How to Be a Productivity Ninja with Graham Allcott #63

After all, all art is experience. Hello, happy New Year and a warm, hearty welcome to this episode of The Company Doctor. With Gary today is genuine productivity ninja Graham Allcott, who's here to give us all some advice on how to work efficiently and think effectively, and to reveal the secrets to overcoming procrastination. Graham is the author of many excellent books, but if there's one that's going to transform you into the master of your own productivity at the start of this year, it's How to Be a Productivity Ninja. Worry less, achieve more, and love what you do. Gary Gamp, over to you.

Hey, Graham, welcome to The Company Doctor. Good to have you.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, it's been my dream to have you on because unbeknownst to you, I developed a certification and we've been using your book and basically created an exam around it. So I was really excited to have you on. So welcome.

Yes. And didn't you tell me before that the exam is like my book plus What was it, Stephen Covey and another book?

Yeah, it's, um, it's How to Win Friends, um, 7 Habits, and your book in one exam. That's cool, right?

That's very humbling to be in that company, so thank you.

Yeah, I feel slightly awkward because obviously we got permission, but we hadn't mentioned it to you. But, uh, but great to have you on. So, so listen, I think as a getting started, a lot of people will know you, but for those that don't, there's lots written about you. As I researched you coming on today, I found loads of stuff, watched your videos and all the things to go with it, but Tell us, for the people listening, what makes Graham Graham? A quick intro would be great.

Oh, that's a good, that's a good deep starting question. Well, I suppose there's a number of things and there's like the sort of public work version of that and there's the sort of personal version of that and everything else. But yeah, in terms of my work, I'm probably best known as the author of a book called How to Be a Productivity Ninja, which has been a global bestseller. And I have a company called Think Productive, which we built off the back of that book, really. So, doing a lot of the teaching and kind of coaching and taking the lessons of that book into businesses around the world. So, we have an office in the UK and also US, Netherlands, UAE, Canada, and the US. So, yeah, we have offices all around the world that kind of teach this stuff. And I've also written another 5 books as well, including one on study skills called Study Ninja, one called How to Have the Energy, which is basically all about How to Eat to Have the Best Energy for Work and Life, and one called How to Fix Meetings, which is another little mission of mine.

Yeah, that's how we got linked back to you because we had Colette on talking about how to have energy.

Yes, amazing. So Colette was talking about how to have the energy, which I loved doing that book. And I think, so back to your question of like what makes Graham Graham, I think the answer sort of personally in terms of personality and stuff is like curiosity. And thinking about how to have the best systems, processes, approaches that just makes work really easy. That's kind of what I've been about for a long time. So it starts with curiosity. I build some systems around it and then I tend to write about it and build courses around it and all of that. And also just bringing in my own business experience. I started my business Think Productive in 2009. And we've just kind of grown exponentially since then. So I kind of tend to apply a lot of the sort of learning, obviously, to walking the talk within my own business, and then bringing that back to teach to everyone from, you know, Google to eBay to British Airways and Disney and everyone in between.

Fantastic. And, and, you know, I was really keen to, to meet you and understand you because what, you know, anyone who writes a book about productivity, you kind of wonder how they live their lives. And one of the clues for me, Graham, was on your website. Your website is so nicely structured. One, there's a section called— I love— is it called A Little Corner of the Internet? And then there you've got a personal manifesto.

Yeah.

And I was just trying to wonder, is this how you live your life? And it's kind of clutter-free. This is how the website came across to me— clutter-free, clear, and concise. Is that how you live your life?

That's what I like. Yeah, yeah. And I'm not— do you know what, I'm not totally— I think sometimes that can come across as like 'Oh, that guy's going to be totally anal and, you know, really sort of stuck in his ways with something.' And I'm actually not like that at all, but I do like clarity and I do like clutter-free. And, you know, I'm quite minimalist in sort of what my house looks like and things like that, um, but not to the point where it's like, you know, bare white walls and stuff. I like stuff and character too. And, but yeah, absolutely. And the manifesto came from a place of— the manifesto is about marketing and my discomfort with the fact that so many of the people who are kind of in a similar world to me, so as in people who write books about business and then market themselves and market courses, I find that that world gets spammy very quickly.

Yeah.

And so that manifesto, which, yeah, you can just find on the front page of my website if you want to go and have a look. But it's basically like, here's what I'm going to do and here's what I'm not going to do. And so I don't advertise in a way that has these kind of high ticket or these kind of classic techniques, you know, false scarcity and high ticket items and prices that end in a 7. And I just don't want to do any of that. So I'm very— and I definitely make less money, by the way, by like, by doing that. But I like to think when people buy stuff from me, A, it's fairly priced, B, they trust me, and C, it kind of feels like a good deal for everybody. So I kind of, um, I start from there, you know.

That's great because I, I, you know, I've seen that about you. I must admit I thought you would have a color-coded bookcase behind, but you just didn't, so disappointed. Well, out of interest, Graham, is it, you know, obviously an obvious question, but what made you write the book? And you know, what was the kind of the launching pad to you writing that book?

Yeah, so the launching pad to Productivity Ninja, and this is where I think hopefully this resonates with, um, people listening to this, is The launching pad and the start point for that book was not me saying, I'm perfect at this, here's how I do it, be a little bit more like me. Because I feel like a lot of the American, particularly self-help books, start with that kind of Tony Robbins, like, hey, just be perfect. Yeah, go and all that. And it's like, I just find it so disingenuous and unrealistic, and it kind of sets you up to failure. So my start point was realizing that I wasn't very good at productivity. This is going back 15 years or so. Researching and developing my own systems, you know, taking inspiration from lots of places. Stephen Covey's 7 Habits, you mentioned at the start. I mean, I was totally into that book very early in my career. David Allen, Getting Things Done, Seth Godin's work, Cal Newport's work. So many people who I just think I'm kind of standing on the shoulders of those giants in many ways. But, you know, really just kind of setting up things that work for me. And then trying to put it into a book in a way that was a bit more realistic. So the book is all about how to manage attention, not time, because you can't manage time. It starts from a premise of managing attention is hard in a world where we are constantly inundated with information and we are strapped to devices that are there to take our attention away. And it also starts from a very human perspective. So the first words in the book are, "Dear human being," and it's like, you're going to screw this up. You're not going to be perfect, that's okay, and let's start there rather than this kind of very unrealistic perfectionist way that a lot of those books tend to have.

It does come across that way because it's a much more modern approach. It's less 1980s and very much in the moment, I would guess. And so much has, as you've said, so much has been written about productivity. Ironically, most of it causes more complexity, I think, sometimes.

And more anxiety too, right? Anxiety, yeah, for sure. Hung up on the idea of needing to be more productive. And actually, I think productivity can become quite a sort of toxic word in many ways. And I'm totally not interested in the sort of, you know, YouTube hustle culture, you know, get up at 4 AM kind of stuff. I just think that can become really toxic very quickly. So I think it's worth just demystifying that a little bit and just saying you don't need to get up at 4 AM. This doesn't have to be hard or complicated, but there are some things that you can do that just make everything easier.

Yeah, because it can be a big monster, can't it? Because everyone knows, and then they go and buy an app with a to-do list and think they've solved it. Yeah. So what advice, Graham, would you give someone to get started in a practical way?

Yeah, so there's a few things in terms of starting points. If you are, like, if you're listening to this today and you are feeling stressed and overwhelmed and you've got too much to do then a really great starting point is to say no to some things, create an hour of time, you know, just in your diary where you're, where you can be a bit sort of less distracted, and just sit there with pen and paper and get all the things that are swirling around your head out of your head. So just write them down, pen and paper, Post-it notes, journals, whatever works for you. But just the start point really is get everything out of your head. So David Allen, who wrote Getting Things Done, has a lovely phrase, which is the mind is for having ideas, not for holding them. And a lot— all the science points to the fact that we can't remember lots of stuff in our head. And therefore, if we are sort of hanging on to 20 different things, we're then going to start subconsciously worrying about what are we missing, what are we forgetting, what's the big gold mine I'm missing, what's the big landmine I'm missing. And so really important thing is just, you know, manage it from a point of view of it not being in your head and in what I call a second brain, which is where the apps come in and everything else. So I think that's a really important start point. And then the other thing I'd say as a start point is like, and we don't often ask ourselves this question, is like, what do we actually want to do? Like, what are we trying to do? And taking that step back to say, in order to do this stuff really well, what am I happy to lose? What's— what are the things that I want to do less of? You know, often when we write to-do lists, we start— and or New Year's resolutions as well is the same thing where will start with like, here's all the things to add into my life. I'm going to do gym, I'm going to do healthy eating, all this stuff. And it's like, we don't start from a point of view of what am I going to cut out, what do I want to do less of, what, what am I noticing that I'm wasting time on that I don't want to be wasting time on. And I think sometimes starting from that kind of slightly preventative negative start point before you get into it is, is really important too, because it makes the space for what need— what needs to be filled.

But, but as you're talking, Graham, I was thinking, well, that's— yeah, I get it, but a lot of people never continue or have the motivation to continue. That's why people join the gym in January and leave in February, whatever they do. Yeah. Is motivation a big factor, and how do we stop people procrastinating? Because sometimes they do and they don't get done things they want to get done.

Yeah. Okay, so there's two things there. So let me talk about motivation first, and I'll come back on to procrastination. So in terms of motivation, a really important kind of keystone habit around productivity is having some time once a week where what you're going to do is thinking rather than doing. So Henry Ford once said, thinking is the hardest work there is, which is a probable reason so few engage in it. And I think we are often as a society, we feel really guilty about the idea of making space to do quality thinking. But actually, it's quality thinking that gives us motivation, it's quality thinking that helps us to, you know, really prioritise in the right way, put our minds onto the right things, and eliminate some of the stuff that we want to do a bit less of. So we kind of have to every week take a step back. And so I have it— if you want to find out how I do it, if you just Google Graham Alcott weekly checklist, I have a little checklist that I go through every week. And it's little things like going through project by project or the different things I'm working on. It's like I go 2 weeks behind and 3 weeks ahead in my diary. And it's like, appointment by appointment. What happened here? Oh yeah, I need to send that document to that person, or, oh, I need to find out what's going on with that next week. And, you know, so just going through that and just doing that once a week, A, it's really motivating because it brings a lot of clarity, and B, it just means you're just in control a bit more. So that takes some time and effort, and it's not free. So you have to kind of invest in that. You need to, you know, have that time, you know, an hour. Typically it's an hour, um, when you first start it might be more like 2 hours, but like getting that time first to to say, this is my thinking time, this is where I'm going to take a step back, review where I'm up to, plan ahead. That's a really, really important thing for motivation. And once you do that regularly, it's also the time for me where I kind of tweak the system a little bit or work out, hey, that's not quite working, or that meeting's not great, or, you know, and it's just like being in that slightly more reflective mode where you're in more of like the sort of strategy, uh, sort of thinking and engineering kind of space rather than in the kind of tactical doing, like, what's next, what's next kind of space. Really, really important, and most people don't do enough of it.

But you're a disciplined guy from what I've seen and what you've told me. What about— can people that are not disciplined still get the motivation to be productive, or is it hopeless for them?

Yeah, I think that's why it's the keystone habit, right? So if you just— if you're just— you don't need to be disciplined about everything, and actually I'm not, but I am pretty disciplined about doing things like that. I'm disciplined about getting my email inbox to zero once a week. There's like certain things that I do. But I don't need to have my email inbox at zero every day, or like every 5 minutes, you know. So I think sometimes people mistake some of those things for like permanent states. And actually, you just need to clear the decks and just regularly get back to a state of feeling in control. Yeah. And then procrastination, you were talking about procrastination. I think, like when I first started thinking about productivity years ago, I was thinking about it in terms of systems. And then when I started going out into the world, because I, here's the thing, when I started, I thought I was the last person to learn all this stuff. And I just felt really disorganised. And I felt like everyone around me was more organised. I had this kind of imposter syndrome about it. And then when I first started talking to like friends, colleagues, and whatever about productivity, and like, hey, here's how I'm doing to-do lists now, here's how I'm doing inboxes now, and all this stuff, people were just like amazed. And I could see light bulbs going off. And it was just like, Oh, like it wasn't just me, like everybody else needs this. But what I realized, like, once I started doing that was really a lot of people's self-talk around productivity is all around fear and guilt, right? So fear and guilt are emotions that really derail our productivity, and particularly with procrastination, obviously we're talking about fear. And so when people are fearing something going really badly, or even sometimes fearing the consequences of something going really well, then part of the brain, um, the amygdala, which is often referred to as the lizard brain, sets up this kind of self-talk, which is like, what if this happens? And then what if this happens? And we, and we get into this kind of sense that like there's these huge consequences to either doing something badly or even doing something well. And it's just totally disproportionate to just starting and getting things moving and taking action and getting on with stuff. So it's really important to recognize when your brain is in that state. And then a really simple little tip that can really help is for anything that you want to work on, just make sure you have clarity about two things. So you want what is the desired project outcome of this thing? So how do I measure the fact that I'm done? You know, what's the end outcome? And then the next thing you want is the next physical action I need to take. And the word physical is really important there. So if you imagine you're sat at your desk, and you're like, a fly on the wall, you know, looking down at you sat at your desk, what are you doing, right? So when you write that down as an action, if you write down 'follow up with,' that's not a physical action. You know, if you write— if you write down 'chase' or 'sort out' or whatever, not physical actions. But if you write down 'call my friend Jeremy about the thing' or like 'get on Google and research this thing' or like whatever it is, so actually like describing it in that level of physicality is really helpful because then when you're tired on a Thursday afternoon and you look at your to-do list those are things that you understand. And so doing that thinking in a way that's really specific and crystal clear, probably where your actions look slightly longer on the page than just, you know, chase Dave. It's like, you know, talk to Dave in the meeting on Thursday. So they'll look a bit longer, but it's much, it's much harder to, for your, for you to then skip over them when you're tired and much easier to just pick them up and go, oh yeah, I know how to call Dave. Here's the phone, let's go, you know. And so I just think that's a really important sort of starting point to help you get over procrastination and also just makes it more motivating as well.

Yeah, no, great. I can see it.

I hope you're enjoying this episode. I certainly am, so I'll keep this brief. This is just your halftime reminder that you can show your support for what we're doing with this podcast by leaving us a positive review on Apple Podcasts, not just so that we feel all warm and fuzzy inside, but also because it helps the algorithm realize just how brilliant and popular we are, so it recommends us to more and more people. You can sign up to our mailing list over at thecompanydoctor.com, where you'll also find show notes, videos of Gary in action, and lots of other added extras. And that's 30 seconds. So it's back to the show.

Just switching gears a little bit. People are really good at filling their days. And I've read that you talk about the laws of diminishing returns in productivity.

Yes.

What is it and how does it work? And the second part, Gary, I'm sorry to throw these at you. What about the 4-day week? Is that a good or bad idea? Kind of connected to that, because people fill their days, right?

Well, I've done a 4-day week for about 10 years, um, so it's one of those things where like, it feels like the world is catching on post-COVID to the idea of the 4-day week. And, um, you know, as kind of our company Think Productive has done a 4-day week for a long time. We were actually one of the first in the UK to adopt it, and I kind of feel like now that the world's catching up a bit, like, do we need to go to 3-day week to like to be trailblazers again? Like, we're kind of like losing our trailblazer status. Saturdays Sunday. That's the answer. So I'm a really big advocate for it. What was quite funny was, um, so Elena, who's Think Productive's, um, MD— so we do a thing where, um, as part of our 4-day week, we work one Friday in four to make sure that we've got, you know, client services in operation on a Friday and stuff. And Elena was working last Friday, then we had a little chat this week, and she's like, oh, because I only had a two-day weekend. And so she's like sort of talking as if she was like really stressed, because we often use that Friday as like personal life admin and whatever, so that you then get 2 days of like actual rest. You know, most people end up using most of their Saturday for laundry and house chores and like everything else. So, it's quite funny like what you get used to, and then a 4-day week is always your thing. But we kind of started to adopt it because I read this study years ago. So, there was a very famous study on productivity done by the Ford Corporation back in the day.. It was just called Ford on Productivity. And the idea was, let's look at where the law of diminishing returns kicks in. So you've got all these people who are on the assembly line building cars, you know, back in the 1930s, 1940s, or whatever. And the question was, when do they get so tired that it's better that you give them a rest rather than have kind of sloppy work happening and bad productivity happening and the assembly line closes down and all this. And so Henry Ford figured out if you just get people to work for 5 days and then give them 2 days off and then bring them back in, you know, you get better work than actually having people work 6 or 7 days. And so this wasn't because Henry Ford was this hugely generous philanthropic guy who wanted to give everyone lots of leisure time. He just figured out it was a better thing for productivity, and hence we got weekends. And then there was a follow-up study that looked at what's— okay, that's assembly lines, that's working with your hands. What does that look like if you then take the law of diminishing returns but apply it to knowledge work where you're working with your brains? And so in the law of diminishing returns, in the original study, it was 37 to 40 hours a week was where that law of diminishing returns kicks in. Guess where it is with knowledge work? What do you think? Less. So it's actually about 30 hours a week.

Yeah, vaguely less.

So if you think about how you generally feel on a Thursday lunchtime, Thursday afternoon, like, no wonder, right? Like, that's when you should be done. That's when you should be done. So I think that's a really important lesson for a couple of reasons. One is we should think more about how do we adopt 4-day weeks, and how do we think about those sort of structures societally that just— we can actually get the same or even better output. Because I think we, I think we are really productive because of our 4-day week, not in spite of. I think it actually helps us to do that stuff. And then the other thing that's really important about when we think about that is it's really easy, especially with 5 days in the week, to just look at time as this really plentiful thing. And then you let all sorts of slightly less vital things into your world because you think you've got all this time. Whereas if you start to think like, A, we've only got 30 hours in total before it starts declining, and B, even in that 30 hours, there are certain hours in the day where we're more attuned to great work. I call this in the book proactive attention, the idea when you're like, when your brain's really switched on, you've got the best energy zone. That's for me, that's like 2 to 3 hours a day, right? So once you start to think of that time as like really scarce, then you make more ruthless decisions about what you let in versus what you keep out.

Yeah, I think you're really on something. And you know, I discovered that as a consultant because, you know, it's like when you go on holiday, you get all productive because you've got to go away. And I think people fill their days and that, you know, that's a challenge. This is really good advice. Okay, Graham, give us 3 killer tips that I can use tomorrow to be more productive.

3 killer tips. Okay. So, uh, number 1, think about your to-do list in terms of what I was just talking about there, um, attention levels. So structure your to-do list so that you have items on there that are where you need really quality energy and attention, and, and put those as a category on your to-do list. And by the same token, at the other end of the scale, have a list. My list for this is called Mindless, where it's like, these are things I can half do in my sleep. And then once you've got that, it supports you to say, right, when I've got really great energy, I'm only going to do stuff off of this, you know, really important list. And also when I'm a bit tired, I've got really good stuff to do, and it's really easy to access. So structuring your to-do list around attention, really important tip. Second one, think about meetings. So I wrote this book, How to Fix Meetings, Most people spend far too long in meetings. Most meetings that are an hour could be half an hour. A lot of meetings could be an email, and so on and so forth. So just put some thought into that. One thing that's quite helpful is, when we think about the time and attention that we're spending on a meeting, we should think about it in the sense of 40-20-40. So 40% of our time and attention around a topic and around a meeting should be the pre-work that we're doing before the meeting starts. 20% of our time and attention should be the meeting itself, and then 40% should be— guess what— doing the things that we say we're going to do at the end of a meeting. And so if you're in back-to-back meetings all week, when do you do that, those other two parts of the 40%, right? So I think that's a really important way to think about it. But also just like getting some awareness amongst your team and, and getting awareness amongst the people around you around just this idea that meetings feel like they're free And they're actually one of the most expensive ways to work. So once we start to not eliminate them but actually just cut down on them, um, I think really great things happen. And then number 3, well, I'll just give you like a sort of personal one. I was, uh, swimming in the sea this morning. It's officially 10 degrees here in Brighton now, um, in the sea, so it's really cold. But like doing a very small amount of exercise in the morning wakes up your brain. So The science is good news here. You only need to run for about 15 minutes in terms of, you know, elevated heart rate to—

and there's— what about the cold water though, Gary?

Yeah, so I mean, cold water swimming is one way of doing it, but, you know, running, cycling, whatever it is, HIIT training, which you can do at home, but like 15 minutes in the morning just elevating your heart rate. The heat map studies of the brain, just so much more of your brain is utilized and awake, and the brain is the best tool we have. So Feels like a good place to start.

That's good, because I was going to ask you what your go-to thing to do to improve productivity. It sounds like it might be that.

Yeah, just— and sometimes it's just like I just run around the park. It's like, you know, 10 minutes. And I just think even if I can't afford to do a sort of long run or take lots of time out, just having that like little kind of brisk thing. And even just— I drink a lot of tea, so when the kettle's on, just doing like some star jumps to wake up and stuff is another little thing that I do. Sometimes just still sort of running on the spot and stuff. So it doesn't need to take any more time than what you have.

I like it. Great advice. And Graham, I noticed on your website you've got Ask Graham AI. Yeah. It got me thinking, is AI helpful for productivity or not? Not the Graham AI, but just AI in general got me thinking, is it helpful for productivity or not?

Well, yeah, this is my sort of voyage of discovery really. So yeah, if you go to askgraham.ai, Basically, I've created a robot version of myself, which I'll tell you what it's really productive for, for me, is I get journalists send me emails saying like, hey, I know you've written books about stuff, but I'm going to slightly paraphrase it in a slightly disparaging way. They will send me these emails and it goes like, hey, I know you've written books about this stuff. I want to write an article about productivity. I don't have time to read your book. So can you just give me like, can you summarize it back to me? And it's like, well, I've already written it. And you know what? I find that stuff really hard. A, because I've written it as perfectly as I could in the book. So getting me to just do it from scratch now just feels a bit annoying. And also my memory—

They would go to the Blinklist, Graham, couldn't they?

Yeah, I suppose so. But also the questions often are like just slightly— they want something slightly tailored. And now I can actually go to my AI and the AI answers these questions perfectly because we've fed all of my books into the AI. So I think there's a good example where I think AI is going to be— that's just one little thing that it's been super helpful for me. But this has really been my, like, voyage of discovery to create this AI version of me, just really to get my head around what is AI about and, like, how can it work, how can it help us. And I think, you know, my bigger sort of vision and hope for the world really is that I think if we can start to get to a place where AI can eliminate a lot of the kind of faffy, low-value kind of work and free us up to just do really quality thinking and bigger thinking, then in the future, could we get to a place where most of our economy, most of our work is actually in humans thinking? And part of that thinking is directing the AI where we want it to go. But also part of that thinking is understanding ourselves better, getting more emotionally intelligent, thinking about philosophy, being creative. I kind of feel like we could end up in a new— we have the chance to end up in a new golden era where we've almost eliminated work. And what we get to do is express ourselves creatively and interact with each other on much more deep and meaningful levels while the AI produces enough value to keep us all alive, basically.

We sit our feet up by the fire and things get on in the background.

I like it. So I'm a massive optimist about it. And, you know, I've had a few people say to me with this AskPrem.ai thing, are you not putting yourself out of a job? And I'm— and I always kind of go back with, well, if I am, then cool. Exactly. As long as you get paid for it. Feels like the thing that we should all be aspiring to do, right? I just find that fascinating as a question.

When I saw that, I thought it was great. And then I thought, oh, I wonder what the impact of AI is on productivity. Okay, I've got two questions for you, Graham, then we're going to go to your musical taste. The first one is going to get your brain going a bit. I wondered if you were always productive going back, but I think you answered that question because I think maybe you weren't, but you're slightly, you're organized, I can tell that. But if you got back in your time machine, what would you do differently knowing what you know now in an earlier life?

Oh, okay. This is not a very work-related answer, but is that okay?

Yeah, of course. You say whatever you want. You're the boss.

So, I think it's really interesting, people's relationship with money. My own relationship with money. And so I've worked with some people, some coaches on this, who basically their premise is that your earliest memories of money dictate your money stories and your money biases. Money is just a story. So some people have a story which is about security. Some people have a story which is about freedom. Some people have a story where money is dirty. You have these different stories. And mine was very much around security because when I was a kid, I was a free school meals kid at school. And there was a time where my dad lost his job and we thought we were going to lose the house. And that was my earliest memories of stuff. And then when I was at university, my friend Dave, I bumped into him in the student union. He'd just come out of the Star Travel travel agents, and he booked this round-the-world ticket for that summer on a credit card. And I was just like, oh, I'd love to do this, I'm jealous as hell, but like, I'm horrified I could never do that. And I think it cost him £2,000. And I look back at that now and I think, man, like, I have to grab more time. Like, yeah, you know, I could say, like, it— like, at the time that felt like such a, such a stupid amount of money and such a reckless thing to do. And actually lesson for all of us, I think, is like, just grab that stuff, grab those opportunities in your life that you are reluctant to just go full pelt on, and, and sort of don't take yourself so seriously, or don't be too worried about stuff. And so that's, that's the kind of life lesson from it.

But yeah, I know, I think it's fantastic. Because one of the things you said about productivity was it makes space for what matters. Yeah, to get more done. And that, that's the essence of it. So I think it's great you said that. Okay, last question, and then we're going to go to your musical taste. Here's the question: do you believe in eating the frog?

Do I believe in eating the frog? Yes. First. Is there—

so discuss.

Is there— so is that because you think there are people who like trash that as an idea? I've never really heard much antagonism towards that idea.

Well, people kind of get it, but then they roll their eyes. They go, yeah, obviously I should do the most difficult thing first, and then they get on with their lives and don't do anything.

Yeah, okay, that's what I mean. Yeah, so I mean, interestingly, a good few years ago I used to have, as part of my— I used to have a little kind of, um, get up in the morning kind of little checklist. And the idea of it was it would have all the stuff like putting on your clothes, having a shower, going for a run, like all that stuff. And then the last item of the checklist was worst first, eat the frog, right? But I was tricking myself because I didn't enjoy— no one enjoys eating the frog, and I didn't enjoy it, obviously. But when it's the last box that you got a tick out of 7, it's like, oh, I've done the other 6. Oh, I may as well, you know. And so, and then you feel great, and you do feel great afterwards because obviously, you know, your brain releases a bit of dopamine, and then you look for the next bit of dopamine. So yeah, I think eat the frog's a really, um, really sound idea in terms of productivity.

Good, I'm pleased to hear it. I will eat my frog later. So now we, uh, just before we come to your musical taste, I just want to thank you for coming on. It's been so great because—

pleasure—

after all these years of building an exam around your book and getting so excited about the opportunity to meet you. It's been fantastic. So thank you. Inspirational, helpful, clear and concise as I expected. I was hoping for color-coded books, but you know what?

It's fine. Yeah, they are honestly in like no particular order.

They're not, but they're neat, but they're just not color-coded. Yeah, so Graham, we have a playlist on Spotify, The Company Doctor playlist, and we always ask our guests to give us one or two tracks that are either inspirational or something that is important to them that we can add to the playlist. So what would Graham's be?

Wow. So I'm like a massive music nerd and nut, and I'm also in my spare time, I also DJ and stuff. So this is a hard one.

Yeah, that's so cool.

I'll go with, so probably the most important band to me in the last 10, 15 years is a band called Hiatus Coyote, who are an Australian neo-soul funk jazz kind of band. Hiatus Coyote. They have a song called Nakamara, which is the lead singer's love story to a friend of hers. And so it's a kind of song about friendship love rather than romantic love.

Wow. Where'd you find out about them?

I think I heard them first on Giles Peterson's radio show, which is where I hear a lot of stuff. He's my favourite DJ. So, Hytus K.O.T. and the song Nakamara would definitely be one. And then one I've been really obsessed with recently is There's Michael Kiwanuka's album of a couple of years ago called Kiwanuka. There's a remix of a song called Final Days on there by Bonobo. And when I'm DJing out, I play that a lot because it's like everyone, everyone knows Michael Kiwanuka. And so when you drop that and a lot of people haven't heard this version because it's like a little bit more kind of electronic dancey stuff, people are like, oh yeah, what's this?

You're very cool, Gary. Very cool. Can you get that on Spotify?

They're both on Spotify. Yeah.

Oh, brilliant. They'll definitely get on the playlist then. That's fantastic.

And the other one I did I played at a friend's party a couple of weeks ago and they just wanted to— everyone wanted to dance. And I dropped Pump Up the Jam by Technotronic and the place went nuts. So that was a—

yeah, I love that. I love the word that you use, the word dropped as well.

Yeah, yeah, such DJ speak.

Brilliant, Graham. Well, add those 3 to the list. Thank you so much for joining us today on the Company Dog Podcast. I think you've really well covered How to Be a Productivity Ninja. And thank you very much for joining. And we'll see you again soon.

Pleasure. And if anyone wants to connect, by the way, and, you know, like reach me or find out more about what I do, if you go to grahamallcott.com/links, then everything you need is there. So yeah, thank you.

Thanks very much.

Thanks for listening, and a huge thanks to Graham Allcott for his invaluable takes and advice. If like me, you now can't wait to start being more productive, add to your list a visit to thecompanydoctor.com where you'll find more inspiring content and a link to sign up to our imminent newsletter. Thanks again and see you next time.