The Lazy Susan Method
Spin to a different project the moment your current one stops moving.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 93%
The Lazy Susan Method is Eagleman's answer to how a man running a neurotech company, a Stanford teaching load, the Center for Science and Law, a podcast, a production company and multiple books in progress actually gets work done. He pictures his projects as segments on a Lazy Susan that lives, in his words, in his prefrontal cortex. He works on whatever he is maximally resonating with at that moment; the instant he starts slowing down or gets stuck, he spins the platter and picks up a different project. When he later comes back to the stalled one he arrives refreshed, often with a new idea about it. He credits the pattern to Walt Whitman, who rotated between writing projects the same way. Critically, Eagleman is explicit about the method's boundary: the Lazy Susan can only get spun on weekends or in genuine four-hour chunks — he wrote all his books at IHOPs precisely because they are quiet, boring, bottomless-coffee places with no reason to look up. Obligation blocks (VC meetings, Stanford lectures, a three-hour podcast recording) are performed, not spun. The mechanism is that stuck-ness is project-specific, not global: switching converts what would have been an hour of grinding into an hour of real output somewhere else, while the stalled project quietly reorganises itself in the background.
Origin
Eagleman developed it out of necessity while juggling Neosensory, Stanford, the Center for Science and Law, a podcast and several books at once. He recognised the pattern when he read that Walt Whitman rotated randomly between writing projects, working each until it slowed and then moving on.
Core principles
- 01Attention is a depleting resource per-project, not per-day, so the fix for being stuck is a different project rather than a break.
- 02A stalled project keeps processing in the background while you work on something else, and returns easier when you spin back to it.
- 03Working on whatever you are maximally resonating with at that moment produces more output than forcing a scheduled block.
- 04The method requires a portfolio: you need several live projects on the platter or there is nothing to spin to.
- 05Lazy Susan time is a different mode from obligation time — meetings, lectures and recordings cannot be spun away from.
- 06Eagleman took the pattern from Walt Whitman, who rotated randomly between writing projects rather than finishing them serially.
How to run it
- 1
Load the platter
Write out every live project you actually own — company work, a book, a course, a side experiment. The Lazy Susan only works if there are several genuinely different dishes on it.
Pro tip Include at least one project that is pure play with no market path; Eagleman keeps projects that 'feed me scientifically' with no clear commercial route.
Watch out A platter of five variations on the same task is not a platter — you need real cognitive distance between segments.
- 2
Separate obligation time from spin time
Mark which calendar blocks are performances you owe other people (meetings, lectures, recordings) and which are unstructured chunks. Only the unstructured chunks are spinnable.
Pro tip Eagleman's spin window is weekends and four-hour chunks; everything else he simply performs.
Watch out Trying to spin mid-Zoom or mid-lecture just makes you unreliable to other people.
- 3
Go somewhere boring
Take the block to a low-stimulation location. Eagleman wrote all his books at IHOPs — bottomless coffee, quiet, and unlike a Starbucks nobody interesting is walking in and out.
Pro tip Pick one fixed location so arriving there is itself the cue to start.
Watch out A location with interesting people or novel scenery competes with the work for the attention you came to spend.
- 4
Start where you resonate
Open the block on whatever project you are most drawn to at that moment, rather than the one that is most overdue or highest on a priority list.
Pro tip Trust the pull — resonance is a reasonable proxy for where your loaded context currently is.
Watch out If one project is genuinely deadline-critical, do that first and spin afterwards; the method is not a licence to dodge.
- 5
Detect the slowdown
Watch for the specific signal that the current segment is done for now: you are slowing down, rereading, going in circles, or stuck on the same paragraph or problem.
Pro tip Name the signal out loud the first few times so you learn to catch it early rather than after an hour of grinding.
Watch out Do not confuse slowing down with the ordinary discomfort of hard work — the signal is loss of forward motion, not effort.
- 6
Spin and re-enter
Move immediately to a different segment and work it the same way. When you later return to the stalled project, capture what has changed — Eagleman typically finds he has thought of a new idea about it in the interim.
Pro tip Jot a one-line 'next move' before you spin so re-entry costs seconds, not minutes.
Watch out If you never spin back, you do not have a Lazy Susan — you have a graveyard of abandoned projects.
In the wild
Eagleman learned that Walt Whitman kept multiple writing projects going simultaneously, working on one until he was slowing down, then spinning to a randomly-picked different project. Eagleman describes recognising his own life in that story, which is what turned an instinct he already had into a named method he could describe to others.
→ The pattern gave Eagleman a defensible model for the multi-project life he was already living rather than a nagging sense he should be more focused.
Eagleman has written all of his eight books at IHOPs. The reasoning is deliberately unglamorous: bottomless coffee, quiet, boring, and specifically not a Starbucks where attractive people walk in and out. He sits down with a four-hour chunk, starts on one project, and when he thinks 'I really want to get to this other thing' he spins.
→ Eight books including the international bestseller Sum, plus Incognito and Livewired, all produced inside spun four-hour blocks.
Common mistakes
Spinning inside obligation blocks
Eagleman is explicit that the Lazy Susan cannot get spun during a hard week where he is constrained at every moment and just has to perform. Abandoning a Zoom call or a lecture halfway because your heart is not in it converts a productivity method into unreliability. The platter is for unstructured chunks only.
Treating the spin as permission to quit hard things
The trigger is slowing down — loss of forward motion — not discomfort. If you spin every time the work gets difficult you will only ever complete the easy first 30% of every project. The observable test is whether you spin back and finish; Eagleman spent seven years on Sum.
Running a platter with no unstructured time on it
Eagleman warns from his own life that saying yes to every shiny new advisory role, screenplay idea and startup leaves you 'totally constrained on all fronts' — he jokes he is working on the 400-hour workweek. Without a protected four-hour chunk the Lazy Susan has nowhere to spin and the portfolio becomes pure obligation.
Is it for you?
Best for
People running several genuinely different projects — a company, a book, a course, a podcast — who have some unstructured weekend or four-hour blocks.
Not ideal for
Anyone with a single deliverable, a hard external deadline, or a calendar so full that no unscheduled thinking block exists.
From the transcript
“I would only be able to give what I do, and that is the Lazy Susan method.”
“I work on whatever I am maximally resonating with at that moment. As soon as I start slowing down or get stuck, I just jump…”
“Not physical, just in my prefrontal cortex, yeah.”
“So unfortunately, the lazy Susan can only get spun on the weekends or something when there's opportunity to think.”
From the episode
#674: Neuroscientist David Eagleman — Exploring Consciousness, Sensory Augmentation, The Lazy Susan Method of Extraordinary Productivity, Dreaming, Improving Hearing with a Wristband, Synesthesia, Stretching Time with Novelty, Lessons from Titans of Science, and Much More