When you were writing your book and you were spending time doing nothing, what was the most surprising thing you learned from that experience?

That I got more done.

Huh, how do you mean?

That when I stopped working really, really long hours, I was actually more productive.

Yeah, that was very surprising to me. You stay on that treadmill and you're going nowhere.

You're listening to how to. I'm Charles DuHig.

So I got an email from a friend of a friend a few days ago and I imagine some of

you have gotten letters similar to this. This is what he wrote. I believe that I've been fighting

coronavirus for about two weeks and I likely

exposed people I care about deeply to the virus before I realized what I had.

He goes on to explain that over a week and early March, just as the pandemic was starting, he was in a different airport every single day.

And you know, he was washing his hands like crazy and doing all the things we're supposed to do,

but he was also only sleeping a few hours

every night because he was rushing to meetings and he wasn't eating healthily and everyone on the

planes he was on were coughing. Eventually he makes it home to the U.S. and you kind of know how the rest of it goes.

He goes to the hospital to get a test and he's told there are no tests that all they can do is

is tell him to take Tylenol and to stay hydrated and to go home and not leave

his house for any reason.

And eventually, thank goodness, he starts to feel better.

And he plans on remaining in self-quarantine for another two weeks, because that's what the doctors told him to do.

There still aren't any tests for him, by the way.

But it's this thing that he wrote at the end of the email that really got me thinking, he wrote, and I'm quoting him here,

...