SUMMARY

Your brain single handedly defines who you are and how you experience the world. But do you know your brain does this? How it actually works?

As I’ve been digging into recent brain research and learning more and more, it amazes me how much information is out there that is not proactively shared with the general public. Within the last decade, brain scientists have discovered that with the right attitude and practice people can overcome devastating trauma, learning disabilities, psychical disabilities as well as the common problems most of us face everyday like overcoming our bad habits and addictive behaviors. This podcast is called BrainHacks because the word Hack is defined as “to gain unauthorized access to” and that is exactly what we will be doing. So be prepared to use what you learn to hack your own brain.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Your brain single handedly defines who you are and how you experience the world. But do you know your brain does this? How it actually works?

Within the last 15 years, due of advancements in technology like neuroimaging, an enormous amount of proven scientific data is available regarding how our brains actually work. And as I’ve been digging into the research and learning more and more, it amazes me how much information is out there that is not proactively shared with the general public. The data — that is unraveling our understanding of the brain — is usually positioned and published as either a boring scientific case study (that only a trained scientist could fully understand) or a fluffy “you can be anything you want to be” type of piece with the supporting scientific data mostly left out.

The way I see it, there are two major reasons for this. One: It’s not appealing to the mainstream media’s revenue optimization strategy, which clearly focuses on fear-based and sensational pop-culture topics. Two: We have been conditioned to look for quick fixes and are in some ways insulted by the fact that you yourself are responsible for your brain’s problems and inefficiencies. Yet the results of brain science research suggests that you don’t always need a pill to fix your problems you can work on them from the inside out. Because of these factors, the general public is not well informed.

I believe, when you know how your brain works from a proven scientific data perspective, there is something that clicks. It’s no longer a pie in the sky “you can be anything” and here are some strategies that worked for me type of message, but rather a proven here is how the brain works and why it matters and shapes your day to day life. Your perspective changes and from there you can start to test your own ways and begin to change how your brain works.

Now, to appreciate how much more we know about the brain today, it is helpful to look back at what we used to believe.

Aristotle
Aristotle thought the brain was a cooling mechanism for your blood your heart was where your thoughts emerged. This theory was pervasive. The brain was just a machine of minor importance it was your heart that was responsible for all of your mental, rational thoughts.

Then an important discovery was made in the 1700′s, with the invention of electricity. It was discovered that electrical impulses could surprisingly influence how your muscles moved and affect how your brain worked. This suggested electricity was the way information was getting passed around in your brain.

Then finally, in the 1800’s, we discovered there were cells in the brain and that it was neurons that made up the physical matter of the brain. But it is important to note here that the brain was still thought of as a machine and your brain, everyone’s brain is genetically predetermined and can not be changed.

Neuroscience Today
Jumping forward again to today. Neuroscientists can now look inside the brain, and see vivid pictures of its subcomponents and their functions. We can now study the brain in all its aspects: how it’s structured, how it works, how it develops, how it malfunctions, and, most importantly, how it can be changed.

Science now understands, in great detail that your mind emerges from the assemblage of neurons that are connected to each other.

The implications of this (among lots of other brain-related discoveries) is huge and of vital importance to all of us. We know more about the brain today than ever before and the scientific discoveries being made provide us with the blueprints we need to change the way our brains work.

We Still Have So Much to Learn
With that said, there is still a lot about the brain that remains a mystery. But scientific progress is advancing so quickly, which makes learning about the brain really exciting.

Why Advances in Neuroscience Matter
The inspiration for the creation of this podcast is that I see so much of the old scientific dogma still affecting us today. For example, when a doctor tells someone who has suffered from a stroke that “this is as good as they should expect to get” after only 6 months of standard therapy, they are completely undermining the amazing capabilities of the human brain to rewire, regenerate and reconnect itself. Similarly, many of us go around with the same notion, that we are hopelessly who we are, with major change and improvement seemingly impossible.

Within the last decade, brain scientists have discovered that with the right attitude and practice people can overcome devastating trauma, learning disabilities, psychical disabilities as well as the common problems most of us face everyday like overcoming our bad habits and addictive behaviors.

In this podcast we will uncover recent discoveries in neuroscience and discuss what it means for the everyday Joe and Jane and how we can take action to test these new scientific discoveries for ourselves. This podcast is called BrainHacks because the word Hack is defined as “to gain unauthorized access to” and that is exactly what we will be doing. So be prepared to use what you learn to hack your own brain.

Upcoming episodes will cover fun facts about the brain, the discovery of neuroplasticity, the prefrontal cortex’s role in attention and why habits are formed and how they can be changed. Well, that’s it for today, thanks for listening and I’ll see you next week!

[RESOURCES]
Wikipedia: Neuroscience

Wikipedia: Brain

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory: 3D Brain

The Skeptical Review

As some of you know, I’ve helped a bunch of friends and clients get their Kickstarter projects funded. I’ve learned a lot of tips and tricks along the way and I’m taking everything I’ve learned and creating an online course called Kickstarter Hacks. You can sign up for more information here.

A few months ago through a mutual friend, I met Mike Del Ponte, who told me about a Kickstarter project he would soon be launching about a completely new and innovative water pitcher system called Soma.

We chatted for a while and I gave Mike a few Kickstarter tips but he had already organized one of the best and most thorough Kickstarter projects I’ve ever seen.

The results speak for themselves. With three days to go, Mike has already raised over $140,000 in one of the more successful Kickstarter campaigns of all time.

Check out Mike’s Kickstarter and pickup a gorgeous Soma water pitcher to replace your ugly, boring Brita.

I interviewed Mike about his Kickstarter project and how he raised over $100,000 in only 10 days.

In this quick (21 minute) interview, Mike explains:

• what led him to create Soma
• why Soma is better than a Brita water pitcher
• how Mike built the Soma team (including a famous designer who has worked with Starbucks and Peete’s and advisors from Method, Warby Parker, TOMS and Tim Ferriss himself)
• what he learned from 16 of the most successful Kickstarter projects
• why he tried to reach the full $100,000 goal in the first 10 days of the project
• the bit.ly hack that allows you to figure out where your Kickstarter traffic is coming from
• the two-pronged strategy that was the key to Soma’s Kickstarter success
• how he secured most of the press before he launched
• the “Four R’s” strategy to finding and securing the right press outlets to cover your Kickstarter project
• how he used virtual assistants (VA’s) to do much of the tedious but important online research
• how one smaller, targeted site drove up to 10x more Kickstarter contributions than coverage from larger sites like Forbes, Fast Company, Inc. and Mashable
• how he pitched press and bloggers
• the free Kickstarter Status Board Chrome plugin that Mike’s team created to help you manage your Kickstarter project
• the importance of being part of generous tribes before you launch (cue music: With A Little Help From My Friends)
• how he segmented his 7,000+ Gmail contacts into 3 specific lists to customize communications to jumpstart the Kickstarter project
• why he created a simple landing page to make it super easy for his friends to share his project
• why it’s important to get a lot of traction and shares in the same tribe at the same time
• how he built a compelling an unique Kickstarter video uber-targeted to his key customer

If you can’t see the video above, click on this link to view directly on YouTube. I apologize for the bright light above my head. I filmed this while on the road.

A few weeks ago, Mike wrote an amazing guest post called Hacking Kickstarter on Tim Ferriss’ blog. You can read that here.

Check out Soma’s Kickstarter (only 3 days left to grab your own at Kickstarter pricing).

If you want more Kickstarter tips and tricks, signup at Kickstarter Hacks.

Lately, I have been obsessed with understanding how our brain works. For the last 2-3 months, I have been spending most of my free time reading books, going to events and listening to podcasts that share the latest developments in brain research.

I don’t think that enough people know what scientists are uncovering about how our brain works! For example, did you know that just in the last 10 years there’s been a huge shift in our understanding of how the brain works and how we can change it?

In a new weekly short-video series, I will share interesting and inspiring things I am learning about the brain, and how I am using this knowledge to hack my own mental performance (and how you can too). Thinking about thinking can change everything.

Watch the video below to learn more.

Do you subscribe and listen to podcasts? If not, you should be and I am happy to explain why.

What Makes Podcasts So Special?
Podcasts are magazine subscriptions for your ears. (There are also video podcasts, but in my experience, most of the podcasts I come across are produced like that of a radio show.) They are similar to magazines in that after subscribing, you are delivered all the latest and greatest future issues to your doorstep automatically. What makes them different from the magazine model is that all podcasts are… FREE!

Podcasts are to the radio industry as blogs are to mainstream media. Anyone who wants to create a regularly updated radio (or video) show can publish a podcast for the mere cost of a microphone and computer to record it. Therefore podcasts today looks similar to the world of blogs–there are all kinds of podcasters, from well-known media companies to amatuer enthusiasts that span every topic you can think of. You can find thousands of podcasts with regularly updated content, which is well produced, entertaining, educational, funny, interesting, etc.

So the question is, why isn’t subscribing and listening to podcasts as mainstream as subscribing to and reading blogs?

Listening to Podcasts Used to be a Pain in the A**
The term podcast was coined in 2004 and in 2005 Apple released iTunes 4.9 with native support to subscribe and listen to podcasts via iTunes on your desktop or synced to your iPod. The number podcasters began to grow and when I purchased my first iPhone in 2007, I was in love with all the awesome content I could subscribe to and download to my phone. I would listen to podcasts while getting ready in the morning, on my walk to work and as I feel asleep. To me it was better than music on iTunes because it was interesting and FREE!

Although I loved listening to podcasts, the iTunes manual sync process between desktop and phone required to transfer new podcast shows slowly killed my interest. But as of late things have started to look up. With the launch of iOS 6 in September, there is now a native Apple app dedicated podcasts that keeps your subscriptions synced between iOS devices and iCloud and automatically download new episodes when connected to Wi-Fi.

Now It’s Easier than Ever Before
Now you can subscribe to podcasts on your iPhone, have it synced between all of your devices (like your iPad and listen to podcasts without any hassle. And now yours truely is obsessed with podcasts again. Below is my personal Top 10 Podcasts list. Whether you are new to podcasts or listen to podcasts regularly, the ones below will not disappoint (and I explain why I love each one).

1. Brain Science Podcast - I am obsessed with learning about the brain lately. BSP is a great podcast for the everyday person interested in hearing from neuroscientists and psychologists. [Subscribe via iTunes] [Listen on the web]
2. All in the Mind – Covers all topics related to the mind, from addiction to artificial intelligence. [Subscribe via iTunes] [Listen on the web]
3. Stuff You Missed in History Class – Two history buffs dive deep into historical events and mysteries, revealing interesting things you may not have heard about surrounding the worlds most well-known people and historical events. [Subscribe via iTunes] [Listen on the web]
4. NPR Snap Judgment – Stories from real people that are interesting, heartbreaking, amazing and funny. A hip spin on storytelling. [Subscribe via iTunes] [Listen on the web]
5. This American Life – First person stories and short fiction pieces that are touching funny and surprising. [Subscribe via iTunes] [Listen on the web]
6. NPR Topics: Technology – Perspectives on digital culture, research news, the tech industry and more. [Subscribe via iTunes] [Listen on the web]
7. On Being with Krista Tippett – Interviews with influential authors and thinkers. [Subscribe via iTunes] [Listen on the web]
8. The Accidental Creative – From the Author of the book by the same title, Todd interviews creatives and shares tips on how to jumpstart the creative process. [Subscribe via iTunes] [Listen on the web]
9. WNYC’s Radiolab – Radiolab is a show about curiosity. Where sound illuminates ideas, and the boundaries blur between science, philosophy, and human experience. [Subscribe via iTunes] [Listen on the web]
10. The Truth – Movies for your ears. Fictional stories that take you along for a ride. [Subscribe via iTunes] [Listen on the web]

Clay and I attended the 2nd annual SuperheroYou conference in San Diego earlier this year. It was unlike any other conference we’ve been to. The speakers were amazing, sharing with us their expertise and recent discoveries around the human brain, body and mind. I cannot emphasize enough the profound impact it had on our self-awareness and continued desire to improve ourselves from the inside out.

If you are interested in learning how to hack your own potential, our friends at Kwik Learning have put together a free online event that launched yesterday called the Brainpower for Success Summit. This mind-blowing speaker series is bringing the world’s top experts in brain science, psychology and learning to you, free of charge.

Don’t hesitate, sign-up, and be ready to have your mind blown.

Speaker Schedule

Tuesday, Nov 13th

2PM EST
Tana Amen, Author of “The Brain Doctor’s Wife”
Session Topic: Best practical and fun lifestyle and kitchen strategies for optimal brain health.

8PM EST
Dr. Ned Hallowell, World’s Top ADD Expert
Session Topic: How to maximize your focus, while turning distraction and learning challenges into your success advantages.

Wednesday, Nov 14th

2PM EST
Ray Kurzweil, Futurist & Inventor
Session Topic: The latest research into the limitless potential of reverse-engineering the human brain.

8PM EST
Jim Kwik, Accelerated Learning & Memory Expert
Session Topic: Fun memory/learning techniques for quickly learning and remembering facts and information.

Thursday, Nov 15th

2PM EST
Rod Roddenberry, Producer (son of Star Trek creator)
Session Topic: Insights into his father’s process for turning ideas and imagination into reality.

8PM EST
Brendon Burchard, Leading High Performance Expert
Session Topic: How our brains are hard wired to meet 10 specific human drives, and how to activate each of them to radically increase your levels of energy, engagement, and productivity.

Friday, Nov 16th

2PM EST
Deepak Chopra, World’s Leading Mind Body Expert
Session Topic: How you can use your mind to heal and strengthen your body.

8PM EST
Tony Tjan, Founder of Cue Ball
Session Topic: The 4 key traits of successful individuals & entrepreneurs—and how you can strengthen each one of them.

Saturday, Nov 17th

2PM EST
Lee David Zlotoff, Creativity/Problem Solving Expert (creator of “MacGyver”)
Session Topic: How MacGyver’s unique mental approach to problem solving and creativity can help you better handle life’s daily challenges.

8PM EST
Marilu Henner, Actress and Memory Expert
Session Topic: The keys to a better memory, and exactly how to remember your past, so you can change your life for the better now.

(Note: Each speaker session is available for 24-hours after the live call.)

Below he answers questions related to The MIT Challenge (which since our interview he has completed). If you are interested in how to live better, learn faster, get more done and lead a better life, you can keep up with his latest and greatest experiments on his blog.

WorkHacks: What gave you the idea to do this?

Scott: I’d always been interested in computer science, but my undergrad was in business. Rather than spend four years and tens of thousands of dollars to go back to school, I figured I could get the information I wanted by learning it through MIT’s OpenCourseWare. The idea of doing it as a challenge was to make the process more motivating and exciting, and also as a way to demonstrate the learning and productivity tactics I teach in my blog with a challenging goal!

WorkHacks: What has the reaction been from your friends & family?

Scott: Mostly supportive, although, as with anything, people will think you’re crazy. I’ve never really needed people’s approval or constant support to take on projects though, so I’ve found the reactions more amusing than anything else.

WorkHacks: You’re trying to complete 4 years of MIT classwork in 12 months. Most students complain that it’s hard to complete 4 years in 4 years. What does your typical day look like and why is it more efficient than a student’s typical day?

Scott: Well a lot of the efficiencies are simply from not going to school. Schools make learning a bureaucratic process, which slows things down considerably. The efficiency gains come from eliminating things that aren’t critically important to the learning process. Many students spend hours and hours doing tasks to make themselves feel busy, but accomplish little.

WorkHacks: What is your goal in doing this? What does a smash success look like?

Scott: My goal was curiosity, first being interested in the subject material, and getting the chance to go back and learn something that had always intrigued me but would otherwise have been out of reach, second being the curiosity to see whether it could be done. So in this case, I’ve already succeeded, since I’ve gotten the chance to explore the limits of what I’m capable of learning and doing.

WorkHacks: A lot of education reform is focused around fixing the existing process to deliver the existing product faster and cheaper. In his recent (free in every format) book, Stop Stealing Dreams: What is School For?, Seth Godin challenges that notion, articulating that the goal of school needs to be much different than the last 150 years – that our current education system creates obedient factory workers vs. creative. Do you agree that, in order to fix the current system, a discussion of what school is for needs to be raised?

Scott: Education reform is a long subject, so I’m afraid I can’t offer a pithy opinion. On the one hand, the educational needs are shifting. On the other hand the realpolitik behind reform makes sweeping changes unlikely–what we’re bound to end up with is a compromising fix. I prefer to short-circuit the process myself, to navigate the existing system to get what I want with minimal cost. This education hacking from the inside out seems more likely to provide solutions to ambitious, smart students than the promise of reform.

WorkHacks: How do you stay productive and focused while doing this? How do you handle it when you get distracted or overwhelmed?

Scott: My main trick is to use weekly/daily goals. That is, you keep a weekly goals list of everything you want to do in the week, and a daily goals list for everything in the day. The key is that when you’ve finished the daily goals, you can’t keep working. It provides a focus that can only come from putting yourself under constraints.

WorkHacks: You’re a speed reader. How did you get into speed reading? Also can you share with us your best speed reading tips/tactics?

Scott: The core behind speed reading, for me, is practice reading, that is training yourself to read faster. I learned it from Breakthrough Rapid Reading by Peter Kump.

There are lots of cool innovations taking place around turning your home into a more productive and automated environment. This, in turn, is helping you save money and be more productive at home. As an example, take a look at the new WeMo switch by Belkin.

Control Anything that Plugs-In
With a $50 special plug adapter, you can now control home electronics and appliances from wherever you are. The WeMo plug allows you to control power flow, via your mobile device, so whatever is connected is at your finger tips and in your control no matter where you are. Anything in your home that you plug into an outlet can be controlled via the app, as well as put on an automated schedule. You can turn the lamp off from another room, turn on your air conditioner from work and start the coffee maker while waking up in bed.

WeMo Plug Controlled by a Mobile App

Automating Your Home
What a simple, yet amazing way to save time, frustration and energy. Left the curling iron on? No worries. Kids always leave the TV on? Automate that it shuts off after bedtime. Want to lower your electric bill? Cool down your house before you get home without having the air conditioning on all day, by turning it on during your drive or walk home.

Remember this infomercial slogan: clap on, clap off… the clapper. With The Clapper, you could turn the lights on an off by clapping your hands–what an innovation! WeMo knocks it out of the park with their motion sensor accessory. WeMo describes on their website best:

A great way to use the WeMo Switch is to trigger it with motion. Just place the WeMo Motion sensor wherever you like, connect it to a WeMo Switch controlling a light, and that light goes on whenever you pass by. With WeMo Motion, appliances wake up and perform their tasks when you get near them, and go to sleep when you leave. Just like they should!

Last, but not least, it syncs with IFFT. If you read this post, you know we are huge IFFT fans. The fact that WeMo syncs with IFFT kinda blows our mind.

The Future of Home Hacking
This is just the beginning. So many developments are coming in terms of home efficiency. Think solar windows, capturing the light coming through during the day to power your TV at night. And even windows that clean themselves. Think robot friend that fetches you a beer from the fridge. Think your appliances communicating over a wireless network, . Think toilets that reuse and recycle, storing usable energy every time you go to the bathroom (I know, a little TMI with that one).

When your home is smart, automated and productive, you are freed up to think about, focus on and do more important things. Right now, most of these technologies are in their early stages, so they are not exactly cheap. (The WeMo plugs are $50 a piece and a motion sensor will put you out $100. Outfitting all your plugs will cost you a pretty penny.) However, as we have witnessed with computers and smartphones, you can expect price to go down and performance go up year over year.

Coming soon: Your home, a saver of your time and money.

Very soon, I don’t think there will be any consumer electronics device on the market that isn’t connected to the Internet.
– Jochen Eickholt, Siemens

Dan Martell is the entrepreneur’s entrepreneur. After founding two companies and leading them both to successful exits before his 30th birthday, Dan’s latest venture, Clarity, is designed to streamline something he does regularly.

Give advice.

Dan loves helping other founders navigate the rough waters of starting and building a company.

So naturally, he built the product that he wishes existed. Clarity is an innovative new idea based on an very traditional form of communication: old-fashioned phone calls.

We profiled Clarity in an earlier post, but Dan isn’t just a rockstar entrepreneur, he’s also a productivity expert.

I interviewed Dan just before Clarity’s launch this week. We discuss Microconf, Clarity, Dan’s angel investing, Canada vs. Silicon Valley and of course, Dan’s favorite productivity tips.

Due to a spotty wifi connection, the video gets pretty choppy in parts, so I summarized the key points below the video.

Microconf

• Dan just spoke at Microconf in Las Vegas, a conference for bootstrapped entrepreneurs.
• Another speaker was Adii Pienaar, founder of WooThemes (who coincidentally happens to be staying in our NYC apartment, thanks to Airbnb).

Clarity

• Clarity is a passion project that turned into a business.
• Dan had a need to offer his time and advice to entrepreneurs. He’s been angel investing for six years and is an advisor to other startups and mentor to a lot of the startup incubators.
• Dan is from Canada, but lives in San Francisco and prefers quick phone conversations to email.
• When you create an account on Clarity, you get a personal link that you can share. People can call you directly or schedule a call with you.
• Clarity takes care of connecting the two parties, while keeping both cell phone numbers private.
• You can offer the call for free (and after the call, callers are asked to donate to charity) or you can take paid calls and either donate the money to charity (in which case all the money goes to your chosen charity) or keep it as a consulting fee (in which case Clarity takes a small transaction fee).
• The advisors on Clarity typically don’t need the money, so this provides them a way to give back while raising money for their preferred charity.
• Starting with tech entrepreneurs. Dan has recruited 1,000 of the smartest advisors, including Dave McClure, Eric Ries and other ”micro-celebrities”.
• After selling Flowtown in 2011, Dan had one filter for his next venture: “How can I positively impact a billion people in the next ten years, using accelerating technologies?” With that as a guiding principle, Clarity was the idea that Dan wanted to work on for the next ten years.
• Dan has personally done over 400 clarity calls. He even uses it to queue calls with his parents.
• Dan is a leader in the Lean Startup movement and launched Clarity with a pared-down feature set based on what resonated with users.
• By changing three screens, Dan tripled Clarity’s on-boarding conversion rate.
• The greatest question you can ask a startup is, “are you making progress?”, which they usually answer with “yes”. The next question should be, “how do you know?”, but if you don’t measure anything, you have no idea if you’re making progress.
• Dan never focuses on more than three metrics at a given time.
• The current three are activation (signed up and then got on a call), retention (what % of people who signed up are coming back on a week to week basis) and time-to-call (how long did it take for the users to schedule and complete a call).

Dan’s angel investments

Dan’s top productivity tips

• “I pretty much outsource my life. My priorities are family, friends, business and then everything else…I don’t do my dishes. I don’t drive myself around. I have someone who manages personal finances. It doesn’t cost me a lot of money.”
• “There are certain things that you get a lot of leverage from and for me it’s building companies or advising and investing. If I’m not doing that, I really just want to hang out with my family and my friends, so anything that takes up that time, I try to outsource. It’s taken me several years.”
• Dan likes Zirtual for Virtual Assistants and loves time-saving services like Uber.
• “Focus on the big rocks.” Every morning Dan wakes up and writes down three things. Then he asks himself, “if only one of these got done this week, which would be most meaningful to my company?”
• People create these big to-do lists but they are actually focusing on the wrong things.
• Dan and his wife Renee are expecting their first child in a few months and that is focusing him even more. Family comes first.

Links:

Clarity

Dan on Twitter

Clarity on TechCrunch

Clarity on GigaOm

Photo credit: Dear World: Omaha

There are a combination of tools you can use to create yourself a free transparent signature for signing digital documents. You can use MyLiveSignature to create a generic signature or Pixlr to turn a scanned PDF image of your signature into a transparent image for signing documents. You can use this transparent PNG signature to sign documents in a PDF editor, like PDFpenPro, or in a Microsoft Word and iWork Pages document. You should never have to print, sign, fax or scan another document again.

Check out the quick how-to video below, where I take you through the process of creating and using a digital signature.

“Do you have time for a quick coffee meeting?”

“I love your blog. Can I buy you a quick coffee and pick your brain?”

“Can I buy you lunch and tell you a bit about my new startup?”

Sound familiar?

Obviously, there’s the issue of free consulting vs. charging for your time and that’s been covered well in some great blog posts by Jason Falls, Chris Brogan, Peter Shankman, Nicole Jordan and many more.

How you decide to charge for your time is up to you.

What I wanted to discuss here is the productivity drain from “random coffee meetings”.

Seth Godin has a simple answer when people ask how he ships so frequently and so consistently:

“I don’t have meetings and I don’t watch TV.”

Excellent advice.

We don’t watch much TV, but we love meeting new entrepreneurs and hustlers. A lot of people have helped us out and we love to give back. But a bunch of random coffee meetings spread throughout the week (and the city) take a lot of time and kill our productivity flow.

Below are three ways to solve the “random coffee meeting” productivity problem:

1. Schedule Once

We used ScheduleOnce to create “cafe office hours”, a weekly 2-hour slot where we work from a particular cafe for a couple hours.

Here’s how to set it up:

1. Create a free account at ScheduleOnce.
2. Connect ScheduleOnce to your GoogleCalendar (you can also connect with Facebook).
3. It’s two more clicks to fully connect your calendar.
4. Under “Inbound Settings”, set your recurring availability. We set it for Tuesdays from 3:00pm – 5:00pm ET.

There are premium features in the paid version but the free plan served us well enough for now.

Now, whenever anyone (except Sir Richard) asks for a quick coffee meeting, we evaluate the request (again, this is not free consulting)  and if it makes sense, we reply to them with this simple ScheduleOnce link:

meetme.so/workhacks

Anyone can propose a 30 minute slot in the 2 hour window. We confirm and boom. It’s booked.

This works for remote meetings, too. If someone isn’t in New York City, we can connect via GoToMeeting* or Clarity.fm (more below).