Jake Kahana

About this Episode

We recorded this episode in Sep 2020 and we talked about Jake's work as a designer and creative director, the notion of focused work, why he started You're Better Than Brunch, and cofounding Caveday with Jeremy Redleaf and Molly Sonsteng.

Like so many of us working from home these days, you'll hear Jake's daughter waking up just after the introduction questions before we get into main discussion about focused work and distraction. We also talk about the 2017 University of Chicago study where they look at the effect of brain drain with smartphones — even when your phone is upside down on a table, even on airplane mode — and how it challenges our cognitive abilities. Did you know that Microsoft did a parallel study that showed that the average focus time in the office is 40 seconds?

Stay tuned after the outro music for a funny bit of tape asking about the background noise and a strangled pause from Skipper.

Episode Links

• Parkinson's Law
• Paul Jarvis
• Seth Godin
• Derek Sivers
• Tristan Harris
• Tina Roth Eisenberg
• Jocelyn K. Glei
• Fast Company article on Caveday
• Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's TED talk on Flow
• 2017 University of Chicago study on smart phones — Even having your phone on your desk–even if it’s upside down even if it’s airplane mode– temporarily reduces your cognitive abilities. In other words, it makes you dumber.
• Microsoft study on focus time for work — 40 seconds!
• Caveday on monotasking
• Linda Stone on continuous partial attention
• Jake Kahana
• Intro and outro song: "Zombie Nation" by Jose Travieso