⚒️ Toolbox #5: Empathy Science, Instant Energy & The Flipped Calendar

🛠️ Welcome to the Weekly Toolbox. Our most practical resources, tools and strategies so you can level up each week in minutes.

1. What scientific concept would improve everybody’s cognitive toolkit? | The Edge

The Edge has been an intellectual playground and publication since 1996. Each year they have an annual question they ask the world’s most prominent thinkers. This was the annual question in 2011 and our favourite response is below:

There is so much gold. You can should read all 165 responses here.

2. Resetting your sleep cycle | Andrew Huberman

Sleep is inarguably the cornerstone habit to performance and wellbeing. There is no compensation for sleep deprivation. If your sleep is out of rhythm, you may need a reset. Try this practice from Andrew Huberman:

• Get up the same (clock) time each day

• Get 10-45min of exercise outside, facing the sun

3. Get better at empathy with brain science | BrainTools #65

This episode dives into empathy in the brain, how it works and what makes us empathetic. But that’s not all. We give you 4 evidence-based tools to build your empathy muscle:

• Tool 1: Emotional labelling

• Tool 2: Permission-based empathy

• Tool 3: EQ-based Literature

• Tool 4: Focusing on what

Listen on Apple or Spotify.

🤔 Brain Riddle

What disappears as soon as you say its name?

Find the answer at the bottom of the newsletter!

☕️ Espresso Breath

Re-energise yourself with just your breath

Feeling flat? Put that 3rd coffee down and try the Espresso Breath.

This breathing pattern leverages your bottom-up neurophysiology to stimulate your brains energy systems, giving you near-instant alertness and focus. Perfect for that 3pm energy slump at your desk.

Implementation

1. Sit up straight and tuck your chin into your neck

2. Rapidly exhale aiming for a 2 x a second cadence with 30 exhales total (this should feel like you’re ‘pumping’ your lungs)

3. After 30 exhales, exhale completely and hold your breath until you experience some slight discomfort

This breathing pattern activates your sympathetic nervous system via the vagal nerve. This in turn stimulates the levels of attention-enhancing neurotransmitters in your brain, giving you instant energy & focus.

Simply put, it’s like an espresso in breath form.

Further Reading

• The Operating Manual for your Nervous System

 📅 The Flipped Calendar

Let me ask you a question: where does all your time go? All 168 hours in your week?

You might have an approximate answer. But not a specific breakdown. And this is a problem. If we don’t know where our time goes, then we don’t control it. It just happens and we don’t get it back.

That’s why you should use the flipped calendar. Your central place of truth for your time, your energy and your attention.

Implementation

1. Put all your non-work events and tasks in first. Want to watch Netflix? Put it in. If you anchor yourself to the non-work things in your life, then you’re more likely to see work as a subset of life. Not that it is life itself.

2. Then, put all work related events and tasks in the calendar gaps.

3. Make all the tasks incredibly specific. The more specific you make it, the less ambiguity there is. And the less ambiguity there is, the more likely you’ll actually do it.

4. Use this as a guide, not a rule. This is not something that you can “fail”. It’s simply giving yourself parameters to increase the chances you use your time, and it doesn’t use you.

5. Review at the end of each week. What gave me energy? What drained my energy? Is this how I wanted to spend my time? Reflection becomes your feedback loop for iteration.

As Harmon Okinyo says: “Time is a currency you can only spend once, so be careful with how you spend it.”

Research & Further Reading

• The Past Year Review | Tim Ferris

• Timeshielding | Ness Labs