The Productivity Show The 5 Cognitive Biases Destroying Your Productivity (And How to Beat Them) (TPS609)
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Apr 20, 2026 Hidden mental shortcuts like the planning fallacy, sunk costs, and decision fatigue quietly wreck your days. The conversation highlights anchoring, availability, and recency biases and practical fixes like buffer time and environment design. They also discuss adding friction to stop bad habits and using AI to track and audit past decisions.
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Sunk Cost Makes Bad Choices Seem Rational
- The sunk cost fallacy makes you continue actions because of past money or effort rather than current value.
- Tan uses concert tickets and unread books as examples where paying $40 or $10 led to staying even when it harmed his schedule or enjoyment.
Add Buffer Time Around Tasks
- Use buffer time after tasks to absorb overruns and create clean handoffs between activities.
- Tan schedules deep work 9–10 then a 10:30 meeting so extra minutes let him admin, send updates, and prep for the next meeting.
Design Systems Instead Of Relying On Willpower
- Willpower is finite and unreliable; environment and systems beat pure discipline.
- Tan recommends designing routines and systems so willpower is the occasional bonus, not the core driver.
Top 3 Productivity Resources 
Why your brain — not your tools — is the real productivity bottleneck 
Why spending $40 on tickets might cost you a good night's sleep 
The cognitive trap that was wrecking Brooks's sleep before concerts 
The billion-dollar version of that thing you do with your gym membership 
Why your brain erases all the annoying parts when estimating how long things take 
The buffer time trick that turns chaotic schedule blowouts into clean handoffs 
Why designing your environment beats relying on willpower every time 
What judges reveal about why you make worse decisions after lunch 
The counterintuitive reason Brooks banned snacks from his car 
The three hidden biases that are skewing your decisions right now 
How Thanh uses AI to surface and audit his own past decisions