Marijuana Trumps Blackberries for Productivity… and Amazon Challenge 30 Comments

Written by Tim Ferriss Topics: E-mail Detox, Low-Information Diet, The Book - 4HWW

This guy gets more done than your CTO
(photo credit: Indian Gypsy)

My first article for Huffington Post made it onto the homepage today: Marijuana Trumps Blackberries for Productivity. Here is some food for thought:

Millions of Blackberry users in the US were left without their favorite drug from 8pm EST Tuesday to 6am EST Wednesday last week, when technical problems at service provider Research In Motion cut off wireless e-mail access. Some fumed, but others took a deep breath of relief. The brief escape was relished by a growing number of users who have realized that this digital leash often kills productivity instead of increasing it.

Not convinced? Let’s compare Blackberries to the top anti-productivity product of all-time: good old-fashioned marijuana.

In 2005, a psychiatrist at King’s College in London administered IQ tests to three groups: the first did nothing but perform the IQ test, the second was distracted by e-mail and ringing phones, and the third was stoned on marijuana. Not surprisingly, the first group did better than the other two by an average of 10 points. The e-mailers, on the other hands, did worse than the stoners by an average of 6 points.

In a digital world of infinite distraction, it is “single-tasking” — shutting out interruption instead of facilitating it — that will save us. What’s the alternative? Checking e-mail once every five minutes, then every minute, then every second? It’s not a scalable coping mechanism.

The world doesn’t hiccup, let alone end, if you check e-mail twice a day instead of twice an hour. If it does, it usually means that your work culture rewards overwork to counter its own ineffectiveness. This is predicated on burnout and not a game worth winning. The next time you get the Crackberry urge, consider the option of being productive instead of being busy. Or, if that’s too abstract, consider grabbing a joint instead — you’ll probably get more done.

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AMAZON CHALLENGE: The 4-Hour Workweek has been hovering around #105 for four days on Amazon, and now it’s officially on-sale! Please help me break the #100 barrier — I can’t let The Official Guide for GMAT Review beat me! If you’re even remotely interested in automating and outsourcing your life, I guarantee you this book will open your eyes to some amazing new options: Please help me break the #100 barrier!

Posted on April 24th, 2007

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30 Responses to “Marijuana Trumps Blackberries for Productivity… and Amazon Challenge”

Billy
April 24th, 2007
4:00 am

Blackberry and email cocaine.

My boss is a coke head when it comes to email. I had the tragic situation where he made me sit and explain why emails were coming to his blackberry and not to his PC and vice versa.
Michael Sherman
April 24th, 2007
9:41 am

Tim,

I did my part and ordered from amazon. Can’t wait to get the book. And, I hope you smash the GMAT Review book and whatever else is in front of you!

Happy book launch.
billy
April 24th, 2007
10:15 am

Bought it on Amazon.co.uk? Does that count?
Productivity: The Berry and the Weed « Changing Way
April 24th, 2007
10:27 am

[...] 24th, 2007 In a digital world of infinite distraction, it is â€œsingle-taskingâ€?… that will save us. That’s what Tim Ferriss tells us. He backs it up as follows. In 2005, a psychiatrist at [...]
tom smith
April 24th, 2007
11:08 am

Firstly, where is the link to the dope head research, anyone can say that “there’s some research that…etc”. I heard some research on Radio 4 once that said people who smoked marijuana were better drivers because paranoia set in and they slowed down ….no link though :-)

Secondly, having read this and agreed, I went to my Apple Mail program and found that the least frequent setting is only one hour!
Jordan M
April 24th, 2007
12:03 pm

Err, I bought it on Amazon but it says it won’t arrive for another 3 or 4 days so I went to Borders and picked it up today. I think I might send the extra copy to my i-banker friend – he needs it
Tim Ferriss
April 24th, 2007
12:49 pm

Thanks so much to all for the support, and please keep it up! Jordan, thanks for rescuing another i-banker from soul-crushing work death. Tom, here is just one link — Google pops up quite a few — to studies, or reports of them in the UK, at King’s College. They seem to have a penchant for studying how e-mail lowers IQ and kills your brain:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/22/email_destroys_iq/
Sonal B.
April 24th, 2007
3:37 pm

As of now, 4:37pm EST your book is at #15 on Amazon’s sales rank!
eric
April 24th, 2007
8:42 pm

here’s the story on BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4471607.stm
Jeff Gardner
April 24th, 2007
10:14 pm

I was so impressed with what I read on Amazon.com about your book (testimonials and reviews), I bought 3. I know 2 business friends who could use it. Can’t wait to get it. Sounds like you’re talking to me! Hope this helps you move on up at Amazon.com! Have a great one! Best, Jeff
Mark Frisk
April 24th, 2007
11:30 pm

Okay. I’m in. Looking forward to reading your book.

It’s at #10 on Amazon at the moment, BTW.
Aaron Bennett
April 25th, 2007
1:24 am

I’m looking forward to read your book and start implementing your genious ideas and I’ll will be promoting you to my network of ppl. Your blog is great – keep it up!
Tim Ferriss
April 25th, 2007
3:40 am

Thanks so much to all of you! More to come soon in the next post…
Paul Campbell
April 25th, 2007
6:07 am

Tim,

I listened to the podcast of your presentation at SXSW, having been previously inspired by Bertrand Russell’s “In Praise of Idleness”:
http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html

I’m currently hovering with my productivity levels, but I’ve managed to master a 20 hour work week, according to Russell’s advice.

I’m following your zen for the email checking and the peace of mind is like a calm sea after a rough storm. I don’t even think the auto-responder is necessary – I’ve been replying twice a day for two weeks now and I don’t think anybody has noticed anything in the difference.

Now I just need to filter out the noise from the blogosphere and get myself off of Netvibes!
Taylor Clan » Blog Archive » CrackBerry
May 3rd, 2007
2:22 pm

[...] Â http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2007/04/24/marijuana-trumps-blackberries-for-productivity-and-a… [...]
Richard Lanoue
May 8th, 2007
1:23 pm

I bought the book at B&N brick and mortar store. I picked it up, read the introduction and immediately headed to the cash register. Devourd the book in 1 sitting. AM now going thrugh the book and implementing the inital steps like getting a Passport and Clear card.
I am simple » Marijuana Trumps Blackberries for Productivity
May 8th, 2007
5:21 pm

[...] Source [...]
Jim (PFT/SCT)
May 8th, 2007
5:30 pm

As a counterpoint to the referenced study, do a Google search on “continuous partial attention”. This seems to be a new skill which many attempt, but only some do well.

I’ve been on conference calls with co-workers and customer employees at the same time as having an out-of-band chat online (eg, IM, IRC) with these same co-workers (excluding the customer) so as to better prepare a response to the customer. I’m sure some of you have done this yourselves. But my manager has surprised me on multiple occasions where he can seemingly converse on the call with flawless composure and awareness, at the same time as carrying on a text-based discussion with us in a chat room. I can type pretty quickly, but my attention tends to shift either to what I’m typing/reading or to what I’m saying/hearing. (For those of you who suffer from PHBs, I understand your frustration, but regrettably I won’t be sending my manager to take over your department. ;-) )

So yeah… continuous partial attention. Check it out.
Sharon Stein McNamara
July 7th, 2007
12:49 pm

Dear Tim:

I just finished your whole book and I am impressed. I work in a service job (as a psychologist) and I now realize that I will never make the kind of money I want to make unless I create a product. I could write a book, design a T-shirt, or sell some kind of biofeedback tool, but your book was a shift in consciousness for me. I do contain my service work to only three days a week of direct client time. (I believe that alone is what keeps me sane in an insane job). Do you have any advice for the new entrepreneur who is moving from service to product based work? Also, I was curious because you give hints in your book but then never tell the full story of your own biography… Did you ever finish your thesis at Princeton? Do you do coaching on marketing? I would be interested. Thanks for your contribution. –Sharon, Mother, psychologist, entrepreneur
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December 6th, 2007
12:16 am

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[...] advocates a low tech diet. Tim also advocates firewalling your attention span after revealing that marijuana can lead to better productivity than a [...]
ephi
February 2nd, 2008
6:07 am

Hi Tim!

Got your book on December 2007 from the local imported book shop in Indonesia. I couldn’t get through chapter three, though, the awful smell coming from the book is disturbing me. I don’t know if this is a problem with the others as well. Please let the publisher know and use another printer next time. It’s a hassle for me to return the book since the book shop doesn’t have another copy and sending back to the US will cost a great deal.

Great book so far!
ephi
February 2nd, 2008
6:19 am

Also fail to indicate that the book I bought is actually the English version. Not the (possibly) upcoming Indonesian version that you mentioned here. BTW, I never heard of any Indonesian publisher with that name before.
Jeff
June 16th, 2008
1:06 am

Well no duh the stoned group did better. Being stoned is just a state and not something you have to make a deliberate effort to do or be. With a blackberry you have a habit of making the effort to answer it. When you’re stoned, you’re stoned. You don’t think about making the decision to be stoned or that you try to be stoned, you just are stoned and think about things with a slightly altered mind.

If someone listed me a series of numbers and asked me to repeat as many as I could, no doubt I would probably remember more when I was drunk or high then I was crafting words to say in an email and then transferring those words through a small blackberry keyboard that requires more attention to use correctly. The difference is your not trying to concentrate on something else when you’re high/drunk.
Faire plusieurs choses à la fois est pire que fumer de la marijuana
August 18th, 2008
9:42 pm

[...] comparant les effets du multitâche et la marijuana est apparu sur le blog de Tim Ferriss sous son étiquette productivité personnelle. Il cite le résultat d’une étude (pour le [...]
Max
September 18th, 2008
1:57 am

Well, the papers have it wrong, as usual. The study wasn’t a real study at all. Here’s what the scientist himself wrote a couple of weeks later in response to questions from another blogger:

“This “infomania study” has been the bane of my life. I was hired by H-P for one day to advise on a PR project and had no anticipation of the extent to which it (and my responsibility for it) would get over-hyped in the media.

There were two parts to their “research” (1) a Gallup-type survey of around 1000 people who admitted mis-using their technology in various ways (e.g. answering e-mails and phone calls while in meetings with other people), and (2) a small in-house experiment with 8 subjects (within-S design) showing that their problem solving ability (on matrices type problems) was seriously impaired by incoming e-mails (flashing on their computer screen) and their own mobile phone ringing intermittently (both of which they were instructed to ignore) by comparison with a quiet control condition. This, as you say, is a temporary distraction effect – not a permanent loss of IQ. The equivalences with smoking pot and losing sleep were made by others, against my counsel, and 8 Ss somehow became “80 clinical trials”.

Since then, I’ve been asked these same questions about 20 times per day and it is driving me bonkers.”

Google is your friend, if you let it…
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November 11th, 2008
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[...] not convinced? Check out this study which showed how people who constantly checked their blackberry did WORSE on an IQ test that people [...]
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[...] queste mansioni arrivano a sfinire il cervello, e qualcuno dice che lo danneggiano tanto quanto l’uso di Marijuana, portando ad abbassare il livello di [...]
sasha
December 15th, 2009
1:47 am

I’d like to address just one aspect of I’d like to address just one aspect of this blog entry, the question of marijuana and productivity.

Let’s consider of a few figures in popular music, namely Louis Armstrong, John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and Willie Nelson. (This is the handful I could come up with off the top of my head, I imagine the list could grow quite long) All of these individuals are, or have spent substantial periods of their lives as, regular marijuana users.

Now I’m interested in hearing anyone make the case that any of these individuals would fit into the category of “unproductive.” On the contrary, each is recognized as being one the most prolific musicians of our time, the creators of entire genres of music, and having made important contributions to 20th century thought and culture. And these accomplishments all happened during periods of regular marijuana use. (As you might guess, I wasn’t there when Dylan wrote “like a Rolling Stone” or when Lennon wrote “Imagine,” but I’d say it’s a good guess some of this stuff happened while they were stoned.)

As a working musician and song-writer myself, and a person who occasionally, and sometimes a little more than occasionally, smokes pot and hash, I understand that the state of mind one attains through these substances does have the tendency to enhance creativity, and in turn creative productivity. The conservative anti-drug crowd may refuse to accept that anything good could come from “drugs,” yet, in addition to my own first-hand experience, I appeal to the above evidence. I can imagine what it would be like for someone who is stoned and trying to do an IQ test who becomes bored and frustrated with such meaningless and shallow mental gymnastics and is subsequently distracted with the desire to write poetry.