>> Phil Fawcett: So good afternoon. I'm Phil Fawcett. I'm a program manager here at Microsoft Research, and I have the pleasure of introducing Peter Bregman. And what's interesting about Peter, he's got a bit of a mountaineering and expedition background, so he's done a lot of adventure types of things. He was an Ecenta consultant for a while, and then as he was doing that gig I'm sure he thought, "Hmm, maybe I can figure out a way to make people like us," people that get like 400 or 500 e-mails a day and are expected on your whole inbox on a regular basis, observing all of those kind of information workers said, "I've got some ideas on and some real world-proven concepts of how to make us more focused and efficient in approximately 18 minutes." And that's amazing to me because I, as you all do, have back-to-back meetings, and then once you're done with the day you've got the 400 or 500 e-mails to deal with. And if you don't deal with it, that compounds the next day and the next day. Pretty soon you get kind of gray hair kind of like I have. So, anyway that's what interesting about his book.
Now you can -- There are books in the back you can purchase, and he'll be around for some signatures as well. And then you can also download off Amazon which I did recently, read the book, found it an interesting read and applied that as well. Another thing that's interesting about this book and Peter's concept is that it's been -- it's won a number of business book awards. Peter is also a regular contributor to Harvard
Business Review and a number of television shows in terms of PBS and other places. And he has own consulting firm as well. So with that, I'm going to let Peter get in and get started and kind of help you to figure out from this point forward how to use those 18 minutes to keep focused. All right. Thank you.
>> Peter Bregman: Thanks.
[ Applause ]
>> Peter Bregman: Thank you. A short note before we get started which is that I have a certain appreciation for Seattle and also for your riots. You know, I'm loathe a little bit to make fun of riots. Right, we can't make fun of riots. But I was in London during the riots in
London, and I was doing a speaking tour. And we had to cancel a bunch of events because of the riots there. There were a bunch of events that we did. And the thing that I found most disappointing about the riots in London is that they went and they looted every single store and then they got to the book stores. And they looked at it and they were like,
"Yeah, I don't know what that is," and then they went on. And so the only stores that were not looted in London were the book stores; they were completely untouched.
So what I appreciate about Seattle's riots is that they seem to be indiscriminate and that, you know, book stores were looted along with everything else. And, you know, as an author I really appreciate that.
So I want to start with an exercise. And I'm going to say a word and
I'm going to ask you to repeat that word ten times, and then I'm going to ask you a question. And I'm going to ask you to answer my question as quickly as possible. Got it? Okay, the word is silk. Silk, silk, silk, silk, silk, silk, silk, silk, silk, silk. What does a cow drink?
[ Audience reply ]

>> Peter Bregman: Water, milk, milk, water. Okay, so some of you said water. Some of you said milk, right? The tendency is -- A lot of you mumbled something. Who said milk? Raise your hand. Okay. Who said water? Have you done this before or you just knew? Yeah? You had done it before or you hadn't done it before? Okay.
>> : [Inaudible] the other guy.
>> Peter Bregman: Yeah. You repeat what he said. That's good, right?
You repeat silk or you repeat water. So we get into habits, right? I mean this is just sort of naturally how we accommodate new material. We just very quickly get into habits, and we move from one thing to the next. And, you know, if you say silk ten times then the next thing, you know, cow, milk, it makes a lot of sense. And you're going to do it.
And we get into habits very, very quickly. Right? We very quickly --
You know if you remember for -- I know for me when I entered the work force there was no e-mail. When I entered the work force in the late eighties, early nineties, there was no e-mail. We just started doing email. And now, you know, how could you live without it? I mean it exists and we get hundreds and hundreds of e-mails a day.
And we haven't yet in many ways learned how to manager ourselves in the context of the onslaught of information and data and the number of tools we have and the number of ways of connecting we have. And you guys face this more than anybody, and you're living it all the time.
You're actually creating the problem as much as you are solving it.
And so the question is how do we manager ourselves in this ADD world, right? You know, it's not even that we're ADD. It's that the world itself has become ADD. And the question is, how do we manage ourselves and get the right things done in this context. And I liken it to a buffet because I have a buffet problem. And Ahmet, who very generously just took me to lunch, probably saw my buffet problem which is, you know, you go even into this little cafeteria here. And there's just so many really good things to fill up your bowl or your plate with. And it almost feels like, you know, it's a shame, it's not right for people who prepared such beautiful foods not to eat all of them. And so I'll collect a whole bunch of plates of food, and I'll bring something like this back to the table, right? And it'll have healthy foods and unhealthy foods. But you know, my wife, Eleanor, will look at me and she'll say, you know, "Are you okay?" And I'll say, "Yeah. No, no, no,
I got this. I got this. I'm okay." And I start to eat. And everything looks really, really good. And here's the problem, all right: the problem is my stomach, your stomach is slightly smaller than the largest cup that Starbucks sells.
Right? So Starbucks, the trenta cup is 916 ml; your stomach is 900 ml.
Now your stomach expands, right? So it would take four of these cups to rupture your stomach, right, if that was goal. But for the most part we could fit probably three, you know, good, full helpings of trenta cups in our stomachs and feel just gross and sick and overstuffed but survive. All right.
And I'm actually pretty good at that. So the challenge is to take all of this food and put it into my stomach, right, which ends up making me feel like this. Right? This is in the end. Now here's the problem: the problem is what I want to eat in the moment is different than what I

want to have eaten by the end of the meal. Right? And in the face of unlimited choices, in the face of unlimited options, we often make poor decisions. There's just too much out there. There's too much that looks good.
By the way, am I the only one? Does anyone else have this buffet problem? Does anybody else? Okay, good. Glad to know that I'm not the only one. Now this obviously isn't just about food, though it is about food, but it's also about our to-do list. Right? We have these to-do lists that go on and on and on forever. How many of you have items that are on your to-do list that have been on your to-do lists for at least three weeks? Okay. Five weeks? Years? Years? Okay. Okay. Good. We have a serious problem here. We'll work with it, that's okay. We can handle this.
So we've got -- So they're not to-do lists any more really; they're guilt lists. Right? They're just lists that are reminders of things that we should get done, that we want to get done but that we're not getting done. And then as we go through the list each time we re-look at those things that we're not doing, and we're reminded of the things that we really should be doing. And we have to work our way through those to get to the things that we are going to actually do, which in and of itself is incredibly time consuming. So the reason we do that is because we believe that we can get it all done. And there's a -- You know, the reason I wrote "18 Minutes" is because every book that I looked at around time management was based on the same underlying, what
I will call myth. And that is that you can get it all done.
It's the biggest myth in time management. You know, that if only you organize yourself a little better, you manage yourselves, you use the right kind of list, you label things in a certain way, you manage your minutes and stuff then you can get it all done. Right? And that is absolutely false. Right? You cannot eat the entire buffet without feeling gross, without important things falling through the cracks. And the reality is we're a limited resource. Right? We're a limited resource in the ultimate existential sense in that we're all going to die. This is the depressing part of my talk. Right? We're going to die and when we die we're not going to get any more done. So we can only get done as much as we can from now until we die. Right? And then we won't be able to get stuff done after that. Is everybody in agreement?
Are we on the -- Okay, good. Because we would have a bigger problem if we were going to argue that one.
Okay, but there's hope to that. And the hope is that we wouldn't get anything done if we weren't going to die. Right? If you had all the time in the world forever then why do anything now? Right? Like, we might as well just kind of do it later, and we wouldn't get anything done. So there's a certain hopefulness and strength and motivation that comes from having existentially limited time.
But there's also, we're limited time in our days. We have a certain number of days. Like a stomach, we can stretch it a little bit. Right?
But when we stretch it, we start to do ourselves harm. So I want to make this pitch to you because I'm sure most of you are looking at that and going, "Okay. You know what? We know that. Tell us something we don't know." Right? Who knows that your time is limited? Okay. All right.

So I'm going to suggest to you, though, that you do a number of things to try to deny the fact that your time is limited, to try to stretch your stomachs in a sense, right, to stretch your time. We rush. We sleep less. And we multi-task. Right? Those are the things. Everybody raise your hand if you fit into at least one of those categories. Okay.
So we're going to talk about how effective or ineffective those things are for a second.
So in terms of rushing we move super fast. Now everybody knows the feeling of making mistakes and sending the e-mail to the wrong person or cc'ing the wrong person or getting really angry and shooting off a really quick e-mail and then hitting send and then three seconds later realizing it and trying to pull it back but you know that you can't pull it back. But there's something else. There's some great experiments done. I have a hard time describing these experiments sometimes so bear with me here for a second. They put a bunch of people in front of a computer and pretended there was someone else on the other side of the computer. There was not. This was just part of the experiment. And then they said, "Okay, so you have two -- you're negotiating -- Or you're not negotiating. You have -- There's fifteen dollars between you and this other person on the other side of the computer. Fifteen dollars. Option A. Option A: you keep five dollars; you give them ten dollars which is obviously in your worst interest and their best interest. Right? You keep five dollars; you give them ten dollars. In their best interest. Option A. Option B: you keep ten dollars; you give them five dollars. That's option B. That's not in their best interest. Now all the power is in your hand. You have to tell them whether option A is in their best interest or option B is in their best interest. They don't know, but you just have to tell them option A or option B. All right? Given 30 seconds to make that decision, you will reverse it and you will tell them that what's in your best interest is in their best interest so that you make more money. You will lie. Three minutes -- That's two and a half minutes more. Three minutes of thinking, it's more likely that you will tell them the truth and tell them that the option that is actually in their best interest, which is option A, is the one that is in their best interest.
Do you get that? That the difference between making an ethical choice, at least in this particular experiment, the different between making an ethical choice is two and a half minutes of thought. We're not talking about the difference between thinking for four hours and thinking for thirty seconds. It's if you decide to do something very quickly versus you stop for just a couple minutes and you think, "What's the right thing to do here?" you're far more likely, five times more likely to do the right thing than if you're just rushing through things.
And we rush through things all the time. All the time. Right? Because we're just -- we're doing a million things at once. So sleeping less.
How many people here sleep eight hours a night? Wow, you go for it. How many people sleep less than six hours a night? All right. Last night, how many people got more than six hours of sleep? Great. Okay, so one of the things that we do -- I got four hours of sleep last night, but
I'm on jet lag. So I have an excuse. One of the things we do is we sleep less. Four hours of sleep a night for four days is the cognitive impairment of staying awake for twenty-four hours. How many of you have

pulled an all-nighter in the last -- Well, well, just raise your hands.
Okay. Forgot where I was for just one second.
All right. Cognitive impairment of staying awake for twenty-four hours which is the same as legal drunkenness. Okay? There's a tremendous number of car accidents -- I mean, I can go through a whole bunch of statistics, but we don't really have time and I don't really need to.
Right? You know that if -- kind of driving drunk is probably bad, right? And if you're, you know, losing a lot of sleep you're driving drunk.
Multi-tasking. How many people here think they can -- Who thinks they can multi-task? Somebody tell me you can really multi-task. Raise your hand if you think you can multi-task. Okay. Who wants to -- Let me do a
-- Let's do a quick test. Somebody. Somebody volunteer. You want to volunteer?
>> : Yeah.
>> : Sure.
>> Peter Bregman: Okay. Either one of you.
>> : [Inaudible].
>> Peter Bregman: All right. Well, let's test this. Let's test this.
Okay? Can you stand up for a second?
>> : Yeah, sure.
>> Peter Bregman: Just to add pressure to the whole system. Okay.
What's your name?
>> : Patty.
>> Peter Bregman: Patty. Okay, Patty, count from one to ten as fast as you can.
>> : One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
>> Peter Bregman: Great. Go from A to J as fast as you can.
>> : A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J.
>> Peter Bregman: Great. That was good. Both of them were about two seconds, right? Now go A1, B2, C3. Go for it. You've got it, Patty.
>> : A1, B2, C3, D4, E5, F...
>> Peter Bregman: Anyone else think they could do this?
>> : G7, H8, I9, K10.
>> Peter Bregman: Ten times as long? Five times as long? Something like that. Thank you, Patty.
[ Applause ]

>> Peter Bregman: All right. We cannot multi-task. We can't -- We could switch tasks. We can move very, very quickly between one thing and another, losing precious moments in between, but we can't multi-task.
So when you're doing e-mail while you're on a conference call because you think, you know, you can pull it off real quickly and then you realize someone just asked you a question and you sort of -- Has anyone been in that situation? You kind of forget. You kind of say yes just because you're hoping that that will work as an answer. So multitasking. People distracted by incoming e-mail and phone calls, saw a ten-point fall in their IQ. Ten-point fall in their IQ which is more than twice the impact of smoking pot.
>> : Wow.
>> Peter Bregman: Right? Similar to losing a night of sleep. So here's what -- here's my message to you. Better than to multi-task, smoke pot because it's -- you're -- the point is, you'll be better off. Right?
You'll be better off. You'll be at a higher cognitive ability if you're just smoking pot. All right?
You guys, by the way -- Microsoft did this research where -- And this surprised me actually. People doing work were interrupted four times an hour. Right? There were people video'ed and watching how often they were interrupted. Now four times an hour, I'm interrupted way more than four times an hour. I'm sure many of you are, I mean, especially with
IM. How many of you IM? I think it's a terrible idea, but we'll talk about that later.
But people get interrupted four times in an hour. And this is the most interesting part: the work -- the more challenging the work, the less likely they would go back to it after being interrupted. The more challenging the work -- That means our most important, hardest work -- we're less likely to go back to once we get interrupted. All right. So not only are we high -- In fact, here's the thing, we think we're supermen and superwomen, right? That we could do this. We could, you know, sleep less and multi-task and rush around, and we'll get more done. But in fact, we're Lindsay Lohan. Right?
We're going to work and we're kind of high and drunk, and we're trying to like get through the day. And we think that we're being productive.
And so like on the surface you would say, "Yeah, of course we know our time is limited and we can only do one thing at a time," and yet our behavior betrays that, right, because we do all these things that actually -- Enough said? Okay. Yeah?
>> : I think with multi-tasking it depends upon what kind of things you are doing.
>> Peter Bregman: Okay.
>> : [Inaudible] and listening to [inaudible]...
>> Peter Bregman: Great question. Great -- Great -- I'm going to take that as a question. Can I take that as a question? Okay, I'm going to take that as a question. So there's different centers of your brain.
Basically saying that can't you multi-task in some things like listen

to a radio and drive at the same time? So there's different functions of the brain. For example, you could fold laundry and listen to the radio at the same time. You could drive and listen to the radio at the same time; although if you try to change the channel, you're in trouble. Right? The research shows in terms of texting, right, texting while you're driving, truck drivers, twenty-three hundred times, two thousand three hundred times more likely to get into an accident.
Right? Speaking on a phone, just speaking on the phone without your -- without holding it, right, hands-free, speaking on a phone in a car is the same as legal drunkenness in terms of accidents. Right?
Now why, by the way, do you think that is when speaking to a person next to you isn't? Right? Have you ever wondered that?
>> : It's attention.
>> Peter Bregman: What is it about your attention?
>> : It's gone. It's somewhere else.
>> Peter Bregman: It's somewhere else when you're talking to someone, too. Have you talked to someone, and they're driving. And they're like,
"Yeah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." It's like, "Would you look at the road?"
>> : Right.
>> Peter Bregman: What do you do when they do this?
>> : "Pay attention to the road."
>> Peter Bregman: Right. And what do you do, though? You either tell them to pay attention -- What do you do?
>> : [Inaudible]....
>> Peter Bregman: You pay attention to the road. Right? That's what I do. Right, if someone's driving and they start looking at me and talking to me, I look at the road. Do you do that? Okay. That's why.
That's why it's more dangerous to talk on a cell phone than it is to talk to someone because when you're talking to someone, they're freaked out. Right? When you're talking on a cell phone, they don't care. So it makes a difference, right? So we think we're going to do this stuff.
Does that answer your...? So and by the way one of the things that I do that I absolutely love doing that it's like my quintessential multitask is I bike everywhere in New York. I'm in New York City. I bike everywhere. I have a folding bike, and I bike everywhere. And that's the greatest multi-tasking because I can bike to work. I can bike to a client. I'm totally focused on biking and yet I'm getting my exercise at the same time. So I'm saving time because I'm doing exercise and I'm traveling. I'm getting there faster than I would if I were sitting on a subway. And that's a form of multi-tasking but it's more like multipurposing is the word that I use. Like I'm doing one thing with two purposes because it's just one thing. So the other things -- Yeah?
>> : You're talking about like listening to a conference call and answering e-mail that's also [inaudible]?

>> Peter Bregman: No. If you're typing on e-mail and sending it to four people, that would be multi-purposing. But if you're talking on the phone and e-mailing, you're using the same brain capacity to do two things. You need to think in order to talk and you need to think in order to write. And what you end up doing, is you -- this is what you're head would look like if it were moving.
>> : Oh, another one...
>> Peter Bregman: Right? Because...
>> : Is it okay to multi-task [inaudible] focus on two different parts of the brain? Are you saying that?
>> Peter Bregman: I'm saying that you can fold laundry and speak in the radio -- Sorry. Ah. You can fold laundry and speak in the radio as much as you want if you're a crazy person. But what you could do is you could fold laundry and listen to the radio at the same time. But if you're using the same parts of your brain, the processing part of your brain to listen to a conference call and type an e-mail, you're not actually doing them at the same time. You're doing very, very quickly switching back and forth like the A1, B2, C3 and you're losing time and momentum and focus in the middle.
You know, my daughter was starting to do -- My daughter is ten years old and she was working on some math problems. And I started to test her in math, and she got the first three or four wrong. And she said,
"Hold on one second, Dad. I just need to get my math head on. Give me a couple more." And she got her math head, which means she just got in the mode of answering math problems and then she got every single one right. And we all do that. You get to your e-mail and you look at it, and you're like scattered and you're looking at all these e-mails. And you're trying which to do and how to respond and whatever, and you're kind of getting your focus on. And then you get into an e-mail and you start doing it. And you're focused on that e-mail. And someone could call your name, and you would miss them because you're focused. Have you been there? Right? That's the kind of single focus you end up doing. But when you're switching back and forth, you're constantly having to get that head back on that represents the, you know, that particular e-mail or whatever I want to say to that person. And you will now begin to observe yourself, right? So you start an e-mail and you're writing that e-mail. And then you get interrupted. And then you go back to the e-mail, what do you do?
>> : The first thing what I would do...
>> Peter Bregman: You have to think about what you were writing. You start from the beginning. You re-read what you wrote, maybe you reread. That's all time. That's all just wasted time. Right? So the other thing that we do besides sleep less, rush around and multi-task is that we just ignore the fact that our time is limited and we pack our to-do list and our schedules. And then what happens is that things just get crowded out and things fall through the cracks. And the challenge is, the wrong things often fall through the cracks because the things that are most important to us, the things that are hardest to work on that are most challenging, where failure might be a question of identity.

You know, "If I write that chapter and fail, maybe I'm not a writer. So maybe I shouldn't write that chapter." And I need a big push in order to get myself to do things that are really important to me, which is all I really care about doing are the things that are important to me anyway. If that happens, right, then those are the things that fall off because those are the hardest. And instead I buy running sneakers because that's really easy to just check off my list. Right?
All right. And there's two pieces of this -- And we're running out of time so I want to just deal with this very quickly -- the part that is you working on your own to figure out how to manage your time right and choose your right priorities, etcetera. And then working with other people, setting boundaries, kind of creating a structure that allows you to be uninterrupted or to be interrupted the way and when you want to be. We're not going to deal with that part right now because we just don't have time. A lot of it is in the book.
We will deal right now with this piece which is, you know, how do you manage yourself, how do you manage your own time? My favorite
Michelangelo quote, "In every block of marble I see a statue...I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it." I believe that we are all like these statues. This is where
I get a little hokey, but it's true and I believe it. Right? I believe that we all have masterpieces in us in terms of what we're doing with our lives, what we want to do with our lives, what we can accomplish, the values and living out those values. And the problem and the reason so many of us don't is because there's so much stone around us. Not stoned around us but stone around us.
And that we have to get all of that stuff out in order to expose the really amazing work that we can do and the amazing lives that we can live. And in order to do that what that means is the most important decisions you can make are not about what you're going to do, they're about what you're not going to do, what you're going to ignore. All the rough hewn stone are things you have to ignore; you have to get through that in order to get to your masterpiece in a sense.
And so the question is how do you design a process that allows you to focus on the things that are most important to you? This is my to-do list. This is the way I keep a to-do list. All right, I keep a to-do list. I have five areas of focus. At the beginning of the year I decide on five things I most want to focus on, five things that I consider to be most important and that are linked with my values. I'll just share with you what they are. For me, it's doing great work with current clients. Right? I run a consulting firm. I work as an adviser to CEOs.
So doing that work, currently. New business opportunities which is a little bit into the future for me, right, it's kind of getting a few more clients. Speaking and writing about my ideas. Creative expression.
And that's -- This box for me here, this box is really about my longer term. It's, you know, what am I going to do to grow myself, to develop myself, to build new businesses, new things that are not going to bring any return to me in the next year or two but that I'm passionate about,
I'm excited about. Actually the thing that happens to be in that box right now is starting a leadership school. I'm really interested in it.
I'm not going to start it in 2012, but I'm beginning to put together the thought. I know that if I don't have a box of focus in that, I'm

not going to get there because I'm going to focus on business opportunities, current clients and speaking about my ideas.
And nurturing myself and my family. This is about, you know, the -- I heard once the Jewish Sabbath, the Shabbat, the way that people think about it and talk about it is that not just that you work six days and then you don't work the seventh day. But that you're busy changing the world for six days. We're all doing work that's trying to change ourselves, trying to change people around us to change the world. And on the seventh day, on the Sabbath, there's this idea that you don't change the world at all. You just appreciate and enjoy whatever's around you without any drive to change anything. You just notice and appreciate what exists. And I love that idea. And so I always have some kind of a box.
And for me, nurture myself and my family is not to do anything to grow or develop or change anything, but just to like hang out with myself and with people that I really love without any expectation except to just be with them.
And so these are my top five areas of focus. This is where I want to spend 95% of my time. The other box is the other 5%. When I first started using a to-do list like this, the first few days, this was the only box that was filled and it was filled several pages long. And this stuff there was one or two things in it. Because these are the easiest things to do. They don't really matter. Right? And within a couple of days, the way I was dealing with my tasks were very quickly changing. I was beginning to generate tasks based on the areas that I most wanted to focus on.
And if I look and I see something's empty for a few days or a few weeks, I know I'm not going anywhere with it and I have to begin to think like, "What's going on? Do I really want to focus on this area?
And if I do, what am I going to start to do to be in this area?" Now that's not enough. It's not enough to just keep a new to-do list. I'm not going to tell you you're going to get the right things done if you just keep a new to-do list. Right? It's a start. It's sort of like going to the buffet with a bunch of plates. You're not going to eat the entire buffet. If everything you want to do is your to-do list then at the very least the sixth box to-do list is you're going up to the buffet with six plates. Right? So you're already doing better but you're still going to rupture your stomach. It's not enough.
So the question is what do you do? Do you just use common sense and willpower and self-control and discipline in order to get it done? And
I'm going to suggest to you that that's a losing game, that you do not want to rely on self-discipline and willpower because they're not very good. Right? Has anyone ever been on a diet? Anybody been on a diet?
You know that the experience of like, you know, the morning is really easy then you have like one cookie at lunch for the dessert? You know, you eat like lean turkey and your, you know, few pieces of lettuce, and you're eating well. Then you have an Oreo cookie, and then for your afternoon snack it's the rest of the box of Oreo cookies. And then, you know, that's -- Willpower loses strength; it's a muscle.
They did this great experiment. They took a whole bunch of students, and they put them in a room. And they said to half of them, "Eat at

many of these hot, piping, awesome-smelling cookies as you want. Don't touch the radishes." And then they said to the other half of the students, "Eat as many of these delicious-looking, unwashed radishes, but don't touch the cookies." Right? Who needed to use self-control?
Right, the radish-eaters. The radish-eaters had to use self-control.
They left the room. They videoed. Everybody did exactly what they were supposed to do. The cookie-eaters ate cookies. The radish-eaters ate radishes. Nobody switched.
Then they thought the experiment was over. They felt really good, "We did a great job." They said, "By the way, we just want you to -- if you don't mind, there's a problem we want you to solve here like a little experimental problem and then you'll be free to go." And it was one of those geometric problems where you have dots and you have to connect the dots without lifting your pencil off of the page. You know the ones
I'm talking about, right? Okay. The thing that they didn't know is it was unsolvable. Right? It was impossible. It was an impossible problem.
The cookie-eaters who didn't have to use any willpower in the previous
20 minutes on average spent 19 minutes trying to solve that problem before giving up; the radish-eaters, 8 minutes. Right, because they had exhausted their self-control. They had exhausted their willpower by avoiding eating the cookies, and they gave up.
If you rely on willpower to get this stuff done, if you rely on common sense and you know what to do and you're just not going to multi-task, it's not going to work. You're still going to end up spending your time buying running sneakers instead of writing that chapter.
Okay, so the question is how do you change behavior then? This is a lion -- Well, it's a picture of a lion. But I was on safari in Africa in Harambi, and there was this lion. Well, in Africa in Harambi in
Orlando in Disney World. And there was a lion on a rock, and I said to the ranger, "Wow, we're really lucky. You know, my kids are really lucky. They get to see this lion on a rock. That's like really awesome that he's up there." And the ranger looks at me with that sort of like,
"I'm a ranger and I'm not going to show it, but you're an idiot," says, you know, "The lion's always on the rock." And I said, "Well is it --
What is it stuffed?" And he's like, "No, it's a real lion." "What do you nail it to the rock?" "No, no, we don't nail it to the rock?" "Did you like feed it on the rock?" "No, we didn't feed it on the rock. We never feed..." I'm like, "Come on! Let me know! What is it?" right. So it took a while because the ranger isn't supposed to tell me their secrets. But here's the secret: if you want the lion to be on the rock, what do you do? Anyone have any ideas?
>> : [Inaudible audience responses]
>> Peter Bregman: What's that?
>> : Surround the rock with water?
>> Peter Bregman: Well that's -- Yeah, right, so you make it impossible. No, they didn't do that but that's a good idea. It's sort of a tortured idea but it's a good idea.
>> : [Inaudible] the rock.

>> Peter Bregman: What's that?
>> : Heat the rock.
>> Peter Bregman: That's it. So when it's cold you heat the rock, and when it's warm you cool the rock. You make the rock a place that the lion wants to go, and then the lion will go there. I used this philosophy -- This is my house when I was living in Savannah, Georgia;
I live in Savannah, Georgia for three years. The only piece of furniture that we bought, that we bought for our family was this outside table because we weren't expecting to stay that long.
But we bought this outside table. And what we really wanted to do was like eat all of our meals outside. That was our goal. That's what we wanted to do. We ate one meal outside, one meal outside. And we had a one-year-old daughter at the time; now, we have three kids. We had a one-year-old daughter at the time who was like spilling stuff, and we need to get in. And, "I want orange juice." "You can't have orange juice." "I want!" "Okay, okay, you can have orange juice." And we were going back and forth and back and forth so many times it was insane.
And we just said -- Like, we just didn't put the effort into it. And so for months we didn't eat outside. And then I had a brainstorm; I thought of the lion. This is the only change that I made, and this change was the difference between eating every single meal outside and eating no meals outside.
That's it. You move the table six feet and four steps so that it's right outside of our kitchen, and we'll eat every meal. Right? You don't rely on discipline to get things done. You create an environment.
Look, the reason we eat like that at buffets is because what I want to eat in the moment is different than what I want to have eaten by the end of the meal. In the face of unlimited options, we often make poor choices. So we have to engineer ourselves. We have to engineer the choices so that we're more likely to do the things that are in our best interest and less likely to do the things that are not in our best interest. You move the table. You don't will yourself to eat outside.
It's not going to work.
So how do you move the table? For this, this is all the food that I brought back, right. What's my solution? What's my solution? Oh, is that a question or you're telling me I have five more minute? That's a question?
>> : That's a question.
>> Peter Bregman: Okay, go ahead.
>> : [Inaudible] the choice for all the decisions that you make?
>> Peter Bregman: Wait. Say again?
>> : That you don't -- Like, it's not self-discipline. It's just you make sure that you [inaudible] to what you want?
>> Peter Bregman: I use a tremendous amount of creative energy in my life, right? My life -- My thinking life is hard for me. I'm sure it is for all of you. I'm trying to be creative. I'm trying to think of

things in a different way than other people think of it. I'm trying to put words to a page in an interesting way. I spend a tremendous amount of energy and effort. When I'm in the box of doing work, I'm using a tremendous amount of energy and effort. I don't want to waste my energy and effort just trying to get myself to be in the box. So what I want to do is engineer my life in such a way that it is more likely that I'm there so that I can spend my energy focused on the creative work that I want to do as opposed to just getting myself to sit down in the first place and focus on the thing I need to focus on.
So I'm obviously making choices and decisions all the time, but I try to -- And I'll show you exactly what I do here -- I try to make it more likely that I make the right decisions. Look, you can always make the decision to blow off everything. So the question is, how do you make it more likely that you make the choice not that you want to make right now but that you know you will have wanted to make when you get to the end of the day? That's the game. Look, why I do all of this is because
I want us, I want myself -- I do this for me, by the way. I'm not some guru from Anapai who descends from his heavenly perch to you mere mortals to share with you the secrets of how to manage your time and then I go back up to my perfect life. That is not me. Right, I struggle with this all the time which is why I wrote this book because I'm trying to figure out how t make the best use of my time. So that when I get to the end of my day and the end of my week and the end of my month and my year and ultimately my life that I look back and I say, "I used my time well. I used my time in a way that represented the values that
I had, and I did my best work." That's what I'm going for.
>> : So you're implying that distractions are bad.
>> Peter Bregman: Yes. I am implying that but some...
>> : What if [inaudible]...
>> Peter Bregman: ...distractions are good.
>> : ...[inaudible]?
>> Peter Bregman: What's that?
>> : When do you think distractions are good?
>> Peter Bregman: So there's two times when I think distractions are good. Can I answer that question in a second and get there organically?
So I can get to my slide. Okay, so the quick answer to how to eat the right amount at a buffet is to go up to the buffet with a salad plate, fill it up with whatever you want to fill it up with, and that's it.
Right? You've created a boundary. I'm going to put whatever I want to put onto the salad plate, and I'm just going to eat what's on the salad plate. It makes it very, very easy. I don't care if you have croutons falling off the top as you're walking leaving a trail of food behind you because it's piled so high. However high it's going to be piled, it probably won't be bigger than your stomach. Right, if you really want to make sure that you're not overeating then choose a plate that is not bigger than your stomach.

Now what's the equivalent of that for time because this is still going to be bigger than the amount of time you have? Your calendar. I do not use my to-do list as a working document throughout the day. I use my calendar. Right? Now there's a couple of reasons for this. First of all there's tremendous power to your calendar. If you decide when and where you're going to do something, you'll do it. If you don't, you probably won't.
Told a bunch of people to write an essay within 48 hours, 33% of them did it. "Tell me when and where you're going to do it." 75% of them did it. Breast self-exam: sometime in the next month, 53% of them did it.
"When and where in the next month you're going to do it," 100% of them did it. Exercise: they did great studies. I'll tell you why exercise is so important to you. I'll show you pictures of terrible disease you'll get if you don't do exercise. I'll give you instructions step by step of exactly what to do about exercise, all the benefits. There will be an increase of 39% of you doing exercise. Right? If I don't do any of that, I don't tell you any reason, I don't support this in any way, I just tell you to tell me when and where you're going to work out. 91% increase in exercise. Right? We waste a lot of energy trying to convince ourselves of things. Just put them in your calendar and you'll do them.
Drug addicts on withdrawal. This is my favorite, right. Drug addicts on withdrawal, tell them to write an essay before 5 P.M.? Surprise, surprise. None of them did it. Right? Same drug addicts on withdrawal,
"Tell me when and where you're going to write the essay." 80% of them did it. Right? Huge, huge change if you decide when and where you're going to do things.
So here's my eighteen minutes process: five minutes in the morning, a minute each hour and five minutes in the evening. In the five minutes in the morning I do two things. I ask myself what can I realistically accomplish in my five areas of focus? What can I realistically accomplish in my five areas of focus? And I look at that sixth box todo list and then I transfer those things into my calendar. So my calendar gets filled with everything. I could talk about e-mail forever, but what I do with e-mail is -- And maybe we can do some of this in the question and answer. I slot into my calendar three 30minute sessions, one in the morning, one in the afternoon and one in the evening, of e-mail and I bulk process my e-mail. Right, it's in my calendar and I bulk process it. I could talk more about that if it's interesting.
Then every hour stop for one minute; you can work the other 59 minutes.
You stop for one minute. I have my watch beep and I take a deep breath and I ask myself two questions, "Am I doing what I most need to be doing right now? Am I being who I most want to be right now?" Right, those questions are distractions, by the way, that are positive, productive distractions. They're going to interrupt me in terms of what
I'm doing to ask me whether I'm working on the things that I need to be working on and I'm doing what I need to be doing. Right? Those are really good disruptions.
There's another place, by the way, I'll talk to you about where disruptions are good -- or distractions are good. Five minutes in the evening, these are my learning minutes. "How did my day go? Successes?

Challenges? What did I learn?" And this is where I really think about what's working, what's not working. I look at what I've gotten done. I make changes or keep things the same for the next day. And finally, anyone I need to update, thank, ask a question, share feedback with; this is where I close my day off and I make sure I'm taking care of the relationships that I've been kind of engaged with and making sure that
I'm connected with the people that I need to be connected with. Kind of ties it up.
So, you know, there's some more stuff but I want to stop here because I have to and because we're running out of time. But what I want to -- what I hope this has done is if nothing else has helped you to see that to manage -- to recognize that you're not going to get it all done, to make decisions very, very specifically about what's most important to you and what's not, and then to structure your days, structure your days around those things that are most important and to keep yourself on track. And then, you know, at the end of a day and at the end of a week and a month and a year and your lives, you'll look back and you'll be able to say, you know, "I did those things that were most important to me, that were most, you know, in line with my values. And I was happy with the way I used my time." Thank you very much.
[ Applause ]
>> Peter Bregman: So I'm happy to answer any questions.
>> : So interesting enough I see you list [inaudible] for a year.
>> Peter Bregman: Right.
>> : [Inaudible] why don't you think about the shorter term like a month or a week as you decided what to do in the day?
>> Peter Bregman: I do sometimes do that. I do sometimes think about,
"What is this month about?" For the most part I think, you know, it was a compromise for me between saying, "What is my life about?" which I feel is just too big a question and I don't know how to answer. And it changes anyway, and I don't really know what my purpose in life is but
I'll probably know at the end. And then, you know, a year seemed like the right chunk. And by the way like a lot of this stuff, I just kind of am figuring this out as I go along, right, so I'm looking at research. I'm trying things. And one of the messages that I want to leave you with also is, don't feel like you have to do everything perfectly, exactly to fit the system. That's that not what I'm about.
Like play with this. Incorporate what works for you. And begin to create some structure that's useful. To me -- So if a month is useful for you, I would say use a month also. But I think there's something useful -- You know, we think in terms of years. Performance reviews are in terms of years. Goals are in terms of years. It's a way of thinking.
It's a discreet, clear moment of time that we can accomplish a reasonably large amount of stuff. And so I think about it this way. But there's nothing wrong with breaking it up further.
>> : Is there any reason why you do things at six o'clock? I mean given that list usually encompasses things that are also related to your personal life. Why not...

>> Peter Bregman: Yeah.
>> : ...do it at ten o'clock at night before you go to bed?
>> Peter Bregman: Yeah, I'll use that. I mean I'll -- You know, so for example if I don't say I'm going to stop working at six and go have dinner with my kids, I won't go have dinner with my kids. So I -- But I actually schedule myself after that also, but I just -- I'm not so picky about, you know, the hourly beeps and stuff like that.
>> : Can we talk e-mail for a second?
>> Peter Bregman: Yes.
>> : What's your way to get through it in 30 minutes [inaudible]?
>> Peter Bregman: Okay. So you may have to -- I'm a big fan of emptying your e-mail box, your inbox. This may -- The first time you do this it may take longer. But here was my experience: I went away for vacation, eight days, and I really was off the grid. Right? I didn't answer an email. I didn't check voicemails or anything. So I came back and obviously had hundreds and hundreds of e-mails. All right. So I sat down, I got a cup of tea. I sat down. I took a deep breath, took all the distractions away, and I said, "I'm going to like just do my emails." Right?
In less than three hours, in less than three hours I knocked out all of the e-mails. Right? And I knocked out all those e-mails because first of all I wasn't following every link, pursuing every interest that other people have that they thought I would have. I answered pretty much every e-mail but sometimes just with a thank you. And I just published at Harvard Business Review my process of how to -- you know, of kind of how I go through these e-mails quickly.
But this is what I discovered, the next day and the day after that and the day after that I spent about three hours or more a day on e-mail.
And I thought, "This is crazy. How can I do eight days of e-mails in three hours and then every day after that three hours?" Right? And it's because we do it intermittently. I’m walking to the elevator. I pick out my thing and I'm doing it, and it takes me ten times as long to type on a phone as it does on my laptop, right. So I've stopped answering to the best of my ability -- When I travel, it's a little hard. But I stopped doing e-mail on anything except for my laptop, not an iPad even which takes longer. Right? So I just have an actual computer when I do my e-mail, which also by the way gives me a great break in life not to like always be checking my e-mail, which by the way I found I do whenever I'm uncomfortable. So I'm sitting there and
I'm bored or I'm a crowd of people and they're talking but not to me or, you know, whenever -- like whenever I'm in a moment of discomfort I pick up my e-mail and I do e-mail because it's like a safe place to be.
Right? I don't really want to live life that way, right, but it's very tempting to live life that way because it avoids feeling feelings that are maybe uncomfortable.
I kind of want to feel feelings that are uncomfortable. I want to be able to deal with them. So I kind of started to create these rules like
I'm going to do.... And so what I found was after wiping my inbox clean

the first time, in order to keep it clean that's all it took. Now for you it might take longer.
I have a friend who was saying, "Look, my job is e-mail. I can't get off e-mail." And I said, "That's ridiculous. Like, you do get off email. You can of course get off e-mail." So try this: I said if someone sends you an e-mail and you don't answer for an hour will they notice?
Will they care? Right? And I'll tell you that -- By the way, I've been doing this -- I did this longer than I've told people I've been doing it. I've done this three times a day thirty minutes. Not only did nobody care, nobody noticed. Right? Now sometimes someone needed to get in touch with me quickly. You know what they did? They called. They texted. They found a way. People will find a way to get in touch with you if they want to get in touch with you. And it's this almost, I'll call it a neuroses, right, of saying like -- of worry that we're going to miss something. Or, "We have to get back to someone right away."
Microsoft is a culture, I understand, where you think you have to get back to people right away or there's an expectation to get back right away. You know what, if you take -- if you want to play with this, take two one-hour breaks from e-mail during your day. Just try it. Just during your day at some point for two hours during the day, once in the morning and one in the afternoon, don't do e-mail and see if anybody notices.
Go back to your e-mail after that and respond to all those e-mails. But you will see that you will knock out your e-mails much more efficiently because right now if you're working on something then an e-mail comes in and if you're the least bit uncomfortable with what you're working on. Right? Or you'd like a break because you can't figure out that piece, or it's getting a little hard then how convenient! A work reason has come to stop doing the other thing that you're doing. So, "Let's go do that because I'm being responsible." No, you're distracting yourself.
>> : But people might be noticing it and not reacting to it so that you don't know that people notice.
>> Peter Bregman: That's great. Live with that discomfort.
>> : But many times I notice when [inaudible] doing a hard problem and
I take a break, it's easier to solve that problem.
>> Peter Bregman: Great. I think that's absolutely true. I go to the bathroom several times a day for that very reason. I think that's absolutely true. And I think if you're doing that then that's great.
But then give your mind a break because I can tell you that it's very rare when I'm working on something and then I go straight to e-mail and then I go back to working on something that I've solved it. But if I go up and take a walk or if I, you know, go have a conversation with someone else or I let my wander a little bit then I solve the problem.
So as long as you're doing it intentionally and with that reason in mind, great. It's perfect.
>> : So especially [inaudible] were in like start-up world this like shared open space and feeding each other with IM's and like, really, you know, more like interruption kind of...

>> Peter Bregman: Yeah.
>> : ...[inaudible] more interruption [inaudible] really becoming popular and, you know, people are, you know, they're going away from a model where you're in your office. You have this privacy to work on your problems. You're like, you know, [inaudible] an environment where you're almost like [inaudible]. I mean, I don't know. Think if you were like a stock trader. [Inaudible] you're from New York. How do you deal with that? I mean aren't you -- isn't that your whole job to just always be interrupted then?
>> Peter Bregman: Yeah, so sometimes your job is to be in the midst of a million different transactions. I love by the way that you're like,
"You're from New York. Think about a stock trader. You'll understand that." But, you know, your job may be to move really quickly and do a whole bunch of things at the same time and one right after the other.
You know, most people who are involved in the trading world have three or four screens in front of them. All right.
>> : They have like six actually....
>> Peter Bregman: Yeah, or six screens. And I think that's sort of the nature of that work. Right? And it's actually not multi-tasking.
They're actually single-tasking in a way because what they're doing is they're trying to make a decision and to make a decision they need five different pieces of information. And instead of going -- What they're doing is they know that they're switch-tasking when they're collecting these pieces of information, but they're shortening the amount of time that they need to move from one to the other. So if I have the global currency prices up on one screen and I have the stock market indexes on another screen then instead of having to pull those up I can just quickly look at that and that and that and that and think for a second and make a decision and move. And that's different than multi-tasking.
>> : Yeah, but then you'll also get interrupted, right? Like by...
>> Peter Bregman: Yeah, and I think it's -- You know, I think that's an issue. I mean, a lot of you said that you use IM and that IM is becoming a major way in which we communicate. And this is what I am: I was at the gym the other day. And I was working out. And I was doing this thing where it was like a cable, you know, like the cable. I was kind of punching with a cable. And there was a woman who was standing here. And she could've walked around that way, right, but she was standing here waiting for me to be done. And I noticed and it was distracting, but I said, "If she's choosing to wait then I'll let her wait." Right? And then she said, "Do you mind stopping for a second while I walk through?" Right? And I had like three more to do. And I was like, "Yeah, no I don't mind that at all. Okay, absolutely." And then I stopped and then she walked through, right. But I thought to myself, "Isn't that interesting? What she's basically saying is, 'I would rather you inconvenience yourself than I inconvenience myself. So could you inconvenience yourself while I walk through?'" Right? That was the message that she gave. "I don't want to walk around this way, so I'd rather interrupt you."

When we IM people what we're basically saying is, "I need this information. I want this information so quickly that I don't mind interrupting you in order to get this information right now." And it's really hard to ignore an IM. I hate it. I hate it. I said this to my wife, I was like, "Every time you text I think you're having an affair." Because, you know, she's -- I don't know if the rest of you feel this but it's like -- Who has a phone? Can I borrow your phone? So you're sitting there, and you're talking. [Inaudible], "Yeah." And they're like "Beep, beep." And it's like [fake laughing]. "Yeah. What was that, sweetie?" It's like, "What? Who was that? Who are you laughing with?" It makes me very, very uncomfortable. It makes me want to e-mail.
So it's -- I just -- I find those kinds of distractions -- For me I try very, very hard not to do that to people because I don't want to -- if
I could at all wait. And we're getting into this culture where there's this sense that we have to respond and get answers right away. And I think it's worth pausing for a millisecond, pausing enough time to go silk, milk, water, right? Pausing just long enough to say, "Do I really need this piece of information immediately or can I send it in an email and get it back when they're going to e-mail?" Now the problem is we have so e-mails in our inboxes -- How many of you have more than 100 e-mails in your inboxes? Okay, so I'm afraid to e-mail you because I think it's going to get lost and it probably will because you have so many e-mails. It's so easy for an e-mail to get lost. You know, my sister-in-law said, "Don't e-mail me anymore. It's not a reliable way to communicate with me. If you want to get me, text me." I'm thinking,
"What happens if you tell that to everyone?"
Right? "You're going to have like 150 texts coming in a minute. How do you do that? I mean, I know you have the unlimited program but still."
Does that answer your question-ish? Maybe. We both forgot what your question was, but was it entertaining?
>> : Your title is "18 Minutes" [inaudible]. So far you've told me about five minutes. What's the rest [inaudible]?
>> Peter Bregman: Oh, no. This was the last five minutes. You have to add them up. So there's five minutes in the morning, a minute each hour. Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen. And then five minutes in the evening. Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen.
>> : [Inaudible].
>> Peter Bregman: So what's that?
>> : It's just [inaudible].
>> Peter Bregman: Yeah, right. Exactly. I'm just making sure I can count up to 18.
>> : So, so I [inaudible]. So when you do exercise do you do
[inaudible] tasking so [inaudible] something else? Like listen to a radio?
>> Peter Bregman: So do I do -- You really want to multi-task. You

really want me to give you permission to multi-task. You're finding a way for me to give you permission to multi-task. So I was at the gym the other day, and I saw a guy with three Blackberries. I was like,
"What do you have three Blackberries for?" I said, "I don't know you. I apologize. I'm just -- I'm curious....
>> : It's okay [inaudible]...
>> Peter Bregman: "Why do you have three Blackberries?" It's okay if he's not looking at them. But he goes, "Well, one of them personal, one of them is business and the other one is in case those break down." I mean, really? Really? And the truth is you try it. You work out.
Listen...
>> : [Inaudible]
>> Peter Bregman: Wait. Try it. Work out while your listening to music and then work out, do a muscle work out when you're listening to music, and then do a muscle work out when you're just working out and see what the difference is. Because I could tell you that when you're just working out, your form is going to be better. Your -- Because your mind is doing something. But there's another piece to all this and it's why
I returned my iPad.
So I returned my iPad. And the reason I returned my iPad -- And I'm not just telling this to you because you're Microsoft. I really did return my iPad. And the reason -- And it was great because I wrote an article about it, and then there was this great article that was on the front page of AOL, the front screen of AOL, saying, "Man returns iPad in favor of boredom." The reason I returned my iPad is because I found that I was filling every empty moment with something. And what I was realizing is there's this incredible useful activity that my brain does when it's not doing other stuff. Right? My brain wanders. It's getting creative. I come up with new ideas. Your brain does things when it's bored, but we don't let our brains get bored. We're constantly producing things, and that makes us less smart and less creative and ultimately less efficient and less productive.
So I don't want a tool that's going to fill up my empty spaces. And in fact eventually what I did was I traded my iPad -- I bought an iPad 2 after I returned my iPad 1. And that's because it's totally different because it's thinner and it opens faster. It was like a totally different thing. I mean it was like I totally understood why I returned my first one, but, you know, the second one made sense. So now I'm in the process of getting rid of that second one because it's tempting.
Like willpower, you shouldn't relay on willpower. And I relied on willpower not to buy another iPad. That's what happens.
But what I found with my iPad now is that I'm looking at my iPad and what I really what I want to do is read books because that's the behavior I want to encourage in myself. Right? I want to read more books. I don't want to watch more "Weeds." And what I found with my iPad is I'll start to read a book and then I get -- like the book will get a little boring or I'll get a little tired or I'll hear like an email come in or maybe I'll even imagine that I hear an e-mail come in.
And I'll say, "Well I might as well check e-mail. And I'll check email." And, look, there's an e-mail. And then I'll start doing e-mail.

And I'm in bed at nine o'clock and I'm wanting to go to sleep and that's why I'm reading. Right? And it's like 9:15 and I'm doing this email. And then I see there's a link, and "Oh," and then I go to the link. And then I go to the web and then I start to do something on the web. And then I'm on the web, I might as well check out Netflix. And finally it's like two in the morning and I've watched five episodes of
"Weeds."
Right? And that's not how I want to spend my time. So I don't want a device that lets me do that. I want a Kindle that will let me read a book, and if I don't want to read a book it'll put me to sleep. And that's what I want a good book to do. I want it to put me to sleep. Not that my book will put you to sleep. I think it will really keep you energized and engaged. And I don't want to....
But I -- So I think, you know, it's amazing how we do things that we think are to our advantage that actually works against us. You know, I got the American Express Platinum card, in part, because it let me get into Delta Crown Clubs. And, you know, I travel a lot so I thought,
"Oh, it'd be great to get into Delta...." Well, now I'm finding a) I'm trying to arrange flights so that I can be Delta so I can use the Crown
Club. Total waste of energy and time. And then worse, I go to the Delta
Crown Club and I eat like, "Yeah, there's food. Right? There's food."
So I'm eating like chocolate-covered -- In fact I was in Atlanta two days ago. I gave a speech in Atlanta. And not only do they have the yogurt-covered pretzels but they had all these like Bird cookies from the Bird cookie company. Oh, it's terrible. So then I eat it all. And then I come out feeling stuffed going, "I paid for that." Like, "What was I thinking? I should cancel my card. Cancel the Delta Crown Club.
Sit in the damn terminal like everybody else and not eat. And I'll spend less money. I'll waste less time, and I'll be happier." But we do these things because they're tempting, and they're not in our best interest. And there's so many things like that.
Right, there's so many things like that that we do because we can, because they're tempting, because they seem like they're great but we want to eat in the moment is not what we want to have eaten. What we want to do in the moment is not what we want to have done. And we have to manage our lives in such a way that it makes it more likely that we're going to do the things that we want to have done.
That's the game.
>> : So [inaudible]. So people are so used to you responding fast and you [inaudible].
>> Peter Bregman: Wait, you have to say that again a little slower.
>> : So [inaudible] people that respond so fast.
>> Peter Bregman: People respond so fast.
>> : Yeah. And if you're not responding [inaudible], you get lost. So it's so competitive, right. They want to [inaudible]. They want you to respond back so that they know things. So how would you manage that?
>> Peter Bregman: I would say getting lost might be a good thing in

that situation. No, really. Like pause for a second and go, "Do I need to be in this?" You know there was a great really, really powerful leader at Goldman Sachs was a client of mine for a very long time. And he was a really, really strong leader, and he was really quiet. And what he would do is brilliant. He would sit there, and he would say nothing as everybody was going back and forth. "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." You know, right, they were just going off and they were talking. And they had all the opinions and all of a sudden. And he would just sit there and he would let it all fly by. This is the e-mails that are going back and forth and everyone's competing in, etcetera. And meanwhile what he's actually doing is he's listening and he's collecting a lot information. And then it's amazing because people are raising their voices and they're talking and they're talking to each other. And then he goes [clearing throat sound], "You know, I have a thought." And he spoke like -- British accent which helped. And he spoke really low. And everybody stopped and everybody listened to him. And what he said was always really, really smart. And it's not just because he was really, really smart. It's because he wasn't playing the game of competing for attention and conversation while everybody else was, but he was taking stuff in and developing thoughts. And then all he had to do, in effect, was send one e-mail, he had to say one thing, and it had a greater impact than what everybody else said. And in fact, people started to get pissed off because they were like, "I said that." "No, but I said that like five times ago."
Right? "I said something very similar to that." Right?
But no one's really listening because everybody's competing. You don't want to be in that competition. It's much better to get lost in it and then to step up and make your point which has the benefit of the education of everything else you've heard everybody else say. And you're a star. And you haven't gotten distracted by a million e-mails.
It is always better not to play -- It is always better to find a way not to play the game that everybody else is playing. If you play the game that everybody else is playing, all you're doing is you're increasing your pool of competition. And I do this by necessity because
I'm not smart enough or fast enough or good enough and I don't have enough confidence to think that I could win in a fair game. Like, I don't want to race a race that everyone else is racing. Like the idea of going to business school -- I did an executive MBA. But the idea of going to business school and then applying for a job when everybody else who just went to business school is applying for the same job, and they all look just like you because they've all taken the same courses and -- That just didn't seem smart. Right? I'd rather find a job that nobody else could find because they're looking for someone that's not like anybody else around me.
I don't have enough confidence in myself to want to compete with everybody else. So you've got to find a way to play a game differently than everybody else that plays to your strength.
>> : Do you have kids?
>> Peter Bregman: Three kids.
>> : How are you...
>> Peter Bregman: Four, six and ten.

>> : Because -- Okay.
>> Peter Bregman: They're awesome. Do you want to hear about them? No.
>> : I want to hear more about your...
>> Peter Bregman: A little bit but not really.
>> : So kids these days are all about this.
>> Peter Bregman: Right.
>> : Right? So how do you...
>> Peter Bregman: Our kids a little young still for that. We've...
>> : Ten-year-old.
>> Peter Bregman: The ten-year-old, we've really struggled. She's really wanted a smart phone. "I want a smart phone. I want a phone. I want a phone. I want a phone." We finally got her a really, really stupid phone. And we got her an iPod Nano. So she can listen to music which is really good in helping her go to sleep, and we got a little speaker for it so that she's not sitting there with it in her ears.
We've -- And we have a phone that makes texting not so easy. And she doesn't make very many phone calls. So I think we're trying to balance that like -- She is probably watching this -- she thinks she's in the technology but we've kind of engineered it so it's less likely that she'll be like this. And it's [inaudible]. Now what she is in is books.
She's a voracious reader and she loves reading books. And that's a little hard sometimes because I kind of want her to eat and not read at the same time. But in terms of terrible habits? That's not so bad. All right, I'd rather encourage her reading that like texting. So I don't know what I'm going to do when she's 13. Maybe tie her to a radiator.
I was kidding. I was kidding. [Inaudible]....
>> : [Inaudible] and do you let your kids watch TV?
>> Peter Bregman: What's that?
>> : Do you watch TV and do you let your kids...
>> Peter Bregman: That's a great question. I love these questions. You guys are awesome. So we have a television in the house that's also hooked up to our computer, so it's really a computer television. One television in the house and it doesn't have cable. But it kind of does, it has like eight channels. You know it has the normal -- I don't know if anything is normal these days. But it has the QWR channels; it has
ABC, NBC, CBS, you know. And that's I think by mistake because the cable company hasn't shut them off because we're not paying for it. And it's got PBS. So they do watch some PBS. I have to say that I periodically -- Like there's some shows I really like. And so it's like
I recognize it's not in my best interest to watch "Modern Family." And
I recognize it's kind of embarrassing to say that I'm sometimes moved by "Glee." And I -- But, you know -- So I periodically watch shows. But

it's not -- Look, there are two things I was not allowed to do when I was growing up, two things I was not allowed to do. I was not allowed to watch TV except for two hours on the weekends and then I got 25 cents for every half-hour I didn't watch. Wow, I wonder why I started social engineering. And I wasn't allowed to eat sugar and stuff like that, except like an ice cream sundae on the weekends. Right? What do you think the two things I'm naturally addicted to are? Right?
Television and sugar. So I don't want to do that to my kids also. I mean my parents did a beautiful job bringing me up, and I'm not criticizing them. And this is the issue with video. But I would say that I don't say no to anything pretty much, but we just try to make it so that it's not the center of everything. It's not the natural move to just go and watch a bunch of TV.
You know when we do watch it? We watch movies in the car. And the way I sort of figure -- I mean, we miss car time because car time is great to talk and etcetera, but so far it's all just been screaming anyway so I don't really miss it. And they're sitting doing nothing anyway so I'm not worried about them becoming obese. Like they're going to be sitting and doing nothing anyway; they might as well use that as TV time. So that's sort of how we manage that.
Anything else you want to know about my life? Thank you very much.
[ Applause ]
>> Peter Bregman: And I think I'm signing books here.