Keynote Speaking
To date, I’ve given hundreds of talks in front of tens of thousands of people—including one of the most-viewed TED Talks of all time.
A few places I’ve spoken:
“A productivity mastermind.”
“A quirky and energetic guide through the productivity thicket”
“The most productive man you’d ever hope to meet.”
Transform how you and your audience think about productivity in the workplace and beyond with my practical and tactical advice for becoming more productive.
Speaking Topics
01How to Calm Your Mind
I had to face a period of burnout and anxiety before learning a critical lesson: that the path to greater resilience, reduced anxiety, and greater productivity runs directly through calm. In fact, in an anxious world, investing in calm can be considered the best “life hack” around.
Through speaking with experts from around the world and digging into the research, I discovered that drawing on calm to overcome burnout and anxiety helps build a deeper, more expansive reservoir of energy to draw from throughout the day. More remarkably, the pursuit of calm leads us to become more engaged, focused, and deliberate — while making us more productive and satisfied with our lives.
Drawing from my own struggles and experiments, this story-driven, science-backed talk guides audiences through practical ways to find calm in an anxious world. A few topics covered include:
- How investing in calm saves us time by letting us work more deliberately under pressure.
- What burnout is and how to break down the six factors that cause it.
- How to use the power of calm in everyday situations, including during presentations, difficult conversations, and negotiations.
- How we can use the science of “savouring” to sharpen our focus and see meaning behind what we do.
- How the neurochemical dopamine is a primary enemy of calm — and productivity — but can be tamed through a “dopamine fast”.
02How to Get Your Brain to Focus
We’ve never been so busy while accomplishing so little, and we’ve grown increasingly uncomfortable with a lack of stimulation and distraction. Yet the research is clear: the state of our attention determines the state of our lives. In other words, if our attention is constantly overwhelmed, so are we.
Drawing from the latest neuroscientific research, my bestselling book Hyperfocus (in print in 31 languages), and my latest TED Talk, this story-driven, science-backed talk will leave audiences with practical, immediately implementable takeaways. That includes how to:
- Manage their attention to work with greater intention
- Prioritize and determine their most important tasks
- Tame distractions ahead of time to focus more deeply
- Train their mind to become resilient to distraction
- Take advantage of the dot-connecting powers of their brain to work with greater creativity
- Use mind wandering to generate more ideas
- Think more strategically, automatically
03Custom Talk | A Fresh Approach to Productivity
Over the last decade, I have experimented with every productivity tactic under the sun, separating what works from what doesn’t. Drawing on my research, as well as these peculiar productivity experiments—including living in total isolation, using my smartphone for only an hour a day for three months, and meditating for 35 hours a week—this talk will transform how you and your audience think about productivity.
In addition to revealing why productivity is about mastering not only time, but also your attention and energy, this talk offers several practical, tactical ways to get more done every day, so you and your audience walk away with solid productivity techniques you can use immediately.
Personal productivity advice is just that: personal. For this reason, I customize each productivity talk based on what will be most helpful for your audience, choosing from my arsenal of 25 proven-to-work productivity strategies. Some folks benefit the most from strategies to beat procrastination and prioritize what’s important; others from eliminating distractions or tactics for leading their team to become more productive. Whatever it is you’re looking for, I will work with you to find the ideas that resonates the strongest, and help your audience the most.
Workshop for teams
Half-day Productivity Intensive
The four-hour session has three components, all of which weave powerful personal productivity tactics with helpful exercises on how you can get more done. It also includes the occasional fun anecdote from Chris’s productivity project. This workshop is designed especially for busy teams who have limited time to think about productivity.
What makes me different?
01
I keep things practical.
A talk about productivity is kind of pointless when it doesn’t lead to real, lasting change afterward. I design my talks and workshops, from the ground up, to be both practical and tactical, so you’ll get tools you can implement straight after.
03
I bring a fresh perspective.
The most helpful productivity advice doesn’t turn you into some mindless robot—it helps you work on what’s important, with intention. My talks are structured around this new, more human approach to productivity.
02
I cut through the B.S.
There’s a lot of B.S. in the productivity space—advice that sounds good on the surface, but doesn’t work in practice. I’ve filtered through pretty much every productivity tactic under the sun, to separate what works from what doesn’t.
04
I’m kind of a weirdo.
On top of digging into the research and interviewing experts, I’ve conducted countless weird experiments on myself, where I use myself as a guinea pig to become as productive as possible.
Praise for Chris Bailey
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