Minds and Mics

In this episode of Minds & Mics, Nick chats with author Oliver Burkeman about the imperfectionist mindset and how this counterintuitive idea can help with everything from perfectionism and indecisiveness to procrastination and imposter syndrome.

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Meditations for Mortals: https://www.oliverburkeman.com

EPISODE TOPICS

• The Problem with Self-Improvement
• Function Follows Form
• What Is Imperfectionism?
• The Oliver Burkeman Thesis Statement
• Synthesizing the Achiever and the Enjoyer
• Oliver's 4-Hour Workday Experiment
• The Virtues of Deliberate Constraint
• The Psychology of Indecisiveness and Overwhelm
• Daily-ish as the Antidote to Perfectionism
• Scruffy Hospitality as the Antidote to Imposter Syndrome

Nick and Daron discuss what mindfulness is exactly and how to incorporate more mindfulness into your own life (without sitting on a yoga mat repeating a mantra for hours).

Show Notes:

• What is mindfulness?
• The trappings of mindfulness
• Mindfulness as exercise for your attention
• Mindfulness vs mindfulness meditation
• Formal vs ordinary mindfulness
• Mindfulness as attention management
• Giuseppe's Italian restaurant Columbus Ohio
• Are mindfulness apps overrated?
• Daron’s personal mindfulness practice
• Shinzen Young
• Daron's approach to attentional cross-training
• Obstacles to starting a mindfulness practice
• The two muscles of mindfulness
• “Mindfulness is a no-lose game that feels like a no-win game.”
• The spiritual aspects of mindfulness

You can follow Daron Larson here:

• Website
• Twitter

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Piers Steel, one of the world's leading researchers on the science of procrastination, explains how to think about procrastination, what really causes it, and the changes we can make to do it a little less.

Show Notes

• Meta-analysis
• David Hume, An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding
• The four factors in procrastination:
  1. Values
  2. Self-confidence
  3. Impulsiveness
  4. Reward delay
• Task aversiveness
• Subjective Expected Utility Theory
• The Procrastination Equation
• The Marshmallow Test
• Steven Covey
• Aldus Huxely, Brave New World Revisited
• Roy Baumeister and willpower research
• Presatiation
• Drive Theory
• Learned Helplessness
• SMART Goals
• The Attention Economy
• Procrastination vs Laziness
• How to help kids with procrastination

You can learn more about Piers and his work here:

• Procrastinus (Website)
• The Procrastination Equation (Book)

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Nick and Daniel trade off describing their favorite myths and misconceptions about insomnia and sleep.

Show Notes:

• Does everyone need 8 hours of sleep per night?
• Should I go to bed at the same time every night?
• The crucial difference between feeling tired and feeling sleepy
• If I’m not getting 8 hours of sleep, am I at risk for major health issues?
• Do I need to avoid blue light before bed?
• Do things cause insomnia or beliefs about things? See also: Nick's Complete Guide to Insomnia
• The problem with sleep hygiene
• Sleep is more about what you don’t do than what you do.
• Sleep effort and the perfect metaphor for insomnia
• Is it important to get an even number of sleep cycles?
• Beware the Sleep Hygiene Industrial Complex
• If I have a big day coming up, should I get into bed early?
• Can I pay off my long-term sleep debt?
• How important is it to understand what caused my insomnia?
• Triggering factors vs maintaining factors in insomnia
• Insomnia and threat-monitoring
• Is insomnia even a sleep disorder?
• Does sleep quality deteriorate with age?
• Should I avoid exercise in the evenings?
• Intention is everything when it comes to sleep.

You can follow Daniel Erichsen online in the following places:

• Podcast
• YouTube
• Twitter

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In this episode, I talk with author, professor, and writing coach Uddipana Goswami about her practice of Life Writing and how it helped her to process emotional struggles in her life.

You can learn more about Uddipana and her work on her personal website.

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If you enjoyed this episode of Minds&Mics and want to get notified whenever new episodes are released, you can join Nick's free weekly newsletter here →