Chris Bailey (born 1989) is a Canadian writer and productivity consultant, and the author of The Productivity Project (2016), Hyperfocus (2018) and How to Calm Your Mind (2022). Personal life and education Bailey was born in Red Deer, Alberta, and raised in Belleville, Ontario, Canada. He first became interested in productivity in high school, after reading David Allen's 2001 book Getting Things Done. He moved to Ottawa, Ontario, to attend Carleton University, graduating from the Sprott School of Business in 2013. Bailey lives in Kingston, Ontario, with his wife, Ardyn Nordstrom. Career The Productivity Project After college, Chris Bailey took a one-year sabbatical to research and conduct experiments in productivity on himself, documenting his experiences on his blog, A Year of Productivity (later renamed A Life of Productivity). He began the year-long project in May 2013, testing new and old productivity theories through experiments including living in seclusion for 10 days; limiting his smartphone use to an hour a day for 3 months; getting up at 5:30 am each morning; and experimenting with varying-length workweeks, between 20 hours and 90 hours, to find the optimal workweek length. He watched 296 TED talks (roughly 70 hours) in 7 days, and then compiled lists on his blog of 100 things he learned, the 7 characteristics of highly effective TED speakers, and 10 TED talks one can watch in order to be more productive. Insights and strategies learned from these experiments, as well as from interviews with other experts in the field, were compiled into his 2016 book The Productivity Project, a Canadian nonfiction bestseller and the top-selling nonfiction audio book on Audible.com for the week ending July 15, 2016. The Globe and Mail named The Productivity Project one of the 10 best management and business books of 2016, and Fortune magazine named it one of three best business books of the year. The Mandarin Chinese translation was a bestselling Business Finance book in Taiwan. The book's main principles involve learning to manage one's time, energy and attention. Among other productivity tactics, Bailey discusses the benefits of finding one's Biological Prime Time (the unique time of day when a person has their highest energy level) and dedicating that time to performing important tasks, through the creation of a daily to-do list limited to the three most important things that need to be accomplished that day. In addition to a "to-do" list, Bailey recommends