Before you read this article, take a moment away from your computer. Put down your phone and step outside. Look closely at whatever you find.

The shape of a leaf.
The texture of a rock.
The swooping flight of a bird.

What is that leaf? How old is that rock? Why does that bird behave the way it does?

When we open our minds to nature and ask questions about how it works, we appreciate it more deeply. We also become more aware of how human activity is changing the world in fundamental ways. Humans are altering the landscape, changing ecological balances, and even affecting the global climate.

That’s why science education is more critical today than at any point in human history. Knowledge is vital if we are to take care of our world in the face of new challenges.

The California Academy of Sciences champions research, education, and sustainability across the globe. Their innovative museum exhibits bring scientific knowledge to the public, and their “citizen science” program inspires the public to help increase that knowledge. It’s a symbiotic relationship that benefits us all.

Tamara Schwarz, the Academy’s Director of Exhibit Development and Strategic Planning, is a passionate advocate for science. “The mission of the Academy is to explore, explain, and sustain life on Earth,” she explains. “That’s a meaningful mission. Some people are intimidated by what they think science is. I want to help them appreciate that science is a valuable part of our civic life. It’s not that everybody has to be a scientist, but we want everyone to leave with a sense of excitement, curiosity, and wonder about the natural world.”

One exhibit’s two-year journey

Over a million people visit the Academy each year, drawn to its aquarium, planetarium, and living indoor rainforest. But the Academy is also home to more than 100 research scientists, thousands of live animals, and nearly 46 million research specimens.

Everything comes together in Giants of Land and Sea, an exhibit two years in the making that reveals the unique natural wonder of Northern California’s coast. “The idea was to help our visitors look at the places they already cared about with a fresh perspective, in ways they haven’t thought of before,” Tamara explains.

A cross-functional team of designers, content specialists, educators, technologists, media producers, and others worked on the exhibit. “We also work closely with our in-house scientists,” Tamara adds, “from helping us define topics and themes through making sure that we’re aware of the latest research.”

The Academy’s collection is vast, meaning they had many possible directions to follow. “Our research collections have drawers and drawers, shelves and rooms full of specimens. Each one has a unique story to tell, and those stories help us understand how things are changing.”

Tamara’s team had to manage a mountain of information as well. “We do a tremendous amount of reading, gathering papers published in scientific journals, interviewing scientists,” she says. “We use Evernote to collect all of those things, keep track of sources, and share highlights with other members of the team. We have a standard set of five or six notebooks for each exhibit project, and we’re working on half a dozen projects at a time. Knowing that everything is in a central location is really helpful.”

Finalizing an exhibit takes many iterations. “At a certain point, we have to go from having this massive amount of information to figuring out what is the specific story that we’re telling in this exhibit,” Tamara says. “For every photo that ends up on a panel in our galleries, we may have looked at 25 other options. We use Evernote to collect those options, look at how they work, and go back and forth with the graphic designers on possible layouts.”

Engaging the senses

In Giants of Land and Sea, the theme itself was a challenge. “It’s impossible to walk through a redwood forest and not be awed by the trees and their size. But that incredible size is hard to communicate in a museum gallery,” Tamara says. One way to solve the problem was by displaying a cross-section of a redwood tree. But acquiring a specimen was difficult. In 2017, an 800-year old tree fell during a winter storm in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, some 300 miles from San Francisco. The tree blocked a trail, and park personnel had to cut a section out of the tree to clear it. “The cross-section is about nine feet in diameter; it just towers over you,” Tamara says. “And the amazing thing is that piece came from about 150 feet up the trunk of that tree. The bottom of the tree was twice the size. There’s no way we could have even gotten that into the museum.”

The Academy’s main exhibit hall is open and full of natural light, a contrast to the humid warmth of the rainforest in its 4-story glass sphere or the submarine gloom of the aquarium. Children’s voices echo and vanish in the background hum, as in a train station. A huge blue whale skeleton stretches overhead — it’s always been there, but many visitors never noticed until Giants of Land and Sea opened underneath it. Walking through the space, a visitor notices not only the size but also how immersive the exhibit is. At every turn, screens, flip boards, and other interactive elements beckon a visitor’s touch. At one station, pressing a button lights up the same bone in two different marine mammal skeletons, along with a human arm model for comparison. See, it seems to say, we’re all related.

“We try to incorporate as much interactivity as we can and engage all the senses,” Tamara says. From a chilly room full of fog to a virtual ascent through an old-growth redwood grove, every part of the exhibit invites people to connect with the things they see. But that interactivity also takes into account the changing expectations of the audience.

“In the in the past few years, everybody has become accustomed to having devices in their pockets that give them access to all the information they could ever want,” Tamara notes. “We have the opportunity to help them navigate that information. We try to be thoughtful about not just having one touch screen after another because that’s not a novel experience. We use technology to give people experiences that are different from what they could find sitting on their couch at home.”

It’s all about getting visitors excited in ways that persist after they leave the museum. “Healthy oceans, healthy forests, beautiful places, those are things that people appreciate. But these are also things that are essential to our future,” Tamara says. “So we hope visitors give some thought to the choices they make in their lives. What can you do in your community, in your workplace, or in your family to be part of a sustainable future?”

Getting involved with “citizen science”

Getting people directly engaged and involved is vital, and that’s where the Academy’s citizen science program comes in. Rebecca Johnson co-leads a small team with a big mission. They bring people from all walks of life together to make observations and discover what’s happening on a local level.

Rebecca says the citizen science movement is open to anyone who cares about the natural world, wants to know more, and wants to make a difference. “We can all be curious,” she says. “Everybody can share in that awe and wonder of discovery.”

Through “bio-blitz” meetups and the global City Nature Challenge event, participants get outside and document what they see using iNaturalist, a free app. A typical event can generate thousands of observations covering hundreds of species. The data, indexed and organized automatically, can be used by researchers to create a snapshot of a local ecosystem. It also reveals how a location has changed over time.

“It’s locally relevant and it’s globally relevant,” Rebecca says. “Especially at this time, where things are changing really quickly, to know where things are found is important. This knowledge helps us understand big patterns of biodiversity and how they’re changing. But we can’t get the kind of data at the scale we need without people everywhere making and sharing observations.”

It also helps people connect with the world in a new way. “Take time to walk somewhere outside if you can,” Rebecca says. “Pay attention and see what you might see. You’ll start to notice patterns, notice trends, just because you’re paying attention a little more.”

Making connections, building a community

Exhibits and bio-blitzes are two ways the California Academy of Sciences fulfills its mission. But that ethos extends to every aspect of its existence. Even the Academy building itself, opened in 2008, is designed to be at harmony with the surrounding landscape. Its living roof supports native plants, pollinators, and local bird populations.

“When people come here, we hope they’re going to make connections,” Tamara says. “As they’re walking through our rainforest, for example, they might think, ‘oh, I never realized that my coffee comes from plants in the rainforest.’”

Looking ahead, Tamara sees further opportunities to help people make those connections. She points to the multilingual design of Giants of Land and Sea as a model for the future. “Giants is presented in four languages: English, Spanish, Chinese, and Filipino. It’s a way for us to celebrate not only biodiversity but also to welcome the cultural diversity of California and engage a broader audience.”

Rebecca agrees: “I hope that one of the things that we’re doing is building a community of advocates for science. I like the idea that I can like help build a more science-literate society. I like people seeing that their observations are worthwhile, and that science is meaningful and important to protect.”

Rebecca stresses that we can connect with nature no matter where we live. When we do that, we learn more about ourselves, our place in the world, and our responsibility as a species. But it all begins with discovery. And for the California Academy of Sciences, inspiring people to focus on the planet’s natural wonders is what matters most.

How the California Academy of Sciences Makes Discovery a Delight was originally published in Focus Culture on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The shift in thinking that’ll help you beat distraction forever

Imagine you’ve been transported back in time 50,000 years. Once you recover from your initial shock, you set out to learn more about this strange, unfamiliar world. As you explore, you come across a young hunter-gatherer named Urk. He’s amused by your strange clothes, but quickly realizes you don’t pose a threat and invites you to join his tribe.

Although their customs seem strange at first, over time you find yourself enjoying the sense of community and purpose these prehistoric humans share. Suddenly a thought hits you: “Other than the language barrier, how different from them am I?”

That’s the question posed by the self-proclaimed “Time Dorks,” Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky, in their book “Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day”. They contend that a major problem we face today — the sense that our lives are out of our control — is not that we don’t have the willpower to do what’s best for us, it’s that we’re simply not built for it.

As Jake and John (affectionately called JZ throughout the book) see it, the advances of modern society are not beneficial, or even intentional. Our world, they say, has “been shaped very accidentally by the technologies that have stuck over the last few centuries, decades, and years. We’re built for one world, but we live in another.”

So how can we navigate our modern world using brains designed for a very different way of life?

What’s standing in your way?

In our modern world, attention equals income, which for a company equals survival.

In the days before email, Facebook, and Netflix, you had to pay close attention to what was happening around you. It helped to know which berries were safe to eat, where to find shelter, and how to avoid being eaten by a lion. Your level of attention was, quite literally, a matter of life and death.

Things are very different now. Remarkably few of us have to worry about being attacked by wild animals as we go through our day. Other than the risks from unwashed lettuce, our food supply is extremely safe. But our brains haven’t changed, which is why we’re so easily distracted — although now it’s by smartphones and social media instead of saber-toothed tigers.

How deep is this modern obsession? Research firm Dscout tracked smartphone usage and found the average person touches their phone 2,617 times per day. That adds up to almost a million touches a year.

“All these technologies take advantage of the natural wiring of the brain, which evolved in a world without microchips,” say Jake and JZ. Tech companies hire the best and brightest employees, then task them with inventing new ways of capturing and maintaining your attention. Not because of some evil plan to take over the world — it’s simply business. In our modern world, attention equals income, which for a company equals survival.

As a result, say the Time Dorks, “most of our time is spent by default.”

Jake and JZ divide these digital distractions into two categories:

Busy Bandwagons

These are the byproducts of an ‘always-on’ business culture—“the overflowing inboxes, stuffed calendars, and endless to-do lists” demanding your attention. As soon as a new email or instant message arrives, it compels you to put aside what you’re working on and address it. Why? Because, say Jake and JZ, you’ve been conditioned to believe that “if you want to meet the demands of the modern workplace and function in modern society, you must fill every minute with productivity.”

Infinity Loops

Infinity Loops are the constant flow of news and entertainment you feel you have to stay on top of in order to belong to the ‘tribe.’ As the Time Dorks say, “If you can pull to refresh, it’s an Infinity Pool. If it streams, it’s an Infinity Pool.” The problem is that there’s no end; you can scroll and refresh and consume forever. It’s like candy for your brain — “your reward for the exhaustion of constant busyness.”

Note: For a closer look at the distractions competing for your attention, and how you can fight back, check out our Focus Culture podcast with John “JZ” Zeratsky:

How can you “make” time?

As Jake and JZ put it, “Distraction has become the new default.” So what can you do about it?

You can’t create more time, but by reclaiming the time you have from the distractions in your life, “you can get the best of technology, and put yourself back in control.”

First you need to break free of the Busy Bandwagons and Infinity Loops. But remember, these distractions were designed by some of the smartest folks in the world, with the sole purpose of grabbing your attention and not letting go. Clearly, willpower isn’t going to be enough — you need a strategy.

That is the heart of “Make Time.” The Time Dorks have devised a four-step plan for reclaiming your time and attention, so you can focus on the things that really matter to you.

Highlight

The Busy Bandwagon is constantly telling you to do more: get more done, set more goals, be more efficient. Instead, say the Time Dorks, do less but do it well.

In particular, they say, you should choose one thing to be your “highlight” for the day. It won’t be the only thing you do, but it will give each day a focal point — a sense of direction and purpose.

Here are the three questions the Time Dorks offer for choosing your highlight:

• What’s the most pressing thing I have to do today?
• At the end of the day, what will bring me the most satisfaction?
• When I reflect on today, what will bring me the most joy?

Your highlight doesn’t have to be work-related; in fact, what brings you the most joy probably won’t be. It could be spending quality time with your family or friends, or even doing something just for you. Doing less is about “experiencing the moments you want to savor and remember rather than rushing through them just to get to that next item on your to-do list.”

For our tribe of hunter-gatherers we met at the start of this article, they would have no doubt had a highlight for each of their days. If a storm was coming, it might have been to find shelter; if the herd animals were migrating, it might have been to find food for the tribe. Some days, it may have been to share stories with their children so their traditions would be carried on.

Laser

Once you’ve decided on your highlight for each day, it’s up to you to focus on it with intensity. That requires a particular state of mind, when “your attention is focused on the present like a laser beam shining on a target.”

Many people refer to this state as “flow,” or being “in the zone.” It’s essential for sustained high-level work, but it’s not easy to achieve. The Busy Bandwagons and Infinity Loops are conspiring to pull you out of this state. That’s why overcoming them is crucial to making time for what matters.

Energize

What would our hunter-gatherer ancestors have eaten? Research suggests that it was mostly fruits, nuts, meat, and fish. Food supply was unreliable, which meant that they would often skip meals — sometimes for days. And nothing was processed (obviously). In spite of what we would call deprivation, they survived and thrived. They were constantly on the move, so exercise was a given, and managed to expand from their African origins to fill the entire world.

Now, however, we eat processed foods stripped of nutrition, work all day at desks, and move from place to place in cars. It’s no wonder we feel sluggish and overweight.

Instead, say the Time Dorks, you can “make” time by squeezing more into the hours you have. By treating your body more like your ancestors would have done, you can “turn moments that might otherwise be lost to mental and physical fatigue into usable time for your Highlights.”

Reflect

A good experiment requires observation and reflection to make sure the results are accurate and repeatable — the Time Dorks’ plan is no different.

At the end of the day, it’s important to look back on what worked and what didn’t. That gives you the ability to make any course corrections for the following day, so you can get closer to the goal you’ve set.

Reflecting is simple, but vital. All it requires of you is to honestly assess whether you made time for your highlight, how focused and energized you felt, what tactics you tried, and what you want to do differently tomorrow.

Finally, it’s important to note something you’re grateful for. That will help you stay positive rather than focusing solely on what could have gone better.

Going beyond the 4-step plan

You can “make” time by squeezing more into the hours you have.

OK, so the Time Dorks’ plan to make time is a great start, but that alone isn’t enough to save you from the Busy Bandwagon and Infinity Pools. Jake and JZ break the plan down further into 87 straightforward tactics you can use to put it into action.

As JZ explained to Evernote’s Forrest Bryant, “Make Time” isn’t a recipe for success; think of it as a cookbook, and each of the 87 tactics as an experiment. As Jake and JZ admit, “we use some tactics all the time and some tactics some of the time, and we each use some tactics none of the time.” There’s no expectation for you to even try them all — you choose the tips that will help you achieve the results you need.

Check out the book to see all 87 tactics, and listen to our conversation with JZ above.

You can do it

By reclaiming the time you have, you can get the best of technology, and put yourself back in control.

The reasons we look back at Urk and his tribe with pity (No cars! No email! No Netflix!) are the same reasons they would pity us. Urk exercised regularly, ate healthily, slept well, and formed strong social bonds that gave his life purpose — all the things we’ve lost. That’s not to say you should give it all up to live in a cave, but “if you adopt a few small Urk-like activities, you can get the best of the twenty-first century and the best from your old-fashioned Homo sapiens self.”

Unlike so many productivity books, “Make Time” doesn’t suggest you should follow every word exactly. In fact, the Time Dorks say “the goal is not monastic vows but a workable and flexible set of habits.”

Nor should you aim for perfection. Each day is an opportunity for a fresh start; a chance for you to learn from the previous day, reject what didn’t work, and recommit to doing better today. The goal is simply to become better than you were yesterday. Best of all, “you won’t have to start over if you ‘fall off the wagon,’ because each day is a clean slate.” The key is to start now, and keep improving.

If making time for what matters is a goal for you, check out the Ever Better Challenge from Evernote. It’s a free 30-day program to help you build better habits so you can finish what you start. And subscribe to our Focus Culture podcast on iTunes to see how organized passion and creative thinking can change the world.

What are your tips for beating distraction and finding your focus? Let us know in the comments below!

Living Like Urk: How to Make Time and Focus On What Matters was originally published in Focus Culture on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I have a shameful secret. My Evernote colleagues don’t know about it — in fact, no one I’ve met recently knows. But I’m willing to confess it to you now.

I used to be a smoker.

Yes, I knew the health risks when I started; that was half the fun. I was a teenager certain of my own invincibility — smoking was the perfect accessory to a devil-may-care attitude that included driving a little faster than necessary and climbing big rocks just for the thrill of it.

And it was fun…for a while. But soon I began to resent the hold cigarettes had over me. Morning coffee? Have a cigarette. Walking to the train? Have another. Drinks with friends? Make sure the bar has a smoking section or I can’t make it.

So I set a goal to quit. Again…and again…and again.

Each time, I would last a few days. Once I even made it to a month. But every time, my willpower would weaken and I’d fall back into my old, bad habits.

Willpower isn’t enough

If your social media feed is anything like mine, you’ve seen plenty of inspirational messages like “Set goals and crush them,” especially at this time of year when everyone is making New Year’s resolutions. But if all it took to reach a goal was desire, we’d all be happier, healthier, and more successful — and that’s not how life works.

According to Inc.com, “a staggering 92 percent of people that set New Year’s goals never actually achieve them.” What went wrong for these people? Did they lack willpower? Did they overestimate themselves? Or did they just not want it badly enough? I had a goal of quitting smoking, and I definitely wanted to succeed, but it wasn’t enough.

Clearly, the goal wasn’t the problem. It’s that I didn’t understand the power of habits, how they are formed, and how they can be changed.

The Habit Loop

We are creatures of habit — and that’s a good thing. If we had to consciously think about the thousands of little decisions we make every day, from which shoe to tie first to how to drive a car, we’d be exhausted from the mental effort. And so our brains reduce the cognitive load by creating shortcuts — ”if this, then that” statements to help us navigate our environment with as little conscious effort as possible. They allow our brains to find solutions to problems without us having to focus our attention and energy on them.

These shortcuts aren’t random, though; they follow a predictable, consistent pattern. In his book “Atomic Habits,” author James Clear calls this pattern “the Habit Loop.” Based on a concept introduced by Charles Duhigg, James breaks it down into four steps:

1. Cue — This is a piece of information that predicts a reward; it triggers our brains to initiate a specific behavior. In my case, the smell of coffee was my cue to reach for a pack of cigarettes.
2. Craving — This is what motivates us to act. What we’re seeking is not the habit itself, but the feeling it brings. I knew that smoking would relax me, and my brain craved that feeling.
3. Response — This is what we think of as the habit — how our brains automatically respond to the previous two steps. It could be an action or a thought, but it is our brains’ solution to the problem. For me, it was the physical act of smoking, but it could be watching TV, eating junk food, or working out.
4. Reward — This is the ‘feel-good’ step. It’s the dopamine rush our brains have been seeking, and it keeps us coming back for more. This closes the loop and reinforces the behavior.

By understanding the process by which your brain responds automatically to stimuli, you can use this loop to build better habits. Alternatively, by interrupting the loop at any point, you can break any habits that aren’t in your best interest.

Note: For a closer look at the Habit Loop and how you can use it to your advantage, check out our conversation with James Clear:

Real change is gradual

“Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.” — James Clear

Now you may have noticed I said I used to be a smoker. So how did I eventually succeed? The answer is simple — but not easy. I did it gradually.

The secret I unwittingly stumbled upon is that changing any habit begins with a single step. If you make one small change today, and stick with it — day after day after day — you can change your life.

James Clear calls these small changes “atomic,” in the sense that they are at once tiny, yet capable of producing remarkable results. As James writes, “The same way that money multiplies through compound interest, the effects of your habits multiply as you repeat them… It is only when looking back two, five, or perhaps ten years later that the value of good habits and the cost of bad ones becomes strikingly apparent.”

For me, it was as simple as saying “I’ll wait before I have my next cigarette.” Every time I felt the urge to light up, I made myself wait an extra five minutes before indulging. Admittedly, I had one eye on my watch the whole time, but knowing the reward I craved lay at the end of that span gave me the willpower to resist.

A week later, I stretched the wait to 10 minutes. Then 20… 30… a whole hour, and so on.

Build systems, not goals

“You do not rise to the level of your goals; you fall to the level of your systems.” — James Clear

Big goals can be intimidating. And while there may be the rare breed of person who is inspired and driven by big goals, for most of us they’re just scary. So we find excuses for why we can’t start (“I’m not ready”) or why we don’t succeed (“I’m too busy”).

The solution? Forget about your goals. Instead, think about what a person who has achieved your goals — who has what you want to have — would actually do. Then build a system to match.

That’s a subtle shift, but it takes your self-talk from being outcome-based (“I want to lose 10 pounds”), to being process-based (“I’m going to work out three times a week”). That makes your big goal suddenly much more manageable. If you build a system that has you working out three times a week, your weight loss goal becomes almost inevitable.

The final layer of behavior change is identity-based. As James Clear says, this is “a simple two-step process: 1. Decide the type of person you want to be. 2. Prove it to yourself with small wins.” Instead of saying “I want to run a marathon,” tell yourself “I am a runner.” That small change in mindset will motivate you to lace up those running shoes and get out the door. Because that’s what someone who is a runner would do, right? Every time you act on that impulse, you are a runner.

My system was waiting before I lit up a cigarette. It helped me break the Habit Loop by decoupling the link between the craving and response mechanisms — suddenly, one did not lead automatically to the next. And while it may have taken a few months, the day finally came when I reached for my last cigarette (April 3, 2006, lest you think I’d forgotten). And I haven’t looked back since.

Maintain your momentum

Real, lasting change isn’t easy, but it is possible — I haven’t smoked in almost 13 years. The key to creating good habits — and eliminating bad ones — is to start small, identify the effects of the Habit Loop in your life, and build systems to help you shift your focus from what you want to achieve to who you want to be.

If you’d like some support on the journey (and let’s face it, we could all use a little of that), check out the Ever Better Challenge from Evernote. It’s a free 30-day program to help you break the habits that have been holding you back, so you can finish what you start.

What big goals have you reached? And what strategies did you use to accomplish them? Let us know in the comments below!

Hack the Habit Loop to Reach Your Goals was originally published in Focus Culture on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Turn off the phone, tune into yourself, and be productive when it counts

Have you ever found yourself staring at your phone or laptop, mindlessly checking social media or going down an internet rabbit hole when you’re supposed to be doing something else? So have I.

My name is Brian, and I’m addicted to information. More specifically, I am addicted to the infinite and immediately available mental stimulation the internet offers in the form of information. And, according to scientists, I’m not alone. Information addiction is real, and is a perfect outlet for procrastination. After all, why would I want to perform some unpleasant task when I can sit and laugh at cat memes instead?

But procrastination can lead to negative consequences, from mental fatigue to missed deadlines that frustrate my manager. How did I become addicted to something so potentially destructive? And how do I recover for the sake of productivity? The answer to both questions is the same: neuroplasticity.

Neuroplasticity?

Neuroplasticity, discovered back in the 1940’s by Donald Hebb, is how the brain changes (for better or worse) in response to repeated experience.

“Heady” stuff? Here’s a real-world example you might relate to:

My first encounter with the internet was transformative. As I clicked away, my brain thought “this is new and this is awesome!” and released some dopamine to motivate me to seek that rush of unexpected discovery again (and again, and again). As hours of web surfing went by, I became less tolerant of enduring boring, difficult, or stressful tasks and began choosing distraction over productivity. In other words, I wired my brain for procrastination.

Yeah, yeah…I’ll finish reading this later

Procrastination is a fact of life. According to Piers Steel, author of The Procrastination Equation, about 95 percent of people admit to putting off work (perhaps the other 5 percent didn’t get around to completing the survey). So, it’s safe to assume you, like me, are a procrastinator at times…you might even be procrastinating now. The good news is we can learn ourselves out of procrastination the same way we learned ourselves into it — by taking small, consistent actions that offer our brain a reward.

Use your mind to change your mind

There are seemingly endless strategies to overcome internet-fueled procrastination. I found the process below especially helpful, and hope you will as well.

Accept reality

You’re going to procrastinate from time to time — you’re only human and can’t do it all. In fact, it’s possible that beating ourselves up leads to more procrastination, making it harder to be effective. Have self-compassion and recognize there is a time for procrastination before and after your task, but for now you must focus.

Disconnect from the internet

The internet and your smartphone will demand your attention subconsciously — you’ve trained your brain for that. Place your phone in another room, with notifications and sound off. If you have to work on your computer, turn Wi-Fi off.

Be mindful

Take a few minutes to observe your thoughts and emotions. I find mindfulness meditation, particularly breathing meditation, a great tool for insight. When I began meditating, I held the common belief that to meditate “correctly,” my mind had to become totally blank. But to be truly mindful is to be aware of yourself without judgment. Noticing my thoughts and the emotions around them helps me understand what needs to be done next.

Prioritize what’s important

If, while observing, you noticed fear or anxiety around starting (or not finishing) a particular task, pay attention. These emotions are a great indicator of why you’re procrastinating. Whether you think you’re unable to do something well or simply want to avoid having to deal with it at all, use this insight to prioritize your tasks, and make the decision to work on one that seems especially difficult. Remember, the goal is not only to finish a task, but to make it easier to be productive in the future. Accomplishing difficult tasks will bring you the positive feelings necessary to rewire your brain.

Focus on one thing at a time

Once you’ve decided where to begin, focus on how to organize the task into small pieces (SMART goals are a great tool here). Don’t think about multi-tasking — this is single-tasking. Keep your focus on one part of the task at a time to avoid being overwhelmed about the outcome of the final product and the work required to get there.

Jump in

The hardest part of getting started is…getting started. A lot of this is because of the way we judge our thoughts — dismissing our efforts before giving them a chance to develop. Let go of your expectations and judgments and just BEGIN. Sometimes you can find a shortcut to help overcome the initial obstacles to productivity. For instance, templates are a great way to remove the stress of staring at a blank page. Every task likely has a similar hack to ease you into action.

Take a (timed) break

If you feel yourself getting overwhelmed, take a break. Set a timer for five minutes and do something else. You could return to breathing to clear your mind again, do some jumping jacks to get your blood flowing, or go outside for some fresh air — but do not allow yourself to check the internet or your phone.

CYA: Celebrate Your Accomplishments

When your task is finished, pat yourself on the back; you’ve earned some self-esteem. Procrastination is usually a response to the unpleasant feelings associated with a task. Rewiring your brain requires sending yourself different messages. Recognizing that you can move through difficult emotions and accomplish your tasks is crucial to replacing your negative thought patterns. Each success rewires your brain so that the next time you’re faced with a difficult task, you will approach it with more confidence, patience, and focus — and less urge to check your phone.

Don’t worry about perfection

Once your task is done, let it go. I could write this blog a million times, a million ways, and it would never be perfect — that’s just part of the deal. Accept imperfection, value the effort, and keep moving onto your next task.

Speaking of perfection, you likely won’t do any of these steps perfectly, but you’ll make progress. With repeated effort, you’ll become skilled at being productive when it matters, just like you became skilled at procrastinating. Be patient and kind to yourself as you grow. And, of course, give yourself a few minutes after you’re done with your task to hop on the internet for that sweet, sweet dopamine rush. Which reminds me, I was so busy writing this that I haven’t checked Facebook all day…

Written by Brian Daignault on October 4, 2018.

Have any of your own tips to overcome procrastination and be more effective? Share them in the comments below!

Rewire your brain to beat procrastination was originally published in Taking Note on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

You’re probably too busy to read this article.

You probably have at least 20 other browser tabs open right now (I’m ashamed to say I have 28 open as I’m writing this).

You probably have a to-do list filled with other things you should be doing.

That’s exactly why you should read this article.

When life gets hectic and you feel overwhelmed, the temptation is to just try harder. Your inner voice scolds you: skip lunch, have another coffee, push through the exhaustion. Keep doing what you’re doing, but do it better.

We’d like to suggest another way:

Stop. Breathe. Give your mind a chance to catch up to your body.

With an overflowing to-do list, it can be hard to justify taking a mental break. And when you do, it can be difficult to fully unplug. But by being strategic about when you take breaks and what you do during them, you can actually increase your focus and productivity.

The price of burnout

Even brief diversions from a task can dramatically improve one’s ability to focus on that task for prolonged periods.

The problem with working harder is that it simply doesn’t work. The human brain isn’t designed to operate at full power all day long. Rather than helping you get closer to your goals, trying to focus for extended periods of time can fry your mental circuits, making it impossible to think clearly. As a result, your decision-making and creativity suffer, and your work slows to a crawl.

A 2011 study conducted by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign agreed. Researchers confirmed that “The brain is built to detect and respond to change.” In other words, our brains literally stop responding to something that is constant and unchanging — like that report you’ve been staring at for the past two hours. As a result, “prolonged attention to a single task actually hinders performance.”

How can you avoid this productivity drain? Do something different, even if only for a moment. The study’s authors found that “even brief diversions from a task can dramatically improve one’s ability to focus on that task for prolonged periods.”

In other words: Do less to do more.

Sustained productivity and focus requires giving your mind plenty of opportunity to rest and recharge, so you can come back stronger than ever.

Wait, that’s it?

Well, yes…and no. Simply taking a break will help you stay focused for longer, but for real superhero-level productivity, it’s vital that you take breaks in an intentional, effective way.

For starters, how often should you take a break? For how long? And what kind of break works best? There are plenty of opinions on the right balance between work and break time:

• Pomodoro Technique — One of the most well-known productivity methods, this was developed by Francesco Cirillo and is named for the tomato-shaped kitchen timer that inspired him. In this method, you work for 25 minutes without interruption, then take a five-minute break. Stretch your legs, grab a glass of water, go to the bathroom. When the timer goes off again, you’re back to it. The good news is that after your fourth period, you can take a longer break — 15 minutes or more.
• “52/17” — A more recent study conducted by time-management app, DeskTime, found that the most productive people work for 52 minutes, then take a 17-minute break. The secret to this method’s success is what they call the “100% dedication theory.” In other words, whatever you’re doing, give it your complete attention. As DeskTime says, “during the 52 minutes of work, you’re dedicated to accomplishing tasks, getting things done, making progress. Whereas during the 17 minutes of break, you’re completely removed from the work you’re doing — you’re entirely resting.”
• Pulse and Pause — This is the method endorsed by Tony Schwartz of The Energy Project. Similar to the previous techniques, it recommends alternating periods of focused work (“pulse”) and rest (“pause”). The difference is that, in this method, each work period is roughly 90 minutes long. Tony’s research shows that “humans naturally move from full focus and energy to physiological fatigue every 90 minutes. Our body sends us signals to rest and renew, but we override them with coffee, energy drinks, and sugar…or just by tapping our own reserves until they’re depleted.”

Regardless of which you choose, each of these methods embraces the idea that sustained productivity and focus requires giving your mind plenty of opportunity to rest and recharge, so you can come back stronger than ever.

Take ‘good’ breaks

Taking regular breaks is essential for productivity, but that’s only part of the story. How you take those breaks is equally important. When you step away from your screen (or paper, or whatever it is you’re working on), make sure you’re taking a ‘good’ break.

What does a good break look like?

1. Schedule it

The trouble with downtime is that if you don’t actively plan for it, it often doesn’t happen. You get caught up in what you’re doing, or let guilt creep in to whisper that you’re being lazy. In a study conducted by the retailer Staples, one in five workers and managers cited guilt as the reason they don’t step away from their workspaces.

This is where the productivity methods above can come to your rescue. You use an alarm to wake you to go to work; why not set an alarm to tell you when to stop working as well? Best of all, having a timer tell you when to stop can actually give your conscience a pass. “I’m not being lazy,” you can tell yourself. “I’m just following orders.”

As hard as it may be to stop negative talk, remind yourself that taking a break is actually doing yourself (and your work) a huge favor. Regular breaks allow you to perform at a higher level for longer, so you can accomplish more in four to five hours than most people accomplish in eight — or more.

2. Avoid common break “traps”

The secret to success here is controlling your focus. During work periods, your attention should be solely on the task at hand. Conversely, rest periods should be exactly that. Not checking email or surfing the web (sorry, BuzzFeed!). When that well-earned break comes around, step away from your laptop, leave your phone where it is, and try to think about anything other than work.

Believe it or not, even chatting with colleagues can be a trap if all you do is discuss what’s going on in the office. When that happens, your mind isn’t able to disconnect and you’re stuck in the same stress-inducing loop. Instead, try to find areas of common interest that don’t revolve around work: favorite bands, an awesome movie you just saw, or your plans for the weekend instead.

It’s also important to manage your energy levels throughout the day by making sure that your body is properly fueled. If you’re lucky enough to work for a company that provides lunch and/or healthy snacks (thank you, Evernote!), take advantage of the opportunity to keep some smart food options close at hand. Just keep your portion sizes on the smaller side to avoid the notorious ‘food coma.’

3. Get moving

The easiest way to make sure you’re taking a ‘good’ break is to get active. Stand up and do some light stretching, or if it’s a nice day, go for a walk outside. Even making a trip to the bathroom, or to the kitchen for a glass of water, can be enough to get your blood moving and pump oxygen to your brain. That will help clear your mind and recharge your focus.

While it might not be possible depending on where you live and work, getting back to nature is a great way to improve your concentration and mood. In “The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World,” Adam Gazzaley and Larry D. Rosen say “Natural environments capture our attention in a bottom-up fashion because natural stimuli are so inherently compelling to us (presumably owing to evolutionary factors). They draw us in but generate minimal top-down responses.”

And as anyone who has experienced the euphoria of completing a challenging workout knows, exercise is not only good for the body but can improve mental clarity and focus as well. Researchers from the University of Sao Paulo discovered that just 10 minutes of exercise is enough to boost memory and attention performance throughout the day. If you’re prone to the dreaded mid-afternoon slump, consider a lunchtime spin class or treadmill run. One study found that a moderate level of cardio activity can increase productivity and creativity for two hours afterward. Just the thing to help you power through the rest of the day.

The next time you find yourself overwhelmed and feeling like your creative spark has disappeared, take a break. Rather than trying to crash through that barrier like it’s Platform 9¾, stepping back might be exactly what you need to find a better way forward.

What are your favorite tips for maintaining focus? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

3 Surprising Secrets to Maintaining Your Focus was originally published in Taking Note on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Remember those old-school business calendars? They were desktop calendars all right — they literally occupied the whole desktop. Meanwhile, at home, there was probably a to-do list stuck on the fridge with a magnet. The grocery list and “Dinner with my sister” would go there. Basically prehistoric. A chisel and a block of stone.

Today, you pick up your smartphone and see your very busy day neatly arranged in 10-minute intervals, with no distinction between your work and personal lives. An interview, a dentist appointment, a presentation to management, and a reminder to walk the dog are all there on the same page. Why? Because that’s how your life works. One day at a time. Work, home, travel, errands, appointments, fitness, family, etc., all together so you can see what your actual day looks like.

No wonder well over 1 billion people around the globe use some form of digital calendar.

But here’s a question for you: Are you getting the most out of your calendar? These apps are so powerful and so deep with features and possibilities, your calendar can probably help you in ways you haven’t yet discovered.

We’ve put together some of the most powerful calendar hacks you’ll ever see. If you’re using a digital calendar, these will up your game dramatically. If you’re still on the fence, these ideas may convince you to start using a smart calendar ASAP.

Notifications. Reminders. And a map.

Many of us simply create an event and move on, allowing our notifications to fall into the dreaded default setting. Then, when the reminder finally pops up, we ignore it. Instead, take a moment and think about if and when a reminder would truly be beneficial for you. A day before the event? A month? Five minutes? Most calendars will even provide a map and driving instructions—including traffic conditions.

Own your time

If you’re going to be driving for 45 minutes to a 2 p.m. appointment, make that driving time an event. Use your calendar to schedule the time you need. This is especially useful on shared calendars where your colleagues may be looking for your available time. Mark that 45 minutes of driving time as “busy” or “unavailable.” If you don’t, people will assume you’re available and may want you to review a spreadsheet while you’re driving. Not good.

Give yourself a real break

We’re living in an ‘always on’ culture. Expectations at work and at home can easily add up to a mild case of personal burnout. No one should have to be ‘on’ 24/7. Your calendar can help you here.

Schedule a time-out at regular intervals. It’s healthy, and for the workaholics in the crowd, it actually makes you perform better.

Focus on yourself. Take a walk. Nap. Meditate. Doing nothing at all is a great idea. And there are all kinds of resources that can help your state of mind, like Headspace.

Don’t make this optional, as in “I’ll squeeze it in if I can.” It may be the most important thing you do all day.

The partner calendar

This is one of those tips that can change your life. Actually, several lives. Share a calendar with your partner. It’s easy to set up and it will give you both more control with less hassle.

Let’s say you get an invitation to meet some friends after work. You’d like to invite your partner. Instead of messaging, emailing, or calling, put it on your shared calendar as an ask. He or she will see there’s an invitation and respond.

Wow, that was easy.

Organization in a whole new category

This may sound a little over the top, but it’s incredibly helpful. All of these digital calendars let you set up categories — you could have two or 200. When you enter a calendar event or a task you can put it in a category, such as Family, Fitness, House, or Friends. You can give each category a color, and if you’re ever wondering what the plan is for next Thanksgiving, search in the Family category. So much easier.

This is a great day to get started

If you’re one of the rare few not using a digital calendar, here are some good choices. They are cross-platform, cloud-based, and easily synced via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or your phone’s data network. The look and feel of different calendar apps can vary widely. A little research on the App Store or Google Play will give you the kind of detail you need to make an informed decision.

• Google Calendar

A very popular calendar, it’s especially good for groups and businesses where sharing calendars is important. To use Google Calendar you need Gmail. You can open a Gmail account here. Google Calendar is free.

• Apple Calendar

This is a free app that comes with every Apple device and is also available on the App Store. There’s a compatible version with infrastructure similar to Google Calendar. That version is part of Apple’s iCloud service and uses your Apple ID for access.

Here’s how to get set up:

1. From an iPhone or iPad, go to Settings and sign in to iCloud.
2. From your desktop, click here and use your Apple ID to log in.

• Outlook

A Microsoft offering available as a stand-alone application or as part of the Microsoft 365 subscription plan, Outlook is unique in that it brings your calendar and email client together. Equally desktop and smartphone friendly. (Windows/Mac OS/iOS/Android)

You can get started with the Mac version here, and the Windows version here.

• Fantastical 2

This is usually ranked among the top three calendar apps for Mac. It is tightly integrated with the Apple ecosystem, has a stunning interface, and its deep functionality includes a wide variety of linking and note-taking capabilities. It also includes outstanding reminder/task management.

Fantastical 2 is available for Mac, iPhone, and iPad. Unlike Google Calendar or Apple Calendar, however, it’s not free. The Mac version sells for $49.99, although you do have 21 days to try it free to decide if you think it’s worth the price. You can download it here.

The next thing on your calendar

There are literally hundreds of calendar applications. Many are cloud based and therefore cross platform. Go to your application store or search “calendars” to review the possibilities. There’s going to be one that’s just right for you.

They’re all good. And there will be no more looking for that address in your glove compartment. No more trying to remember who you invited to that meeting. No booking a business dinner at exactly the same time as your daughter’s soccer game.

Our recommendation? Get a digital calendar. Use it. And you’ll never have to make an appointment with your own life again.

What’s your favorite time-management tool? Let us know in the comments below!

Written by Neal Cavanaugh on August 30, 2018.

Hack Your Calendar and Get Your Life Back was originally published in Taking Note on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Today, we publicly launched our refreshed Evernote brand into the world.

Brand refresh. Simple words for a complex process. Especially when it’s a brand that touches the lives of over 225 million people globally, and one that generates significant love from customers, positive sentiment from industry observers, and a strong internal commitment.

So why change? Why toy with something that’s unique, recognizable, and, dare we say, iconic? Our logomark, “Mads” the elephant (named after an early Evernote customer and designed by Gabe Campodonico), has represented us well, standing strong while many brands have refreshed, redesigned, or simply ceased to exist. But a logo isn’t a brand.

The simple answer is, the brand needed to change because we’ve changed. The demands on people’s attention have changed. The ways they use our products have changed. And our brand no longer reflected the company it was built for.

We’ll always stay rooted in our heritage, and in the vision of our founder Stepan Pachikov: that Evernote is a way to remember everything, an extension of your brain, a place to manage an ever-increasing deluge of information that has outpaced biological evolution. But to be a company for the next hundred years required some introspection. Even though our brand was fronted by a great logo, it was underpinned by a system that lacked flexibility and a brand strategy that didn’t align with the direction of the company’s growth.

So it’s time to signal change. In the past decade, Evernote has grown and expanded on its original mission. Our brand now must not only reflect the core product but elevate and represent the business as it exists today—with over 225 million users, in 124 countries, speaking 25 languages—and where it is headed in the future. A brand that can grow with a company that’s poised to expand into new areas and reach new audiences. A brand that stands for something.

Defining our purpose

We want to provide a way to help you focus on what matters most.

When asking ourselves what we stand for, the question yielded an array of answers. None of them were wrong per se; all of them reflected aspects of what we do: We help you remember everything. Capture and recall what’s important. Get organized. Be productive. Turn ideas into action. Work together. Yes, we do all of that, but we needed to get to the why, not the what. Why do we strive to create products that allow people to achieve these things? Why do we come to work everyday? Because we care about what you care about. We want to provide a way to help you focus on what matters most. And when we agreed that was our place in the world, the process of building a brand system that reflected our purpose became clearer. We’d found our focus.

Keeping ourselves honest

It’s easy to write a lofty purpose and inspiring mission statement. To fall in love with powerful words or a flashy new logo. But what’s challenging throughout the process of a redesign is remembering why you started down the path. Change is hard. And keeping a team of talented, smart, passionate people moving in the same direction can be difficult. So at each stage of the process, we asked ourselves:

• Does what we’re doing signal change?
• Is it distinct (in and out of our category)?
• Does it embody the DNA of the brand? (We boiled this down to four words: Optimistic, Clever, Confident, and Clear)
• Is the system flexible and extendable?
• Is it better than what we have?

And so it began.

“So…are we killing the elephant?”

It was the question everyone had, with an answer some didn’t want to know. The possibility of massive change created a vague tension amongst the herd. Conversations were happening with strange agencies, behind closed doors, in mysterious “war rooms.” People were nervous. And while our instincts — as creatives and marketers — always told us killing Mads would be foolish, we had to know: what would our brand look like without our lovable logomark? So we asked our partners at DesignStudio to go for range, to frighten us, make us uncomfortable. Explore everything from slight revisions to an outright “rip and replace.” The exercise was exhaustive, from researching other elephant marks in use globally to pushing the boundaries of abstraction.

The exploration garnered plenty of strong opinions and debates, but ultimately, it brought us back to the idea of a considered design evolution rather than a radical shift. It was the right thing to do. We wanted to signal change, not shoot ourselves in the foot. Our customers, community, and employees had a soft spot for Mads. So after significant effort, and because we had a collaborative and understanding partner, the conversation turned to what was and wasn’t working in our current logo and wordmark, and how to refine it.

Mads gets a makeover

While Mads had aged fairly well, there were some structural issues to iron out. First, we wanted to round out his geometry, to soften the edges and make him feel more balanced. This provides for more flow in the negative space and ultimately optimizes white space around the mark. We looked at losing the fold in the ear — which evokes both the dog-eared page of a book and the common icon for a document — but chose instead to honor our past by doubling down on its significance and increasing the size. Both of these decisions helped with scaling and recognition issues. We rounded the trunk into a spiral, a symbol of progress, and added a more defined slope in the forehead to give a sense of forward momentum. We softened the eye as well, going for approachability and a sense of serenity as opposed to the previous crescent shape which had been described alternately as “smiling” or “angry.”

Finally, we addressed color. Given that our two most recognizable assets were Mads and the color green, the combination of the two was a no brainer. To our surprise, everyone thought Mads was already green. He’s wasn’t, nor had he ever been. He was always grey — as elephants are. But his grey color against a green gradient had poor contrast and felt a little dated. So we made him our signature color, and changed that color to a more pure green than we’d used previously. After further shaping, finessing, and debating the tiniest details, we arrived at the place that felt right. Introducing… the new Mads:

Standing by the serif

Our old wordmark was an all-caps slab serif typeface (Caecilia) that had served us well over the years. But with the refinements made to Mads we needed something that was bold and balanced and could complement the strong, green logomark.

We debated and explored moving to a sans serif face. It seemed more modern and representative of the technology space as a whole. But when we saw those treatments next to Mads, they felt flat, lacked character, and didn’t seem like us. We liked the sophisticated literary feel of a bold serif font which, incidentally, offers another nod to our past and a connection to our founder, Stepan Pachikov, and his belief in the importance of digitizing the written word. We ultimately landed on Publico, a serif typeface that takes many cues from contemporary type design yet still has a timeless feel. Rendered in 100% black, it stands up to and accentuates the pure green logomark. It aligns perfectly with our DNA of confidence and clarity, and the balance between elements is beautiful.

What matters most isn’t the logo

While the logo is the most immediately visible and recognizable part of our brand, we also focused closely on developing an underlying system of colors, forms, shapes, patterns, and photography. These visual elements comprise most of what consumers see when interacting with a brand. Through repetition and consistency, they constantly convey meaning, establishing recognition and awareness of Evernote. The concept and application of this system therefore touches everything, from the simplest email to our most important brand asset: the product itself.

Illustration

Focus isn’t about the absence of everything else, it’s about addressing each thing in turn.

Like many global technology companies, we’ve always used illustration as a design element, in both our communications and our product. Our illustration style was on trend but not differentiating. As we audited our competitors and other brands that our target audience interacts with, we noticed that stylistically there was a “sea of sameness” in both color palettes and illustration style. We wanted to be distinct while embodying our brand’s DNA through a concept rooted in our purpose.

When we talk about focus and organization, the truth is organization is about compartmentalization. Focus isn’t about the absence of everything else, it’s about addressing each thing in turn. Our partners at DesignStudio took that idea and ran with it, providing a unique and differentiating style using simple shapes and a limited color palette, textured with a system of patterns that have their own symbology. The design intent is to represent that each person has their own way of organizing a complex world.

We’re confident that our future is bright and we now feel like we’ve got a foundation to better represent that.

Color

Once we’d decided to shift the logomark from grey to a strong, pure green, we committed to really owning that color. Green has always been unique to us in our space, and has been a visual differentiator since the day we showed up in the iOS app store. To accentuate and balance it we chose to stay within a limited palette, adding only a secondary light green as an accent color. We’ll also be using the strength of black balanced against white, allowing us to use the negative space for the strokes of our illustration style. Gray will also be in play since it’s important for more subtle contrast in product.

Patterns and textures

The patterns were inspired by ideas related to our brand: teamwork, integrations, potential, achievement, and of course, what matters most. The shapes that comprise these patterns have the flexibility to be pulled out as standalone graphical elements, scaled down to act as texture, scaled up and cropped for abstractions, and used as masks to highlight product screens or act as a container for photography. Most importantly, they’re meaningful, perhaps not consciously to the viewer but through clear associations that work on a deeper level. And from time to time we’ll just sprinkle them about. It’s a little something we call “Ever Better Dust(TM).”

Typography

When considering typography, we wanted to limit the use of Publico to our wordmark, so when exploring a display typeface we fell in love with Soleil. It’s a geometric sans serif typeface, that’s open, clean, and fresh, truly reflecting our criteria of clarity.

But beyond just using it on the web and in comms, we found a way to have some fun and show our personality through typographic art. These bold treatments allow us to communicate complex ideas easily and show our point of view in a clever way. And they make for cool T-shirts and great coffee mugs.

Photography

As our system and kit of parts took shape, we knew illustrations and a little “ever better dust” couldn’t support nor sustain branded comms at scale. The power of Evernote is in the people who use our products and the ways it allows them to focus on what matters most to them. It was time to tell more of our customer stories. We needed a way to showcase people and bring their stories to life. We landed on a simple portrait style, something clean that would also provide a canvas we could adorn with some of our shapes and patterns. The combination is simple yet ownable.

When you need to show people and don’t have the luxury of the time it takes to produce a shoot, you have to turn to stock. And stock photography — no matter how good — is the great brand equalizer. Stock looks like stock. It’s bland and sterile. Everyone ends up looking the same. Our new system gives us the ability to “de-stockify” photographs, which is important to creating cohesiveness when launching a new brand system into the world.

“So it’s finished, right?”

Of course it’s not finished. We’re just at the beginning of this journey, opening the curtain on a second act, as a company and a brand. Now the real work begins. How does this system we’ve created apply to real-world marketing, product, and corporate situations? Where will it stretch, when might it break, how will it evolve? This is the fun part. The change. Focusing on our message and how our customers, partners, and prospects react to it.

We’re confident that our future is bright and we now feel like we’ve got a foundation to better represent that. A special thanks goes to everyone who got us here, especially our partners at DesignStudio for being incredibly collaborative and understanding. Thank you for helping point the Notable Herd in a new direction.

If you’d like to explore more of our brand, you can check it out here.

Written by Francie Strong, Evernote’s VP of Brand and Communications, and Jonathan Woytek, Evernote’s Executive Creative Director, on August 14, 2018.

Ever Better: Refreshing the Evernote Brand was originally published in Taking Note on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Whether you’re working nine to five or burning the midnight oil, a pair of headphones and a killer playlist may be the secret to getting more done, faster.

Listening to music releases dopamine and serotonin into the brain, helping you relax and stay focused. Music has an energizing effect, so your mood naturally improves. This state of mind helps you get in the zone and accomplish more.

A playlist for every project

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to what to listen to and when, but we do know that different genres of music work especially well with certain tasks.

Here are the most common work activities and the best tunes to help you stay productive:

Tapping into your creativity

When that blank screen or piece of paper isn’t speaking to you, blast some songs at 50–80 beats per minute to spark your creativity. Dr. Emma Gray of The British CBT and Counseling Service worked with Spotify to research the benefits of certain types of music and found that tempo in the range of 50–80 beats per minute, like Katy Perry’s “Firework” or Miley Cyrus’ “We Can’t Stop,” can make your mind more calm and alert. And, most importantly, it can help induce the alpha state in your brain, the waves that are associated with that “eureka moment.”

Learning something new

While an epic playlist might make you feel like you’re on the verge of a breakthrough, music can actually hamper your ability to absorb new information and focus. The more mentally demanding a task is, the less room your brain has for processing other information, like melodies. So, the next time you’re learning a new tool or process at work, turn to classical music — one period specifically.

One study found that Baroque-period songs, like Bach or Vivaldi, had a noticeable impact on productivity. The study only had eight radiologists as subjects, however all but one reported that classical music had a notable improvement on their concentration.

Churning through repetitive tasks

If you’re trying to knock out dozens of email replies or hours of manual data entry, Vivaldi just won’t cut it. To keep you motivated and engaged during repetitive tasks, listen to upbeat music. Studies show that it can boost both your efficiency and your mood. Be sure to choose songs in a major key, as these have a greater effect on productivity than songs in a minor key. Not sure how to tell major and minor keys apart? Major songs sound more uplifting — think “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” by The Beatles or “Since U Been Gone” by Kelly Clarkson (here’s a quick cheat sheet of songs in major keys). On the other hand, minor songs sound more melancholy, like “Yesterday.”

But, don’t go blasting those tunes on repeat. To maximize productivity, play an upbeat song every time your attention starts to wane — it will act like a boost of energy.

Finding solace in the open floor plan

Sometimes you need a playlist that doesn’t necessarily fit with any specific scenario. Rather, you’re looking for music to help you find your center.

Not all of us are compatible with open floor plans, especially introverts who tend to be more productive when they’re not surrounded by dozens of side conversations. While we can’t escape the office forever, ambient music can help improve your daily work experience.

MyNoise is a free noise generator that lets you pick a “color” of noise based on a spectrum of low to high frequencies, each with its own properties and effects. “White” noise, for example, is a fuzzy, static sound that can help drown out office chatter. We all react to color mixtures differently, however, so experiment with a few.

If color noise isn’t your thing, try nature sounds. Rainy Mood plays the comforting sound of rain hitting the roof, even giving you the option to adjust the amount of thunder or chirping birds you hear.

Prefer a more urban soundtrack? Coffitivity recreates the ambient sounds of your favorite cafe, complete with the clanging of coffee cups and murmurs of conversation.

Prepping for a presentation or important meeting

You’re nervous, but on the surface you look calm and ready. Sound like you before a big presentation or meeting? Take a note from President Obama’s book and listen to your favorite pump-up music before stepping out on stage.

Sports psychologist Bradley Busch advises athletes to play music that reminds them of their “highlight reel” before big games. This same idea also works for business — if you associate Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” with that time you knocked a pitch meeting out of the park, listening to it right before another major meeting will put you in the right mindset.

Everyone’s highlight reel will be different, but here’s a playlist with some of the top hits.

Lowering your stress levels

Some work days call for a glass of wine or piece of chocolate cake. But, before reaching for that fork, have you tried listening to some flute music? While not as immediately obvious for de-stressing, soothing music can reduce the stress hormone cortisol. Look for music with a steady, rhythmic beat — the slow beat can actually reduce the frequency of your brainwaves. Celtic, Indian, drum, and flute music can all help take the edge off after a stressful day.

Pump up your productivity

Music has always been there, helping to soothe a broken heart or keeping you company during your daily commute. There’s no reason why it can’t help you create a more enjoyable way to do your work, too.

A simple playlist with the right kind of songs can turn you into a productivity powerhouse. From pink noise to pop, music has the potential to lift your spirits, calm your mind, and sharpen your focus.

So, the next time you’re in a slump and battling procrastination, turn up the jams and rock on.

What’s your favorite ‘productivity playlist’? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Written by Emily Esposito on July 25, 2018.

Can Music Make You a Productivity Powerhouse? was originally published in Taking Note on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A new approach to living the one life you really want

What’s wrong with work/life balance? Everything.

According to author Beat Bühlmann, work/life balance assumes that a good life requires a careful balance between these two worlds; as if what you do for a living is something totally separate from just, living. The assumption is always that work is bad and private life is good. But there’s something missing from this equation: your dreams. If you’re on a voyage of self discovery, that’s exactly where you need to begin.

The premise of Beat’s new book, “Become the CEO of Your Own Life” is that the work/life paradigm is essentially a false construct. We don’t have two lives. We have one. Some of the activities in that life we think of as work, and the rest is non-work. But even that view is somewhat out of whack. Because work/life balance comes in later. The first question should be what do you dream about? What do you love to do? Where does your overall satisfaction and happiness live? The rest is how to get there.

“Find out what you love doing and make a plan.”

You’ve probably heard the expression, “Find out what you love doing and you’ll never work a day in your life.” After talking to Beat this becomes, “Find out what you love doing and make a plan.”

Starting with some basics, Beat points out that if you’re not the CEO of your own life someone else is. You’re ceding control of your best self to something or someone other than yourself. Good and bad influences in life will always vie for your attention and without a well-considered plan, things get complicated. The goal of the book is to provide a clear path to becoming your own CEO, to be thoroughly involved with the world, but not completely controlled by it.

An important observation here is that what we think of as career development is almost exclusively about work. It makes sense. So much of this material is sponsored by, or written for a business audience. And if your life is largely about work, at the expense of your personal life, these books, seminars, and retreats satisfy the desire to improve your performance and status at work.

But at the heart of this kind of career development work is “the wall”; the separation of work life and personal life. These programs concentrate on work/life balance which is totally dependent on the premise that work life and personal life are separate. And even more often, with these traditional development programs, there is really no specific discussion of the personal part of life. Instead, the intention is to help you manage your work more successfully so that you can have a personal life. But there is scarce or no real discussion about your non-working life and how to make that better.

Beat’s point of view is that this is a false dichotomy. There is no wall, and if you’ve created one on your own, you need to tear it down. He mentions the electronic umbilical cord that connects us with our work 24/7 which is a clear case of the wall between ‘work’ and ‘life’ tumbling down. In the other direction, he discusses the very real experiences we all go through in our personal lives that can overwhelm our emotional state at work. No matter how much work/life balance training we may have had, our actual lives are bigger than that. Think, the birth of a child, family problems, moving, a job search—there are an infinite number of events in our personal lives that are going to affect how we are doing at work. These are basic examples of how the line between personal and work life is constantly blurred.

[T]here has been so much written about work/life balance it’s almost as if dividing our lives in this way is embedded in our DNA. It isn’t.

At the same time, there has been so much written about work/life balance it’s almost as if dividing our lives in this way is embedded in our DNA. It isn’t. And “Become the CEO of Your Own Life” offers a solid path toward looking at your life for what it is. One life.

Beat has developed a personal development program called the Swiss PDP Approach. And it works. For many years, Dr. Bühlmann has been using this approach in trainings at world-class companies like HP, Dell, Google, and Evernote.

Here are several things that distinguish this approach.

• It’s flexible, personal, and ever-changing. It relies on a simple but thoughtful organization of ideas that can change as you change.
• It requires both the practical goals as well as the aspirational thinking that together make up a true picture of self discovery.
• You do not work the The Swiss PDP Approach alone. Some of the early thinking is solo, but before you know it, you’ll be getting feedback from trusted friends. He calls them challengers.
• It allows you to set your own timelines and intervals of achievement. It helps you be accountable to yourself at a pace that works for you.

So let’s do this.

Step 1: Your Life Map

Build it.

This is all about self assessment. Beat calls it making a Life Map. No computer template required. A couple of blank pieces of paper will do. And your Life Map starts on familiar ground; one part is personal and one part is work related. This is how most of us think of life anyway so it’s an easy way to get started. Personal on one side. Work on the other.

Around both topics, personal and work, simply write down the things you want to do, things you’d love to do. Don’t think too hard about how you’d accomplish each of them, that will simply derail the personal creative process of writing down what’s important to you. This is the place for dreams. Calling them ‘goals’ may switch you back into the world of OKRs and strict value-adding, measurable behavior—the kind of training and expectations offices swear by and is largely oblivious to personal discovery. This is different. What makes you feel good? What have you always wanted to do? In your personal life and in your professional life, this is about finding the sweet spots.

After you’ve done this for both personal and work-related goals, take a minute to add what might be next steps for each of these things. On the personal side, if you wrote “live abroad” as one of your ‘wants,’ you might add “learn a language.” On the work side, if you mentioned “improve computer skills” you could look into “find a course on SEO.” This way you will have a slightly better idea of what may be involved in making this thing happen.

And good news, there is help along the way. A powerful feature of the Swiss PDP Approach is a written guide to self assessment. It’s particularly helpful to people who have only taken work-related training programs because this guide teaches you how to comfortably open up and dig into the personal side of your life.

Edit it.

Your original Life Map is valuable. It’s intuitive and fresh which is all good. But you will want to take a second look. Sometimes after doing the first version, and getting used to this way of thinking, you may have other ideas or second thoughts. Sleep on it. And be open to making changes where they feel valid.

Even better, get feedback. It could be your best friend, your uncle, someone you’ve known for a while, but probably NOT your partner or your mother. These are your challengers. They are specifically invited to look over what you’ve done and let you know if you’re on track. Or if you’re being dishonest with yourself. Show challengers your Life Map and ask them if it feels true. It’s very common that this step leads to serious revisions. It’s natural. We see ourselves one way, and our self portrait is often a little fuzzy. Sharpen up the image with observations from people you know and trust.

Step 2: Your Life Cycle

With your shiny new, tuned up, and revised Life Map, you’re ready for the next step: an integrated timeline of your own design.

Start by setting up intervals that make sense to you. A three-year period with a bucket for each year. Or maybe a one-year period divided into four three-month chunks. It’s up to you (and you can always change it).

This stage in the Swiss PDP Approach is really key because it forces you to prioritize your goals over time. This step is when you take your Life Plan and think through each item enough to put each goal on a timeline. And there is absolutely no distinction here between personal life and work life. Personal and work goals are treated in exactly the same way. This is truly where the ‘one life’ approach comes into play.

Let’s say you are looking at a year in four three-month intervals. You look at your Life Map, both the personal and the work-related material, and start setting realistic timelines as to when these efforts can be started and completed. Do this for everything you’ve written down on your Life Map. It sounds so simple but now you’re seeing your whole life, on a timeline without a personal/work dichotomy. You’re seeing what you can do in the next three months to get where you want to be.

Turning plans into actions

Now simply look back, or forward, to something that, without reservation, makes you feel really good.

The Swiss PDP Approach is deceptively simple. And yet it often produces excitement and rejuvenation in individuals and teams that have only experienced more traditional life coaching.

Sometimes this process leads to fine tuning a life and sometimes it leads to major changes in direction. Here’s an example of the latter: A friend of ours was going through the self-assessment process and she was in for a big surprise. She was professionally successful and by all accounts, had a pretty good life. But along with getting repeatedly promoted, something else was failing. Her outlook on life. Entire days were turning into chores. Personal relationships were becoming strained. Something was up.

So with the help of a trusted friend as a coach, she shed the present and evoked a dream. It was sort of a blank empty space for a while. Then, gradually the mental ‘screen’ began to fill with images that made her laugh and cry. Emotions were very strong. Excitement, relief, and pleasure rushed over her all at once. She gathered herself and told her coach that all she could think about was her dogs.

She’d raised three Golden Retrievers from six weeks through the older years of 14, 13, and 16. Her heart had made this dog movie in her mind and it seemed to last an hour. It was probably 3 minutes. When she came back to Earth there was a new peace, a calmness she hadn’t felt in years. She knew where her heart wanted to go, and she went with it.

She started volunteering at the SPCA. She got into puppy training on the weekends. She worked with breeders to set up a website on new health guidelines for different breeds. She was a new person. She couldn’t wait for the day to begin and only reluctantly let it go. She said thank you and goodbye to a very sweet job and started Vet School. See? This really does work.

Here’s something you can try right now: Put away your to-do list, whether that means shutting down your phone or closing your desktop. Same for your calendar, which is really kind of a to-do list over time. If you can, take a walk. Just don’t sit at your desk. Now simply look back, or forward, to something that, without reservation, makes you feel really good. If it doesn’t come to you right away, take your time. You’ll know when you get there. And when you do, stay for a while. Instead of describing it, feel it. Fantastic. Now you know where you’re going. All you have to do is make a plan.

“Become the CEO of Your Own Life” by Beat Bühlmann is available at https://swiss-pdp-approach.com/

Written by Neal Cavanaugh on July 16, 2018.

What's wrong with work/life balance? was originally published in Taking Note on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Are you a creative person? Chances are, you said you aren’t. We’ve been conditioned to believe that creativity is the sole domain of geniuses, a kind of divine inspiration that is beyond the reach of ordinary people.

But the common perception of creativity is largely based on myth and legend. Allen Gannett, CEO of TrackMaven and author of “The Creative Curve: How to Develop the Right Idea at the Right Time,” dug into the science and history of creative achievement and found a surprising pattern. According to Allen, it’s not about genius at all. Hard work, good timing, and strong feedback matter a lot more, and those are skills which can be learned, practiced, and repeated.

We sat down with Allen to explore this concept in the latest episode of Taking Note: Conversations with Evernote. Listen below or read on for some highlights from our conversation.

Taking Note: S2 E5 — Riding the Creative Curve with Allen Gannett

Length: 39 minutes
iTunes | SoundCloud | Overcast | MP3 | RSS

We tend to think of creativity as specifically referring to art. But there are all sorts of creative acts. A scientific breakthrough that you arrive at through your intellect, that’s a creative act. A new business venture is a creative act. So what in your view is creativity? How do we define a piece of work as being creative?

It’s actually one of the most challenging questions. If I paint something and I throw a bunch of paint on a canvas, you wouldn’t say it’s creative. But if Picasso did the same thing, you’d probably say it’s creative. So what does creativity mean? It’s kind of like that famous Supreme Court case about pornography. How do you know what’s obscene or not obscene? They said, “Well, you know it when you see it.”

And creativity is much the same. But there’s actually a really great definition that academics have come to. When you’re talking about creativity, what you’re really talking about is the ability to make things that are both novel and valuable. Novel and valuable.

When I throw paint on a canvas it’s certainly novel but it’s not valuable. I recently learned how to do conditional color formatting in Excel. That’s certainly valuable, but it’s definitely not novel and it’s certainly not creative. So what creativity really is, is the ability to create things that are both novel and valuable. Now, the challenge that leaves for people who want to be creative is that value is a subjective statement. For something to be valuable, we all have to agree it’s valuable. And so, as a result, creativity is actually a social construct.

If you created a novel and no-one ever read it, are you creative? It’s actually impossible to prove that you are, because lots of people create novels that aren’t creative. And the only way we know whether or not it’s creative is whether or not other people deem it creative. There’s a circular logic that falls into place.

The book is called “The Creative Curve: How to Develop the Right Idea, at the Right Time.” The creative curve is a concept in the book about the interplay between novelty, familiarity, and timing. Can you explain that briefly?

It really boils down at a foundational level to the fact that we have these two contradictory urges. We have this one urge which is that we’re always looking for things that are familiar. And the reason why is that we crave safety. So if you were a prehistoric cave dweller, if you saw two different caves and one cave is a cave that you sleep in every night, and the other cave is a cave you’ve never been in before, your body goes, “Oh, that cave is unfamiliar. It doesn’t feel safe. This one that I’ve seen lots and lots of times, that’s a safe cave. I’m going to go and sleep there.”

But we also have this other desire. We also have this part of us that’s novelty-seeking. And that’s because we’re also wired to find new sources of reward, new sources of energy, new sources of food. So if you were a forager, you’re also constantly looking for where the next meal is going to come from.

Now, what’s interesting about these two urges is that they’re an inherent contradiction. We like things that are both familiar and we like things that are novel. Where it starts to make sense is when you realize that this is your brain’s really elegant way of balancing risk and reward. It turns out that as consumers and as humans, we like things that are at this balance of familiarity and novel. They’re familiar with a novel twist.

Your job as a creator is to create ideas that have that right blend of familiarity and novelty.

Basically what that means is that when you first see something you might not like it very much. And the more you see it, the more you like it. Up until a point. At a certain point, your novelty-seeking wins out and then you like it less and less each additional time you’re exposed to it. You get bored.

Think about the new Drake song. Maybe the first you heard it you’re like, “Ah, this is not good.” The fifth time, “Well, this is nice. It’s hard to tell really if I like this, but maybe I’m getting bored.” And the twentieth time you’re like, “Please, never play this song again.”

And so you see this bell curve relationship between exposure and preference. And for the book, I call that concept the creative curve because I think it’s a little easier to say. And it really underlies what your task as a creator is. Your job as a creator is to create ideas that have that right blend of familiarity and novelty.

I get what you’re saying, but if we are relying on the acceptance of the masses to tell us whether or not we’re being creative, is that really a good measure of creativity? I look at the TV ratings or the Top 40 and I think maybe it isn’t a good measure.

Great question. One of the things I talk about in the book is that this creative curve phenomenon, it happens at an individual level, a group level, and a population level. And so what this means is when we talk about things being labeled creative, it doesn’t have to be labeled so by mainstream culture. For something to be labeled creative it has to be accepted. But it doesn’t matter the group size.

I would personally argue, and this is a more esoteric discussion, that obviously the fine artists who art critics say are creative, they are creative. But I would also argue a lot of musicians that create these things that are loved by many people are also creative. And I think that’s very hard to sometimes acknowledge in the present. But when we look to the past, a lot of us would say, well, Led Zeppelin was creative or the Beatles were creative. They were pop musicians at the time, right? Your grandparents said the Beatles weren’t creative.

That’s a really good point, I think. You know, with every new musical movement there’s some group of people who says, “That’s not music.” Not just “that’s not creative” but that’s not even music.

Right.

So we’re all familiar with this inspiration theory of creativity. The flash of genius, the eureka moment. But one of the central arguments that you make in the book is that this is a myth, specifically the notion that creativity is confined to genius. So where did that notion come from?

In the book I spend a chapter breaking down the history of creativity and genius over time, and how they interplay and how they’re intertwined. What makes a poet? What makes an artist? Are artists special? Are they not? And it’s changed over time. So, for example, in the medieval era artists weren’t actually viewed as valuable. They were viewed as lowly craftspeople who merely created basic works of art that were used as symbols in churches and this kind of thing.

A lot of the changes around how creativity is viewed are intertwined with economics. So in periods of great riches, we tend to raise the social capital of creatives. As their work becomes something more people can afford and more people pursue, there’s a supply and demand thing that comes in.

Genius has become correlated with creativity, but it’s not always been in a good way. So, for example, in the 1800s genius was actually viewed as a negative thing. The person with the most social capital was the so-called average man. […] Right now, we’re on this entrepreneur kick where we’re putting Elon Musk on covers of magazines. Elon Musk literally has thousands and thousands of rocket scientists and car R&D people who work for him. He’s not going off in a cabin by himself. But right now that’s our media perception of creativity. Elon Musk is Iron Man, he’s Tony Stark, he’s doing all these things by himself. And it’s just so comically untrue. This notion of the individual, solo genius is sort of the most prominent part of the creativity story. And it’s also wrong.

So many of the historical figures who we now consider to be geniuses were underappreciated in their own time. And now it seems like we’re trying to overcompensate by actively searching out people who we can proclaim to be geniuses.

I think it actually has a lot to do with capitalism, especially in America where we all like the idea that certain people are able to go from nothing to something. That notion is appealing to us, the idea that’s there this sort of individual hero. And I think it’s unfortunate, because one of the things I talk about in the book is that since creativity is a social phenomenon, there’s actually a huge role that other people play in your creative process. And I break down four different types of people that all the creative geniuses I interviewed had in that role. One of them is what I call the Prominent Promoter. All these creatives had someone more senior than them, more well-known than them, who lent them credibility.

In academics you see this with senior researchers giving credit to junior researchers. With music, you see that bands have opening acts. Over and over again in all creative fields you see this passing on of credibility. And that’s so important because if creativity is a social phenomenon you need people to give you the time of day. And one of the ways to get that is to borrow it from someone else.

In the book, you deconstruct some of the mythology that has grown up around some of the creative geniuses that we adore. Mozart, Michelangelo, and Darwin are three. And you point out how the stories that we have received about these people are largely incorrect. But even if the stories that we think we know about these people aren’t true, they have left us legacies that are so rich that they’re household names after centuries. So where did those superlative outputs come from, if not from genius?

It really tells us the power of the media and storytelling. Mozart is perhaps the most interesting example. A lot of our current narrative around Mozart can trace back to two things. More recently, the movie Amadeus in 1985 won eight Academy Awards including Best Picture. It made over $200 million in the box office, over $600 million when you adjust it for inflation. This was a popular movie.

And in the movie, Mozart is portrayed as literally a little kid, blindfolded, playing piano for the Pope. They say things like, you know, he wrote his first concerto at four, opera at six, something else at eight, blah, blah, blah. And here’s the problem. That is nowhere near true.

[W]e all want to believe in this idea of the god-like hero. It’s a compelling idea but it’s just not true.

The real story of Mozart is when he was three years old he had what we would now consider a helicopter dad who told him, “I love you but you need to become the world’s greatest musician. And to do that, I’m going to hire the best music teachers in all of Europe to teach you music.” He wrote his first original music, not when he was four. When he was 17. Now, you may say, well, that’s still pretty impressive. But that’s after 14 years of practicing three hours every single day with some of the best music teachers in all of Europe.

Then, what’s even crazier to me, one of the big, strong myths around Mozart is this idea that he would compose music in his head, away from a piano. He would only go to a piece of paper to write the finished piece of music and it would have no mistakes, no edits. And this traces back to a letter supposedly written by Mozart that was published in the early 1800s. The problem is this letter was forged. A music magazine publisher named Johann Rochlitz, who basically wanted to sell magazines and wanted to prop up Mozart ’cause he was a fan, he literally forged this letter.

You see this again and again when you start deconstructing these stories, because we all want to believe in this idea of the god-like hero. It’s a compelling idea but it’s just not true.

If we dial a bit down from absolute genius, do you believe that there’s a creative type?

I believe that there are learnable, nurturable personality traits that help creativity. When you look at studies around what’s correlated to creative potential, the things which often come up are things like openness. Openness is not hereditary. It’s nurtured. You can learn to be more open, you can practice becoming more open, you can change the type of people you have around you. These are not fixed things.

There’s also all these really fascinating studies that look at the relationship between IQ and creativity. And over and over again what you find is that IQ really has no bearing on creative potential. And so then the question for us is, well, if that’s true how do we unlock it? That’s what the second half of the book goes into.

So when people make that complaint that we talked about at the beginning, “Oh, I’m not creative,” do you think they’re comparing themselves to this genius archetype or are they thinking about talent or aptitude?

They’re comparing themselves to the genius archetype but they’re using it as an excuse. When we look at how easy we think it is for Mozart, and we think how hard it is for us, we go, “Well, it’s not easy for me so I just must not be creative.” And we forget, partly because of this mythology that has been created, that it wasn’t easy for Mozart either.

And the other thing is that we really underestimate our ability to become talented at things. If you want to have a really big epiphany at your laptop, go on YouTube and search for videos before and after voice lessons. There’s this whole genre on YouTube of people singing and then 12 months later singing after they took voice lessons. And it’s amazing. I mean, people go from having like the worst voices ever to having these beautiful voices.

When you talk about something like the story of Mozart, or when I think about someone like John Coltrane or Sonny Rollins practicing the saxophone hour after hour after hour, I know there are people out there listening to this and the first that is popping into their head is, “ah, 10,000 hours.” But as you point out in the book, that is also not quite true.

Oh, God. Yeah. So the 10,000 hours principle has become this sort of mantra in self-help. There’s lots of articles written about the 10,000 hours principle and how if you just practice, practice, practice, you can create anything. It’s based on the research by a researcher named K. Anders Ericsson who is one of the foremost researchers on it. But what his paper actually says is not that if you practice 10,000 hours at anything you’ll get better at it. It says something different. One, it says that 10,000 hours is the average across people and across skills. Different people take different amounts of time so, yes, anyone can get better at anything but it takes different people different amounts of time. And it also depends on the skills. There’s not some magical thing in your brain which when you hit 10,000 hours it goes, “Great job.”

Here’s the second issue: the paper says that it’s 10,000 hours on average of something called deliberate practice. And deliberate practice is a very specific type of practice that’s outlined in pedagogy. It’s breaking down a skill into very, very small increments and practicing that small piece of skill over and over again.

So let me give you an example. Probably everyone listening to the podcast drives. And you’ve probably driven 10,000 hours. But I can promise you, you’re not a NASCAR driver. And the reason why is that as we do something more and more, it starts becoming automatic. It’s becoming subconscious. It’s why when you’re commuting you just sort of lose track of time and all of a sudden you’re at your location. You’re not actually thinking about what you’re doing.

if you wanted to become a NASCAR driver, what you would do is you would take the skill of driving and you’d break it down into these tiny little tasks. You’d say, “Okay, I’m going to practice high speed left turns over and over and over again. And only once I get great at that will I then practice high speed right turns.” You see this with basketball players. Basketball players will practice mid-court, left-handed dribbling over and over and over and over again. So if you want to become great at something, it turns out it’s not about practice. Rote practice actually will just make you keep doing whatever you’re doing more and more subconsciously.

Okay, so now that we have hopefully demolished some notions that people can’t be creative, or that you, that you have to be some sort of amazing genius demigod to, to have creative thoughts, how do we generate fresh ideas and how do we judge if they’re any good?

In the back half of the book I explain four things you can do to nurture and be really intentional about your creativity. And one of the things that I found that was surprising to me was all these creatives I interviewed had very systematic processes for getting feedback.

For example, Ben & Jerry’s, the ice cream company. I had the fun experience of spending a day with the Ben & Jerry’s flavor team, and really digging into understanding how they come up with a new flavor. These are people who spend literally their entire career thinking about ice cream. And what they don’t do is come up with ideas and say, “Great, we have it.”

Every year they come up with a list of 200 ideas. And they send an email survey to their customers. And for each of these ideas they ask two questions. One, how likely are you to buy this flavor? And two, how unique is this flavor? Or, basically, how familiar is it and how novel is it?

The truth is that all these creatives spend a huge amount of time listening. That’s one of the most important things you can do if you want to be successful at creative tasks.

And what they’ve found is they have to find a balance of those two things. Because if it’s just how likely are you to buy it, well, you’ll end up with all these very familiar flavors and all of a sudden, every Ben & Jerry’s ice cream will be the same thing. And if they only focused on how unique it is, they’d end up with all these weird flavors no one wants to buy. So they use data, pretty lo-fi data, to learn what their audience will like, where these ideas fall on the creative curve. Because they want to get ideas that are the right blend.

But there’s even more subtle ways. I had this meta-experience writing the book. And I know a lot of Evernote users are writers, so I’m sure you can relate. You’re writing these words and then you have external readers, maybe your agents reading it, your editors reading it, your copy editors reading it, your proofreaders reading it. All these people are giving you feedback and you’re iterating it. And that’s what makes it go from okay to good to hopefully great. That feedback is so important.

So, yes, we mythologize the idea of a creative genius who just creates things from their own brain, and then they’re done. But the truth is that all these creatives spend a huge amount of time listening. That’s one of the most important things you can do if you want to be successful at creative tasks.

So what’s one thing that someone can do today, right at this minute, to start unlocking their own creative potential?

One of the things I found from the creatives that I interviewed is that all of them went very, very, very deep in their information consumption on a very, very narrow band of information. They weren’t reading all of Twitter, they weren’t reading all of Facebook, they’re not generalists. In fact, from a count and consumption perspective, you’d say they’re maladjusted. But if you want to become really great at something specific, you have to consume that much information about it because it lets you understand what is familiar and what is overexposed.

In the book, I tell the story of Ted Sarandos, who’s the chief content officer of Netflix. Been there for 18 years, overseen their entire successful strategy of getting into original programming. And he started his career as literally a video store clerk who decided he would watch every single movie in the store. And that’s what gave him the ability to have taste. By understanding the corpus, what’s out there, what would be familiar, you understand what’s going to be too new, too familiar and just right. And that’s something that you can start doing today. And usually it doesn’t cost anything.

Allen Gannett is CEO of TrackMaven, a leading marketing analytics firm. His book, The Creative Curve: How to Develop the Right Idea at the Right Time is published by Currency / Penguin Random House.

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Written by Forrest Dylan Bryant on June 6, 2018. Originally published on the Evernote blog.

You Don’t Have to Be a Genius to Be Creative was originally published in Taking Note on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.