According to scientists, sleep, exercise and good nutrition are proven ways to scale back stress and increase productivity Harvard Business Review. This could appear easy enough, but over half of employees report being relatively unproductive at work, per McKinsey & Company. What else exactly is involved in unleashing creativity and optimizing performance in the workplace or in pursuit of one other profession goal?
Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Lewis, renowned creator of such hits as: Moneyball: the art of winning an unfair game, Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine and recently Going Infinite: the rise and fall of a latest tycoonregarding crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried, is exploring just that in his latest class Master class.
The class not only explores Lewis’s unique approach to masterful storytelling – “which will improve your life in so many ways,” says the creator – but also delves into the processes that result in productivity and success in your writing endeavors and beyond.
“At the core of my best self is love. It’s love for what I do; it is the love of heroes, for better or for worse.”
One vital element? According to Lewis, this could mean creating an environment conducive to success. You must focus on this space and get involved in it, says the creator, adding that you must select a location “where you feel safe.” For Lewis, which means working in an office surrounded by photos of his family. “The best self is love,” he explains. “It’s the love of what I do; it’s love for the characters, for better and for worse. It’s the love of storytelling. It’s the love of interacting with the reader.”
Additionally, Lewis suggests minimizing all potential distractions: Take your mobile phone off your desk “because it’s only a matter of time before it buzzes or rings” and consider putting on headphones to take heed to a mixtape. “The key to all of this is the feeling of an impossible break,” Lewis says. After a while, this playlist may even trigger the Pavlovian effect and enliven any work session, he adds, admitting that he wrote the entire The Unfinished Project Down Frozen“Let it go.”
“Routine is useful, but the moment it becomes a superstition… it becomes a crutch.”
Lewis also notes that we will “learn from the smartest players in baseball about the power of routine,” but the trick is establish loose routine — and let’s make sure it doesn’t begin to hassle us. “We need to emphasize the difference between routine and superstition,” he explains. “Routine is useful, but the moment it becomes a superstition… it becomes a crutch.”
Lewis prefers to put in writing at the starting of the day because “your mind processes problems while you’re sleeping” or at the end of the day (he sometimes worked from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. before he had children). Otherwise, Lewis is not very precious about it: “Routine will put me in a chair. Don’t get up until I’ve written 1,000 words. Let it be the floor, not the ceiling. If you can go beyond that, then that’s great.”
“I know exactly where I want to go, so there are no obstacles. When I start the next day, it will be clear where I will start.”
Another perhaps surprising tip from the creator is this “stop before you truly finish” — basically, you want to interrupt a task mid-process so that it’s easier to come back to it later. “I know exactly where I want to go, so there are no obstacles,” explains Lewis. “When I start the next day, it will be clear where I will start.”
And a few words of wisdom at the end for those who focus on writing? While you can “be in almost any mood when you begin writing,” it’s better to edit when you’re in a good one. “Write about caffeine, edit about wine” This is Lewis. “Don’t write about wine and don’t edit about caffeine. This is the wrong approach. This is a very bad way.”