.
Why four hours?
Because as we'll get into next week,
what it takes for your brain to get
into those deeper levels of thought and creativity,
and it takes time.
But to introduce the idea of putting you
in control of your own cognitive process
and giving you cognitive control,
what that, let's first define that.
So cognitive control is the mental function
that allows you to connect your planning with your actions.
How many of you have planned something
and then didn't do that at all?
It's like when you were at college,
how many of you made study programs?
Okay, I got a study program
and then didn't do the study program.
And so you've spent a lot of time making study programs,
not necessarily doing the study programs
or doing part of it and then writing a new one
and a new one.
And there's a reason that process is occurring.
So it's about getting the important things done first,
getting the big rocks in first.
And there are a couple of techniques
that we're gonna talk about
and how to achieve this mental function,
this cognitive control.
And when you do it,
so what's the big deal if you pull this off?
Well, what you'll find is three things.
Number one is that you'll get the things
that really matter to you to get to the top of your list.
And you'll be giving your prime energy
to the prime things in your life.
That's really number one, right?
And that, by the way, includes family, kids, marriage,
all that, so just build it all in.
So that's the first thing.
It's gonna help you get the things that matter most to you
to the top of your list.
The second thing it's gonna do
is it's gonna help you organize
and batch like-minded projects together
and tasks together that are similar.
And the third thing
is you're gonna lower your mental fatigue.
I don't know if you've ever had a day
where you get to the end of the day
and you can't really think about everything you did that day
but man, you feel tired.
Anybody had that experience often, right?
Yeah, so what that is is it's a concept
of that you were switching between so many tasks
and what you put your brain through
was quite a stressful process,
and we'll explain in a second.
So what Buckets do, this idea of creating blocks of time,
what it does is it allows us to start
to group together similar projects.
So I wanna just lay down a little bit of language
so that we're all on the same page.
So when I talk about a task or a task set,
I'm referring to when you're trying
to solve a more difficult problem.
So it's not just like quickly returning an email
or doing what we would call general work,
stuff that happens quickly, write a check,
pay the rent or whatever.
I'm not talking about, I'm talking when you're trying
to do a more difficult, substantive task
in which you really need to access
the very best your mind can produce.
So that's the kind of difficult tasks
that when I talk about tasks, that's what I'm referring to.
And so that normally involves sort of mentally sifting
through a variety of data and knowledge and various options.
And so that altogether in neuroscience terms
is called a task set.
So when you're trying to achieve a task set,
you're trying to get this big goal to move forward.
We know that one of the toughest issues
around that is interruptions, right?
It's getting started and then interruptions.
Now, interruptions are things that get you,
just as your task set is starting to build in your mind,
somebody interrupts it and it seems to collapse.
Back to the Jenga block analogy.
So think about building Jenga blocks
and it's very complex.
People who write software or coding,
or if you're writing work or you're writing a book,
you're like deep into it and you get interrupted.
It's like the Jenga blocks fell down
and then you come back to your work
and it's almost like you have to restructure them
in your mind again.
Do you know what I'm referring to?
So that interruption is what causes that fatigue.
And we refer to that interruption
and that cost as switching cost.
There is a switching cost every single time
you change your focus from one thing to another.
And I'm talking, so it's like you've hit a reset
or the Jenga blocks have fallen down.
And so the task requires significant mental energy
to build the Jenga blocks up
so that you can start working again.
It's that, as Danielle was saying earlier,
it's like you come back to it and go, where was I again?
Because the Jenga blocks are all on the table,
so you have to reconstruct again what you were doing.
This switching costs takes 20 to 40 minutes
to switch between one significant project and another.
20 to 40 minutes.
Now you may physically be doing the next thing,
but your brain hasn't caught up with your actions yet.
You're kind of going through the motions
and then you find yourself making simple mistakes
and so on because you haven't given time
for the switching cost.
So obviously you can't take a 20 minute break between tasks
because that would be a lot of breaks.
So how do we resolve that problem?
Buckets resolve this because we group together similar tasks
that don't require switching costs.
Switching costs is when we move from a category of thought
to another category of thought.
And so for instance, if I'm doing something financial
for the company and I'm busy doing modeling,
if I switch from that to accounting,
going into QuickBooks, paying bills,
building reports, writing a financial report,
those are all different tasks,
but they're part of the same sort of task set.
They're very similar.
They are not of that same set of Jenga blocks.
I'm doing a lot of different tasks.
I don't have to rebuild again.
But if I switch from that to, for instance, doing a talk
or switch from that to taking out my QBook
and planning my week,
anything that switches to a new task set,
to a different set of thought structures,
that is where the switching costs.
And actually your fatigue is based on how many times
you switched throughout the day.
So if you're switching, switching, switching,
switching, switching by the end of the day,
and that's why multitasking doesn't just make you dumb,
it makes you tired.
So we're gonna talk about that in a second.
So buckets solve this problem by giving your brain
time to work in a more restful way.
Because it can kind of get into the details.
It's a little bit like sleep.
If we're doing a sleep study,
and you were sitting in the lab,
we set you up with a bed,
and then I came in every half an hour,
and I woke you up, and I said,
that, you know, hey, Paul, how's your sleep going? And you're
like, yeah, yeah, okay. And then half an hour later, hey, Paul,
how's your sleep going? How's your sleep going? How's your
sleep going? How's your sleep? And by the morning, you're like
a wreck. Can you imagine what you're like by the end of the
week, if I keep that up throughout the whole period of
time, by the end of the week, you're a complete wreck, right?
You might need psychiatric treatment, actually. Because at
that point, you'd be your brain is so confused. But we do this
to ourselves. And managers do this to us. Right? How's your
work going? Is it done yet? Are we there yet? You know, that
type of thing is what creates switching costs. So we have to
come to an agreement that the power of buckets isn't just what
you personally understand. It's how we as a team agree as an
organization. This is how we're going to work together. And
when I am in a certain mode, I cannot be interrupted. And so
we just have a very simple system. When I'm in that mode,
when any one of our team members are in that mode, and we
absolutely have to get hold of you, we'll send you two texts in
a row, or we'll call twice in a row. And that's the sign of we
know we're interrupting you, we have to interrupt you, it's
really serious, please answer the phone, right? Other than
that, and especially for us as leaders, it takes a little more
humility, when one of your team members says don't call me, I'm
in, I'm in a four hour session, or I'm a deep work session, a
two hour session, we're going to get to next week into the
different types of what to do with each of those blocks. So
the key here is teaching your brain or giving your way your
brain the privilege of being able to focus on one thing at a
time, it's the kindest thing, not only can you do for your
mind, but it is also the most restful way to produce the
deepest quality work. It is the most restful way to produce the
deepest quality work. So when you're working on a difficult
task, attempting to multitask reduces the amount of working
memory. It's like break the jingle blocks, build a jingle
block, break it down, build them up, build them down. Now I've
got all these jingle blocks going and I'm trying to build
them all up. Can you see that multitasking does not work at
all? It only uses so what happens is your brain starts to
give thin little time slices to each task, no depth, just
whatever's the minimum just to kind of keep it all moving. So
in spite of the fact that you might feel like you're working
extremely hard, what you're all you're doing is you're just
switching hard, you're not actually working hard. And
that's the difference. Switching hard and working hard are not
the same thing. They may feel like the same thing, but they
are not. So a study done at the University of London found that
constant emailing and text messaging reduces mental
capacity by an average of 10 IQ points. What was interesting
was five IQ points for women and 15 for men. I'm not even going
to go there. It's going to move right along. Right. So all the
women are saying I told you this. So this is very, this is
very similar when you're doing a lot of multitasking. The
fatigue your mind feels is the same as missing a night's sleep.
Anybody done all nighters? Right? Yeah, my record is nine
nights in a row with one hour sleep for each one. I was a
student. I thought I was a genius. I was an idiot. No, I
was one. Okay. So you know, it is. It's the same effect when
you do a lot of intense multitasking, it's the same
effect they found as, you know, smoking weed, basically, or
being partially drunk, that your brain starts to respond as
though, you know, you're intoxicated. So the, the
interesting idea is that while it might sound cool, and every
generation tries to point out that there are a whole lot
better at multitasking than the previous generation, all that
happens is you just become a soundbite person. Because
that's about as much as your brain can switch between things.
And so it's not deep work, it's not substantive, it will rob
you of your contribution to the organization, your
contribution to your family, your contribution, you know, to
the world. When we teach parenting, you know, Bridget
and I teach parenting, one of the things we talk about is
blocking out uninterrupted protected time with your kids
same idea, just lavish time on your kids. Well, I'm just going
to do half an hour of quality time. Yeah, that's the same as
like multitasking, it doesn't have that effect. There's
something special that has to happen that just takes time. So
as the
The final University of London said is that multitasking productivity tools can make one
as dumb as a stoner, was their conclusion.
So I want to relay to rest this idea that multitasking is something to pursue.
Now it doesn't mean that there won't be times you will do multitasking, I mean I think to
some degree that's part of modern life, but that can't be the only mode.
So we're going to introduce three modes, one can be multitasking, the other two not.
So we're going to give you three modes over the next few weeks, but for right now, what
we want you to do is practice this week to take one four hour session.
It's a long time, by the way, if you're not used to this, the number one pushback we get
on this on this training is, I can't work on one thing for, you know, for four hours.
If that's, if that's, you don't have anything like that, like you don't have a substantial
amount of work to do that's so similar, you can do it for four hours, then I would break
it into two, two hour segments and do two different.
So go through one switching cast, take a 20 minute break, so two hours, 20 minute break,
two hours, or just do four hour, do a four hour stint on very similar tasks, get rid
of the switching cast.
So this week, your idea is to try to do that once.
And in the worksheets we're about to go through, we're going to ask you to create a list of
similar tasks that you can group together and give that group a name.
And then we're going to ask you to, you know, to try that.
So I want to give you a couple of just quick practical things to help you make that first
time you try the four hour thing successful.
So the first thing is what we call a priming ritual.
And I'm sorry about all the neuroscience terms, but basically it means preparing it.
And so what it is, and you know, we gather the tools, we gather the information, we gather
the, we get our workspace set up, you get your coffee, you get your snacks, you get
your stuff, you get it ready for the four hour, almost like going on a trip, right?
You're going on a, you're going to, if you're going on a trip, you make sure the car's full
of gas, you know, et cetera, et cetera.
You know where you're going, you've got the GPS out.
So that same sort of preparation, the wrong type of priming ritual is when you're like
straightening out your desk and doing a whole lot of other things and, you know, getting
the water cooler again or whatever.
You know what I'm talking about?
The ones that you just distracting yourself, you're not really preparing for anything.
So we don't want the wrong type.
We do want you to prepare.
So the most effective is, you know, if you know you're a morning person, then maybe the
night before, go and set everything up, get all, try to get rid of as many distractions
as possible.
Step number two is turn off all possible interruptions, turn off Slack, all the digital things, turn
off your phone, get rid of text, get rid of whatever.
And step three is let your supervisor or somebody in the team know I am unavailable from nine
until one or whatever your four hour session is.
And I am doing I'm I'm doing a focused deep work session, right, where I'm going to focus
this time and I'm going to do it once.
You're going to love this, by the way, once you get into this, because you're going to
suddenly find you're so capable of substantial work, because what happens, it's like compounding
interest.
Once your brain gets on a roll and you start solving problems, it goes faster and faster
and gets more and more creative and it feels more fun.
So not only is it a restful way to work, it's a very fulfilling way to work.
And you feel like, man, I really did something today.
I really made a contribution.
And so so gather the materials, get rid of the interruptions, let somebody know.