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Speaker 1: Hi.

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Speaker 2: I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,

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Speaker 2: and speaker.

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Speaker 3: And I'm Sarah hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer,

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Speaker 3: and course creator. We are two working parents who love

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Speaker 3: our careers and our families.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about

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Speaker 2: how real women manage work, family, and time for fun,

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Speaker 2: from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals.

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Speaker 2: We want you to get the most out of life.

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Speaker 4: Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura.

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Speaker 2: This episode is airing in early April of twenty twenty four.

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Speaker 2: Sarah and I are going to be interviewing Cal Newport,

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Speaker 2: who is the author of Slow Productivity, which is a

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Speaker 2: new book, also the author of Deep Work and several

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Speaker 2: other books. And you'll notice that Sarah and I are

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Speaker 2: both interviewing him.

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Speaker 4: What happened.

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Speaker 2: We tend to do interviews solo these days, partly for

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Speaker 2: efficiency purposes, so we can make it work with everyone's schedules.

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Speaker 2: So I had set this up with his publicity person,

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Speaker 2: but then Cal sent us a very nice email to

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Speaker 2: both of us saying how excited he was to chat

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Speaker 2: about productivity. So I could not deny him, Sarah, and

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Speaker 2: so she fortunately was free and could make it so. Sarah,

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Speaker 2: since we talk a lot about productivity in this, have

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Speaker 2: you always been into productivity like you did planners and

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Speaker 2: calendars and such in high school?

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Speaker 3: I'm not sure I was the world's most effective user

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Speaker 3: of productivity tools back then, but I certainly really enjoyed

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Speaker 3: them from a very young age. I loved getting my

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Speaker 3: little school spiral notebook planner every year. It was always

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Speaker 3: these ugly red and gold because that was our school colors.

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Speaker 3: And I also had these big, like full side, full side,

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Speaker 3: like the size of like a full size piece of

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Speaker 3: paper back blue cloth bound daily notebooks that had a

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Speaker 3: page for every single day that I would inherit from

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Speaker 3: my dad, and I think where he worked they actually

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Speaker 3: gave them to every employee. Can you imagine being given

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Speaker 3: this giant page per day planner as your workplace productivity tool.

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Speaker 3: I mean, I kind of wish we still did that.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Now, I think that has gone by the wayside, but

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Speaker 2: that's kind of a cool office perk. I guess if

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Speaker 2: you're into that sort of thing. Yeah, I guess a

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Speaker 2: lot of schools do still do this, right that they

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Speaker 2: distribute calendars or something, or at least they were. I

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Speaker 2: don't know, maybe everyone's moved to electronic calendars now.

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Speaker 3: Our school still hands out paper planners, and I do

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Speaker 3: think there is a lot to be learned about executive

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Speaker 3: function that can be learned from practicing writing and planners.

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Speaker 3: So whether kids actually use them all year or not,

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Speaker 3: I think at least experimenting with it and figuring out

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Speaker 3: what works can be helpful. I also was conversing with

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Speaker 3: my college friend yesterday trying to remember what we use

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Speaker 3: in college, and she claims we were early bullet journalers.

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Speaker 3: We just didn't call it that, so I'm going to

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Speaker 3: go with that. We had these cute little multi colored

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Speaker 3: notebooks and a lot of jelly roll pins and had

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Speaker 3: fun writing out our task lists and things we were

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Speaker 3: doing all day and things like that.

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Speaker 4: So yeah, sounds good.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I was trying to think of this too, and

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Speaker 2: I honestly just cannot remember. So I must not have

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Speaker 2: been buying cool planners or anything like that, because I

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Speaker 2: think I would have remembered making such a purchase. I

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Speaker 2: know I've always had like a working notebook going, you know,

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Speaker 2: I would I had a bunch of like journalism internships,

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Speaker 2: and some of the places where I worked had like

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Speaker 2: Steno notebooks that people could just like pick out of

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Speaker 2: the supply closet for Back in the day, you know,

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Speaker 2: people were taking their notes while going interviewing someone or.

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Speaker 4: Something like that.

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Speaker 2: And I imagine that in high school or middle school

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Speaker 2: or whatever, we probably had those little calendars that they

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Speaker 2: hand out to try to encourage people to write down

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Speaker 2: their assignments. And clearly I must have been writing my

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Speaker 2: assignments down somewhere because I got good grades and usually

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Speaker 2: wasn't doing all nighters the night before, so I doubt

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Speaker 2: I was just remembering all of this, but for the

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Speaker 2: life of me, I cannot remember.

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Speaker 4: So that is fascinating. I don't know it was.

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Speaker 2: Productivity happens, whether we necessarily remember our systems or not.

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Speaker 2: I know I did get into writing down weekly priorities

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Speaker 2: after reading Seven Habits of Highly Effective People in my

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Speaker 2: early twenties.

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Speaker 4: Did you ever read that?

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Speaker 3: No, my early twenties productivity guide was Getting Things Done

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Speaker 3: by David Allen.

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Speaker 2: Well, that's also a good one. I read that at

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Speaker 2: some point too. I just remember reading it after Stephen Covey.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, long list of productivity people we got, you know,

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Speaker 2: Stephen Covey with the Seven Habits, David Allen getting things done,

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Speaker 2: and now here we're going to be talking with Cal

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Speaker 2: Newport about slow productivity and other topics, so listen to that. Well,

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Speaker 2: Sarah and I are delighted to welcome Cal Newport to

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Speaker 2: the program. Any of our listeners are no doubt familiar

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Speaker 2: with him, So Cal, why don't you go ahead and

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Speaker 2: introduce your stuff to our listeners.

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Speaker 1: Well, it's good to talk to you, both, both of

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Speaker 1: you being of course past guests on my podcast, so

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Speaker 1: we have a great circularity going on here. So for

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Speaker 1: those who don't know me, I'm a computer science professor

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Speaker 1: at Georgetown University. I also write books for general audiences

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Speaker 1: and for the past i don't know what it's been

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Speaker 1: now eight years. My writing has focused a lot on

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Speaker 1: the different ways technology impacts us and how we cope

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Speaker 1: with it. So I work a lot on, for example,

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Speaker 1: how technology really destabilize the workplace, especially knowledge work, when

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Speaker 1: things like email and chat and laptops and smartphones arose.

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Speaker 1: I also talk about how it's destabilized our life outside

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Speaker 1: of work, social media, the rise of screen addiction, screens

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Speaker 1: and kids. So this is sort of my interest area

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Speaker 1: is how do we construct something like a meaningful or

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Speaker 1: intentional life at work and at home in this world

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Speaker 1: of these fast moving technologies that have just as many

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Speaker 1: negative side effects as positive.

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Speaker 4: That's awesome.

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Speaker 2: And since this is of both worlds, and you know,

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Speaker 2: as you mentioned, we talked about work and home. You

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Speaker 2: have three kids, right, yes, they are how old?

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Speaker 1: I'm an eleven year old, a nine year old, and

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Speaker 1: a five year old, all boys?

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Speaker 4: All boys?

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Speaker 2: Well, they match out well with Sarah's kids ages that's

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Speaker 2: almost exactly the same as hers.

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Speaker 1: That's why Sarah and I look so well rested? Is

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Speaker 1: that what?

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Speaker 4: You exactly?

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Speaker 3: Right?

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Speaker 4: You both look great to me.

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Speaker 2: I don't know it. Your most newest book is called

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Speaker 2: Slow Productivity, So maybe you can give us a little

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Speaker 2: overview of what do you mean by slow productivity and

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Speaker 2: contrast this with kind of the pseudo productivity as you

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Speaker 2: set up as the punching bag against this.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean I'm going to give the motivation

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Speaker 1: for it too, because it's a it's a classic, like

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Speaker 1: Best to Boast World's motivation. So where this book came from?

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Speaker 1: And I'll sort of get to the meat of it

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Speaker 1: here in a second was a mix of personal and

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Speaker 1: professional motivations, which is rare for me. Usually it's one

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Speaker 1: or the other, right, but in this case it was both.

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Speaker 1: So on the personal side, what was going on is,

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Speaker 1: you know, I have these three boys, like we mentioned,

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Speaker 1: and Sarah, I don't know if you had the same

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Speaker 1: experience with your three or lad with your four. And

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Speaker 1: this might because they're all boys. But when they all

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Speaker 1: hit elementary school age more or less like they were.

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Speaker 1: My youngest was just come to kindergarten, they're all in

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Speaker 1: elementary school age, there is this switch where basically they

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Speaker 1: seem to need as much dad time as humanly possible.

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Speaker 1: And it was different than it was before. It was

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Speaker 1: different than toddler phase, where it was much much more

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Speaker 1: of a survival game and making sure that no parent

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Speaker 1: goes too crazy. It switched they want as much dad

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Speaker 1: time as possible. These boys needed as much dad time

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Speaker 1: as possible. So as in this situation where wait, I'm

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Speaker 1: reaching my professional peak, right, I mean, I am at

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Speaker 1: the peak of my powers. I can write best selling books.

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Speaker 1: I'm a professor, tenured at professor writing for the New Yorker.

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Speaker 1: You know, I'm really my professional powers throughout their peak

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Speaker 1: and simultanously my kids see as much time as possible.

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Speaker 1: So suddenly it became very urgent for me to look

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Speaker 1: at this question of, Okay, how can I still produce

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Speaker 1: stuff that I'm proud of professionally and also you know,

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Speaker 1: is a means of support and yet not have work

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Speaker 1: take over everything and yet leave sort of indulgently large

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Speaker 1: amounts of time for my family. So I was grappling

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Speaker 1: with that personally. Then the pandemic hit and all of

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Speaker 1: my readers and podcast listeners begin to have sort of

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Speaker 1: similar crisises with work, especially those knowledge workers that were

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Speaker 1: sent home to work remotely on their laptops that it

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Speaker 1: really the disruption gave them this distance where they were

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Speaker 1: looking at their work and be like, what am I

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Speaker 1: doing here? I'm on zoom all day, I'm sending emails

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Speaker 1: all day like this is this what I want to

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Speaker 1: do with my life? So there's this whole sort of

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Speaker 1: existential crisis happening in my readership and my listenership as well.

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Speaker 1: And they said, something has broken about the way we're

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Speaker 1: thinking about work and productivity. We got to fix this.

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Speaker 1: So professional personal all looking at this same issue work

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Speaker 1: and how to tame it or what's not working with work?

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Speaker 1: And so slow productivity was the answer I came up with,

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Speaker 1: and it was a completely alternative way of thinking about

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Speaker 1: productivity that is not based on activity but instead based

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Speaker 1: on quality results over time. So instead of fastness, it

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Speaker 1: focused instead on the result of slowness. And my argument

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Speaker 1: is this is more sustainable. This is something you can

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Speaker 1: do for a whole lifetime. It's something you can do

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Speaker 1: and be incredibly proud of what you've produced, and yet

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Speaker 1: also be there at four point thirty for your kids

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Speaker 1: baseball practice, be there for the trips, not have your

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Speaker 1: whole life get taken up for work. And so it's

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Speaker 1: a personal professional quest that led to this.

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Speaker 3: I think that's such a great point that you notice

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Speaker 3: this more as the kids got older. And this does

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Speaker 3: go against a little bit of rhetoric that I hear

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Speaker 3: sometimes where it's like I have to be home for

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Speaker 3: the babies. But I think Laura and I feel similarly

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Speaker 3: that in many ways, as the kids have gotten older,

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Speaker 3: a the specificity of us feels like it matters more

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Speaker 3: like my kid wants me, not a provider, so to speak,

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Speaker 3: and the time with the kids is actually more enjoyable

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Speaker 3: and not something that I or Laura want to be

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Speaker 3: missing out on. So I think the timing actually makes

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Speaker 3: so much sense, And even though it might go against

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Speaker 3: what people might think, like oh, it's baby time, when

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Speaker 3: you kind of need that time with the kids. So

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Speaker 3: that's great. I love that that was true for you.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we wanted to talk through some of the three

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Speaker 2: penciples you talk about in slow Productivity, and particularly thinking

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Speaker 2: of it in terms of how these might apply to

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Speaker 2: someone with maybe a bit more of traditional job. I mean, cal,

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Speaker 2: you and I are writing books, hopefully Sarah will soon

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Speaker 2: but we'll get to that.

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Speaker 4: But we're producing podcasts too.

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Speaker 2: But you know, she obviously is seeing patients several days

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Speaker 2: a week as well, So like a more traditional job

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Speaker 2: like that, and how some of these principles would work

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Speaker 2: for that. So maybe you could first say what those

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Speaker 2: three principles are and then maybe talk a little bit

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Speaker 2: about how that works for someone in a traditional job.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So the three ideas that seemed to matter was first,

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Speaker 1: doing fewer things, by which what I really mean is

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Speaker 1: doing fewer things at the same time. I have a

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Speaker 1: core argument here that having too many committed projects on

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Speaker 1: your plate at the same time becomes this massive roadblock

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Speaker 1: to be able to actually do work, but also this

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Speaker 1: massive source of anxiety and stress, and so smaller workloads

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Speaker 1: in the moment I think really is key to slowing

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Speaker 1: down productivity. It also produces more so it's not the

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Speaker 1: zero sum trade off of I'm going to make my

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Speaker 1: boss's life worse to make my life more sustainable. I

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Speaker 1: think it's good for everybody. My second idea was work

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Speaker 1: at a natural pace. We've forgotten the degree to which

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Speaker 1: the factory model that we have poured over to knowledge

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Speaker 1: work of you'd clock in for an eight hour shift

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Speaker 1: and you work as hard as you can those full

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Speaker 1: eight hours, and you do this all year round. We've

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Speaker 1: forgotten how unnatural that is in a literal sense. We're

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Speaker 1: not wired to do that. It's a very recent innovation

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Speaker 1: in the history of our species, one that we realized

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Speaker 1: right away when we first tried it, with the innovation

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Speaker 1: of mills and factories, that is really sort of difficult

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Speaker 1: and hard on people, and yet we just blithely think

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Speaker 1: that's the model we should follow. If I'm not all in,

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Speaker 1: all laws in during the work hour, no matter what

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Speaker 1: hour of the day it is or what week of

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Speaker 1: the year it is, and I'm somehow being unproductive. I

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Speaker 1: really tried to stabilize that and say, actually, it's much

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Speaker 1: more sustainable and you produce much better results over time

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Speaker 1: with more variation in that on different time scales. And

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Speaker 1: then the final principle is obsess over quality. That, like

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Speaker 1: carying about your craft and what you produce, becomes to

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Speaker 1: glue for these other principles. It's what makes slow productivity

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Speaker 1: not just about an antagonistic pose towards your work, but

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Speaker 1: about a more positive or self fulfilling sense of trying

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Speaker 1: to produce stuff that matters. Also, obsessing over quality, caring

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Speaker 1: a lot about quality ultimately is what's going to give

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Speaker 1: you the leverage you need to really reshape these other

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Speaker 1: parts of your work to be slower and slower. So

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Speaker 1: there's a sort of virtuous cycle that happens there. So

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Speaker 1: those are the three ideas that.

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Speaker 2: Says we're going to take a quick ad break and

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Speaker 2: then we're going to come back and talk about how

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Speaker 2: someone in like Sarah's job might do things like this.

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Speaker 3: We're back, and I wanted to take kind of a

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Speaker 3: little bit of a focus on the obsess over quality piece,

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Speaker 3: especially because We've spoken before on the podcast with women

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Speaker 3: who struggle with perfectionism, and we're often kind of giving

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Speaker 3: the opposite advice, like just do B plus job, like

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Speaker 3: it's better to just do it. And sometimes people had

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Speaker 3: this vision of how amazing something needs to be, and

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Speaker 3: in reality something almost as good would be, like that

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Speaker 3: eighty twenty principle kind of thing would get the most

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Speaker 3: of the way there. So where does that dividing line

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Speaker 3: fall or do you look for different levels of quality

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Speaker 3: depend on which project you're thinking about.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, perfectionism, it's a big issue, and it's one of

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Speaker 1: the themes I really try to get into in the book.

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Speaker 1: I use it as an excuse to go back and

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Speaker 1: talk about the Beatles recording Sergeant Pepper's, which it's this

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Speaker 1: interesting turning point in the history of music where right

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Speaker 1: before that album, the Beatles to say I did no

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Speaker 1: more touring. They were done with touring. But this opened

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Speaker 1: up this sort of terrifying freedom because if you don't

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Speaker 1: have to replicate the album you're recording on stage, you

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Speaker 1: could basically do anything in the album. And so they

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Speaker 1: went to the studio after this nineteen sixty eight sort

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Speaker 1: of disastrous tour, I mean, it's a popular tour, but

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Speaker 1: all these bad things happened to him on the tour.

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Speaker 1: This was the We're Bigger than Jesus tour where all

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Speaker 1: this controversy unfolded. They had complete freedom now because they

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Speaker 1: could bring in any instruments they wanted, they could bring

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Speaker 1: in brass, they could bring in Indian sitars, they could

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Speaker 1: work with tape, speed manipulation, and so there's this perfectionism

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Speaker 1: issue of how do you know when you're done? And

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Speaker 1: the balance they made is, Okay, our goal is to

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Speaker 1: do this really well, to advance the level of quality

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Speaker 1: beyond what we've done before. But they also put stakes

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Speaker 1: in the ground. So as soon as they had a

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Speaker 1: releasable single, they released that single, and now there is

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Speaker 1: a stake in the ground, like, okay, the rest of

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Speaker 1: this album, we don't have that much more time. So

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Speaker 1: they added constraints to a general quest to do something

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Speaker 1: better than they have before. So trying to do something

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Speaker 1: better than before with constraints, that's tractable in a way

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Speaker 1: of the best thing possible. It can be impossible, and

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Speaker 1: you could keep working on it forever. I give another

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Speaker 1: example of that of lin Manuel Miranda working on his

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Speaker 1: first play in the Heights, which actually took him seven years.

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Speaker 1: It took him a long time. And the way he

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Speaker 1: navigated perfectionism is they had these regular stakes in the

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Speaker 1: ground where he was working with a performance troop in Manhattan,

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Speaker 1: and every few months or so they would get some

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Speaker 1: actors together and do a reading. Right, we're gonna do

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Speaker 1: a reading of the newest version of the book. So

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Speaker 1: he had to keep working on it because he needed

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Speaker 1: something new, but he wasn't working on it all the time.

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Speaker 1: He was doing lots of other things. He would come

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Speaker 1: back to it, wait to get inspiration, make meaningful updates,

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Speaker 1: and then they would do another reading. So we had

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Speaker 1: these stakes in the ground that were pushing him to deliver,

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Speaker 1: and he was trying to make things better, but not

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Speaker 1: this pressure of make the best possible thing. And so

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Speaker 1: I think we can translate that into sort of everyday

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Speaker 1: knowledge work jobs that you have this mindset of I

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Speaker 1: want to get better at what I'm doing. So this

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Speaker 1: current project i'm doing, I want to do well and

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Speaker 1: maybe there's some way I can do this better than

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Speaker 1: the last time I did it. On the other hand,

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Speaker 1: I want to put stakes in the ground. I'm going

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Speaker 1: to guarantee this on a reasonable timeframe. But I'm going

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Speaker 1: to tell my boss I'll have this to you in

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Speaker 1: two months. You know, you put some stakes in the ground.

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Speaker 1: I got a ship, So this can't be the best

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Speaker 1: thing I've ever produced. But if I give it attention

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Speaker 1: and maybe do something better than I've done before, I'm

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Speaker 1: making progress and I'm happy with it. So it's really

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Speaker 1: that navigating perfectionism versus non caring is really key to

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Speaker 1: a quality obsession.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we always say that done is better than perfect, Yes,

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Speaker 2: because something can't be perfect if it's not done.

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Speaker 4: You know, the most.

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Speaker 2: Perfect in play in the world that no one ever

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Speaker 2: sees is not perfect because it hasn't been seen, which

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Speaker 2: is a necessary component of it being perfect in the

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Speaker 2: first place. But yeah, if we can sort of shift

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Speaker 2: back to the previous two elements of this slow productivity,

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Speaker 2: I mean, how does someone who has a pretty structured job,

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Speaker 2: who works for someone else decide to do fewer things

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Speaker 2: or work at a natural pace. I mean, I know

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Speaker 2: Sarah has patients scheduled at a certain time at a

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Speaker 2: certain pace. That is what is expected for her hospital system.

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Speaker 2: You know, there are certain things she does with that,

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Speaker 2: but obviously there's probably ways that she could do fewer

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Speaker 2: other things. So I wonder if you can sort of

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Speaker 2: talk about how people could could navigate that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, so I think the target audiences useful to

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Speaker 1: set our constraints. I call it loosely knowledge workers in

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Speaker 1: the book. But there's actually a key attribute of the

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Speaker 1: jobs I'm talking about that makes the advice pretty applicable,

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Speaker 1: and that is a flexibility or unspoken autonomy in workload management.

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Speaker 1: So actually, most knowledge work jobs, most jobs for people

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Speaker 1: do they're on a computer screen most of the day.

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Speaker 1: There is no explicit system of workload management. There is

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Speaker 1: no explicit system of here's what you're working on, here's

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Speaker 1: when you do do it. Here is the system with

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Speaker 1: which we assign you your work. Most knowledge work jobs

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Speaker 1: don't have that. Work flows informally through email and Slack

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Speaker 1: and conversations. People ask you to do things, You agree

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Speaker 1: to things, meetings show up on your calendar. There's a

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Speaker 1: lot of issues with that flexibility, but we can turn

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Speaker 1: it around like a little Judo throw and say okay,

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Speaker 1: But that also gives you opportunity. If it's going to

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Speaker 1: be so flexible, that can cause a lot of trouble.

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Speaker 1: You can get really overloaded, you can really get to

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Speaker 1: unsustainable situations. But also you can leverage that same implicit

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Speaker 1: autonomy to build some much smarter approaches. So these are

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Speaker 1: the jobs I'm thinking of. So then we have to

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Speaker 1: be more careful. If we're talking about jobs where there

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Speaker 1: is a structured workload management, then things get more difficult. So, Sarah,

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Speaker 1: I think doctors are they're kind of on that line

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Speaker 1: because because often doctors are in a clinical structure where

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Speaker 1: it's this is your schedule all day long, this is

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Speaker 1: what you're doing. We have a very structured way of

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Speaker 1: actually filling out your schedule. You do, here's what you

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Speaker 1: do this patient, then that. But as we shift over

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Speaker 1: to more hey I'm out a computer screen and send

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Speaker 1: a lot of emails. Now we start to get some flexibility,

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Speaker 1: so we talk about doing fewer things. For example, Well,

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Speaker 1: if you have control over your workload, there's a lot

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Speaker 1: of ideas or systems I talk about for how you

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Speaker 1: can manage what's on your plate even without having to

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Speaker 1: say no all the time. So, for example, one of

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Speaker 1: the things I talk about in the book is starting

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Speaker 1: to make a distinction between actively working on and committed

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Speaker 1: to do but not actively working on yet. Right, So

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Speaker 1: here's what I'm actively working on. Here's my queue of

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Speaker 1: projects I've committed to but I'm not actively working on yet.

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Speaker 1: And as I finish something i'm actively working on, I

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Speaker 1: pull something new from that queue into this list of

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Speaker 1: things I'm actively working on. If you do that and

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Speaker 1: make it transparent, it can really change some of the

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Speaker 1: negative externalities of overload because now when someone says, okay,

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Speaker 1: I need you to really do this, you could say, great,

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Speaker 1: here's my list. You can see here's the three things

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Speaker 1: I'm working on now, and here's the six things queued up.

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Speaker 1: We'll just put that on the end there and say, hey,

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Speaker 1: you can watch this list. It's transparent, and when this

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Speaker 1: hits my active list, then you know I'm actively working

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Speaker 1: on it. Now. Why does that matter? Because now you

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Speaker 1: can restrict administrative overhead to just the projects you're actively

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Speaker 1: working on. Now, we're not going to have standing meetings

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Speaker 1: and we're not going to send emails about this project

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Speaker 1: and tell I'm actively working on it, and you don't

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Speaker 1: have to worry that I'm going to forget it because

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Speaker 1: you can watch it march up that queue. Right and

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Speaker 1: now you've reduced the number of projects on which you

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Speaker 1: have active administrative overhead from ten down to just the

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Speaker 1: three active ones, which is a substantial improvement on your

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Speaker 1: day to day ability to just focus and get things done,

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Speaker 1: not feel overwhelmed, and move things through the system quicker.

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Speaker 1: So it's an example of what happens once you have

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Speaker 1: some of this implicit autonomy and workload management, you can

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Speaker 1: start trying out some pretty interesting ways of actually making

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Speaker 1: that play to your advantage.

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Speaker 3: I will say there are a couple of ways that,

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Speaker 3: in my very structured job, some of your principles do

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Speaker 3: kind of make sense. One is being extremely intentional about

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Speaker 3: what is a sustainable workload, in communicating that to who

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Speaker 3: you work with, and ensuring that you are not doing

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Speaker 3: work that is not necessarily yours to do. So, if

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Speaker 3: you have an x number of patients to see and

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Speaker 3: they want you making xyz rvus, what is the actual

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Speaker 3: physician essential work and what can you not do like

438
00:21:13,040 --> 00:21:15,600
Speaker 3: printing out pieces of paper and like faxing stuff and

439
00:21:15,640 --> 00:21:18,160
Speaker 3: things like that. And so I think there's actually more

440
00:21:18,280 --> 00:21:22,960
Speaker 3: new Portean application to a very structured job. And the

441
00:21:23,000 --> 00:21:25,760
Speaker 3: other piece would be when you are asked to do

442
00:21:25,840 --> 00:21:27,879
Speaker 3: extras which you will do. Even if you are in

443
00:21:28,080 --> 00:21:31,720
Speaker 3: a primarily clinical role, you always have to think about

444
00:21:31,840 --> 00:21:34,240
Speaker 3: is this worth having to have multiple things on my

445
00:21:34,280 --> 00:21:36,280
Speaker 3: plate on a given clinical day where you want your

446
00:21:36,359 --> 00:21:39,720
Speaker 3: focus to be on the patient. So Laura knows, I've

447
00:21:40,000 --> 00:21:41,639
Speaker 3: quite a lot of things in the last couple of

448
00:21:41,680 --> 00:21:44,960
Speaker 3: years so that I can focus on the things that

449
00:21:45,000 --> 00:21:46,320
Speaker 3: I really care about.

450
00:21:46,960 --> 00:21:48,679
Speaker 1: Sarah, can I ask you? I want to ask you

451
00:21:48,680 --> 00:21:51,520
Speaker 1: a doctor follow up question because it instructs me. So

452
00:21:51,600 --> 00:21:55,400
Speaker 1: it seems like in all the different disciplines in medicine,

453
00:21:56,119 --> 00:21:59,200
Speaker 1: the one clinical discipline that seems to have way more

454
00:21:59,240 --> 00:22:01,959
Speaker 1: of a culture of why don't you ty trate what

455
00:22:02,000 --> 00:22:03,560
Speaker 1: you want your work to be more so than almost

456
00:22:03,560 --> 00:22:08,280
Speaker 1: any other, seems to be eered doctors, right, emergency department doctors.

457
00:22:08,440 --> 00:22:10,960
Speaker 1: That there's like a whole culture there of if you

458
00:22:11,000 --> 00:22:13,399
Speaker 1: want to say, I'm an emergency department doctor, there's a

459
00:22:13,440 --> 00:22:17,120
Speaker 1: huge demand for me. I also love surfing. So here's

460
00:22:17,119 --> 00:22:18,960
Speaker 1: what I'm going to do. I'm going to do two

461
00:22:19,000 --> 00:22:22,879
Speaker 1: shifts a week and that's it. And I'm that's fine,

462
00:22:22,880 --> 00:22:24,440
Speaker 1: that's good money for two shifts a week, and I'm

463
00:22:24,440 --> 00:22:26,800
Speaker 1: going to surf five days a week. Or whatever. I'm

464
00:22:26,800 --> 00:22:29,720
Speaker 1: going to spend half the year doing a bunch of

465
00:22:29,720 --> 00:22:32,000
Speaker 1: shifts here and then half the year doing nothing. And

466
00:22:32,160 --> 00:22:33,920
Speaker 1: do I have this right? Like what's going on here

467
00:22:33,920 --> 00:22:40,320
Speaker 1: that that particular subspecialty seems to really embrace experimentation when

468
00:22:40,359 --> 00:22:43,520
Speaker 1: it work fits into life. Whereas if you're a whatever,

469
00:22:43,960 --> 00:22:47,440
Speaker 1: a gas internolo, what do you? I forgot exactly your specialty.

470
00:22:47,840 --> 00:22:51,800
Speaker 3: I'm a pediatric endocrinologist, and I can explain this pretty easily.

471
00:22:51,920 --> 00:22:54,720
Speaker 3: So with my work, there's a ton of continuity. When

472
00:22:54,720 --> 00:22:56,600
Speaker 3: I go to work on a given outpatient day, one

473
00:22:56,600 --> 00:22:57,919
Speaker 3: of the things I have to do is follow up

474
00:22:57,960 --> 00:23:00,280
Speaker 3: all the labs that I sent for my patient from

475
00:23:00,320 --> 00:23:02,560
Speaker 3: the week before. That's like a good chunk of my day.

476
00:23:02,640 --> 00:23:05,680
Speaker 3: In addition, er has none of that. They start every

477
00:23:05,720 --> 00:23:08,320
Speaker 3: single day with a completely blank slate. It doesn't matter

478
00:23:08,320 --> 00:23:10,920
Speaker 3: if they work a Monday at Thursday or whatever. There

479
00:23:11,000 --> 00:23:13,959
Speaker 3: are other medical feels like that critical care is one

480
00:23:14,000 --> 00:23:16,520
Speaker 3: of them. That's essentially shift work at this point, some

481
00:23:16,560 --> 00:23:20,200
Speaker 3: types of hospital medicine. But my husband is a surgeon,

482
00:23:20,400 --> 00:23:22,800
Speaker 3: and they're like me, like, if you operate on someone,

483
00:23:22,800 --> 00:23:24,520
Speaker 3: you're not going to be like bye, peace out. That

484
00:23:24,560 --> 00:23:27,639
Speaker 3: guy's not my problem, Like, there's much more continuity. I

485
00:23:27,680 --> 00:23:30,800
Speaker 3: have figured out ways to make a sixty percent kind

486
00:23:30,840 --> 00:23:34,520
Speaker 3: of situation work, but it does take a lot more

487
00:23:34,640 --> 00:23:37,160
Speaker 3: conscious attention than it would for like an er physician.

488
00:23:37,359 --> 00:23:40,480
Speaker 1: You're right now, fascinating, fascinating. Yeah, but but anyways, I

489
00:23:40,520 --> 00:23:43,080
Speaker 1: love hearing what you said though, right that even when

490
00:23:43,119 --> 00:23:46,600
Speaker 1: you're your schedule is fixed, the load of patients is

491
00:23:46,600 --> 00:23:50,240
Speaker 1: something you can work on and the other activities which

492
00:23:50,280 --> 00:23:51,679
Speaker 1: comes up a lot, Like one of the ideas in

493
00:23:51,720 --> 00:23:54,639
Speaker 1: the book is for these other activities, like whatever it

494
00:23:54,760 --> 00:23:58,240
Speaker 1: is when someone asks you to do something, and one

495
00:23:58,280 --> 00:23:59,960
Speaker 1: of the ideas is never give a yes or no

496
00:24:00,119 --> 00:24:03,520
Speaker 1: into room, right, So I always say, oh, fantastic, that

497
00:24:03,560 --> 00:24:06,159
Speaker 1: sounds really interesting. Well, hey, look I do a very

498
00:24:06,200 --> 00:24:08,640
Speaker 1: careful time tracking, so let me just I'll check out

499
00:24:08,640 --> 00:24:10,320
Speaker 1: my calendar. I'll get back to you. So you never

500
00:24:10,320 --> 00:24:11,639
Speaker 1: give the yes or no in the room when the

501
00:24:11,680 --> 00:24:14,560
Speaker 1: social pressure is highest, and then you can go back.

502
00:24:14,640 --> 00:24:16,520
Speaker 1: And one of the things that some people do that

503
00:24:16,600 --> 00:24:18,560
Speaker 1: I write about is I say, well, if I'm going

504
00:24:18,600 --> 00:24:20,200
Speaker 1: to agree to this, I'm first going to go find

505
00:24:20,200 --> 00:24:21,560
Speaker 1: the time when I'm going to do this and put

506
00:24:21,560 --> 00:24:24,240
Speaker 1: it on my calendar. So now you're actually confronting, like,

507
00:24:24,240 --> 00:24:26,000
Speaker 1: what is the footprint of this thing? How much time

508
00:24:26,040 --> 00:24:28,040
Speaker 1: is it going to take up? Where is that time

509
00:24:28,080 --> 00:24:31,040
Speaker 1: actually coming from? And often it's in that confrontation of

510
00:24:31,080 --> 00:24:33,440
Speaker 1: the reality of the time footprint of one of these

511
00:24:33,480 --> 00:24:36,920
Speaker 1: small asks that you realize I don't have time for this,

512
00:24:37,359 --> 00:24:39,000
Speaker 1: or I'll have time for this in like six weeks

513
00:24:39,040 --> 00:24:40,840
Speaker 1: at the soonest, and this needs to be done sooner.

514
00:24:41,520 --> 00:24:44,320
Speaker 1: Now there's more confidence when you give the follow up, No, hey,

515
00:24:44,359 --> 00:24:46,120
Speaker 1: I looked into this. I was looking for the time

516
00:24:46,160 --> 00:24:48,080
Speaker 1: for it on my calendar. I really have nowhere to

517
00:24:48,080 --> 00:24:49,879
Speaker 1: squeeze this for at least four weeks, which is too

518
00:24:49,920 --> 00:24:51,920
Speaker 1: far in the future. Sorry, I can't do it. And

519
00:24:51,960 --> 00:24:55,360
Speaker 1: it's this like nice way of workload management without having

520
00:24:55,440 --> 00:24:57,800
Speaker 1: it just in the room be like no, you know,

521
00:24:57,920 --> 00:24:59,600
Speaker 1: like I don't do things. You know. It's not a

522
00:24:59,640 --> 00:25:02,600
Speaker 1: yes in a room. It's very reality based. It's based

523
00:25:02,640 --> 00:25:05,119
Speaker 1: on your real schedule and a confrontation of your time.

524
00:25:05,640 --> 00:25:08,119
Speaker 1: People are more likely to respect that, know as well,

525
00:25:08,280 --> 00:25:10,560
Speaker 1: if you have the reputation of someone who's like very

526
00:25:10,600 --> 00:25:12,600
Speaker 1: careful about your time, Like I don't think Sarah's just

527
00:25:12,640 --> 00:25:14,919
Speaker 1: making this up. She'd looked at her calendar and she

528
00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:17,560
Speaker 1: must be really full, you know. So I like that

529
00:25:17,680 --> 00:25:20,080
Speaker 1: idea that you have to care about not just the

530
00:25:20,119 --> 00:25:22,760
Speaker 1: big rocks. It's the little things sometimes that are easy

531
00:25:22,760 --> 00:25:24,679
Speaker 1: to say yes to in the moment that become killer.

532
00:25:25,160 --> 00:25:25,560
Speaker 4: Yeah.

533
00:25:25,880 --> 00:25:28,040
Speaker 2: Well, thinking about schedule, Hopefully Sarah will let me move

534
00:25:28,080 --> 00:25:28,840
Speaker 2: forward a little bit.

535
00:25:28,840 --> 00:25:30,880
Speaker 4: In the questions, we.

536
00:25:30,680 --> 00:25:32,719
Speaker 2: Were hoping that you could talk Cal a little bit

537
00:25:32,760 --> 00:25:36,360
Speaker 2: about a day in the life of Cal. Right, our

538
00:25:36,400 --> 00:25:39,320
Speaker 2: listeners always love hearing how people are managing their lives

539
00:25:39,359 --> 00:25:44,199
Speaker 2: and their schedules, and so I imagine things are somewhat different

540
00:25:44,280 --> 00:25:46,439
Speaker 2: day to day, given that you're wearing a lot of hats.

541
00:25:46,480 --> 00:25:49,439
Speaker 2: But if there's a broad structure that you have found

542
00:25:49,960 --> 00:25:52,199
Speaker 2: works for you, maybe you could talk us through what

543
00:25:52,240 --> 00:25:54,040
Speaker 2: it looks like and we can look at some of

544
00:25:54,080 --> 00:25:57,520
Speaker 2: the principles that you are implementing as you are setting

545
00:25:57,520 --> 00:25:58,480
Speaker 2: your daily schedule.

546
00:25:58,880 --> 00:26:01,280
Speaker 1: Well, I'm very seasonal, which is one of the ideas

547
00:26:01,280 --> 00:26:04,639
Speaker 1: from principle too, So what my schedule looks like in

548
00:26:04,640 --> 00:26:06,000
Speaker 1: part depends on what time of the year it is.

549
00:26:06,760 --> 00:26:09,320
Speaker 1: So my summer schedule, for example, is very different than

550
00:26:09,800 --> 00:26:13,679
Speaker 1: a fall teaching schedule. One thing I always keep as

551
00:26:13,720 --> 00:26:16,800
Speaker 1: a standard and This is something I began doing in

552
00:26:16,840 --> 00:26:20,399
Speaker 1: my early twenties. It's called fixed schedule productivity. I start

553
00:26:20,440 --> 00:26:22,520
Speaker 1: with my working hours. Here's when I work, and it's

554
00:26:22,560 --> 00:26:24,199
Speaker 1: you know, for me, it's like roughly nine ish to

555
00:26:24,280 --> 00:26:27,159
Speaker 1: five ish, and I don't go past that, So everything

556
00:26:27,200 --> 00:26:30,320
Speaker 1: else has to work backwards from that. Rights So I

557
00:26:30,359 --> 00:26:34,640
Speaker 1: call it a metaproductivity commitment because is a general commitment

558
00:26:34,680 --> 00:26:37,000
Speaker 1: that forces you to invent lots of smaller tactics and

559
00:26:37,080 --> 00:26:39,679
Speaker 1: rules and thresholds to try to actually follow it. So

560
00:26:40,320 --> 00:26:42,000
Speaker 1: first of all, I stick with that. If it can't

561
00:26:42,000 --> 00:26:43,879
Speaker 1: fit in nine to five, then I can't do it.

562
00:26:44,600 --> 00:26:46,399
Speaker 1: So I'll start with that. Then my day will be

563
00:26:46,400 --> 00:26:48,840
Speaker 1: different depending if I'm teaching or not. So a teaching day,

564
00:26:48,960 --> 00:26:51,440
Speaker 1: I'll be on campus and I'll be doing I'll try

565
00:26:51,440 --> 00:26:55,320
Speaker 1: to consolidate most of my meetings and administrative work relating

566
00:26:55,359 --> 00:26:57,960
Speaker 1: to being a professor and working with students and everything

567
00:26:57,960 --> 00:27:01,640
Speaker 1: that'll happen on a teaching day. On a non teaching day,

568
00:27:01,800 --> 00:27:05,000
Speaker 1: I'll be doing deep work first thing, in the beginning

569
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:07,240
Speaker 1: of my workday as far forward as I can push it,

570
00:27:08,119 --> 00:27:10,800
Speaker 1: and then whatever else will happen in the afternoon, I'll

571
00:27:10,800 --> 00:27:12,639
Speaker 1: still do deep work on the morning of a teaching

572
00:27:12,720 --> 00:27:14,760
Speaker 1: day if I can, but it's just going to be

573
00:27:14,800 --> 00:27:17,320
Speaker 1: a much smaller window. You know, I might get an

574
00:27:17,359 --> 00:27:20,360
Speaker 1: hour in there. This summer looks different. What I try

575
00:27:20,359 --> 00:27:23,720
Speaker 1: to do in the summer is Mondays and Fridays. Nothing

576
00:27:23,760 --> 00:27:28,080
Speaker 1: on my calendar, keep those consolidated to Tuesday, Wednesday and

577
00:27:28,119 --> 00:27:31,320
Speaker 1: Thursday afternoons. As a professor, I can kind of get

578
00:27:31,320 --> 00:27:34,080
Speaker 1: away with this for a couple months. Maybe not longer,

579
00:27:34,119 --> 00:27:35,440
Speaker 1: but for a couple months I can kind of get

580
00:27:35,440 --> 00:27:37,919
Speaker 1: away from this. So I like this idea of having

581
00:27:38,040 --> 00:27:40,960
Speaker 1: Mondays and Fridays where you're just you're working. I'm usually

582
00:27:40,960 --> 00:27:43,199
Speaker 1: writing books in the summer, You're kind of writing till

583
00:27:43,240 --> 00:27:45,960
Speaker 1: you're done in the early afternoon, thirty minutes of task

584
00:27:46,040 --> 00:27:49,800
Speaker 1: and you're done. Only have meetings and calendar things in

585
00:27:49,840 --> 00:27:51,600
Speaker 1: the middle of the week, and so the summer is

586
00:27:51,600 --> 00:27:54,400
Speaker 1: going to look different than what's going to happen here.

587
00:27:54,720 --> 00:27:56,960
Speaker 1: The other rule I have is with podcasting. You know,

588
00:27:56,960 --> 00:28:00,200
Speaker 1: I introduced podcasting in twenty twenty very worried about as

589
00:28:00,240 --> 00:28:02,399
Speaker 1: time footprint, and so the rule I made, which I

590
00:28:02,480 --> 00:28:05,119
Speaker 1: followed ever since it gets one half day a week,

591
00:28:05,800 --> 00:28:08,000
Speaker 1: it never gets more time. My podcast gets one half

592
00:28:08,080 --> 00:28:10,399
Speaker 1: day a week, and so anything new I want to

593
00:28:10,400 --> 00:28:12,480
Speaker 1: do with it, anything that's going to take more time,

594
00:28:12,560 --> 00:28:13,919
Speaker 1: I have to figure out how to fit it to

595
00:28:13,960 --> 00:28:15,359
Speaker 1: a half day this week. So I'm going to have

596
00:28:15,359 --> 00:28:17,040
Speaker 1: to wait till I make enough money on ads to

597
00:28:17,119 --> 00:28:18,800
Speaker 1: hire someone to take this off my plate so I

598
00:28:18,800 --> 00:28:21,320
Speaker 1: can spend more time on this. It's not allowed to grow.

599
00:28:21,920 --> 00:28:25,760
Speaker 1: So you see throughout my schedules, its constraints are a

600
00:28:25,800 --> 00:28:28,960
Speaker 1: big deal for me. Work backwards from constraints and do

601
00:28:29,040 --> 00:28:31,880
Speaker 1: what you need to do. It's partially why I'm known

602
00:28:31,960 --> 00:28:35,360
Speaker 1: for a lot of these organizational time management style strategies

603
00:28:35,440 --> 00:28:37,480
Speaker 1: is because I had to work in this nine to

604
00:28:37,520 --> 00:28:39,560
Speaker 1: five type of constraint, and so I had to get

605
00:28:39,560 --> 00:28:42,880
Speaker 1: pretty serious about my time within there if I was

606
00:28:42,920 --> 00:28:45,200
Speaker 1: going to actually satisfy that constraint with the various things

607
00:28:45,240 --> 00:28:48,120
Speaker 1: I wanted to do. So I do like placing constraints,

608
00:28:48,120 --> 00:28:51,720
Speaker 1: and I do like variation within the week, within the months,

609
00:28:51,760 --> 00:28:52,960
Speaker 1: and within the years.

610
00:28:53,320 --> 00:28:55,040
Speaker 2: Well, we're going to take one more quick AD break

611
00:28:55,080 --> 00:28:56,440
Speaker 2: and then we're going to be back talking a little

612
00:28:56,440 --> 00:28:58,520
Speaker 2: bit about that time outside nine to five.

613
00:29:11,360 --> 00:29:14,280
Speaker 3: We're back, and yeah, so Laura brought up a great point.

614
00:29:14,320 --> 00:29:16,200
Speaker 3: When we were just speaking, we were talking about the

615
00:29:16,280 --> 00:29:18,560
Speaker 3: day in the life, and I love the constraints on

616
00:29:18,600 --> 00:29:21,760
Speaker 3: your day. I think that especially women, that's really common

617
00:29:21,800 --> 00:29:26,080
Speaker 3: to have because on average, probably more women are doing

618
00:29:26,200 --> 00:29:29,480
Speaker 3: dropping off, picking up, et cetera. Are you able to

619
00:29:29,520 --> 00:29:31,720
Speaker 3: I mean, we don't need specifics. Don't worry, no one's

620
00:29:31,760 --> 00:29:33,800
Speaker 3: going to like come stock you or anything. But we

621
00:29:33,840 --> 00:29:35,960
Speaker 3: do have most of our guests share like do you

622
00:29:36,000 --> 00:29:38,080
Speaker 3: tend to be the drop off parent the pick up parent?

623
00:29:38,160 --> 00:29:40,120
Speaker 3: What does your activity with your kids look like in

624
00:29:40,160 --> 00:29:43,440
Speaker 3: the stage of life? How are you enjoying those hours

625
00:29:43,480 --> 00:29:44,800
Speaker 3: outside of the work.

626
00:29:45,680 --> 00:29:47,680
Speaker 1: Well, so I can't stake the bus, but it's a

627
00:29:47,680 --> 00:29:51,200
Speaker 1: good fifteen minute walk. I don't know the exact distance,

628
00:29:51,200 --> 00:29:53,720
Speaker 1: which I like actually, so it's like a half mile

629
00:29:53,800 --> 00:29:56,520
Speaker 1: or so away from our house. My wife and I

630
00:29:56,600 --> 00:29:58,560
Speaker 1: both like the walk for the drop off, walk to

631
00:29:58,640 --> 00:30:00,120
Speaker 1: kids for the drop off, because then we get the

632
00:30:00,160 --> 00:30:03,400
Speaker 1: walk back, which is a nice way to start the morning.

633
00:30:03,920 --> 00:30:08,000
Speaker 1: And then the afternoon it's who's around, right, so who's

634
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:10,959
Speaker 1: around for the pickup? I like the afternoon pickups when

635
00:30:10,960 --> 00:30:12,560
Speaker 1: I can do it, because it's an excuse the walk,

636
00:30:12,640 --> 00:30:15,360
Speaker 1: especially when the weather's nice. It's an excuse to take

637
00:30:15,400 --> 00:30:17,120
Speaker 1: a walk and then you get it. You wait for

638
00:30:17,120 --> 00:30:18,720
Speaker 1: the bus and you have to get there early because

639
00:30:18,720 --> 00:30:21,560
Speaker 1: you know it's hard to predict, and that could be

640
00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:25,040
Speaker 1: a pretty nice break. Another thing I'm really big on

641
00:30:25,120 --> 00:30:28,120
Speaker 1: and I started this god back in grad school. It's

642
00:30:28,160 --> 00:30:31,440
Speaker 1: just like a long habit is having a very rigorous

643
00:30:31,560 --> 00:30:34,440
Speaker 1: work shut down routine. Right, So, when I'm done with

644
00:30:34,560 --> 00:30:37,240
Speaker 1: work for the day, I have this routine I go

645
00:30:37,320 --> 00:30:39,080
Speaker 1: through where I'm really trying to make sure that there

646
00:30:39,120 --> 00:30:42,080
Speaker 1: are no open loops left in my head. Right, what

647
00:30:42,120 --> 00:30:44,040
Speaker 1: am I doing tomorrow? Did I forget anything today? Is

648
00:30:44,040 --> 00:30:46,920
Speaker 1: there any emergency emails I'm missing? No, that's good. Have

649
00:30:47,000 --> 00:30:49,720
Speaker 1: I written everything down? There's nothing I'm just keeping track

650
00:30:49,720 --> 00:30:51,880
Speaker 1: of in my head. Right, Okay, good, we're all set.

651
00:30:51,880 --> 00:30:54,560
Speaker 1: We know what we're doing tomorrow. All right, shut down

652
00:30:54,600 --> 00:30:56,800
Speaker 1: work for the day. And then it's a sort of

653
00:30:56,840 --> 00:31:00,400
Speaker 1: a cognitive behavioral therapy trick. After you shut down for work,

654
00:31:00,520 --> 00:31:03,480
Speaker 1: if there's some sort of intrusive rumination this professional hey,

655
00:31:03,920 --> 00:31:05,320
Speaker 1: are we doing the right thing for this or that,

656
00:31:05,360 --> 00:31:07,600
Speaker 1: I'm like no, no, no. I went through the shutdown routine,

657
00:31:07,680 --> 00:31:09,600
Speaker 1: and I would not have concluded that routine. If I

658
00:31:09,600 --> 00:31:11,480
Speaker 1: didn't actually address all the open loops, We'll deal with

659
00:31:11,560 --> 00:31:14,640
Speaker 1: that tomorrow. And that's been really helpful because it allows

660
00:31:14,640 --> 00:31:18,120
Speaker 1: me to be a lot more present when I'm actually

661
00:31:18,160 --> 00:31:20,160
Speaker 1: done with work, and especially like the line of work

662
00:31:20,160 --> 00:31:23,040
Speaker 1: I'm in, because as a semi public figure, there's always

663
00:31:23,080 --> 00:31:26,720
Speaker 1: stuff going on. There's people saying things about me, there's

664
00:31:26,760 --> 00:31:30,160
Speaker 1: like big moves that we're doing, there's deals being made.

665
00:31:31,160 --> 00:31:34,680
Speaker 1: I could, if not careful, be thinking about this and

666
00:31:34,760 --> 00:31:36,840
Speaker 1: checking in on this and sort of doing emails here

667
00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:39,160
Speaker 1: and there every waking hour, and that would just make

668
00:31:39,200 --> 00:31:43,280
Speaker 1: me miserable. So I rely incredibly heavily on I've shut

669
00:31:43,360 --> 00:31:45,800
Speaker 1: down work so that I could be one hundred percent

670
00:31:45,800 --> 00:31:47,640
Speaker 1: president at least to the best of my ability when

671
00:31:47,640 --> 00:31:48,320
Speaker 1: I'm not working.

672
00:31:49,080 --> 00:31:50,880
Speaker 2: And one of the things you do, we learned in

673
00:31:50,960 --> 00:31:54,760
Speaker 2: slow Productivity is watching movies with a very critical eye.

674
00:31:55,400 --> 00:31:57,200
Speaker 4: Maybe you could tell us about.

675
00:31:57,240 --> 00:32:00,520
Speaker 2: How you've landed on that as a way to kind

676
00:32:00,560 --> 00:32:07,720
Speaker 2: of boost your creative abilities while it not being strictly work.

677
00:32:08,320 --> 00:32:10,360
Speaker 1: Well, I realized at some point, sort of three kids

678
00:32:10,360 --> 00:32:12,680
Speaker 1: in oh, I don't have any hobbies anymore, which is

679
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:16,240
Speaker 1: pretty common, right. I Mean, I read a lot, but

680
00:32:16,320 --> 00:32:18,200
Speaker 1: that's kind of professional because I need to read a

681
00:32:18,280 --> 00:32:20,560
Speaker 1: lot for you know, I work as well. And so

682
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:23,280
Speaker 1: I very systematically said, well, I always used to love movies.

683
00:32:23,360 --> 00:32:26,080
Speaker 1: My wife and I used to see literally everything, right,

684
00:32:26,120 --> 00:32:28,720
Speaker 1: We would just we lived in Boston near multiple theaters,

685
00:32:28,720 --> 00:32:30,800
Speaker 1: would just see everything. So I said, I'm going to

686
00:32:31,560 --> 00:32:34,440
Speaker 1: get more formal about that. So I'm going to study film.

687
00:32:34,480 --> 00:32:36,240
Speaker 1: I'm going to read about film. I'm going to sort

688
00:32:36,280 --> 00:32:42,120
Speaker 1: of run myself through some self education projects on film

689
00:32:42,400 --> 00:32:44,280
Speaker 1: because I like film and I want to have something

690
00:32:44,360 --> 00:32:46,760
Speaker 1: like this that I can focus on. This nothing to

691
00:32:46,800 --> 00:32:48,560
Speaker 1: do with work. And then there was another thing I

692
00:32:48,560 --> 00:32:54,920
Speaker 1: introduced in my life was working with microelectronics, programming micro controllers.

693
00:32:54,960 --> 00:32:56,400
Speaker 1: And this wasn't part because I could do it with

694
00:32:56,400 --> 00:32:59,680
Speaker 1: my kids and expose them. So my studios here we

695
00:32:59,720 --> 00:33:02,720
Speaker 1: have of a maker lab with a bunch of circuits

696
00:33:02,800 --> 00:33:07,240
Speaker 1: and printers and micro controllers and stuff like that. These

697
00:33:07,240 --> 00:33:10,320
Speaker 1: are both important for two reasons. One, it gives me

698
00:33:10,400 --> 00:33:13,080
Speaker 1: something like focus on and really get thinking about that

699
00:33:13,160 --> 00:33:15,800
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with work, right, because, like a

700
00:33:15,800 --> 00:33:19,520
Speaker 1: lot of people, especially high achieving people, the dream is

701
00:33:19,560 --> 00:33:21,200
Speaker 1: not to be in a state where you have nothing

702
00:33:21,240 --> 00:33:23,600
Speaker 1: to do because you go insane. Your brain goes insane

703
00:33:23,640 --> 00:33:25,600
Speaker 1: when it's like, what are we thinking about? I'm not

704
00:33:25,680 --> 00:33:28,000
Speaker 1: just interested in just being here on the beach. We

705
00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:29,600
Speaker 1: got to think about something, so I wanted to aim

706
00:33:29,640 --> 00:33:32,280
Speaker 1: it at things that was not professional for anxiety reasons.

707
00:33:32,520 --> 00:33:37,080
Speaker 1: And then the film interest had this unexpected secondary positive

708
00:33:37,120 --> 00:33:39,680
Speaker 1: benefit I talked about in the book, which was studying

709
00:33:39,680 --> 00:33:42,440
Speaker 1: an art form unrelated to what I do, which is writing,

710
00:33:43,160 --> 00:33:46,240
Speaker 1: actually made me better at writing because it exposed me

711
00:33:46,280 --> 00:33:49,040
Speaker 1: to people doing creative, interesting things, but outside of the

712
00:33:49,040 --> 00:33:51,720
Speaker 1: specific context of my work, and I could find more

713
00:33:51,800 --> 00:33:55,560
Speaker 1: inspiration over there than I could studying people doing exactly

714
00:33:55,560 --> 00:33:57,440
Speaker 1: what I was doing, because that's too stressful and I

715
00:33:57,480 --> 00:33:59,520
Speaker 1: know them all and it's hey, if they do it

716
00:33:59,560 --> 00:34:02,480
Speaker 1: in my book doesn't do well, it's bad financially. But film,

717
00:34:02,520 --> 00:34:05,080
Speaker 1: there's no stakes, it's not my field. And I found

718
00:34:05,080 --> 00:34:09,080
Speaker 1: that the inspiration studying creative people over there carried over

719
00:34:09,120 --> 00:34:10,840
Speaker 1: to what I was doing in my writing and actually

720
00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:15,000
Speaker 1: injected me with some creative juices. So I accidentally found

721
00:34:15,000 --> 00:34:19,120
Speaker 1: something productive in this complete escape from trying to do

722
00:34:19,160 --> 00:34:20,120
Speaker 1: things related to work.

723
00:34:20,640 --> 00:34:20,799
Speaker 4: Yeah.

724
00:34:20,880 --> 00:34:22,920
Speaker 2: I love how you talk about reading other nonfiction. It's

725
00:34:22,920 --> 00:34:24,480
Speaker 2: always like, well, what are they doing that I didn't do.

726
00:34:25,239 --> 00:34:27,840
Speaker 2: It's a little similar. I should have done that in

727
00:34:27,840 --> 00:34:30,360
Speaker 2: the last one. Oh well, yeah, exactly.

728
00:34:31,680 --> 00:34:33,480
Speaker 4: Any more questions, Sarah that you have for.

729
00:34:33,600 --> 00:34:35,239
Speaker 3: I was just going to say his hobby is also

730
00:34:35,280 --> 00:34:37,520
Speaker 3: great for crowding out screen time, which is something he

731
00:34:37,600 --> 00:34:40,640
Speaker 3: talks a lot about on his show. And we've done

732
00:34:40,640 --> 00:34:42,640
Speaker 3: episodes on hobbies before as well, and I think it's

733
00:34:42,680 --> 00:34:45,360
Speaker 3: an under I think that could be like another topic

734
00:34:45,360 --> 00:34:48,200
Speaker 3: for you. Cal like dive deeply into hobbies, because.

735
00:34:48,000 --> 00:34:50,719
Speaker 2: I think you're examply into running. She's like, that's my

736
00:34:51,480 --> 00:34:55,560
Speaker 2: non obsession, you know, marathon training. I love doing thousand

737
00:34:55,560 --> 00:35:00,200
Speaker 2: piece puzzles. That is something that I have found that

738
00:35:00,280 --> 00:35:03,960
Speaker 2: keeps me mostly off my phone, not completely. I'm often

739
00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:08,280
Speaker 2: texting with friends at the same time, but I've gotten

740
00:35:08,280 --> 00:35:08,960
Speaker 2: pretty good.

741
00:35:08,760 --> 00:35:11,080
Speaker 4: At them over time. Kevint convinced any of my kids

742
00:35:11,080 --> 00:35:13,280
Speaker 4: to do them with me yet, but maybe someday.

743
00:35:13,360 --> 00:35:15,160
Speaker 1: I don't think we do have every year. My wife

744
00:35:15,160 --> 00:35:16,719
Speaker 1: is so much better at them that I am. I'm

745
00:35:16,760 --> 00:35:18,399
Speaker 1: really bad at puzzles, but it gives me a hope

746
00:35:18,440 --> 00:35:20,440
Speaker 1: that you said you got better at it.

747
00:35:20,520 --> 00:35:21,240
Speaker 4: I did get better.

748
00:35:21,360 --> 00:35:24,359
Speaker 2: Well, you start to see like, yeah, that's not going

749
00:35:24,360 --> 00:35:25,960
Speaker 2: to fit there. I mean, you obviously can see it's

750
00:35:25,960 --> 00:35:27,719
Speaker 2: not going to fit there, even just thinking in terms

751
00:35:27,760 --> 00:35:30,520
Speaker 2: of that knobs, that size, and that's you know, it's

752
00:35:30,920 --> 00:35:33,799
Speaker 2: a it's a skill, but if you wish to get

753
00:35:33,800 --> 00:35:36,919
Speaker 2: better at it, I am sure that you will. So, Cal,

754
00:35:37,040 --> 00:35:39,959
Speaker 2: we always end with a love of the week, which

755
00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:44,520
Speaker 2: is something that we are currently enjoying that you know

756
00:35:44,560 --> 00:35:46,120
Speaker 2: we want to share with our listeners. We can go

757
00:35:46,200 --> 00:35:48,239
Speaker 2: first to give you a minute to think about it, Sarah,

758
00:35:48,320 --> 00:35:49,439
Speaker 2: did you want to start off?

759
00:35:49,840 --> 00:35:51,919
Speaker 3: Well, mine feeds on yours, So I'll give a teaser

760
00:35:51,960 --> 00:35:53,600
Speaker 3: that Laura is going to talk about a book. So

761
00:35:53,680 --> 00:35:55,200
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, do I have a book that

762
00:35:55,239 --> 00:35:57,719
Speaker 3: would have something to do with Laura Cal And I

763
00:35:57,760 --> 00:36:00,719
Speaker 3: am a very dedicated deep questions listener. Cal, you will

764
00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:03,400
Speaker 3: know I do this very specific route on Tuesday mornings,

765
00:36:03,400 --> 00:36:05,719
Speaker 3: and your podcast is always what I listened to. I'm

766
00:36:05,760 --> 00:36:08,960
Speaker 3: such a nerd anyway, So do my square run listen

767
00:36:09,000 --> 00:36:11,759
Speaker 3: to Cal? And So I know what you read because

768
00:36:11,760 --> 00:36:13,040
Speaker 3: you talk about your books, and I feel like the

769
00:36:13,120 --> 00:36:15,120
Speaker 3: Venn diagram of what I read and what you read

770
00:36:15,200 --> 00:36:17,839
Speaker 3: is like the only overlap is Laura Vandercamp.

771
00:36:17,719 --> 00:36:21,040
Speaker 2: So I'm in.

772
00:36:21,920 --> 00:36:22,680
Speaker 4: I love your books.

773
00:36:22,680 --> 00:36:24,720
Speaker 3: What can I say? You guys are both excellent writers.

774
00:36:24,760 --> 00:36:26,319
Speaker 3: I'm excited to be chatting with you. That is my

775
00:36:26,360 --> 00:36:26,879
Speaker 3: love of the week.

776
00:36:27,360 --> 00:36:29,319
Speaker 4: Thank you so much, Sarah.

777
00:36:29,400 --> 00:36:31,319
Speaker 2: I was going to say that one of the fun

778
00:36:31,360 --> 00:36:34,000
Speaker 2: parts for me of reading Slow Productivity is your extended

779
00:36:34,040 --> 00:36:36,960
Speaker 2: set piece on John McPhee, who is one of my

780
00:36:37,080 --> 00:36:41,040
Speaker 2: favorite professors in college. I took his somewhat famous writing

781
00:36:41,120 --> 00:36:44,640
Speaker 2: nonfiction writing class, and I actually took it the one

782
00:36:44,719 --> 00:36:48,520
Speaker 2: year he offered it as a freshman seminar. So for

783
00:36:48,560 --> 00:36:50,279
Speaker 2: many years he's offered it, he offered it as a

784
00:36:50,360 --> 00:36:53,400
Speaker 2: regular class. My year he offered it as a freshman seminar,

785
00:36:53,440 --> 00:36:55,080
Speaker 2: and then after that he did it as like a

786
00:36:55,080 --> 00:36:56,279
Speaker 2: sophomore seminar or something.

787
00:36:56,320 --> 00:36:57,200
Speaker 4: But anyway, my year.

788
00:36:57,120 --> 00:37:00,239
Speaker 2: Was freshman and it was quite a great class. I

789
00:37:00,320 --> 00:37:02,839
Speaker 2: was just say one of his books that people might want.

790
00:37:02,880 --> 00:37:04,760
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess by the time this eras basketball

791
00:37:04,760 --> 00:37:07,920
Speaker 2: season is over. But if you are missing basketball season,

792
00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:10,839
Speaker 2: you should read A Sense of Where You Are, which

793
00:37:10,880 --> 00:37:13,960
Speaker 2: is his biography of Bill Bradley, as one of the

794
00:37:14,000 --> 00:37:15,960
Speaker 2: best pieces of sports writing ever.

795
00:37:17,520 --> 00:37:19,080
Speaker 4: So, cal what do you have for us?

796
00:37:19,520 --> 00:37:22,200
Speaker 1: By the way, I talked to Tim Ferriss recently about that.

797
00:37:22,440 --> 00:37:24,560
Speaker 1: He also took that class at Priston, and he told me,

798
00:37:25,560 --> 00:37:28,560
Speaker 1: Tim said, I think that writing was the best writing

799
00:37:28,600 --> 00:37:30,800
Speaker 1: I've still done in my career. On was the writing

800
00:37:30,880 --> 00:37:33,920
Speaker 1: I did like draft three to try to like get

801
00:37:33,960 --> 00:37:37,720
Speaker 1: marked up less by Professor McPhee. It's all been downhill

802
00:37:37,719 --> 00:37:41,080
Speaker 1: from there. I'll tell you what I'm loving is just

803
00:37:41,080 --> 00:37:44,120
Speaker 1: a few days ago when we recorded this, I had

804
00:37:44,120 --> 00:37:47,920
Speaker 1: my first sort of in person book event for like

805
00:37:47,920 --> 00:37:51,359
Speaker 1: one of my books since before the pandemic, right because

806
00:37:51,360 --> 00:37:53,000
Speaker 1: I had a book come out in twenty nineteen. We

807
00:37:53,040 --> 00:37:55,319
Speaker 1: did a traditional book tour. Then I had a book come

808
00:37:55,320 --> 00:37:58,280
Speaker 1: out in twenty twenty one and that was all virtual,

809
00:37:58,960 --> 00:38:00,840
Speaker 1: and you know, I've done events for other people's books,

810
00:38:00,840 --> 00:38:02,680
Speaker 1: but like I have this, this is my first book

811
00:38:02,880 --> 00:38:06,160
Speaker 1: that's come out post pandemic. And so I went back

812
00:38:06,200 --> 00:38:08,759
Speaker 1: to the politics and pros here in DC's where I

813
00:38:08,760 --> 00:38:10,960
Speaker 1: always do my book launches, and it's like, we're going

814
00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:12,319
Speaker 1: to have a book launch and it was great. It

815
00:38:12,360 --> 00:38:14,799
Speaker 1: was a real love fest. I mean, we broke all

816
00:38:14,800 --> 00:38:17,839
Speaker 1: the fire codes. We had so many people in there.

817
00:38:18,000 --> 00:38:19,560
Speaker 4: I sign onto the sidewalk.

818
00:38:19,680 --> 00:38:22,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, an hour and forty five minutes because everyone was

819
00:38:22,400 --> 00:38:24,200
Speaker 1: just like wanted to stay and stay hi and like

820
00:38:24,239 --> 00:38:27,359
Speaker 1: get something signed. And you know, I've been talking to

821
00:38:27,400 --> 00:38:31,239
Speaker 1: everyone through a microphone for the last four years, and

822
00:38:31,360 --> 00:38:33,560
Speaker 1: so to actually be able to for the first time

823
00:38:33,560 --> 00:38:35,239
Speaker 1: for one of my books and my events to sit

824
00:38:35,280 --> 00:38:38,120
Speaker 1: down and have so many people from the area to

825
00:38:38,160 --> 00:38:40,080
Speaker 1: show up and talk to them face to face, not

826
00:38:40,120 --> 00:38:42,040
Speaker 1: through a microphone or a screen, it was fantastic. I

827
00:38:42,080 --> 00:38:43,799
Speaker 1: was like, oh, this is great. I can't do too

828
00:38:43,880 --> 00:38:46,000
Speaker 1: much of that because I'm an introvert and it drains me,

829
00:38:46,200 --> 00:38:50,360
Speaker 1: like being in a matrix pod basically, you know, but

830
00:38:50,440 --> 00:38:51,799
Speaker 1: it's good for me to do every once in a while.

831
00:38:51,840 --> 00:38:53,280
Speaker 1: So I'm loving that. That was a lot of fun.

832
00:38:53,560 --> 00:38:54,080
Speaker 4: That's awesome.

833
00:38:54,200 --> 00:38:56,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Politics and Pros is an awesome bookstore, so

834
00:38:56,800 --> 00:38:59,800
Speaker 2: definitely any of our listeners visiting Washington, DC, you should

835
00:38:59,800 --> 00:39:01,200
Speaker 2: go to check it out. And they have a lot

836
00:39:01,200 --> 00:39:04,359
Speaker 2: of live author events and other community events, so worth

837
00:39:04,440 --> 00:39:06,920
Speaker 2: going to. Well, Cal, thank you so much for joining us.

838
00:39:06,920 --> 00:39:09,239
Speaker 2: Why don't you let our listeners know real quickly where

839
00:39:09,280 --> 00:39:09,920
Speaker 2: they can find you.

840
00:39:10,880 --> 00:39:14,480
Speaker 1: So Calnewport dot com has all the information about me

841
00:39:14,520 --> 00:39:18,080
Speaker 1: and my podcast is called Deep Questions I'm not on

842
00:39:18,120 --> 00:39:20,799
Speaker 1: social media, but I am on cal Newport dot com

843
00:39:20,840 --> 00:39:23,239
Speaker 1: and I am in your ears through deep questions. So

844
00:39:23,280 --> 00:39:26,160
Speaker 1: if you're interested in my book Slow Productivity, are the

845
00:39:26,160 --> 00:39:29,240
Speaker 1: other things I'm writing or doing? Check it out there.

846
00:39:29,920 --> 00:39:31,640
Speaker 4: Sounds good. Well, thanks so much for joining us.

847
00:39:31,840 --> 00:39:32,680
Speaker 1: Thank you. I enjoyed it.

848
00:39:33,080 --> 00:39:33,960
Speaker 4: Well, we are back.

849
00:39:34,120 --> 00:39:37,200
Speaker 2: That was so fun interviewing Cal and with both of us.

850
00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:40,040
Speaker 2: We had quite the time attempting to make sure Sarah

851
00:39:40,080 --> 00:39:42,799
Speaker 2: and I weren't stepping on each other as we're doing

852
00:39:42,840 --> 00:39:45,640
Speaker 2: our two person interview, but we're a little rusty at that,

853
00:39:45,719 --> 00:39:48,920
Speaker 2: but I think we did okay. So this question comes

854
00:39:48,920 --> 00:39:52,080
Speaker 2: from someone who says she's a long time listener and

855
00:39:52,200 --> 00:39:54,480
Speaker 2: noticed recently that She says to Sarah that you and

856
00:39:54,560 --> 00:39:58,000
Speaker 2: Laura have talked a lot about blogs that you read regularly.

857
00:39:58,560 --> 00:40:01,120
Speaker 2: She says, do you use some sort of service to

858
00:40:01,239 --> 00:40:03,520
Speaker 2: send a bunch of blogs to your inbox every day?

859
00:40:03,640 --> 00:40:06,000
Speaker 2: Or do you visit like the website for each blog

860
00:40:06,080 --> 00:40:09,120
Speaker 2: every day? How does this physically work?

861
00:40:09,920 --> 00:40:10,240
Speaker 4: Yeah?

862
00:40:10,320 --> 00:40:13,520
Speaker 3: So I am a feed lely user. Feed Lee is

863
00:40:13,560 --> 00:40:16,360
Speaker 3: a feed aggregator, meaning that you can subscribe to a

864
00:40:16,440 --> 00:40:19,000
Speaker 3: number of blogs and then just go to feed lee

865
00:40:19,000 --> 00:40:21,760
Speaker 3: dot com and then see all of the latest posts

866
00:40:21,760 --> 00:40:26,640
Speaker 3: from each contributor. And that came about after an app

867
00:40:26,719 --> 00:40:30,400
Speaker 3: called Google Reader went defunct somewhere in the I don't know,

868
00:40:30,520 --> 00:40:33,120
Speaker 3: mid teens or something like that, because Feedlee looks a

869
00:40:33,239 --> 00:40:35,360
Speaker 3: lot like Google Reader. But to me, it seems like

870
00:40:35,400 --> 00:40:37,640
Speaker 3: someone was just like, Okay, that's going away. I'm going

871
00:40:37,680 --> 00:40:39,560
Speaker 3: to make an exact copy of that, and everyone can

872
00:40:39,600 --> 00:40:42,600
Speaker 3: move to that. And Feedle still works very well. It

873
00:40:42,719 --> 00:40:47,480
Speaker 3: is free. I love it. I find it really really efficient,

874
00:40:47,480 --> 00:40:49,600
Speaker 3: and it means I'm never checking to see if someone posts.

875
00:40:49,640 --> 00:40:51,840
Speaker 3: I will say, every once in a while, something happens

876
00:40:51,840 --> 00:40:54,840
Speaker 3: with someone's feed and you will stop getting it, and

877
00:40:54,840 --> 00:40:56,120
Speaker 3: then all of a sudden you'll get like a dump

878
00:40:56,160 --> 00:40:56,640
Speaker 3: of posts.

879
00:40:56,640 --> 00:40:57,520
Speaker 4: But usually if.

880
00:40:57,440 --> 00:40:59,200
Speaker 3: You're a creator, you're aware of that and you're gonna

881
00:40:59,200 --> 00:41:02,040
Speaker 3: fix it. I do subscribe to my own blog on Feedblea,

882
00:41:02,160 --> 00:41:04,400
Speaker 3: so I can see if any shenanigans are happening with

883
00:41:04,440 --> 00:41:04,799
Speaker 3: my feed.

884
00:41:05,680 --> 00:41:07,319
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was thinking about this.

885
00:41:07,400 --> 00:41:11,720
Speaker 2: I'm like, no, I just go to the blog website

886
00:41:11,760 --> 00:41:14,920
Speaker 2: and the ones that I read regularly tend to post

887
00:41:15,080 --> 00:41:16,200
Speaker 2: fairly regularly.

888
00:41:16,280 --> 00:41:17,640
Speaker 4: So someone like the.

889
00:41:17,520 --> 00:41:20,840
Speaker 2: Frugal Girl, she almost always posts in the morning and

890
00:41:20,880 --> 00:41:23,680
Speaker 2: she posts Monday through Friday on a pretty set schedule,

891
00:41:24,120 --> 00:41:27,959
Speaker 2: and so if you go to the website at seven

892
00:41:27,960 --> 00:41:31,640
Speaker 2: point thirty in the morning, probably nine times out of

893
00:41:31,640 --> 00:41:33,520
Speaker 2: ten there is going to be the new post there.

894
00:41:33,920 --> 00:41:36,719
Speaker 2: So on some level it's inefficient, But on the other

895
00:41:36,840 --> 00:41:39,200
Speaker 2: given that it is such a regular posting schedule, it

896
00:41:39,280 --> 00:41:43,240
Speaker 2: isn't same with Sarah. She has a pretty regular posting

897
00:41:43,280 --> 00:41:46,160
Speaker 2: schedule that I just kind of know at this point,

898
00:41:46,239 --> 00:41:49,160
Speaker 2: So I just go and check the blog later in

899
00:41:49,200 --> 00:41:51,000
Speaker 2: the day, and most of the time she has in

900
00:41:51,040 --> 00:41:53,520
Speaker 2: fact posted. Now, if she doesn't, I guess I would

901
00:41:53,520 --> 00:41:55,560
Speaker 2: go and see that it was the old post, and

902
00:41:55,600 --> 00:41:57,440
Speaker 2: then I might not go again for another day, and

903
00:41:57,440 --> 00:41:59,960
Speaker 2: then i'd go check again and she's still not posting.

904
00:42:00,040 --> 00:42:01,680
Speaker 4: I guess I'd go in and check another day.

905
00:42:01,760 --> 00:42:04,520
Speaker 2: So there's a little bit of inefficiency here, But I

906
00:42:04,520 --> 00:42:07,200
Speaker 2: don't know. I guess I don't feel like I have

907
00:42:07,280 --> 00:42:10,680
Speaker 2: to be that tight with my seconds that going to

908
00:42:10,719 --> 00:42:12,680
Speaker 2: the website is a huge waste of time.

909
00:42:12,800 --> 00:42:14,200
Speaker 4: So I have not.

910
00:42:14,239 --> 00:42:17,200
Speaker 2: Come up with a more efficient solution, but seems to

911
00:42:17,239 --> 00:42:21,279
Speaker 2: work okay for me. Well, we have been interviewing cal

912
00:42:21,400 --> 00:42:25,320
Speaker 2: Newport speaking of people who do things efficiently in this episode,

913
00:42:25,840 --> 00:42:29,480
Speaker 2: talking about all things slow productivity. Although maybe checking websites

914
00:42:29,520 --> 00:42:31,480
Speaker 2: individually counts as slow productivity.

915
00:42:31,520 --> 00:42:31,880
Speaker 3: I don't know.

916
00:42:32,280 --> 00:42:34,200
Speaker 2: But we will be back next week with more on

917
00:42:34,280 --> 00:42:35,880
Speaker 2: making work and life fit together.

918
00:42:37,920 --> 00:42:40,719
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the

919
00:42:40,719 --> 00:42:45,120
Speaker 3: shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram,

920
00:42:45,560 --> 00:42:45,879
Speaker 3: and you.

921
00:42:45,840 --> 00:42:50,080
Speaker 2: Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This

922
00:42:50,160 --> 00:42:53,399
Speaker 2: has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join

923
00:42:53,480 --> 00:42:56,160
Speaker 2: us next time for more on making work and life

924
00:42:56,360 --> 00:42:57,040
Speaker 2: work together.