Explore every episode of the podcast Undo – How history's outliers got stuff done
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
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| Work expands to fill the time available – Parkinson’s Law | 13 Jan 2025 | 00:14:06 | |
Studies show if you give people 60 minutes to complete a task that only takes 30, they’ll work the full hour instead of taking the rest off. That’s Parkinson’s Law in action, and by recognising it, we can buy back some time to ourselves. Just don’t tell the boss, or they’ll give you more busy work. Support the show from $3 and get
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| The Eisenhower Matrix – Decision-making in the White House | 06 Jan 2025 | 00:13:50 | |
How do you decide what needs to be done now, and what can wait? And how do you take care of the stuff that needs doing now, while not neglecting the things that make it worth getting out of bed in the morning? Support the show from $3 and get
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| Introducing Undo | 08 Nov 2024 | 00:01:11 | |
Coming January 2025. Humans will do anything to avoid the actual work they said they’d do. While supposedly writing this trailer I checked my slow cooker, restocked the fridge, took my blood pressure (it’s dangerously high, btw), followed up on a WhatsApp conversation, picked up the post, checked in on the cats, tidied my desk and made another coffee. That’s genuinely true – these are all things I did while I should’ve been writing this script. And all I really need to tell you is that Undo is a podcast that examines productivity methods through the ages and tries to separate the brilliant from the bullshit, so you can figure out how to design your own system that matches your brain chemistry. I mean really, it’s just a fun show you can listen and tell yourself you’re working. Finally, procrastination in podcast form! | |||
| Do the worst thing first thing (”Eat the frog”) | 20 Jan 2025 | 00:15:35 | |
“Eat a live frog every morning, and nothing worse will happen to you for the rest of the day.” So says Mark Twain. Or so says a productivity guru says Mark Twain. But as far as we can tell, Mark Twain never said that. So what’s with all the frogs, and how can they help us do more of the right stuff, and less of the wrong? Support the show from $3 and get
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| The tomato of productivity – the Pomodoro Technique | 27 Jan 2025 | 00:19:12 | |
It’s four o’clock in the afternoon, and you’re thinking over your day. Did you actually get anything done, or were you just reacting to a bunch of distractions? Support the show from $3 and get
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| How to get into the zone — Flow | 03 Feb 2025 | 00:19:36 | |
Time stands still and you’re in that sweet-spot where the work you're doing is challenging enough to hold your attention, but not so difficult that it causes you stress. This is flow, and it might just prove itself to be one of the keys that unlocks long-term happiness. Support the show from $3 and get
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| Bullet Journal – Productive or performative? | 10 Feb 2025 | 00:20:42 | |
Can this analogue system for a digital age really help us get more done? Has it strayed from its roots and become synonymous with people who call things “super aesthetic”? And, if we can learn what we need to about the system in 3 minutes, why does it cost three and a half grand to learn to teach it? Support the show from $3 and get
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| How to work when the sky’s caving in — Lincoln vs Churchill | 17 Feb 2025 | 00:27:00 | |
When things look bleak, either in your head or out in the world, being “productive” is probably the furthest thing from your mind. We live in difficult times, no doubt, but two outliers a hundred years apart, fought oppression, propaganda, and dehumanisation all while under their own personal dark clouds. Support the show from $3 and get
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| How to make fewer mistakes – The Checklist Manifesto | 24 Feb 2025 | 00:23:38 | |
Simple mistakes are more common than it’s comfortable to admit. But there’s a dirt-simple technique that has dramatically reduced the number of preventable deaths, and it’s stuff we can use to make our own lives run more smoothly. Thanks to Ayesha Khan of Every Single Sci-Fi Film Ever* for lending her voice to Mark's silly opening sketch. Support the show from $3 and get
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| What happened to the Inbox Zero guy? | 03 Mar 2025 | 00:26:31 | |
Inbox Zero is a pretty good way of organising your email, but behind the system is a dude who stepped off the hamster wheel of productivity, got some perspective, and became one of the Internet’s true treasures. Support the show from $3 and get
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| How Ben Franklin used timeboxing to stop missing deadlines | 10 Mar 2025 | 00:22:17 | |
If you have to meet any kind of regular publishing schedule, you’ll know how time can stretch out into infinity until the night before you have to hit Publish, when suddenly it feels like you have to cram 8 hours of work into 30 minutes. But Benjamin Franklin had a neat little system that helped him keep on top of his commitments, and all it takes is a pen, some paper, and a watch. Support the show from $3 and get
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| Why I'm ditching Spotify and why you should too | 25 Jun 2025 | 00:01:17 | |
Recently it’s come to our attention that Daniel Ek, the CEO of Spotify, who Forbes estimates is worth over $10 billion, is now investing some of the money he makes off the back of Spotify subscriptions to fund military drones. This is via a company called Helsing, who provide what they call “precision mass and autonomous capabilities to democracies so they can deter and protect”. I’m removing Undo and all of my other content from Spotify, as I don’t want my content to fund any kind of military operation. The world is already full of white men with no necks who have rigid hardons for war, and I don’t want any part of enabling them. Support the show from $3 and get
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| Congrats, you’re burned out! Here’s what to do next | 15 Jun 2025 | 00:23:27 | |
Burnout is something that affects neurotypicals and neurospicies alike, so today we’re going to find out what it looks like so you can spot it whether it’s in the distance or right up in your grill, and more importantly we’ll look at what we can do about it. Check out our guest's podcast, You Are Not a Frog. Am I Stressed, Overwhelmed... or Burning Out? Support the show from $3 and get
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| How to stick to it when the novelty wears off – Atomic Habits | 13 Apr 2025 | 00:27:14 | |
Could there be more to habit building than “just showing up”? On those days when you can’t find the inspiration, is there anything you can do to help keep you on track? Support the show from $3 and get
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| How to turn your side hustle into your main gig – “The One Thing” | 06 Apr 2025 | 00:28:20 | |
While we might not come up with a paradigm-shifting idea, we are capable of putting a dent in the universe, and putting something on the permanent record of the Internet. Support the show from $3 and get
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| 20% of your effort makes up 80% of your success — The Pareto principle | 30 Mar 2025 | 00:26:08 | |
How you can use this law of nature, work, productivity and creativity to focus on the stuff that will have the biggest impact, and eventually ditch the rest. Support the show from $3 and get
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| How to be a polymath – Leonardo da Vinci | 24 Mar 2025 | 00:23:33 | |
Being a creative person in this most digital of decades means needing to be good at more than one form of creative expression. That means thinking like a polymath, and luckily we have history’s greatest multi-hyphenate to learn from. Support the show from $3 and get
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| The super-productive women missing from time management history | 17 Mar 2025 | 00:21:00 | |
Let’s spend a bit of time today with some of the women of productivity history, some of whom you know, some we’ll meet for the first time. Support the show from $3 and get
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| You aren’t lazy; you’re fighting a broken system – Ignacio Martín-Baró | 08 Jun 2025 | 00:23:56 | |
Modern work pressures call for some radical resistance, and we’re going to look for it where resistance is needed most: the frontline battle against oppression. Check out our guest's podcast, You Are Not a Frog. Am I Stressed, Overwhelmed... or Burning Out? Support the show from $3 and get
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| “Busy is the New Stupid” – What does Warren Buffett know about real work? | 01 Jun 2025 | 00:21:57 | |
Is there anything this 94 year-old business mogul can teach us about our attitude towards work and busyness? Check out our guest's podcast, You Are Not a Frog. Am I Stressed, Overwhelmed... or Burning Out? Support the show from $3 and get
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| The Hitchhiker's Guide to Productivity | 25 May 2025 | 00:31:29 | |
Highlights from Mark's podcast dedicated to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which covers – if not skewers – the subject of productivity in the loving image of Douglas Adams. Support the show from $3 and get
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| How to remember everything — Tiago Forte and his Second Brain | 18 May 2025 | 00:27:04 | |
We need a system to keep our brain clear of all those nagging little tasks and bits of info we arry with us, so it can focus on having better ideas. Support the show from $3 and get
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| How to build a car or plan a wedding using Kanban | 11 May 2025 | 00:19:51 | |
We can learn a lot from the world of manufacture and bring it into the work that we do. Support the show from $3 and get
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| Why giving less than 100% is better for your health | 04 May 2025 | 00:17:44 | |
The whip-cracking "give it all you got" business bro bullshit isn’t just insensitive – it’s actually wrong. Support the show from $3 and get
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| Buckminster Fuller and the system of You | 27 Apr 2025 | 00:21:09 | |
Modern work needs a more modern approach than Taylorism's simple "one right way". Enter systems theory, and one of its greatest proponents. Support the show from $3 and get
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| What Sherlock Holmes can teach us about productivity and our brains | 20 Apr 2025 | 00:24:38 | |
He’s the world’s first and only consulting detective, and his mind has fascinated us for over a hundred and thirty years. His methods are mysterious and complex, but goddammit he gets results. So what can Baker Street’s most famous resident teach us about how we do our most important work? Special thanks to this week's guest, Matthew Bellringer. Support the show from $3 and get
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