It is easy to be productive for short periods of time, the challenge is staying motivated so that your productivity level doesn’t go down the drain. We spoke with Luc P. Beaudoin, entrepreneur and adjunct professor of cognitive science and education at SFU about productivity and how he came to devote his career to the subject.

Luc’s interest in cognitive science started when he was a child reading books on memory, which sparked his passion for the human mind. To help him through his education and eventually Ph.D. in the 1990s, Luc developed software to help him remember dense material and study more efficiently. Not long after earning his Ph.D. in England, Luc entered the startup world with his research expertise. He was a founding employee at two of Canada’s most successful high tech startups, as measured by their exit valuation: Tundra Semiconductor Corporation and Abatis Systems Corp. Learning about the possibilities of entrepreneurship got Luc excited to create something of his own. He saw that there were large gaps between the findings in cognitive science and the software available on the market for professional knowledge workers.

In 2014 Luc co-founded CogSci Apps to fill that exact gap. Although Luc was familiar with entrepreneurship, he understood the power of community. Connecting with former Executive Director of SFU VentureLabs, Ian Hand, Luc learned about the accelerator and its team of mentors. “Joining SFU VentureLabs made a lot of sense for me because I believe in the importance of knowledge and there’s already a team of mentors with entrepreneurship knowledge here,” says Luc.

CogSci Apps currently has two products: Hook for MacOS and mySleepButton. The first app prevents workflow disruption by seamlessly linking information across Mac apps. The purpose of Hook is to enhance user workflow so that brain capacity can be used towards applying knowledge instead of searching for information.

The company’s other flagship app is mySleepButton, which tackles insomnia. It is simple to use and yet based on considerable knowledge about the mind. Two of the tricks mySleepButton uses are to keep your mind off the thinking that keeps you awake and keep your mind wandering through images. 

Luc is an entrepreneur who believes strongly in pursuing projects that positively impact the lives of others. In addition to running CogSci Apps, he continues to do research because he has a passion for understanding the human mind, and he believes it’s the best way to develop great psychological products. 

“There is a lot of knowledge out there. Businesses and product developers associated with a university should be inspired and leverage that knowledge. Competition is fierce in today’s marketplace, so we should all be looking at the highest caliber knowledge that we can,” says Luc.

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CogSci Apps stands for Cognitive Science Applications and developed its framework through Cognitive Productivity books written by Luc P. Beaudoin. mySleepButton and Hook for MacOS are apps that were designed to offer specific and simple solutions to important societal problems.

SFU VentureLabs spoke with Luc P. Beaudoin, who is the Co-founder of CogSci Apps, CogZest, and Somnolence+. Luc is also an Adjunct Professor of Cognitive Science and Adjunct Professor of Education at Simon Fraser University.

Learn more about CogSci Apps at cogsciapps.com

Follow Luc P. Beaudoin on Twitter at @LucCogZest