WEBVTT - Build the deep work habit, with Cal Newport 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.640 Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:08.720 --> 0:00:09.280 Good Morning. 0:00:10.280 --> 0:00:15.280 This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's 0:00:15.320 --> 0:00:18.239 episode is going to be a longer one part of 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:21.479 my interview series where I talk with fascinating people about 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:24.480 how they take their days from great to awesome. 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:26.920 And any advice they might have for the rest of us. 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:31.120 So today I am delighted to welcome Cal Newport to 0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:34.239 this show. Cal is a professor of computer science at 0:00:34.280 --> 0:00:38.600 Georgetown and he's also the author of several books on productivity, 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:42.479 including the recent Slow Productivity and Deep Work, a very 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:44.760 famous one. So Cal, welcome to the show. 0:00:45.040 --> 0:00:47.199 Well, Laura, it's always a pleasure to talk with you. 0:00:47.720 --> 0:00:50.400 I'm excited to have a conversation and get to share 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:53.159 it with our listeners. So Cal, I mean, something that's 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:55.600 always interesting to me about you is that many of 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:59.600 us who wind up, you know, creating content about productivity 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:04.200 basically just do this and you still also have a 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:08.080 normal job. So I wonder if you could talk a 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:11.720 little bit about how you structure your life in order 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:13.480 to make space for both. 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:18.319 Well, I carefully would probably be the short answer. When 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:22.880 it comes to podcasting. That particular type of content creation. 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:26.040 I was very wary about it, right because I knew 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:30.880 there was a regular time schedule footprint that this would demand. 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:33.160 I'm very wary about adding things into my life that 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:36.200 can make a regular commitment on my time, and so 0:01:36.240 --> 0:01:38.720 I really put it off and kept putting it off 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:41.520 until the pandemic came and suddenly I had so much 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:43.720 time that it didn't seem like so much of an impact. 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:45.560 But I worried then, hey, when things get back to 0:01:45.600 --> 0:01:48.360 a normal type of schedule, I don't want this to 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:50.160 have too big of a footprint. And so the rule 0:01:50.200 --> 0:01:52.800 I came up with for podcasting was one half day 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:55.280 once a week. I was willing to give up one 0:01:55.320 --> 0:01:58.560 half day once a week, but no more, and that 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:00.960 I would have to figure out how to stay within that. 0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:04.000 So to grow the show, or to do more episodes, 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:06.560 or to do more research, or to have more sophisticated 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:08.640 things happening on the show, I would just have to 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:10.360 find ways to fit that within the week. So I 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:13.960 went slowly. It was me at my house, and then 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:16.200 I brought on a producer, and the producer could do 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:17.840 more things, and that gave me more time to try 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:20.400 to do other things. And if we want to update 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:22.840 something about the studio or the setup. This might take 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:24.760 a very long time because again I have these half 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:27.120 days once a week to work on it. But I 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:29.720 was careful about it. When it comes to my writing, 0:02:30.360 --> 0:02:33.480 that's a little bit different because professor's write, so it's 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:37.359 not so incongruent with the other things I'm doing as 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:41.120 a professor. Professors write books, professors do interviews, and so 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:43.320 that I was used to doing my whole life as 0:02:43.320 --> 0:02:45.679 an academic, from grad school through all the ranks of 0:02:45.720 --> 0:02:48.600 professors and full professor. Writing today has all been about 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:50.760 making sure you're writing all the time, So that fit 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:53.960 much more naturally that I try to write every day. 0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:56.640 I try to write first, first thing every day. Sometimes 0:02:56.639 --> 0:02:59.120 it's a computer science paper, sometimes it's a book, Sometimes 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:03.240 it's a New Yorker art sometimes it's a digital ethics article. 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:06.079 That felt more natural. That was a more natural fit 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:08.160 for what I was doing, all right. 0:03:08.120 --> 0:03:10.920 But the idea of blocking off a certain amount of 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:13.720 time for a project is a key part of your work. 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:15.840 I mean, you're always teaching people about the idea of 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:18.519 time blocking, and maybe you can explain a little bit 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:21.720 to people what that actually means and how that's kind 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:23.520 of what you're doing with the podcasting. 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:26.160 Yeah. I'm a big believer in giving your time a job, 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:29.640 at least during your workday, right. I think if you 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:32.880 approach your workday from the mindset of just when I 0:03:32.960 --> 0:03:35.320 have time, let me think about what I want to 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:37.160 work on next? Like what am I in the mood 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:40.080 to work on? Or maybe I'm a David Allen afficionado, 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:41.920 so I'm going to load up some context list and 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:43.920 grab a next action off of it. I think this 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:47.440 approach doesn't work well given the pacing and workloads of 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:51.080 modern jobs. It's much better to actually directly confront what 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:53.800 is the time I have available today? What do I 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:54.640 want to do with it? 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:55.240 Right? 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:57.240 Okay, maybe if those first thirty minutes of the day 0:03:57.280 --> 0:03:58.760 I have free, what do I want to do with 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:00.720 those thirty minutes? Like? Am I going to work on 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:03.920 this project? The flip side of time blocking is not 0:04:03.960 --> 0:04:06.520 only does it allow you to make more of the 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:09.640 time you have from a productivity standpoint, it also lets 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:13.000 you to better take time off. When you're controlling the 0:04:13.040 --> 0:04:15.840 time of your day. Now, you can say something, for example, like, 0:04:16.080 --> 0:04:18.600 in my time block plan, I'm going to take this 0:04:18.640 --> 0:04:20.719 two and a half hour block in the afternoon. You 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:22.640 know what, I'm exhausted after this project that I just 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:24.920 hit a deadline on. I'm going to go watch a movie. 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:27.120 And when you're time blocking, you can do that with 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:29.719 complete comfort because you say, I know what i'm doing. 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:32.080 This is what i'm doing before, that's what I'm doing 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:33.520 after that, this is part of a bigger plan. 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:34.239 This is fine. 0:04:34.800 --> 0:04:37.320 So I'm a big believer of give your time a job. 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:39.600 Figure out when you're going to work on things, when 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:42.279 you're not going to work on things, what confront the 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:45.200 reality of your schedule, confront the reality of your workload, 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:46.719 and then make the best decisions you can. 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:50.520 And when do you do personally this confrontation? I mean, 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:52.360 what does your planning process tend. 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:52.760 To look like? 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:55.800 Well, I'm a believer in multi scale planning, right, because 0:04:55.960 --> 0:04:59.479 I think the key problem with any sort of organizational 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:01.479 philosoph is that in the end, you're trying to do 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:04.680 something very difficult, which is connect on one side of 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:08.600 the spectrum of the scale spectrum, a big picture aspiration 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:10.919 for you in your life, to the other end of 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:12.880 the scale spectrum, which is what am I doing to 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:15.440 the next minute, right, that's actually kind of hard to 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:20.000 do because you can't minute by minute be continually rehashing 0:05:20.040 --> 0:05:21.720 what are my goals for my life? What am I 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:23.839 trying to accomplish? So how do we get from big 0:05:23.839 --> 0:05:27.160 picture visions down to end the moment execution. I think 0:05:27.160 --> 0:05:31.640 you should have multiple scales of planning that essentially filters 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:34.000 this intuition down. So what I mean by that is 0:05:34.120 --> 0:05:36.640 your biggest scale might be a plan that you do 0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:39.200 at the scale of like a season. Right, okay, for 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:41.520 the fall, I'm making my plan. I get back in 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:43.920 touch with my goals before my life. What's important to me. 0:05:43.960 --> 0:05:45.279 I'm going to take a whole day and do this. 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:47.839 I'm going to reflect what do I want to accomplish 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:50.560 this season? What changes am I trying to make? What 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:52.760 major projects I want to make progress on. You make 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:55.360 that plan. Now you look at this plan once a week. 0:05:56.120 --> 0:05:58.440 So now once a week you can create a weekly plan. 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:00.960 This is when you review that big picture seasonal plan 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:04.000 in your weekly plan. Now you're confronting your calendar. Hey, 0:06:04.080 --> 0:06:06.360 what days are more crowded than others? Where are there 0:06:06.440 --> 0:06:08.880 going to be good opportunities this week to make progress 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:11.760 on things that are important? But not urgent. I often 0:06:11.800 --> 0:06:14.880 recommend during the weekly planning that you're putting priorities onto 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:17.360 your calendar at this point where you can protect them, 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:19.920 like meetings or appointments that you're used to. Right you say, 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:23.039 you know what, I am grabbing Thursday afternoon, which is 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:24.960 still free. I'm going to grab that for working on 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:27.680 this big riding project. And now now that's protected and 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:30.640 other meetings and calls can't take up that time. Weekly 0:06:30.680 --> 0:06:32.839 planning is also where you could see there might be 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:36.039 obstacles that are punching above their weight class. So what 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:39.600 I mean by this might be Tuesday morning is perfect 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:42.400 for me to like really push through and finish this project, 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:45.800 except I have this coffee with like a colleague that 0:06:45.839 --> 0:06:48.240 I agree to three weeks ago, and it's across town 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:51.279 and it's at ten. That destroys the entire morning. And 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:53.080 when you see the whole picture is when you can say, 0:06:53.080 --> 0:06:54.679 you know what, why don't I just call that friend 0:06:54.720 --> 0:06:56.279 or that colleague and say can we do this like 0:06:56.320 --> 0:06:59.160 Thursday afternoon instead? They don't care. But you've just cleared 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:01.239 up a big chunk of time, all right, So now 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:05.200 you have made your weekly plan. Each day you can 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:07.400 time block the working hours of that day. All right, 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:10.520 what's my plan for the day? Reference your weekly plan. 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:12.840 So if there's anything you wrote down put on your calendar, 0:07:12.920 --> 0:07:14.840 wrote down to your weekly plan, just reference that you're 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:17.320 only looking one scale up into multi scale planning, and 0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:19.320 then you make your plan for the day. But those 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:22.880 seasonal aspirations are filtering down through your weekly plan down 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:24.920 to your daily plan. And then when you get to 0:07:24.960 --> 0:07:27.640 the moment, you're just doing what your time block plan 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:29.360 says for you to be doing that moment. So your 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:31.880 action in that moment is connected through these four links 0:07:31.920 --> 0:07:35.040 back to your bigger aspirations and dreams without you having 0:07:35.080 --> 0:07:36.880 to confront them continually throughout the day. 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:40.040 Absolutely, I think I do something very similar. I tend 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:42.640 to plan my weeks sort of later in the previous week, 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:44.920 either Thursday or Friday, looking forward to the next week. 0:07:44.920 --> 0:07:45.760 I'm curious when you. 0:07:45.760 --> 0:07:48.880 Do this, I want to do what you do. I 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:53.480 actually think Friday end of day would be optimal because 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:58.200 then you go into the weekend with the psychological suker 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:00.680 of knowing I've looked at the week ahead, I have 0:08:00.760 --> 0:08:03.080 a plan for the week ahead. Otherwise you kind of 0:08:03.120 --> 0:08:04.880 have this in the back of your head, sort of 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:08.200 anxiety of like I don't know what's happening next week. 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:10.720 I often don't get to it Friday afternoon because I 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:14.240 like to shut down early on Fridays, and I often 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:16.520 don't quite get to it. So Monday morning is almost 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:20.080 always when I'm doing this. I accommodate that reality, however, 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:23.640 by going pretty light on Monday meeting. So what I 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:28.040 try to do is keep Monday relatively open so that 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:31.520 I can spend non trivial time, first thing, for example, 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:33.679 making my weekly plan, and not have that run right 0:08:33.760 --> 0:08:36.120 up against some sort of meeting or call or recording session. 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:40.120 Yeah. I mean I find a really maybe psychologically need 0:08:40.120 --> 0:08:44.200 to know what's happening, because otherwise I do think about 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:47.800 it over the weekend a lot and get worried about like, well, 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:50.280 something's not going to happen Monday, that had to happen Monday. 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:53.160 And so yeah, I've learned to do it earlier in 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:55.199 the day on Friday so it doesn't get bumped. 0:08:55.559 --> 0:08:57.600 I guess is how I do it. 0:08:57.640 --> 0:08:59.520 But I know people do it a lot of different times. 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:02.320 Some people will swear by Sunday sessions, for instance. 0:09:02.360 --> 0:09:05.120 I think that's probably another common time. 0:09:05.480 --> 0:09:07.079 Well, we're going to take one quick ad break and 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:09.360 then we will be back talking more with Cal Newport. 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:18.960 So I am back talking with Cal Newport, who is 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:22.160 a productivity expert, the author of several books on the 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:25.960 topic in addition to being a computer science professor at Georgetown. 0:09:26.320 --> 0:09:28.480 But Cal, one of the books people know you best 0:09:28.559 --> 0:09:32.200 for is Deep Work, which came out several years ago now, 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:35.280 and you know, you talk about all the things that 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:38.760 people have sort of historically done to limit their distractions 0:09:38.760 --> 0:09:43.600 as they produce their their masterpieces. And you know, so 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:45.400 I know a lot of us are trying to get 0:09:45.440 --> 0:09:47.599 more in the deep habit, deep work habit, in this 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:51.800 very distracted world. What are some steps we can take 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:55.719 to limit the interruptions, limit the distractions, create more of 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:59.840 a deep work habit. Given that you know neither you 0:09:59.880 --> 0:10:01.240 are I are going to wind up in a tower 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:02.240 for three months. 0:10:02.760 --> 0:10:05.959 Well, I think the key idea in deep work is 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:09.680 that cognitive context switches have for real cost. So, just 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:12.920 from a very practical neuroscience perspective, if I'm trying to 0:10:12.960 --> 0:10:15.360 do something cognitively demanding, let's say I'm trying to come 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:18.439 up with a complicated business strategy, right something, and I 0:10:18.520 --> 0:10:22.000 switch my cognitive context. So I look at an email inbox, 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:26.480 for example, Even if that check is brief, I have 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:29.680 initiated a cascade of neurological changes in my brain to 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:31.839 try to switch the target to my attention away from 0:10:31.880 --> 0:10:33.920 what I'm doing into that inbox. And when I wrench 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:36.319 my attention back, I'm now in a confused state, and 0:10:36.360 --> 0:10:41.040 my ability to produce work with my brain reduces, exhaustion 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:45.920 goes up. So the main neurological idea behind deep work 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:48.079 is when you're working on something hard, try to give 0:10:48.080 --> 0:10:51.120 it your full attention. Right, These back and forth checks 0:10:51.480 --> 0:10:53.520 will really drag you down, all right, So now the 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:56.640 question is in the work context at least, why are 0:10:56.679 --> 0:10:58.480 we doing these checks? And here's a place where I 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:03.680 think we get it wrong. We often abstract behavior like 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:10.360 checking email or slack as an entirely optional behavioral quirk. Right, 0:11:11.000 --> 0:11:14.000 We say, look, just batch your email, don't check it, right, 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:16.720 check your email less often while you're working on your project, 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:19.040 like it's just a willpower issue. That's the issue. It's 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:22.439 the user error. But one of the big things I 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:24.520 uncovered is I worked on this topic and as I 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:26.280 wrote the follow up the deep work, which was called 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:29.640 the World Without Email. One of the ideas I uncovered 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:33.120 is the reason why we're checking these inboxes and these 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:36.880 chat channels all the time, completely destabilizing our ability to 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:41.240 deep work is our underlying collaboration strategies that we're too 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:44.760 willing in the moment to collaborate by just sending ad 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:48.199 hoc messages back and forth. In the moment, it's easier 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:50.680 if something comes up I need to figure out with you. 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:53.640 In the moment, it's easier to dash off a message, Hey, 0:11:53.640 --> 0:11:56.160 what's going on with this question mark sind But what 0:11:56.200 --> 0:11:58.959 we don't realize is over time, what happens with these 0:11:58.960 --> 0:12:01.760 ad hoc back and forth exchanges is that we have 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:05.520 to keep checking communication channels because we need to bounce 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:08.720 these messages back and forth enough times to get to 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:12.160 a conclusion within whatever deadline is relevant. So when I 0:12:12.200 --> 0:12:14.120 send you that message this morning that says, hey, what's 0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:16.000 going up with this right, and it's something we need 0:12:16.040 --> 0:12:19.120 to really figure out today, I have actually probably just 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:22.400 have locked myself in to the need to have a 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:25.360 ten message back and forth interaction that's happening unscheduled, which 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:27.000 means I'm going to have to keep checking my inbox 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:28.800 to find your next message in time to reply and 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:30.719 time for you to reply, which means I might have 0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:34.280 accidentally just generated fifty extra inbox checks just by in 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:37.080 the moment saying hey, what's going on with this question mark? So, 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:40.400 I think the deeper cures, at least in the office, 0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:43.440 the deeper cures for getting towards more deep work is 0:12:43.520 --> 0:12:46.000 moving more collaboration out of ad hoc on schedule back 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:50.080 and forth messaging, consolidating it, having process around it, or 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:53.600 using consolidated synchronous times like office hours or group office hours. 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:56.480 That is like the most important thing I think for 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:59.480 getting people some mental energy back and the ability to 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:00.360 do more deeper work. 0:13:00.920 --> 0:13:03.400 So maybe like scheduling a regular one on one with 0:13:03.520 --> 0:13:05.760 somebody that you work with closely, and then you save 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:09.040 most of the questions you have for that regular meeting. 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:11.439 Yeah, I think everyone should have daily office hours. It 0:13:11.440 --> 0:13:13.240 should last for forty five minutes, It should be in 0:13:13.240 --> 0:13:15.280 a well publicized time. Your door should be open, you 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:17.040 should have a zoom room open, and your phone is 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:19.800 sitting right next to you. Anything that requires more than 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:22.600 a single response, so any message that requires a little 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:25.000 bit of back and forth. The default should be this 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:27.720 is we should get into this when grab me at 0:13:27.760 --> 0:13:30.760 the next office hours you're available, and we'll get it done. 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:33.720 Like I think that should absolutely happen. I think teams 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:35.600 should have at least twice a week a dock at 0:13:35.600 --> 0:13:38.040 clearing meeting or any issue that comes up that needs 0:13:38.080 --> 0:13:39.640 to be discussed as a group, you put it in 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:41.880 a shared document for the team. When you get to 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:44.800 that next meeting, you go through that document line by 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:48.559 line by line, just nailing things one after another, everyone together. 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:53.120 It's not about saving overall amounts of time, right because 0:13:53.120 --> 0:13:54.559 you might say it takes me no time to reply 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:57.520 to email messages. What it's reducing as context shifts. If 0:13:57.559 --> 0:14:00.400 I can take fifty inbox checks and can selllidate that 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:02.880 in the fifty minutes of real time office hours, it's 0:14:02.880 --> 0:14:03.920 a massive win for me. 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:07.040 And I imagine people can do this in their personal 0:14:07.080 --> 0:14:09.439 lives too. I mean I could see that. You know, 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:12.480 my husband and I go back and forth a lot 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:15.680 on the details of planning our lives, and it's probably 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:19.320 worse than any slack channel out there. But consolidating that 0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:23.800 into one particular meeting every you know, it could be 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:25.320 in the evening, or it could be every couple days 0:14:25.400 --> 0:14:27.000 or once a week or whatever people need to do. 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:29.720 But then you would hash through all the major issues 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:32.720 at that point and then ideally not have to hash 0:14:32.760 --> 0:14:33.760 through them at other points. 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:36.720 Oh yeah, I think definitely. You know, if you're in 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:40.480 a partnership, you're married, or whatever's going on, you probably 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:42.400 need especially if you have kids, you probably need a 0:14:42.440 --> 0:14:45.080 morning check in like, hey, are we on board with 0:14:45.080 --> 0:14:46.760 the game plan for today? And then you need a 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:48.640 more like substantial This is when we do it. We 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:50.160 do it right before dinner. We do it o we're 0:14:50.160 --> 0:14:53.520 doing the dishes. We also we're big believers in having 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:56.640 a physical inbox, right because you generate a lot of paper. 0:14:57.040 --> 0:15:00.000 It's oh, here's the thing from the car dealership. Here's 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:02.400 like a form that we have to fill out for 0:15:02.480 --> 0:15:05.080 the kids camp. So we have a physical inbox so 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:07.480 that when we have this meeting, we can actually go 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:10.600 through the physical artifacts that have to be discussed. I'm 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:13.840 also a big believer with friends, because it's a big 0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:15.880 issue people have. It's like a double edged sword. It's 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:18.960 fantastic to be social, but in an age of text messaging, 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:22.080 it can put you into this continual, partial attention of 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:24.160 where I'm constantly dealing with, you know, what's going on 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:26.840 with different friends or this or that. The commute office 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:29.640 hours is a fantastic hack where you just tell all 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:33.560 your friends this is when I'm driving home, call me whenever, right, 0:15:33.640 --> 0:15:36.080 and you actually end up being more socially because it 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:37.960 moves more of these like ad hoc back and forth 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:40.720 text conversations to like people call you when you're driving 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:43.360 home and you can catch up with people and answer questions, 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:45.600 and yeah, I think you're right. In your personal life, 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:46.720 these same ideas can help. 0:15:47.240 --> 0:15:50.440 Yeah, the group text can in fact consume a ton 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:52.880 of time, a ton of attention. Although you know, as 0:15:52.880 --> 0:15:57.080 I think about what, you know, how I get distracted. 0:15:57.160 --> 0:15:59.440 I mean, sometimes it's email, but I can't fool myself 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:01.320 that somebody's that's really trying to reach me. It's just 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:02.680 you know that I kind of want to check email 0:16:02.760 --> 0:16:08.880 or whatever. Because sometimes wrestling with complicated, concentrated work is challenging, right, 0:16:08.880 --> 0:16:12.600 I mean it can feel kind of unpleasant almost sometimes 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:14.440 in the moment as we're struggling with it. 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:16.240 I mean, oh, do you sense this too? 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:19.160 Deep? Work is not natural? Right, in a sense, that 0:16:19.200 --> 0:16:23.800 the human brain, it's evolved to give sharp attention temporarily 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:26.680 to things that are highly salient in our environment. So 0:16:26.720 --> 0:16:30.360 we can focus really hard if we hear a rustling 0:16:30.920 --> 0:16:32.800 and we're like, okay, is that a bear or whatever. 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:36.520 Focusing for a sustained amount of times on symbolic abstract 0:16:36.560 --> 0:16:38.880 concepts in our brain is something we're just hijacking our 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:41.360 brain apparatus to do that, just like reading is something 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:43.920 we're not evolved to do. We have to hijack parts 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:46.280 of the visual and audio apparatus in the brain and 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:50.400 rewire it, brute force rewire it to do this artificial thing. 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:53.160 So deep work is hard, right, And so that means, 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:55.160 for example, there's a limit on how much you can do. 0:16:56.240 --> 0:16:59.640 It's practiced right. And I often have to remember this 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:02.200 when I'm giving talks about this is I've spent my 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:05.280 entire adult life training at the highest levels to be 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:10.200 a theoretical computer scientist. That is not most people's situation, right. 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:12.560 I Mean, it's like someone who was training to be 0:17:12.600 --> 0:17:14.920 a professional athlete saying, hey, you should be in the 0:17:14.960 --> 0:17:16.880 gym six hours a day. So it's something you get 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:19.600 better with that practice, And most people aren't super practiced 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:21.760 at it, and sometimes you just can't do it. I 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:24.000 told you offline, I was sick for most of the 0:17:24.080 --> 0:17:28.000 last week. You know, I couldn't do deep work. You know, 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:30.680 it's so hard that there's no way you can take 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:32.720 a compromised mind. And the thing is our minds are 0:17:32.760 --> 0:17:34.639 compromised by a lot of things. I think it's a 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:38.040 really good point. We should respect the difficulty of deep 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:41.720 work and use that to let ourselves off the hook 0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:45.200 a little bit when we're not doing and jew Wiles 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:47.720 in his attic in Princeton solving Fermat's last theorem over 0:17:47.720 --> 0:17:48.560 seven years. 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:51.160 Yeah, I don't think I use all my brain much, 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:55.000 not that I would ever be able to do that, 0:17:55.200 --> 0:17:58.320 but it's true. We you know, thinking of it as 0:17:58.359 --> 0:18:00.800 an athletic sort of thing that you are be in training, 0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:03.080 and probably most of us are just sort of in 0:18:03.119 --> 0:18:06.200 the walk around the block kind of level of fitness, 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:09.680 and with some concerted effort, money of us could do more. 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:11.520 You know, you could run a five k, you could 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:14.040 you know, lift a reasonable amount of weight. Then there's 0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:16.439 some people who are going to be, you know, running 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:19.520 two hour and ten minute marathons, and they're a whole 0:18:19.520 --> 0:18:22.199 different class, but most of us could be better than 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:24.479 we currently are if we if we work at it. 0:18:25.119 --> 0:18:25.800 Yeah, I like that. 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:26.160 Yep. 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:28.080 All right, Well, we're going to take one more quick 0:18:28.080 --> 0:18:29.520 ad break and then we'll be back with a little 0:18:29.520 --> 0:18:38.880 bit more from Cal Newport. We're here after the ad 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:42.639 break talking with Cal Newport, who is a computer science 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:46.120 professor at Georgetown, the author of several productivity books, also 0:18:46.200 --> 0:18:48.600 a podcaster. You should go check him out. But we 0:18:48.680 --> 0:18:52.840