Let's keep in mind, you know, there are 10,000 really sharp, incredibly well-paid people working for multi-billion dollar companies spending, you know, 60 hours a week thinking about how they can pound your amygdala more effectively. So you've got a fairly substantial resource coming at you wanting to keep your attention. And people keep talking about how do I stop doom scrolling, you know, oh god, there I was on my phone again and I couldn't get off. So what you have to do is build things that are more attractive than the doom scrolling over time.
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Welcome to Prof G on getting your life together, a special series where we're joined by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, Stanford educators and bestselling authors of Designing Your Life and most recently, How to Live a Meaningful Life. Gentlemen, welcome and thanks for doing this.
Yeah, thanks for having us.
We went to our listeners with one question: What's the biggest thing holding your life back right now? Today, we try to help. We talk about burnout, distraction, purpose, and building a life that feels more intentional. All right, let's get into it. Our first question is, how do you build a meaningful, intentional life when your attention is constantly being pulled apart by phones, doom scrolling, and the attention economy? So, just some data here to set the table. In 2025, Americans reported spending an average of 5 hours and 16 minutes per day on their phones, a 14% increase since 2024. A study by Vision Direct projects that the average American adult will spend 44 years of their life looking at screens. In 2025, researchers found that randomly removing internet access from smartphones produced a range of benefits including improved mental health, subjective well-being, and the ability to sustain attention. So, Bill, you go first and then I'll ask for Dave to build on it.
Yeah, you know, this attention economy, and it's horrible. I mean, I'm teaching at Stanford and the undergrads can't get off their phone. The grad students can't get off their phone. We're really focused on trying to figure out how to help them with that. So, one of the things is this whole doom scrolling thing. It's a dopamine hit. Every time you get a new page, it's a dopamine hit. So, my advice is let's get on a better dopamine diet because, you know, we're talking in our new book about flow, about wonder and awe. If you can get into a flow state, that's a dopamine hit. If you can have an experience of wonder, and wonder is literally all around. You just got to look for it a different way, that's another way of rerouting this need to have this dopamine hit. It's just a better dopamine diet to be on wonder, awe, and flow. And that expands your access to things like nature, things like relationships, things like other people in the room. I think we should design a little app that just gives you that sort of a sense of flow because then you'll get off the phone, walk outside and notice how beautiful, you know, the sunset is, touch grass, so to speak.
Well, you know, I think let's keep in mind, you know, there are 10,000 really sharp, incredibly well-paid people working for multi-billion dollar companies spending, you know, 60 hours a week thinking about how they can pound your amygdala more effectively. So you've got a fairly substantial resource coming at you wanting to keep your attention and people keep talking about how do I stop doom scrolling, you know, oh god, there I was on my phone again and I couldn't get off. And so if you start there, you are doomed because it's too late. And so what you really need to do, there's a concept in the theory of replacement. You can't stop anything. Like don't think of a blue horse right now. Whatever you do, do not think of a blue horse. Certainly not a blue horse with a pink mane. No one. No blue horses with pink manes. Not now at all. You're screwed. So what you have to do is build things that are more attractive than the doom scrolling over time. And it's not going to happen right away because again that dopamine hit is there. So this is where the whole design thinking model of prototype iteration. We say set the bar low and clear it. Iterate, iterate, iterate. So if you start having these habits and practices, or second, we talk about less about life as a project and more as life as a practice. So I find these little experiences, and it's a lighter lift than you think, you know, to drop into what we call the flow world, which is the present moment, and find ways to experience your humanity, whether it's in nature, whether it's music, whether it's, you know, just enjoying what you're actually doing rather than being worried about what the screen has to say to you. You start doing that more often, then what you actually start building is a different neural pathway that's attracted to this other behavior, and you can start having the good stuff crowd the bad stuff out. The bottom line is the good stuff has to crowd the bad stuff out. If you're all leveraged on stopping bad stuff, you're doomed.
Yeah, just to add to that, it's not just young people. I'm addicted to my phone. It's difficult for me not to pick it up and check my text messages right now. So I empathize with... I think big tech is essentially evolving a new species of asocial and asexual males who opt for relationships that are frictionless. And the hacks I've tried, somewhat unsuccessful... well, sort of. It sounds lame. I'm trying to watch more TV. I'm just... put my phone away. There's so much amazing streaming media content. I'm trying to get more into '80s music again. I love '80s music. I'm trying to listen to more music and whenever I do these things I try and put my phone away. And I have decided, and this is hard for me, I no longer sleep with my phone next to me. I used to do that. And then when I go to dinner, the other thing I would say, just more men aged 20 to 30 are spending less time outdoors than prison inmates. And I realize there's some money involved in here, but I'm trying to say yes to more. I'm going out tonight for dinner and drinks with two guys who are in town who I don't especially know, quite frankly. I'm not sure I especially want to know them, but they invited me out so I said yes. And I'm going to turn my phone off and I'm just going to go out and, you know, probably, you know, drink and eat and not be on my phone.
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Let's move to question number two. Our next question is about productivity and discipline. Why is it so hard to stick to routines that we know are good for us? There's a popular stat that says habits take 21 days to stick. But according to newer research from UCL, habits actually take 66 days on average to form. That 21 days figure is a myth traced back to a plastic surgeon observing post-op patients adjusting to their new appearance. Bill, thoughts on productivity and discipline?
We do a reframe in the class, and that it's going from trying to do time management, because I can't make more time, that's just not possible, to managing your energy. Because really what your experience is, is what you pay attention to. What you pay attention to is what your neurons are firing on. So that's the energy you put into something. And if you can map, we do an energy map. What do we do on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday? We look at all the events that occur regularly. We look at whether they're energy sustaining or giving, or whether they're energy draining. Like my budget meeting is an energy draining meeting. My office hours with students, positive energy every time. So once you know where you're actually spending your energy, which is your attention, then you can start moving things around. You know, if you do, there's a thing in psychology called the peak-end effect. The only thing you'll remember in the week is the peak thing that happened and the last thing that happened. So I manage those things in my week to make sure I have a peak experience somewhere around Wednesday or Thursday. And my Friday experience is always a positive exit. So when I come to the end of the week, I go, 'How was the week?' I go, 'Hey, it was pretty good. I really managed my attention, my energy, and I got a lot of stuff done because I was paying attention to the things that give me a positive boost.' So that's how we reframe it. It's energy, not time management.
I think the whole issue of, you know, repetition when you're trying to build a habit, you know, you have this goal in mind. We're very goal-driven. It's all about outcomes. It's all about impact. And you drop the ball or it doesn't work and you go, 'Oh, crap.' You know, and then I did it again. And then you're depressed. What do you do? You want to go look for another dopamine hit. I feel even worse. So one of the things we really emphasize on this prototyping mindset is you can prototype anything. And so, you know, we'll actually have a thing on a life balance dashboard. We have an exercise to rebalance your life. You know, we kind of go, what's one little thing you could do a little different for two weeks and then decide did that work for you, you know, and so you create a low bar and clear it. Everybody's trying to get inspired to become their Olympic self. We were talking in Chicago, Chicago Ideas Geek years ago, and I'm talking to, you know, Amy, the captain of the US soccer team and two-time gold medal winner. I said, 'Can you be your Olympic best all the time?' She goes, 'Oh god, are you kidding? You just hope to peak the right week of the year, you know.' So we're all shooting for things that are kind of unattainable. So if you say, 'Okay, I'm going to try this one little thing, see how it works at the end, revalue, I'll try it again.' I had a small group, young professionals group working on these kind of things. Said, 'Okay, I think we could handle getting together for six weeks.' So we got together for six weeks. Conversation wasn't done. I said, 'Do you guys want to keep going?' They kind of go, 'Well, yeah.' I said, 'Should we just keep meeting on Tuesday nights?' They kind of go, 'Oh, no, no, I can't do that.' I go, 'Okay, well, how long you want to... another six weeks?' We did a six-week renewal 50 times. We were together like four years and 35 six-week renewals. And I said, 'Can we just commit to this?' They kind of go, 'No, I can't handle it.' So that's fine, whatever it takes. So you really do need to kind of game yourself and recognize don't set yourself up for failure. Take the time and make the process of acquiring the habit as successful as having the habit itself. If you declare yourself a loser too soon, you'll quit.
Yeah. It's interesting. I feel like I lack the discipline for habits. What I try to do is, I find deadlines are great for lazy people. I'm fundamentally a lazy person and so I like deadlines, hard deadlines that I commit to, whether it's my publisher giving me a deadline or they'll take back their advance. One of the things I really enjoy about teaching, you really can't be late for your class. I mean, if you do, there's 180 people who spend $7,000 to take that class who do not. That's good for me. So I like that. And this again is a story of privilege. I have a trainer because when he shows up at 8, I got to go outside and train. So I like self-imposed deadlines. The other thing I find is really powerful is a cohort. And that is if you decide you want to run, try and find someone else to run with. All right, we're meeting at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow. You know, if I'm hungover and it's just me running, I'm not running, but you know, my buddy Dave's out there in Regent's Park at 8:55 stretching. So challenges with each other. I find that the peer pressure also works pretty well. Any follow-up thoughts on that, guys?
Well, yeah. Structurally, I learned that I'm both undisciplined and a workaholic and I finally came to the conclusion maybe alcoholics shouldn't work in liquor stores. And I was a startup guy and I worked infinite hours and my father died when I was a child. I wanted to be a good dad because I didn't have one and I'm working 90 hours a week and I can't stop. So I actually finally found my way to begin. I went into gig work, you know, in my late 30s and I outsourced responsibility to my client, which was I had very tight scopes of work. I concocted lots of deliverables with deadlines just like you're describing in order that when I was done the client would say stop, go home and have dinner with your kids, we're not paying you anymore. And I didn't have the capacity to stop myself. So I delegated it to my customers and that is what I call don't try to work through it, work around it. When you're failing at something over and over again, if you accept your foil and design around it, I have to run with friends because I can't get my own ass out of bed, then you start designing a life where the game of life is learn how to play you to win.
Accept your limitations and design for them. Don't keep trying to overcome them.
