Escape Your Desk: A Simple Way To Find Clarity & Make Hard Work Feel Like Play

00:00:00.000 | So we talk a lot here about the mechanics of how to organize and execute your work in

00:00:05.580 | a world that is full of digital distractions.

00:00:07.940 | Today I want to change course a little bit and talk instead about where you do your work.

00:00:13.720 | We've made cognitive jobs, grinding and exhausting, almost like we're toiling in a mental factory.

00:00:20.220 | We come to our nondescript desks and open up our screen and just it goes until we can't

00:00:25.660 | take any more.

00:00:26.660 | But it doesn't have to be this way.

00:00:29.340 | By getting more radical about where you do the most important of your work, you can actually

00:00:33.860 | change the entire character of your professional life.

00:00:35.940 | That's what I want to talk about in this deep dive.

00:00:38.940 | I'll give you some examples of people who have done radical things with where they work.

00:00:42.540 | I'll show you some of the interesting places I work.

00:00:44.540 | I'll get into the theory about why that works and some ideas for how you can put these ideas

00:00:49.180 | into play yourself.

00:00:50.180 | But where I want to start is actually from somewhere deeper in my past.

00:00:55.700 | I want to roll all the way back to 2008.

00:00:59.580 | This is when my newsletter, Study Hacks, was focused exclusively on students and in particular

00:01:07.540 | college and university life and how to be successful as a student.

00:01:11.660 | Way back then I introduced a concept that's going to be relevant to our discussion today.

00:01:15.100 | I'm going to bring this up on the screen for people who are watching.

00:01:18.440 | This is an article from 2008 titled "Adventure Studying - An Unconventional New Approach

00:01:24.960 | to Exam Preparation."

00:01:27.700 | At the very top of this post I actually say, "Exam Advice Week here at Study Hacks is winding

00:01:32.540 | down.

00:01:33.540 | So sad.

00:01:34.540 | Next week it's back to the normal mix."

00:01:35.540 | I used to do interesting things on here, Jesse.

00:01:37.300 | I forgot about this.

00:01:39.260 | Back in the day of blogs and newsletters, it was like a TV channel.

00:01:41.900 | You would have different days, you would have different content, you'd have theme weeks.

00:01:45.700 | Anyways, I kind of missed that.

00:01:47.500 | All right, so I want to read a little bit from this article because we're going to connect

00:01:51.980 | these ideas to the world of work here in a second.

00:01:53.980 | All right, I'm reading from my own 2008 article here.

00:01:57.940 | For many students, this thought reeks of heresy.

00:02:02.540 | The thought here is like working somewhere unusual.

00:02:05.940 | Conventional wisdom says studying happens on campus, or if you're feeling particularly

00:02:09.940 | crazy, maybe in a Starbucks near campus, and that's it.

00:02:13.740 | It's supposed to be a grind that takes place in the same old boring library surrounded

00:02:18.540 | by the same old boring people, and by the end with your eyes rimmed red with exhaustion,

00:02:22.140 | your skin sallow and whitened from fluorescent saturation, you can grin feebly and announce,

00:02:27.460 | "I survive."

00:02:29.540 | Here's my question.

00:02:30.540 | Does it have to be like this?

00:02:31.540 | At Dartmouth, I frequently sought ways to challenge this conventional wisdom.

00:02:35.860 | When I would see the hooded sweatshirted masses trudging towards the library at the beginning

00:02:39.340 | of the finals period, I would turn and run in the opposite direction.

00:02:42.860 | I was known to drive 20 minutes away from campus to study at a bookstore where no one

00:02:46.700 | knew or cared that my school had exams.

00:02:48.820 | I would sometimes tackle authority take-home exam questions while walking the banks of

00:02:53.220 | the Connecticut River, anything to avoid the cinderblock study lounges that most students

00:02:57.220 | believed bafflingly that they were contractually bound to inhabit during this period.

00:03:03.380 | I call this tactic adventure studying.

00:03:06.380 | The basic idea is simple.

00:03:08.400 | Our minds crave novelty.

00:03:10.500 | If you work on exam preparation and paper writing in novel environments, it becomes

00:03:14.300 | easier to engage the material, be more creative, form stronger comprehension, and overall,

00:03:18.420 | dare I say it, perhaps even enjoy the process.

00:03:24.180 | So I had this idea of adventure studying.

00:03:26.660 | Here's a photo.

00:03:29.000 | People sent in their examples of it.

00:03:30.580 | Here's a photo I want to load up on the screen here.

00:03:33.260 | See that really nice waterfall, Jesse?

00:03:34.740 | Someone sent in back in 2008, like this is where they did their exam studying.

00:03:39.740 | They would hike to this waterfall and sit by it to do their work.

00:03:42.700 | I mean, that just sounds nice as compared to a study room.

00:03:46.580 | All right.

00:03:47.580 | So here's my idea today.

00:03:50.060 | Why can't we apply the same idea originally developed in the context of university life

00:03:54.700 | to knowledge work?

00:03:56.580 | The stuff we do in our cognitive jobs.

00:03:59.820 | Why don't we go to inspiring and unusual places in our jobs to do the most demanding or interesting

00:04:06.540 | work that we have to tackle?

00:04:09.380 | Let's call this adventure working, and I think it's something that we should give more of

00:04:15.740 | a thought to.

00:04:16.740 | Now, in my new book, Slow Productivity, I do talk about this.

00:04:21.900 | In the principle on working at a natural place, I talk about environments conducive to brilliance,

00:04:27.340 | that if we look at people who build things with their mind historically, before our current

00:04:31.660 | moment of sort of email-driven knowledge work, they would often, we would see many examples

00:04:36.260 | of them leveraging really interesting and novel environments to do their most important

00:04:41.620 | work.

00:04:42.620 | I have a few pictures I want to show here, examples of this.

00:04:46.400 | So right here, this picture on the screen, this is the Isle of Skye off the coast of

00:04:52.500 | Scotland.

00:04:53.500 | So if you're listening instead of watching, it looks like it's green moors with rocky

00:05:00.940 | cliffs.

00:05:02.220 | This picture was posted on Instagram by Neil Gaiman.

00:05:04.580 | So Neil Gaiman, of course, the writer, bought a house on the Isle of Skye just for inspiration.

00:05:13.140 | Here's what he wrote.

00:05:14.140 | Here's his caption for this picture of the Isle of Skye.

00:05:16.540 | "I spent some time over the last few weeks in my favorite place in the world, the Isle

00:05:20.240 | of Skye.

00:05:21.400 | This is a photo I took of the," I'm going to say this wrong, "Quarry, which is a lot

00:05:26.400 | like being in Faerie, the land of the sort of the British mythology, like the land of

00:05:33.400 | mythical, like fairies and elves, et cetera.

00:05:37.800 | Go to Skye, but off season when the weather is blustery and the queues are gone and the

00:05:40.960 | restaurants will be happy to feed you."

00:05:42.280 | So he ended up buying a house here in part for the inspiration, just for the inspiration

00:05:46.960 | of it.

00:05:47.960 | Okay.

00:05:48.960 | Here's another picture.

00:05:51.040 | This is Blackwater Pond in Cape Cod.

00:05:54.620 | There's a picture of someone by the water.

00:05:56.400 | There's a picture of the water.

00:05:58.600 | Here's a nice pine needle draped path by the pond.

00:06:04.840 | Mary Oliver wrote a famous poem about Blackwater Pond because in general, the poet, the late

00:06:10.640 | poet Mary Oliver, did her best writing walking in nature.

00:06:15.320 | I write about in detail about this in Slow Productivity, but wandering through nature

00:06:19.320 | is where she felt like she could get the inspiration to do her acclaimed nature-themed writing.

00:06:24.800 | And this is a picture of one of these very specific places she walked and wrote a poem

00:06:29.040 | about.

00:06:30.040 | This is so different than looking at a laptop screen, you know, at your kitchen table or

00:06:33.840 | home office.

00:06:34.840 | All right.

00:06:35.840 | One more.

00:06:36.840 | This is the Scottish novelist, crime novelist, Ian Rankin.

00:06:42.540 | Here he is on Black Isle, which is not an island.

00:06:49.320 | We had a listener write in about this.

00:06:51.440 | But off the coast of Scotland as well, a peninsula, not an island.

00:06:56.560 | But anyways, he ended up, there's some pictures of him, it's on the water.

00:06:59.880 | They bought a little cottage and he goes there to do his writing.

00:07:02.440 | And he's this little cottage by the water in the Scottish highlands here in this quaint

00:07:07.800 | town.

00:07:08.800 | And because he couldn't get inspired about his writing, right?

00:07:12.120 | So we see this in sort of famous or traditional knowledge workers that they do adventure working.

00:07:17.280 | They care about where it is that they actually do their work.

00:07:20.640 | Well, the rest of us can do this as well, especially those of us who have at least some

00:07:25.180 | days per week that we don't work at the office.

00:07:27.640 | Remote work is so much more common now.

00:07:30.020 | No one really knows exactly where you are.

00:07:31.840 | We've never had more capability to do adventure work than we have right now.

00:07:37.640 | Now for most of us, this might not mean an island off of the coast of Scotland.

00:07:41.960 | But think about the opportunities we do have.

00:07:44.520 | Hiking to a quiet place, like that waterfall I showed earlier.

00:07:48.680 | Thinking about what you need to work on, the memo you need to write.

00:07:52.160 | And then when you get to the quiet place, you actually write your first draft of it.

00:07:55.920 | Museums.

00:07:56.920 | You know, that's a big one.

00:07:58.320 | That original post on adventure studying, at the top of the post I had a picture of

00:08:02.900 | a modern art museum in Boston where I went to the scenic room they had overlooking the

00:08:07.480 | Charles and I actually did some exam work there.

00:08:10.200 | Here in DC, I often go to the museums because they're free and you can find like an interesting

00:08:15.240 | atrium or place to sit to work, surrounded by these cultural artifacts that really gets

00:08:20.240 | your creative juices going.

00:08:22.440 | It might cost admission to go to these museums, great.

00:08:25.720 | Maybe for the cost of like your latte, you can now spend a few hours, you know, wandering

00:08:30.480 | and being inspired, working in a really unusual situation.

00:08:35.040 | Another idea I had back in that adventure studying period was, you know, pubs and bars.

00:08:41.560 | Speaking of Britain, right?

00:08:42.680 | There's a big British tradition of you have your sort of pint of cask pulled, low alcoholic

00:08:48.920 | beer near the fireplace that you're reading the complicated thing.

00:08:53.920 | There's a reason why the famous British poets and thinkers and philosophers would sit and

00:08:58.600 | do that, because it's kind of, it's conducive.

00:09:01.040 | You're having ideas, there's conviviality of the room and it's different than just your

00:09:06.480 | office.

00:09:07.480 | Parks are fantastic as well.

00:09:09.960 | Finding that scenic part of a park that you like to work.

00:09:12.400 | I used to do a ton of this, especially when my kids were young.

00:09:15.480 | We had a nanny at home with the kids and the days I didn't want to go into the office at

00:09:19.480 | Georgetown, I didn't want to be at home either because I don't want the kids to see me.

00:09:23.200 | It was too confusing.

00:09:24.200 | So I would often go and spend hours, various parks in the Montgomery County, Maryland,

00:09:29.600 | these various parks.

00:09:30.600 | I would just wander all seasons and didn't sit and write down and write out my ideas.

00:09:35.280 | And I felt like I got a lot done back in those days.

00:09:38.000 | Hey, it's Cal.

00:09:39.000 | I wanted to interrupt briefly to say that if you're enjoying this video, then you need

00:09:43.720 | to check out my new book, Slow Productivity, The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout.

00:09:51.180 | This is like the Bible for most of the ideas we talk about here in these videos.

00:09:56.600 | You can get a free excerpt at calnewport.com/slow.

00:10:01.980 | I know you're going to like it.

00:10:03.780 | Check it out.

00:10:04.780 | Now let's get back to the video.

00:10:05.780 | I actually have a few pictures here of some places I've been doing adventure working in

00:10:10.720 | my past.

00:10:12.320 | These were all in my newsletter, calnewport.com.

00:10:14.200 | All right.

00:10:15.200 | So here's a picture here.

00:10:16.200 | It's from a 2015 article titled The Power of the Outdoor Office.

00:10:21.120 | This is me with the key components.

00:10:22.680 | All right.

00:10:23.680 | A coffee.

00:10:24.680 | I have a composition notebook.

00:10:27.000 | I was working on a math proof.

00:10:29.160 | And I'm by a stream.

00:10:31.440 | Now at height to the stream, I know exactly by the way where this is, it's on Sligo Creek.

00:10:35.720 | You know, for those who are wondering, between Piney Branch and Wayne Avenue, I think.

00:10:42.320 | Here's another picture.

00:10:43.320 | Here's me working on a math proof, sitting on a rock by a trail.

00:10:48.800 | I love this stuff.

00:10:50.160 | I got so much of the academic papers, the math proofs I published in the 2010s, you

00:10:56.120 | know, came from working outside.

00:10:59.120 | Here's another picture.

00:11:00.840 | This is a picnic table under some trees.

00:11:03.320 | That's actually on the Georgetown campus near the trails.

00:11:07.880 | There's these trails that run from the river across this Reservoir Roads.

00:11:11.600 | It's called the Glover Archibald Park.

00:11:13.920 | Over by Reservoir Road, there was a table that was shaded and I would wander over there

00:11:17.600 | and do some work just because it was different.

00:11:18.920 | I was on campus.

00:11:19.960 | I wanted to be out of my, wanted to be out of just my regular office.

00:11:23.480 | So there's examples of this, right?

00:11:24.920 | So we can do adventure work without having to have a unusually adventurous locale that

00:11:31.000 | we have to travel great distances to go there.

00:11:34.520 | So how do we make adventure work actually work?

00:11:37.040 | A couple tactics.

00:11:38.480 | One, you want to have a clear singular objective of what you're trying to accomplish in the

00:11:42.560 | section.

00:11:43.800 | To wander someplace beautiful and then just answer emails on your phone sort of defeats

00:11:47.140 | the purpose.

00:11:49.280 | But also you don't want to just take it as I'm just going for a walk to clear my head.

00:11:52.440 | That's fine, but that's not adventure work.

00:11:54.120 | Adventure work, you're like, I'm working on this proof.

00:11:55.600 | I'm working on this memo.

00:11:56.600 | I'm trying to figure out this business strategy.

00:11:58.960 | What's not working?

00:11:59.960 | What should we do instead?

00:12:00.960 | I'm trying to figure out how we change the objectives for the upcoming quarter.

00:12:04.200 | I'm stuck on this programming challenge.

00:12:06.920 | How do I more efficiently get this part of the program to work?

00:12:09.920 | Whatever it is, you have a clear objective that you're working on.

00:12:12.920 | Have a way of ending your session with an artifact of this cognition.

00:12:16.620 | Do not just keep it in your head.

00:12:17.960 | You want to be writing down in the notebook or dictating even into a audio notes app on

00:12:23.320 | your phone, or you can bring a laptop with you.

00:12:26.360 | You need to capture your thinking as part of this.

00:12:28.960 | You're thinking and you're capturing.

00:12:30.920 | You want to come away with an artifact of your cognition.

00:12:34.520 | You also want an iterative process here.

00:12:36.980 | I used to like the move through the scenic location and think, then sit down somewhere

00:12:40.680 | and write, then move to the scenic location and think some more, then sit down again and

00:12:45.440 | write.

00:12:46.440 | I particularly like trails at parks that have benches because you can kind of walk to the

00:12:50.280 | next bench and sit down and take your notes on what you just thought about, get up and

00:12:53.180 | move to the next one.

00:12:54.660 | This is a fantastic exercise in extracting cogent thoughts from your brain.

00:13:00.960 | You're going to do much better with this than if you just sit still in an office.

00:13:05.920 | If possible, do your adventure work as the final thing in your day.

00:13:11.400 | Get the small stuff done, clean your inbox, maybe even do a shutdown routine before you

00:13:15.120 | do the adventure work so you don't have the small hanging over your head.

00:13:20.000 | Sometimes I have vivid memories of this, of where I was waiting for some sort of information

00:13:25.080 | that was timely.

00:13:26.600 | So I would have to check my email throughout an adventure work session on my phone and

00:13:31.720 | it really would really degrade the quality of those sessions.

00:13:36.880 | Interestingly, around the time one of those pictures was taken is when I was waiting to

00:13:40.320 | hear back on tenure, whether or not I got tenure.

00:13:43.920 | And I just wanted to check because it comes in like a letter in your email and I remember

00:13:47.760 | that period thinking, man, the quality of my work is going down because my mind can't

00:13:52.520 | just stay focused on my single clear objective.

00:13:54.400 | I keep seeing all these other emails and it would take me out of it.

00:13:57.100 | So you want to really not have other things on your mind if possible while doing adventure

00:14:02.520 | work.

00:14:03.520 | All right.

00:14:04.520 | So why does this work other than it just looks cool and you can take cool pictures?

00:14:09.280 | There's a few things that goes on when you work in interesting locations.

00:14:12.240 | One, the lack of familiar cues helps your focus.

00:14:15.360 | You aren't seeing cues that you're used to that have associations with other distracting

00:14:20.680 | thoughts unrelated to what it is that you're actually trying to work on.

00:14:23.920 | When you're in the woods, it's much more easy to stay focused on just this one problem.

00:14:28.180 | When you're in your home office or you're at your office at work, many other unrelated

00:14:32.400 | things are going to more easily intrude.

00:14:36.320 | Location novelty can spark more creative insights.

00:14:40.600 | When you're in a location that's visually novel, your brain, for whatever reason, I

00:14:45.160 | can't tell you the neuroscience here, but it's just true, is more open to original or

00:14:49.280 | interesting thoughts.

00:14:51.520 | The breakthrough that eluded you when you sat there on the Zoom meeting in your office

00:14:55.740 | might come much more quickly when you're looking at the awe-inspiring waterfall.

00:15:01.880 | The work itself becomes more interesting.

00:15:06.160 | Just the process of working is more interesting because you're somewhere interesting.

00:15:09.680 | It's less draining, and it's more sustainable.

00:15:13.640 | It's more enjoyable to be working someplace interesting on one thing than it is just to

00:15:17.920 | be in your same old office, so your work itself becomes less draining and more sustainable.

00:15:22.280 | Finally, it gives you a nice separation.

00:15:25.080 | When you're thinking about work, it gives you a nice separation between what I'm doing

00:15:30.000 | in my office at my big monitor where I'm wrangling with emails and to-dos and going back and

00:15:36.420 | forth to Google Docs versus, oh, when I'm in cool locations and I'm thinking deeply

00:15:40.360 | about big, important things relevant to the jobs.

00:15:42.520 | You've separated those two things, physically and psychologically.

00:15:47.040 | I think that's really important.

00:15:48.760 | The more that all the different aspects that goes in the modern knowledge work jumble together,

00:15:54.120 | the more modern knowledge works becomes this sort of jumbled mass of generic activity that

00:15:58.720 | itself is philosophically drainy.

00:16:01.360 | I like this idea of having more of a clear separation between the different types of

00:16:05.120 | things you do.

00:16:06.600 | In general, I'm going to say adventure studying is something that makes a lot of sense if,

00:16:11.760 | like we are in the show and I am in my work, you are worried about the impact of the technological

00:16:16.640 | on the rest of your life.

00:16:18.920 | The way in which the technological, especially in the world of knowledge work, attempts to

00:16:22.520 | transmute you into an information processor, into a network router, into something that's

00:16:27.080 | just bombarded by information that you rocket through your exhausted circuits and then generate

00:16:32.000 | bits that go out the other end, the dehumanizing push towards digital freneticism.

00:16:37.400 | This is a bulwark against that.

00:16:40.320 | It is giving primacy to analog cognition in analog environments.

00:16:46.600 | It's sort of not anti-technology but un-technological.

00:16:49.840 | I think it's really important in an increasingly technological knowledge work setting to have

00:16:56.000 | this defiantly un-technological engagement with ideas to resist becoming that sort of

00:17:01.000 | in-box cyborg.

00:17:03.520 | So it fits, right?

00:17:04.520 | I mean, the adventure work fits right into our central program here of understanding

00:17:08.760 | technology and the way it affects us and what we should do about it, a way to maintain and

00:17:13.400 | promote your humanity in a world of increasing digital dehumanization.

00:17:18.480 | So there's a sort of techno-response core in there to adventure working as well.

00:17:26.200 | Now here's the thing.

00:17:27.480 | Once you're studying, I know this from experience, in the moment is scary because it feels like

00:17:32.480 | you're slowing down too much.

00:17:34.180 | This is slow.

00:17:35.360 | I'm driving 20 minutes to go to this park.

00:17:37.840 | I'm only working on this one thought and I only got a few notes out of the two hours

00:17:43.160 | I spent at the park.

00:17:44.160 | I could have spent that whole time sending and replying to email messages.

00:17:49.640 | I could have had like three Zoom calls and a bunch of slacks and moved a lot of information

00:17:52.680 | around.

00:17:53.680 | This is so slow.

00:17:54.680 | Oh my God, how long can I get away with this?

00:17:55.680 | So here's the thing about adventure work and this is a core idea from my book, Slow Productivity.

00:18:01.120 | So obviously read that book, calnewport.com/slow if you want to have like a more wider discussion

00:18:07.580 | of this.

00:18:08.580 | It's a key idea from that book.

00:18:10.340 | Give this some time and the slowness begins to reap rewards.

00:18:14.600 | It's worrisome in the moment, but over time you're saying, man, I'm really shipping.

00:18:18.160 | I mean, it would always feel slow to me when I would go off to a park and lose a half day

00:18:22.080 | to it.

00:18:23.080 | So if I did that for a semester, I would say I wrote some killer papers that semester because

00:18:27.600 | the core ideas, the high value cognitive output that was at the core of those peer review

00:18:32.320 | papers was generated over these sessions of going to this interesting place and giving

00:18:36.880 | the ideas the time required to actually unfold.

00:18:40.520 | So I'm telling you it feels slow in the moment, but over time, you're going to wonder how

00:18:44.660 | you ever accomplished anything big without these more analog movements.

00:18:49.320 | So yeah, it's slow, but it's slow in a good way.

00:18:53.160 | This is sort of, this is the heart of the paradox of slow productivity.

00:18:56.320 | Sometimes you have to slow down to actually produce more of what actually matters.

00:19:02.080 | So there we go.

00:19:03.600 | I did some good adventure work, Jesse, when I was in London on my trip recently, when

00:19:07.280 | I had some downtime, there's no shortage of really cool places to walk to that are historical

00:19:13.040 | and you could really, you know, think interestingly.

00:19:15.360 | I spent some good time at St. James park.

00:19:17.280 | It turned out to be, that was like, I found that to be a really useful place for getting

00:19:21.320 | some thoughts out, spent some time sort of along the river there, got some really good

00:19:26.080 | thoughts done there as well.

00:19:27.240 | Victoria Embankment, I was doing some reading there, but there was some sort of plant that

00:19:31.640 | like just pollen attacked my head.

00:19:33.920 | Really?

00:19:34.920 | So I had to leave there.

00:19:35.920 | I don't know what was, what was, uh, uh, blooming there, but it was pretty bad.

00:19:40.040 | But anyways, I, I, this was on my mind because in that trip there was a lot of novel, interesting,

00:19:44.280 | aesthetically interesting locations and I really leveraged that to try to shake loose

00:19:48.640 | some interesting thoughts.

00:19:49.720 | So sometimes you'll adventure work and other times you'll venture read, I guess.

00:19:53.360 | Yeah.

00:19:54.360 | And if the reading is relevant to my work, then I kind of see it as similar things.

00:19:57.120 | Yeah.

00:19:58.120 | Yeah.

00:19:59.120 | But anyways, uh, we should do more of it.

00:20:00.120 | We make our work too boring.

00:20:01.120 | Uh, why?

00:20:02.120 | Might as well make it more interesting.

00:20:03.720 | When you're in your normal routine at home, do you plan that out like your weekly plan?

00:20:09.800 | Yeah, but I haven't been doing enough of it recently, so this is partially a pep talk

00:20:13.280 | to myself.

00:20:14.280 | I missed how frequently I was doing this, right?

00:20:16.680 | Because I used to do this all the time.

00:20:19.120 | Um, and now, you know, I don't have a cool home office.

00:20:22.280 | I have the HQ, I have the coffee, like I, I don't find as much need to like, I have

00:20:27.360 | to go find a place to work.

00:20:29.080 | So I'm trying to re-engineer and do more of this this summer, um, re-engineer explicitly

00:20:33.840 | on my weekly plan this half day, go to this park this half day.

00:20:37.200 | I want to go back to my, my, my haunts.

00:20:39.280 | There's a bunch of places I like.

00:20:41.320 | All right, for people who are in this Northern DC, Southern Montgomery County area, Wheaton

00:20:46.720 | Regional Park, I did a lot of work, uh, all up and down Sligo Creek Park, which is right

00:20:51.760 | near where I live.

00:20:52.760 | Um, did a lot of interesting work.

00:20:55.000 | There's a federal wildlife refuge at Patuxet, so you have to go around the beltway.

00:21:00.840 | It's a bit of a hike, but not a crazy hike for me.

00:21:03.160 | Um, it's a huge sort of federal wildlife refuge, like right on the beltway.

00:21:08.360 | It's really cool.

00:21:09.360 | You don't really get lost in there and off season, it's completely empty.

00:21:12.400 | Uh, that's a place I like to do adventure work.

00:21:15.200 | And then the mall in DC, various, uh, museums down there, I would go and work in various

00:21:21.060 | places and wander the halls.

00:21:22.240 | I used to do all of that.

00:21:23.240 | So I want to do more of that again.

00:21:24.520 | Um, I'm going to make a point of doing that.

00:21:26.720 | I'm not teaching this fall.

00:21:28.480 | So I think I'm going to work it regularly in my schedule, at least one day a week where

00:21:32.060 | there's a four, four hour expedition and I can choose where I want to go, but it's got

00:21:38.000 | to be somewhere novel just to do this type of work, because I think I'm, I'm happier

00:21:41.200 | when I do it.

00:21:42.440 | And when I fall out of the routine, I'm less happier.

00:21:43.960 | I also just think I produce better stuff.

00:21:45.960 | So that's what we should do.

00:21:47.960 | All right.

00:21:48.960 | So we've got some good questions.

00:21:49.960 | Um, we found a bunch of questions that were vaguely about maybe not specifically adventure

00:21:53.920 | works as that's very specific, but rituals in general, like things, rituals or habits

00:21:57.940 | people do.

00:21:58.940 | Um, but before we get there, let's hear briefly from one of our sponsors, I want to talk in

00:22:04.860 | particular about our friends at element L M N T.

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00:22:28.600 | or like me having a long day of giving lectures and appearances where I lose a lot of, uh,

00:22:33.920 | salt to get the hydrated.

00:22:35.040 | I always element in my ice waters, what I do, but they have a new offering, which I'm

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00:24:02.560 | I also want to talk about our friends at Shopify.

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00:24:16.040 | However, you cha-ching, Shopify is what you should be using.

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00:24:35.420 | In my opinion, uh, it works whether you've just launched your online shop or have your

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00:25:05.760 | millions of entrepreneurs over 175 different countries, right?

00:25:10.400 | So it's just what you do.

00:25:11.600 | But when Jesse and I opened our long awaited online store, I mean, all we're missing is

00:25:15.240 | knowing what we're going to sell detail, but once we figure it out, what it is we are going

00:25:20.280 | to sell, uh, how we're going to sell it as a no brainer, it's going to be Shopify.

00:25:24.800 | Shopify, uh, it's going to build us a fan, you know, fantastic store.

00:25:28.280 | Everyone I know who sells things online, um, who I've asked about this seems to use Shopify.

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00:25:44.320 | write that all lowercase, go to shopify.com/deep now to grow your business no matter what stage

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00:25:53.360 | All right, Jesse, let's get to our questions.

00:26:00.320 | First questions from Tyler, what are the health habits and rituals you have installed?

00:26:04.840 | I've heard bits and pieces through the shows, but it'd be good to hear about your full list

00:26:08.720 | of habits in your constitution bucket.

00:26:10.840 | Uh, it's a good question, Tyler, that changes over time, you know, especially as I get older.

00:26:16.640 | Um, I mean, I would say the, the big change the last couple of years versus the type of

00:26:21.400 | habits I talked about before is, um, I exercise longer and more frequently.

00:26:27.720 | I mean, I, I basically probably five or six days a week have a good 40 minute plus exercise

00:26:34.440 | session.

00:26:35.440 | Um, weights are like heavyweights exercise section, just a lot more time than I used

00:26:40.200 | to spend just because, you know, I'm not the young spring chicken I, I used to be.

00:26:44.480 | So I exercise, um, almost every day for 40 plus minutes.

00:26:48.960 | I like to do this right before dinner as a sort of transition from, uh, work is done

00:26:54.880 | and then we're going to like make dinner and do that sort of, and have the evening.

00:26:58.160 | And this is like a nice transition between those two things.

00:27:00.760 | Um, and so that's when I, that's when I tend to do it.

00:27:03.320 | I walk a lot because of adventure work is just part of my cognitive process.

00:27:07.200 | I walk to think, so I try to walk quite a bit and then I try to make any, what I call

00:27:11.720 | automatic eating healthy.

00:27:13.720 | So I'm busy and scheduled during the day, I don't think a lot or care a lot about breakfast

00:27:19.440 | or lunch.

00:27:20.440 | I just need the food to get rolling.

00:27:21.440 | So I try to make that sort of just by default, automatically healthy, uh, that works as well.

00:27:26.480 | Um, and I drink a lot of coffee, so it prevents me from eating too much during the day.

00:27:30.720 | I suppose I drink a ton of coffee.

00:27:32.400 | Um, so that's where I am, I don't know, used to in more time than I do or not really.

00:27:37.880 | Right.

00:27:38.880 | What would you say?

00:27:39.880 | Like your major thing right now is you're at the CrossFit box pretty frequently, right?

00:27:44.120 | Yeah, no, I, I, I work out a decent amount.

00:27:47.600 | I changed a few habits cause I had a physical recently and my blood pressure was a little

00:27:51.320 | bit higher.

00:27:52.320 | So then I started getting more sleep after that and a little bit, cause some days like

00:27:55.760 | if I'd work late at night, I would still get up early, but now I might adjust that and

00:28:00.280 | sleep.

00:28:01.280 | So sleep can impact blood pressure.

00:28:03.480 | Yeah.

00:28:04.480 | And then he like told me to get a thing.

00:28:05.480 | So then I just tracked it.

00:28:06.480 | And sometimes if I sleep longer, like if I sleep too little, then it gets higher.

00:28:10.440 | Oh, so you noticed it.

00:28:11.640 | Yeah.

00:28:12.640 | Oh, interesting.

00:28:13.640 | Okay.

00:28:14.640 | So I factored in more sleep and then, but in general I work out quite a bit.

00:28:18.400 | How long does, uh, in CrossFit, how long on average is a workout of the day take to complete?

00:28:24.560 | Um, if you do the accessory stuff, probably like 70 minutes, but a lot of people walk

00:28:29.560 | out after 60 minutes.

00:28:31.400 | Okay.

00:28:32.400 | Yeah.

00:28:33.400 | So serious.

00:28:34.400 | Yeah.

00:28:35.400 | Okay.

00:28:36.400 | I mean, basically I feel like as we get older, we have to exercise more just to get the same

00:28:38.760 | benefits of like a little bit of exercise when we're younger.

00:28:42.000 | I don't know.

00:28:43.000 | It helps.

00:28:44.000 | It really helps my energy.

00:28:45.000 | Yeah.

00:28:46.000 | And then, you know, stretching and stuff too is important for me.

00:28:49.200 | Yeah.

00:28:50.200 | So basically like, uh, more time than I would like to spend doing this stuff.

00:28:54.600 | All right.

00:28:55.600 | What do we got next?

00:28:56.600 | Next question is from Jamie.

00:28:58.120 | How can I distinguish between disciplines and rituals as part of the deep life stack?

00:29:02.380 | For example, I meditate daily, even when it's hard or I don't feel like it.

00:29:05.760 | So this feels like a discipline, but from a contemplation standpoint, it feels like

00:29:09.280 | a ritual.

00:29:10.280 | Is there a distinction?

00:29:11.280 | Well, all right, we're getting into the weeds a little bit here, Jamie.

00:29:14.920 | And one of the things I'm noticing as I work on my book on the deep life is that, uh, I'm

00:29:20.080 | trying to trim these weeds a little bit.

00:29:21.720 | Like I don't want to get too far into the weeds.

00:29:24.160 | I'd love, I want to be technical because again, we underappreciate the technical aspect of

00:29:29.720 | crafting a deep life.

00:29:31.320 | We focus too much on just like the, what is going to be in the life, but we don't want

00:29:35.280 | to get too technical.

00:29:36.280 | So like what's going on here is there's two different things we've talked about before.

00:29:40.460 | There is daily disciplines and there's rituals and they seem similar and they are, but they're

00:29:45.000 | not exactly the same.

00:29:46.720 | Daily disciplines.

00:29:47.720 | It was a very specific thing you would do to help transform your self perception as

00:29:51.720 | someone who could take non-obligatory action towards things that are important to you.

00:29:56.160 | So it's something you do every day and each of the main areas of your life, something

00:30:00.480 | that's non-trivial, but still tractable.

00:30:02.700 | And that's more about just changing your identity, right?

00:30:05.880 | If I have something I do every day for my health, if I have something I do every day

00:30:08.520 | for community, something I do every day for like my soul, something I do every day for

00:30:12.760 | my, my moving my career in an interesting direction, I tell myself I'm someone who can

00:30:16.840 | shape my life.

00:30:17.840 | That's what daily disciplines were.

00:30:19.840 | Rituals came up when we were talking about really making sure you had a foundation of

00:30:23.840 | values and they were again, disciplines and habits, but the goal of them in this case

00:30:30.140 | was to help reinforce like things you think are valuable, right?

00:30:33.680 | So my value system, a ritual is something that would help underscore parts of that value

00:30:40.920 | system.

00:30:41.920 | If you're religious, it could be prayer, for example.

00:30:44.960 | These are just both examples of sort of disciplined behavior writ large, right?

00:30:50.080 | So I don't think we have to get too much in the weeds of these different types of disciplined

00:30:53.680 | behaviors because, uh, you know, if that's helpful, it's helpful.

00:30:56.520 | It might not be, but the bigger point here, and this is one of the big ideas that I'm,

00:31:01.240 | I'm developing for, I'm thinking about developing for the book is, uh, comfort with disciplined

00:31:06.560 | activity is like a prerequisite if you're going to transform your life.

00:31:11.240 | And yet we often skip that.

00:31:12.240 | I mean, so much of what our thinking about how to take control of your life, whether

00:31:16.520 | we call it a deep life or not, so much of this thinking ignores all of the preparations

00:31:21.160 | that go into making you someone who is going to be able to actually take the reins of life

00:31:25.600 | and direct it somewhere.

00:31:27.080 | We just jump right ahead to what it directed towards.

00:31:30.840 | We've seen these books and they're important, but we've seen the same book a bunch of time.

00:31:34.500 | Community is important.

00:31:35.500 | Your health is important.

00:31:36.600 | Your work is important.

00:31:37.920 | Your connection to this is in gratitude.

00:31:40.440 | It's like the stuff that's important that you do.

00:31:44.480 | But how do you become someone who can take these things that are important and actually

00:31:48.720 | inflate them in your life and take the obstacles to these things that are important and reduce

00:31:52.040 | those obstacles?

00:31:53.040 | Well, it's probably going to require quite a bit of disciplined action, things you do,

00:31:57.360 | even though you don't want to, or don't aren't obligated to do it, but you do it for a long

00:32:00.840 | term benefit.

00:32:02.640 | And so like in general, getting comfortable with disciplined action, I think is a big

00:32:05.800 | part of preparing for, for cultivating your life.

00:32:08.160 | So daily disciplines, value rituals, all of these are all in that same general category

00:32:14.400 | of things you do to help rewire your sense of identity, to be someone who is disciplined.

00:32:21.120 | And from that comes really cool, deep things.

00:32:23.160 | All right, what do we got next?

00:32:26.280 | Next question's from Max, I always look forward to your review of five books you read each

00:32:30.520 | month.

00:32:31.520 | I find it very impressive.

00:32:32.520 | Do you have rituals before you read or do you just read at free times?

00:32:35.640 | So do you have a lot of like 10 minute reading sessions or are they usually 30 minutes or

00:32:39.320 | longer?

00:32:40.320 | 10 minutes is, 10 minutes is not super long.

00:32:45.800 | Usually like 20 to 40 minutes would be more regular.

00:32:48.340 | But I have to say Max, I don't think, five books I don't think is a lot.

00:32:52.800 | Like I don't have to do a lot special to read five books.

00:32:55.760 | I think if I wanted to read 10 books a month, I would need a lot of much more careful scheduling

00:33:00.320 | and ritual around it.

00:33:01.560 | Like to really make sure I had a lot of time.

00:33:04.320 | I get the five books a month basically by making reading a default habit, something

00:33:08.960 | I like to do when I have free time.

00:33:12.000 | And it sort of gets there.

00:33:13.000 | I sort of get there, right?

00:33:14.520 | It's like, "Oh, I got some free time.

00:33:15.520 | I want to read."

00:33:16.520 | I think it was like a good thing.

00:33:17.520 | Like, "Oh, this thing got canceled tonight.

00:33:19.160 | We're going to have some free time.

00:33:20.560 | I'm going to go read for a little bit."

00:33:22.160 | Right?

00:33:23.160 | It's something I don't have to force myself, "Hey, make sure we put aside time for reading."

00:33:28.040 | I get excited when I find time for reading.

00:33:31.080 | I mean, the only regular reading time in my schedule that's, I know for sure this is when

00:33:35.600 | I'm always going to read is in bed.

00:33:39.160 | Everything else, it's sort of opportunistic.

00:33:40.360 | "Oh, I want to read."

00:33:41.360 | Like this morning, I was up a little early because I'm still on London time or I'm halfway

00:33:46.800 | transitioned.

00:33:47.800 | And there's this book on AI theory I'm reading.

00:33:49.920 | I just read a chapter of it because whatever, I had a little bit of free time.

00:33:55.440 | I was just talking to my wife earlier today, I was like, "Oh, we kind of have some time

00:33:58.320 | free because my son's baseball practice got canceled.

00:34:01.920 | We should sit outside and read a little bit tonight.

00:34:03.440 | It's going to be good weather for it.

00:34:04.760 | We like sitting outside."

00:34:05.760 | So that just adds up.

00:34:07.600 | The only thing I couple that with, which really helps is a completionist attitude.

00:34:14.480 | You cultivate this idea of, "I'm getting kind of close to finishing this book."

00:34:19.200 | You're like, "Oh, now I want to finish it."

00:34:21.760 | And you get really, "I'm going to put aside time and pretty aggressively close out this

00:34:27.080 | book."

00:34:28.080 | So what my reading life becomes like is a lot of just serendipitous reading here, there,

00:34:32.320 | I'm working on a lot of books at a time.

00:34:33.800 | And then when I realize at some point, "Oh, I'm kind of close to finishing this book,"

00:34:36.960 | then I'll get aggressive for a day or two.

00:34:38.480 | And I really want to finish this and put a few hours into it and push it.

00:34:42.360 | Those two things, those two mindsets approaches together makes five books a month, I don't

00:34:46.640 | even think about it.

00:34:47.640 | Now, again, I think seven to 10 books a month, I'd have to start thinking about it.

00:34:52.160 | Five books is right on that boundary of, it doesn't matter much.

00:34:55.400 | So if you want to read more, probably the most important thing you can do is make reading

00:34:59.840 | more appealing to you.

00:35:02.520 | Choose stuff that you are really excited to read.

00:35:06.400 | What that is will broaden over time, doesn't matter at first.

00:35:10.640 | What matters at first is like, "I'm excited about this book.

00:35:13.440 | This book is inspiring me.

00:35:14.840 | I like this type of genre book.

00:35:16.880 | This book is really fun."

00:35:18.440 | Don't care what it is, but make it something you're really excited to read and sort of

00:35:23.000 | wire yourself to think about reading as something that you really look forward to doing.

00:35:27.640 | All right, let's keep rolling.

00:35:32.120 | Yep.

00:35:33.120 | Next question's from Allie and she's talking about your non-teaching days, which you've

00:35:36.520 | talked a lot about in the show.

00:35:38.160 | So on those days when you write and work on other projects, do you have separate rituals

00:35:42.480 | for each?

00:35:43.480 | Do you do the same writing ritual each day when you write?

00:35:47.600 | I have a, I don't know, a category of writing rituals.

00:35:52.760 | A collection of writing rituals and I sort of pick and choose from it.

00:35:55.800 | Some things that are pretty common is when I'm writing, I like to write for the most

00:36:00.120 | part and there's one exception, which I'll talk about in a second, but I like to try

00:36:02.700 | to write first thing.

00:36:04.600 | In particular, no email or other types of admin distractions before.

00:36:08.680 | That makes the writing go a lot better.

00:36:11.440 | I almost always start my writing with a walk.

00:36:13.720 | That's how I get my mind going best.

00:36:15.120 | I like to think while I move about what I'm going to write.

00:36:18.680 | Usually this will just be through my neighborhood.

00:36:21.200 | I often will then break, not always, but we'll often break the seal on my writing in a novel

00:36:26.240 | location.

00:36:27.240 | So like I'll go for a walk and then maybe get breakfast at the coffee shop and start

00:36:31.160 | my writing there just because it's a different location before I come back to, let's say

00:36:35.680 | my desk at my home office or here at the Deep Work HQ.

00:36:41.600 | The exception to this is I sometimes add afternoon, early evening writing sessions.

00:36:45.520 | Like if I'm trying to close out a New Yorker article or finish a chapter of a book, I just

00:36:50.080 | need that extra time.

00:36:52.200 | The hard part for me is getting my energy and attention back into that writing mode

00:36:57.760 | in the afternoon or evening.

00:36:58.760 | So there I will almost always go to a different location.

00:37:01.160 | I'll either come here or a real favorite of mine is like late afternoon, go to the coffee

00:37:06.960 | shop and get a beer or something and sit there and work.

00:37:13.960 | It's different.

00:37:14.960 | It has to be different because I can't at 4.30 or 5 just go back to my desk at home

00:37:20.400 | because I've already done a lot of administrative work there.

00:37:22.080 | Other stuff's going on.

00:37:23.080 | It's hard for me to get it back.

00:37:24.080 | So I'll create special writing sessions.

00:37:26.640 | And sometimes I'll do like Sunday morning special writing sessions early where I'll

00:37:29.840 | go get like the right cup of coffee and I'll come over here.

00:37:33.760 | But changing up the location for those special sessions helps.

00:37:38.640 | Helps me.

00:37:39.640 | I'm like, oh, this will be fun.

00:37:40.640 | I'd like to go to the coffee shop.

00:37:41.640 | This will be interesting.

00:37:42.640 | And I get that motivation to get going again.

00:37:44.720 | When I travel, so we typically spend about a month each summer sort of getting out of

00:37:48.800 | Dodge, leaving DC, going into nature, usually going up to New England.

00:37:52.960 | And I usually do a lot of writing there.

00:37:54.800 | There I build my own habits.

00:37:56.200 | So like we're going up to upstate New York this summer and the property we're renting

00:38:00.960 | has trails at 75 acres and it has its own trails and a little writing shack.

00:38:06.020 | So I'm going to invent a really cool writing ritual up there that's going to involve hiking

00:38:09.600 | through these trails and then going to the writing shack.

00:38:11.640 | And I'll probably do this all real early in the morning before my kids are up and rolling.

00:38:15.600 | So I write really cool rituals, create really cool rituals when I'm in unusual places as

00:38:20.520 | well.

00:38:21.720 | So it's not one ritual I do the same way, but I, I have a ton of rituals surrounding

00:38:26.080 | writing because it's not easy coaxing ideas from one's head.

00:38:31.040 | And so I have a lot of things I surround it with.

00:38:33.160 | So with the non-teaching days, if you write in the morning and then say you have something

00:38:36.160 | else to do later that day, they just do it later.

00:38:39.240 | So what's the ritual before that, like different, then it doesn't matter if it's non deep stuff.

00:38:44.640 | I don't care as much.

00:38:45.640 | Yeah.

00:38:46.640 | I just really, I get the work done.

00:38:47.640 | Um, do a shutdown routine when I'm done.

00:38:49.480 | Yeah.

00:38:50.480 | So I don't ritualize.

00:38:51.480 | I ritualize the hard cognitive stuff, but not the other types of work.

00:38:53.800 | And most of the days on the non-teaching days is just one hard cognitive thing.

00:38:57.240 | Yeah.

00:38:58.240 | I try to just work on one.

00:38:59.240 | I mean, sometimes I'll do the afternoon session if I have an unrelated thing.

00:39:01.920 | It's like if I'm writing like a newsletter essay, those are often happening in afternoon

00:39:06.640 | sessions because I'm using the morning session for academic paper, like a book chapter, and

00:39:11.880 | I can write a newsletter essay in an hour.

00:39:14.120 | So I'm like, okay, a lot, that's a lot of the ways I get that done.

00:39:16.600 | I'm going to go over to the coffee shop this afternoon to close out my day.

00:39:19.920 | And that's what I'm going to write my newsletter essay.

00:39:21.880 | Yeah.

00:39:22.880 | All right.

00:39:23.880 | What do we got next?

00:39:27.480 | Next question is our corner.

00:39:29.360 | Slow productivity corner.

00:39:30.760 | Yep.

00:39:31.760 | Fantastic.

00:39:32.760 | So I'll play the music now.

00:39:34.080 | Yeah.

00:39:35.080 | Let's get the music.

00:39:36.080 | Before you read that question for people who don't know, who are new to the show, we have

00:39:44.600 | one question per episode that is related to my book, Slow Productivity, and we call it

00:39:50.400 | the Slow Productivity Corner.

00:39:51.880 | It's our excuse to play that music.

00:39:53.120 | All right, Jesse, what's our slow productivity question of the week?

00:39:57.560 | It's from Carmen.

00:39:58.640 | I have a question about slow productivity and job hunting.

00:40:01.920 | Should I follow my own pace and develop stellar skills that will lead to a great job?

00:40:05.920 | Or should I respond to job postings from my firms, which means rushing to get good enough,

00:40:10.920 | and then send my application within one week of the job posting?

00:40:14.760 | Well, Carmen, you refer to this as a slow productivity question.

00:40:18.580 | It's also really a deep life question as well.

00:40:22.560 | My main concern here is these activities that you're discussing seem ungrounded, but you're

00:40:30.360 | talking about jobs abstractly.

00:40:33.220 | Like I want a great job.

00:40:34.920 | This is a great company.

00:40:36.200 | Should I apply to this great company because they have a job listing?

00:40:39.920 | I don't want you thinking about jobs and the greatness of the job or the company so abstractly.

00:40:44.480 | I want you thinking about your ideal lifestyle.

00:40:49.000 | What is the day-to-day of your ideal lifestyle?

00:40:51.480 | What type of place do you live?

00:40:52.720 | What's the rhythm of your day?

00:40:53.840 | What's the nature of your work?

00:40:54.920 | Not the specifics, but the general nature of your work.

00:40:56.940 | How are you spending your time?

00:40:58.140 | What does it look like?

00:40:59.140 | What does it smell like?

00:41:00.400 | Who's around you?

00:41:02.160 | What is that rhythm when someone makes a TV show about your day?

00:41:05.600 | Where is it set?

00:41:06.600 | And what are the recurring sets and scenes?

00:41:08.920 | You really want to build up this image of what a really meaningful lifestyle would look

00:41:13.520 | like for you.

00:41:14.640 | And then you can figure out the role of your work in this vision.

00:41:18.240 | So now when you're thinking about jobs, you're thinking not just, is this a great job or

00:41:21.680 | a non-great job?

00:41:22.680 | Is this a stellar company or not a stellar company?

00:41:24.740 | You're thinking, what are my obstacles and opportunities for getting closer to my ideal

00:41:28.760 | lifestyle, right?

00:41:31.520 | And OK, now if you're doing this type of thinking, you might say, OK, I have this major obstacle

00:41:36.360 | to my ideal lifestyle.

00:41:38.160 | And my current job is a big intractable source of this obstacle.

00:41:42.080 | But if I could get a job that had this feature instead of that, it's going to unlock these

00:41:45.800 | three or four things, which really helps me move much closer to what I'm looking for in

00:41:49.080 | my lifestyle.

00:41:50.080 | And now when I see a job that allows me to do those things, that's why I'm going after

00:41:53.180 | those jobs.

00:41:54.280 | That's how you should be thinking about this.

00:41:56.920 | Not that company is better than this company.

00:41:58.600 | Maybe I should change.

00:42:00.520 | Because your job alone is not going to make your life better or worse.

00:42:05.320 | What's going to make the character of your life depends on the day-to-day realities of

00:42:09.280 | your life, your lifestyle, the day-to-day realities of your lifestyle.

00:42:13.240 | That's what you should be working directly towards.

00:42:15.200 | OK, so then once you have that in mind, yeah, this could be a slow process here.

00:42:20.320 | This is sort of a slowly productive process.

00:42:22.940 | You're building up skills to open up opportunities.

00:42:25.920 | When you know what you're looking for and you're building up your value, interesting

00:42:29.900 | opportunities have a way of arising.

00:42:32.040 | But it does take some patience.

00:42:33.580 | You can't force it.

00:42:35.180 | You can't say, you know, here's the problem with what I'm currently doing is really gives

00:42:40.800 | me these obstacles to what I'm looking for.

00:42:42.960 | Hair's going crazy today, Jesse.

00:42:45.840 | For those who are listening instead of watching, hair's falling in my eyes a lot.

00:42:52.840 | But instead of saying, right, so when you know what you're looking for and you're systematically

00:42:58.040 | trying to move towards this, opportunities arise.

00:43:00.520 | And it's not so random and abstract like, oh, this is a better company.

00:43:03.720 | It's like, ooh, you know it when you see it.

00:43:06.420 | This is going to make such a difference because it's going to get me out of this type of work

00:43:10.320 | and towards this type of work, and the location here is going to be much better, which allows

00:43:13.600 | us to make the plan of moving here but doing this work, but doing it on this schedule instead,

00:43:19.200 | and we can afford.

00:43:20.200 | And all these pieces come together, right?

00:43:21.440 | So when you're being systematic, what I'm saying here is when you're working backwards

00:43:24.100 | from your ideal lifestyle, you know what you want, you know what the obstacles are, you

00:43:27.920 | know what your opportunities, and you're working systematically to open up more options for

00:43:31.640 | moving towards it, really cool bespoke opportunities will arise, and your life will become deeper

00:43:37.400 | and become better.

00:43:39.160 | But it could be a process that requires patience.

00:43:41.080 | It's not something you can just force overnight.

00:43:43.580 | How can I transform my life tomorrow by changing my job in some dramatic way?

00:43:47.420 | So there is certainly a slow aspect to this, but it's an informed slowness.

00:43:52.740 | You need to know what you're slowly working towards.

00:43:55.340 | You need to know what you're looking for.

00:43:57.400 | You need to be slowly setting yourself up to have more and more opportunities, more

00:44:01.580 | swings so that you're much more likely to find an actual sort of connection at some

00:44:06.260 | point with that proverbial ball.

00:44:08.180 | So there's kind of a mix here between slow productivity and the idea surrounding the

00:44:13.540 | deep life.

00:44:14.540 | All right, let's get some more, let's get that music one more time.

00:44:25.320 | All right.

00:44:26.320 | Well, you know, let's have some, we do a lot of written questions, but we're trying to

00:44:28.580 | do more calls on the show.

00:44:30.080 | So Jesse, let's, let's listen to one of these calls that we have queued up.

00:44:33.140 | Yep.

00:44:34.140 | Hi Gal, I recently read and I love your book, Slow Productivity.

00:44:41.720 | My wife's been a teacher for about 10 years now.

00:44:45.180 | I wanted to get your thoughts on teaching as it relates to the principle, work at a

00:44:50.460 | natural pace, something that goes beyond the summer break that they get.

00:44:57.140 | All right.

00:44:59.560 | Good question.

00:45:00.560 | Right.

00:45:01.560 | Okay.

00:45:02.560 | So, so what he's referring to here in this question about working at a natural pace,

00:45:08.500 | that principle in the book, Slow Productivity, one of the ideas under that principle was

00:45:14.740 | seasonality.

00:45:16.460 | So having variation of intensity over time, don't just work all out all day, all week

00:45:20.700 | long, all year long.

00:45:22.260 | So as he mentioned, the caller mentioned, teachers have some very natural seasonality

00:45:25.900 | in that summer is very different than the rest of the school year.

00:45:28.180 | And you really want to lean into that seasonality as a teacher.

00:45:30.740 | So it's a fantastic benefit of that type of job that more jobs should have something similar.

00:45:35.900 | So you really want to make the character of your life different in the summer versus the

00:45:41.220 | non-summer.

00:45:42.860 | But to answer the question, you can have variation in intensity at different timescales as well.

00:45:49.980 | So for example, you could have variation in intensity at the scale of the week.

00:45:56.460 | Choose one week when you're thinking about how you distribute your work throughout the

00:46:02.120 | week as a teacher.

00:46:03.380 | Choose one day of that week to be much easier.

00:46:06.900 | So you kind of have a lighter day compared to some heavier days, right?

00:46:11.480 | And it might be a day that you work longer another day to have another day that you can

00:46:15.260 | basically have, you can leave right after school ends.

00:46:17.460 | Like Friday I'm making really easy, but I work longer on like Thursday and Monday and

00:46:24.180 | the kind of catch up on things.

00:46:25.180 | But like Friday is a much more relaxing, like I teach when it's over, I like I go home and

00:46:29.300 | start my weekend early.

00:46:30.540 | So variations in intensity at that scale can make a difference.

00:46:35.620 | You could also have very, when it comes to working at a natural pace as a teacher, another

00:46:39.860 | thing you can think about is slowing down the pace at which you work on new ideas.

00:46:44.100 | Like you have classroom pedagogical ideas, things you want to do, new units you want

00:46:49.380 | to develop, better assignments you want to put together.

00:46:51.980 | All of that is great.

00:46:52.980 | You don't want to stop doing that work, but spread it out more.

00:46:56.180 | All right, I'm just this marking period I'm just working on.

00:46:59.620 | Here's my one thing.

00:47:01.300 | When I have time, I work on it.

00:47:02.460 | And now this is good.

00:47:03.460 | I improved this thing.

00:47:04.460 | Okay.

00:47:05.460 | This marking period I'm working on this other thing.

00:47:06.460 | Like you're slowing down, right?

00:47:09.080 | You're not running around frantically.

00:47:10.440 | Like I want to do all these things for all the kids, make everything better and burning

00:47:13.620 | yourself out.

00:47:14.620 | You slow down one thing at a time, take your time working on these things.

00:47:18.780 | Not only has your work become more sustainable, but when you look back after a few years,

00:47:22.580 | you say, actually, a lot of innovations I've slowly built up in the classroom, the way

00:47:27.820 | I teach this, what I do here, the mentoring I've done over here.

00:47:31.460 | And it adds up over time to be potentially much more impactful than if you try to just

00:47:37.140 | do everything all at once, you burn yourself out after a year or two.

00:47:40.940 | So it's sort of like slowing down, trusting the aggregation of quality effort over time

00:47:47.620 | will lead to something really big.

00:47:49.160 | You don't have to do all that effort all at once.

00:47:51.940 | There's a real energy or pressure in teaching the hustle, hustle, hustle.

00:47:58.140 | Do more, do more.

00:47:59.140 | It's for the kids.

00:48:00.140 | Don't you care?

00:48:01.140 | Do more, do more, do more.

00:48:02.140 | But the long game here matters.

00:48:03.380 | Like I'm going to do great stuff for these kids, but I got to do it at a natural pace.

00:48:08.540 | Busy periods, less busy periods.

00:48:09.820 | I'm working on cool stuff, but reasonable amounts drawn out over time.

00:48:13.940 | I'm not volunteering for as much.

00:48:15.900 | If I'm taking on a non-curricular project for the school, then that's going to be my

00:48:21.420 | thing this marking period.

00:48:22.500 | I'm going to put everything else on hold.

00:48:25.060 | Just making sure that the proverbial sort of engine heat meter on your work life gets

00:48:31.680 | out of the red.

00:48:32.680 | It doesn't go in the red or is rarely in the red.

00:48:34.860 | That's what's going to keep in this metaphor that engine running much longer.

00:48:37.740 | And if it runs for a really long time, this metaphorical boat is going to cover a lot

00:48:41.500 | of distance where if you run it in the red, it goes really fast and then it hits the iceberg

00:48:45.260 | and sinks.

00:48:46.260 | So this is a super drawn out metaphor.

00:48:48.380 | So I think slow productivity, in some sense, if you're a teacher, it's frustrating because

00:48:52.500 | so much of your life is structured and you have so little control.

00:48:55.340 | But on the other hand, there's a lot of room.

00:48:56.820 | Once you understand the benefits of slowness, you realize there's still a lot of room for

00:49:01.820 | me to inject some of these ideas even into this highly structured job.

00:49:04.820 | And you have to, otherwise you're going to burn out.

00:49:07.660 | And teaching is so important.

00:49:08.740 | I think teaching plus slowness is a fantastic combination.

00:49:11.540 | All right, let's do another call.

00:49:14.100 | Let's do a two call episode, which I'm excited about.

00:49:18.860 | Yep.

00:49:19.860 | Hi, Cal.

00:49:20.940 | It's Lawrence here, originally from the UK, living in Galway in Ireland.

00:49:25.420 | And my question is about projects.

00:49:28.300 | You talked before in your slow productivity philosophy in your book about the pool system

00:49:33.460 | having just one project at a time.

00:49:36.100 | I don't know whether this is a really silly question, but what about if you put a project

00:49:41.140 | in and that project, you've done everything you can to that project and it doesn't complete

00:49:47.980 | for maybe another week because maybe part of that project is you're delivering something

00:49:53.020 | in a few days.

00:49:54.020 | And then that's like the final piece.

00:49:57.500 | What do you do then in the interim?

00:49:58.940 | Do you start working on another project, which then, I guess, potentially risks overhead

00:50:06.940 | increase and overwhelm, or do you work on other things like lower impact, admin, stuff

00:50:12.740 | like that until you've actually completed that project?

00:50:16.780 | I'm just conscious that sometimes there's not much you can do until a certain date because

00:50:21.660 | there's something scheduled or maybe you're waiting on something from someone so you can't

00:50:26.020 | move it forward.

00:50:27.020 | How do you think about this and how do you use that time while you're sort of waiting

00:50:32.300 | idle for you to be able to resume that project?

00:50:35.500 | Thanks, Cal.

00:50:36.500 | I love your podcast.

00:50:37.500 | It's amazing and really appreciate everything you do.

00:50:41.100 | Great.

00:50:42.100 | That's a good question.

00:50:43.100 | All right.

00:50:44.100 | So for people who haven't read Slow Productivity, what he's talking about is I recommend when

00:50:48.500 | you take the various things you've agreed to work on, instead of just working on all

00:50:53.180 | of them concurrently, you instead divide this list between here's the small number of things

00:50:59.460 | I'm actively working on and here's the things I'm waiting to work on, and you only actively

00:51:03.380 | work on the things that are in that active list.

00:51:05.260 | And as you finish one of these things, you pull something new into the active list from

00:51:08.940 | your big collection of things you're waiting on.

00:51:11.060 | Now, I've talked about this on the show, but just as a quick reminder, the reason why this

00:51:15.220 | is effective is that things you're actively working on generate administrative overhead,

00:51:19.540 | emails, meetings, et cetera.

00:51:21.780 | So the more things you're actively working on, the more administrative overhead you have

00:51:25.460 | in your life, which clogs your time and schedule and leaves less time and energy to actually

00:51:29.340 | make progress on the stuff you're working on.

00:51:31.520 | So if you restrict what is active, you limit administrative overhead, and you can actually

00:51:37.300 | make much better, faster progress on these things.

00:51:39.500 | All right.

00:51:40.500 | So the question here is, what if you are stuck on one of these things that you're actively

00:51:45.740 | working on?

00:51:46.740 | What should you do?

00:51:47.740 | Well, I have a couple of things I want to say about this.

00:51:50.420 | First, make sure that the scale of these projects is tractable.

00:51:54.860 | This came up in a couple of interviews, actually, in my recent UK trip, so this is sort of fresh

00:52:00.320 | on my head here.

00:52:02.580 | You want them to be not too big, not too small, right?

00:52:06.020 | So like if I'm writing a book, I'm not going to have one of my active projects be write

00:52:11.180 | the book.

00:52:12.180 | Way too big, right?

00:52:14.620 | But I could have an active project be write chapter four of the book.

00:52:17.820 | Like, okay, that's something I get my arms around in a relatively continuous application

00:52:23.040 | effort over less than a month, I could finish this thing, like that might make more sense

00:52:27.860 | as an active project.

00:52:28.860 | So you want the active projects not to be too big, so you have less of these chances

00:52:32.820 | for just like long delays.

00:52:34.520 | All right, so that's important.

00:52:38.220 | To have more than one, I usually recommend like two or three things you're actively working

00:52:41.980 | on.

00:52:42.980 | So if one thing is getting stuck for a couple of days, shouldn't it be a problem?

00:52:45.220 | I have like a few things I'm working on, that thing I'm waiting to hear back on, but I have

00:52:48.860 | these other things I can work on as well.

00:52:51.620 | I don't think that's a problem if you have a few things to have to wait a few days.

00:52:56.700 | If something gets long-term stuck, like, okay, now I have to wait to hear back from this

00:53:03.300 | other department in my massive organization.

00:53:06.300 | And God knows this could be who knows how long until they find this is not a priority

00:53:09.720 | for them.

00:53:10.720 | Who knows how long till we hear back?

00:53:12.420 | Could be weeks, right?

00:53:13.560 | More than a couple of days, let's say as our threshold, then it's fine to just swap out

00:53:17.740 | an active thing and bring in something else, right?

00:53:20.960 | Just move it off of your active list.

00:53:22.980 | You know what?

00:53:23.980 | This is stuck.

00:53:24.980 | I'm waiting to hear back.

00:53:25.980 | I have an active list on the waiting, and I'm moving something else to take its place.

00:53:28.740 | And that's completely fine as well.

00:53:30.060 | So when you keep this sort of dual mode list active and waiting, you have a very clear

00:53:35.040 | way of moving things between these statuses.

00:53:36.940 | So like, okay, I was actively working on this.

00:53:39.500 | Now I'm moving it back over the waiting and pulled something else in.

00:53:43.500 | And so now I'm not going to generate administrative overhead from this.

00:53:46.060 | If people are bothering me about this thing I've moved back to waiting, I can say, you

00:53:49.100 | know what?

00:53:50.100 | I've had to temporarily put this back on my back burner because I'm waiting for approval

00:53:54.140 | from the Department of Mysteries and it could take a month.

00:53:56.980 | And so I put on my back burner, but once I get that, I'll bring it back to my active

00:54:02.460 | list and I'll let you know.

00:54:03.460 | And then we can start working on it again.

00:54:04.460 | So you can just inform the people, the relevant people who are generating the admin overhead.

00:54:08.740 | Oh, this has gone back to my back burner, but I'll let you know once it becomes active.

00:54:13.260 | And in doing so, you prevent it from eating up a space for a month at a time.

00:54:17.780 | All right.

00:54:18.780 | So that's what I would say.

00:54:19.780 | So I'll just summarize.

00:54:20.780 | Projects at a tractable size should be days or weeks, not months.

00:54:26.400 | Have a few things going on at the same time.

00:54:28.900 | Delays on the scale of some two or three days, it's fine.

00:54:32.840 | Give yourself some breathing room.

00:54:34.500 | Delays that are like a week or greater.

00:54:36.580 | Consider formally putting that thing on the back burner, moving it to your waiting list

00:54:39.980 | and moving something else in to take its place.

00:54:41.800 | That's how I would handle it.

00:54:42.800 | But that general idea of the pull-based work, what software developers do with their Kanban

00:54:48.420 | or Agile systems, and what I'm suggesting is a much more simple version of that.

00:54:51.640 | It is really critical to slow productivity.

00:54:54.140 | I mean, it is the source, the major source of burnout in knowledge work is overload.

00:55:00.480 | Too many active things generating too much concurrent administrative overhead, choking

00:55:04.820 | like productivity kudzu, any sort of like energy or will to do original creative work

00:55:09.620 | out of your daily professional life.

00:55:11.220 | If you can minimize concurrent administrative overhead, all these other things become possible.

00:55:17.180 | And make it a differentiation between actively working on and waiting to work on and only

00:55:22.140 | generating or accepting admin overhead for the active.

00:55:24.780 | I mean, this is a silver bullet that's going to make a huge difference.

00:55:27.540 | So I'm glad we got a chance.

00:55:29.580 | That's in the principle, do fewer things and slow productivity.

00:55:32.300 | If you read one chapter from the book, read that chapter.

00:55:35.500 | That's probably where you're going to get the biggest major bang for your buck right

00:55:39.900 | away benefit of almost anything else I talk about.

00:55:43.460 | All right.

00:55:45.900 | Looks like we have a case study.

00:55:47.380 | All right.

00:55:48.380 | So a case study is where people send in an account of them applying the type of things

00:55:51.980 | we talk about this show in their own life.

00:55:53.660 | So we can see what this advice looks like in action.

00:55:56.380 | Today's case study comes from Matt, and it's about how he applies some of the ideas we

00:56:01.420 | talk about for organizing your life to his life as their family life, not just his professional

00:56:07.740 | life, but his family life, him and his wife, see what he has to say here.

00:56:12.660 | Matt says, I appreciate the simplicity of needing only three tools, calendar, file storage

00:56:18.020 | and inbox.

00:56:19.660 | My wife and I have been sharing calendars for years now, and I'm not sure how we would

00:56:22.840 | organize ourselves without it.

00:56:25.180 | All our family events, days we are working in the office versus working from home, etc.

00:56:29.700 | are marked.

00:56:30.700 | We started reviewing the first three weeks events on a weekly basis to ensure we are

00:56:34.100 | aligned.

00:56:35.320 | This practice has become essential as our kids schedules are dynamic.

00:56:40.160 | So I'll interject there, Matt is so right.

00:56:43.380 | If you have a family, you have to be using a shared calendar with your partner.

00:56:47.720 | You have to be.

00:56:48.720 | I mean, this is absolutely critical because you have these complicated, you have multiple,

00:56:53.700 | potentially multiple professional schedules, multiple child schedules, multiple sort of

00:56:58.020 | social schedules.

00:56:59.180 | You have to be able to see the whole ballgame all at once and review these together.

00:57:03.140 | My wife and I have, I don't know what it's called.

00:57:05.740 | It's like a terrible ad if you're this company, but we have like this frame, like a digital

00:57:11.040 | picture frame in our kitchen that has loaded in it.

00:57:15.120 | It's like a tablet, our shared calendar.

00:57:18.520 | So we can just, without having to load up a phone or a computer, it's just right there,

00:57:21.320 | like in the kitchen while you're working on things, you see the shared calendar and you

00:57:24.640 | can scroll and see what's going on in the day and scroll ahead of what's going on.

00:57:28.120 | It is so central to how we run our lives and the lives of three elementary school kids.

00:57:33.320 | Our calendars are so central that we just like have a permanent calendar device right

00:57:37.140 | there in our kitchen.

00:57:38.140 | All right, let me go back to Matt's case study here.

00:57:41.020 | He says, I appreciate how you suggested having both a digital and physical file storage solution.

00:57:48.300 | We do, but we try to minimize the amount of physical paper we keep in the house.

00:57:52.140 | We found Microsoft's OneDrive a great solution because it allows you to scan paper to PDFs.

00:57:57.620 | We could then shred the original unless a physical copy is required.

00:58:01.820 | Using an inbox, we have had good success using both the iOS Reminders app for tracking tasks

00:58:08.500 | and a shared Trello board for tracking projects, which he defines as outcomes that require

00:58:13.020 | two or more tasks to complete.

00:58:16.020 | Examples of projects are home renovation, vacation planning, etc.

00:58:20.220 | Per your recommendation, it sounds like we have an opportunity to improve our physical

00:58:23.180 | inbox.

00:58:24.180 | I also realized we can be more intentional about giving each other time away from the

00:58:27.740 | kids to accomplish non-work administrative tasks and inbox clearing around the house.

00:58:32.460 | All right, Matt, what I like about this is you're being intentional.

00:58:35.900 | You and your wife are being intentional.

00:58:38.660 | You know, an organized life is the prerequisite for an interesting, deep, or remarkable life.

00:58:44.060 | Like if you don't have control over what is actually happening in your life, you don't

00:58:49.500 | have a lot of control over what that life is going to be like, what direction it's going,

00:58:52.940 | how it unfolds.

00:58:54.620 | I really don't buy these critiques that somehow say the push to become more organized in your

00:59:01.180 | life is somehow diminishing the spontaneity of life.

00:59:05.320 | That is an obsession with optimization, that it's like an internalist capitalist narrative.

00:59:10.460 | It's like, no, I mean, what do you do in your life?

00:59:12.060 | You have a complicated stream of obligations that need to be executed.

00:59:18.660 | You could either control those or you can wander through them haphazardly and be surprised

00:59:23.060 | by them.

00:59:24.060 | Or you could do a lot more cool stuff.

00:59:25.700 | If you can't, you can't.

00:59:27.060 | The organized life is what unlocks the remarkable or interesting life, at least it's one of

00:59:32.940 | the ways to do that.

00:59:33.940 | Now, of course, you can go too far and yes, you can become like obsessed with optimization.

00:59:38.660 | We're playing with human instincts here.

00:59:40.460 | We like to sort of have control and plan and see our plans executed so you can get sort

00:59:44.460 | of addicted to organization.

00:59:46.340 | But the response to that reality is not to be disorganized, it's just to be reasonably

00:59:51.380 | organized.

00:59:52.380 | And I think it's very evident of this that, you know, any book about the big deep life

00:59:58.100 | transforming your life, how to live the happy life, all these big books, they should have

01:00:02.660 | like a really big chapter on time management, like family time management, you know, but

01:00:07.220 | they don't because it's not sexy, but they should.

01:00:08.940 | So Matt, I appreciate just hearing what it sounds like when a family has been very intentional

01:00:12.860 | about trying to figure out how do we wrangle all this stuff so the stuff doesn't drown

01:00:16.100 | us.

01:00:17.100 | And there's some good ideas there.

01:00:18.500 | All right, well, we got a cool case study coming up.

01:00:21.940 | But first I want to talk about another one of our sponsors.

01:00:24.900 | In particular, I want to talk about listening.

01:00:30.420 | This is a service that we've talked about in some recent episodes, and I think it is

01:00:36.400 | really cool.

01:00:37.400 | All right, so here's the idea.

01:00:39.740 | Think about the various things that you need to read or consume in your life, like articles

01:00:45.380 | or books or PDFs or email newsletters, websites, etc.

01:00:49.500 | The things you read that have important information that you need for your job or you just find

01:00:53.820 | it really interesting, where you said, you know what, it would be nice if I didn't have

01:00:58.860 | to sit down and look at a screen to consume all this information because I have all this

01:01:02.860 | other time when I'm doing dishes, when I'm commuting, when I'm doing yard work or doing

01:01:08.140 | my laundry.

01:01:09.140 | I have all this other time where like maybe I listen to podcasts or audiobooks where I

01:01:13.220 | could be using it to consume this information, these articles, these books, these PDFs.

01:01:17.780 | Wouldn't it be cool if that stuff that you read, you could also listen to?

01:01:23.300 | Well, that's where the Listening app enters the scene.

01:01:27.580 | It allows you to take that content and transform it into audio content so that you can listen

01:01:32.660 | to it while you're cooking, while you're walking, while you're exercising, whatever it is that

01:01:37.740 | you are doing.

01:01:39.580 | I've messed around with the Listening app.

01:01:41.540 | You can use academic papers is like a cool one because I read a lot of papers as part

01:01:46.140 | of my work as a writer and thinker.

01:01:48.380 | So I like this idea that like when I'm commuting to work, I can hear from it.

01:01:51.580 | I also like the email newsletter is a good use for this as well.

01:01:55.500 | You know, if you subscribe to these newsletters because you love the ideas, but you don't

01:01:58.980 | ever feel like you have time to read them all because when you're in your email inbox,

01:02:02.500 | you have to answer a thousand emails to be able to grab a few, throw it to the Listening

01:02:05.940 | app and listen to it when you're going to grab lunch.

01:02:10.620 | I found that to be really useful as well.

01:02:13.300 | It has fantastic voices that uses, you know, we've had these breakthroughs in AI recently.

01:02:17.420 | So the voices are very lifelike.

01:02:19.600 | We're talking like emotion intonation.

01:02:21.280 | So it sounds like they hired a narrator to read this is not, you know, your favorite

01:02:26.460 | academic article is read by Stephen Hawking.

01:02:28.580 | It's going to sound, you know, like you had a live reader doing this.

01:02:36.200 | The app, technical terms, I have found that it pronounces those really well.

01:02:40.900 | The feature I really like in the Listening app is the one-touch note-taking function.

01:02:45.900 | Oh, this is a place I want to mark this place because this was interesting and I'm listening

01:02:51.080 | to it.

01:02:52.480 | Mark this place.

01:02:53.480 | I can go back later and add a note about this.

01:02:54.600 | We can collect all the notes about what I'm listening to.

01:02:57.700 | So anyways, I think this is just a cool idea.

01:03:00.900 | We already love listening to podcasts like this.

01:03:03.140 | We like listening to audio books.

01:03:04.980 | Why not throw into the mix the other sort of really interesting information that we

01:03:08.280 | otherwise would just read?

01:03:10.820 | So your life just got a lot easier.

01:03:13.900 | Normally, Listening would offer a two-week free trial.

01:03:18.300 | But as my listeners, you can get a month free of the Listening app.

01:03:23.260 | Go to listening.com/deep or use the code DEEP at checkout to get a whole month free to try

01:03:29.780 | the Listening app.

01:03:30.780 | That's listening.com/deep and use that code DEEP at checkout.

01:03:36.180 | Continuing the theme of listening to really good information, I also want to mention our

01:03:40.100 | longtime friends at Blinkist.

01:03:43.980 | The Blinkist app gives you summaries of over 6,500 bestselling nonfiction books.

01:03:53.220 | Each of these summaries which you can read or listen to, depending what you prefer, takes

01:03:58.060 | just 15 minutes to consume.

01:04:02.420 | The way that I use Blinkist, the way that Jesse uses Blinkist is that as a triage service

01:04:07.080 | for books.

01:04:08.080 | I'm thinking about reading this book, let me just listen to the Blink or read the Blink

01:04:11.440 | real quick, get the main ideas.

01:04:13.140 | It's a fantastic way of telling, "Oh, is this something I want to buy the full book for?

01:04:16.980 | Or is this not quite what I think?

01:04:18.500 | Or it is what I thought, but I got all the information I need from the Blink, I don't

01:04:20.900 | want to buy the whole book."

01:04:21.900 | It's a fantastic way.

01:04:23.260 | Throw books you're interested in to your Blinkist queue and then read the Blinks, listen to

01:04:26.940 | the Blinks.

01:04:27.940 | You can triage books.

01:04:29.260 | Other people use Blinkist that I know, they get the lay of the land quickly on a topic.

01:04:33.540 | "Oh, I really care, I should know more about crypto or Gen AI."

01:04:37.580 | Great.

01:04:38.580 | Let me listen to the Blinks of five books, one, two, three, four, five in a row.

01:04:42.240 | You have just picked up from those summaries, all of the key vocabulary and ideas you need

01:04:46.780 | to at least think about these things in a reasonable way.

01:04:49.460 | And then later on when you select a more in-depth book to read, you really know the landscape.

01:04:54.280 | So I think of Blinkist as a critical tool for anyone who embraces the reading life.

01:04:59.780 | A life in which a lot of reading happens, Blinkist is a great assistant to have in navigating

01:05:07.420 | this particular life.

01:05:10.300 | They also have a cool new feature right now called Blinkist Connect, in which when you

01:05:14.540 | subscribe you give another person unlimited access for free.

01:05:17.460 | So it's basically a two for one deal.

01:05:20.340 | So keep that in mind.

01:05:22.500 | Right now Blinkist has a particular special offer just for our audience.

01:05:26.200 | If you go to Blinkist.com/deep to start your seven day free trial, you will get 40% off.

01:05:33.060 | That's almost half off, 40% off a Blinkist premium membership.

01:05:37.700 | That's Blinkist spelled B-L-I-N-K-I-S-T, Blinkist.com/deep to get 40% off any seven day free trial, Blinkist.com/deep.

01:05:47.660 | And remember now for a limited time, you can use Blinkist Connect to share your premium

01:05:51.540 | account.

01:05:52.580 | You will get two premium subscriptions for the price of one at Blinkist.com/deep.

01:05:56.540 | All right, Jesse, let's get to our final segment.

01:06:00.340 | All right, so one of the things I like to do in the final segment is react to something

01:06:05.720 | interesting that I read about in the news.

01:06:10.240 | So in particular, I want to talk about in honor of my trip to England that I just got

01:06:14.900 | back from, I want to talk about a article from the Guardian about the football club,

01:06:22.340 | Manchester United.

01:06:23.340 | All right, so I'm loading this on the screen here for people who are watching instead of

01:06:28.940 | just listening.

01:06:30.260 | So I guess Manchester United is owned by someone named Jim Ratcliffe.

01:06:36.320 | So Jim Ratcliffe just announced that the employees of Manchester United, the sort of the office,

01:06:42.060 | the front office employees, back office employees, need to work from the office.

01:06:47.920 | And in doing so, he cited email traffic statistics as his motivation for making this claim.

01:06:55.580 | So let me read you a little bit from this article.

01:06:58.700 | United have had a flexible work from home policy since COVID.

01:07:02.860 | But Ratcliffe signaled an end to this during his all-staff meeting held in person via video

01:07:07.220 | call last week as part of his tour of Old Trafford and the Carrington training base.

01:07:12.540 | He informed the club's approximately 1,000 employees that email traffic dropped by 20%

01:07:20.460 | when one of his companies experimented with work from home Fridays, which he cited as

01:07:25.700 | the reason for his dictate.

01:07:29.380 | Ratcliffe believes having all staff on site will allow greater productivity and strengthen

01:07:32.460 | unity and collaboration.

01:07:34.940 | To emphasize his message, United's minority owner, who uses these methods at INEOS, told

01:07:40.260 | the meeting, "If you don't like it, please seek alternative employment."

01:07:44.620 | All right, there's some interesting things going on here.

01:07:49.260 | Now first of all, let me be clear, I'm not of that camp that has emerged that has somehow

01:07:58.060 | cited working from home as both the cure for everything that ails knowledge work and a

01:08:05.740 | fundamental human right.

01:08:08.260 | I'm not one of these like, of course we need to be working from home, and anyone who doesn't

01:08:12.900 | want their company working from home is essentially like an exploitative capitalist that just

01:08:20.860 | like hates people.

01:08:23.020 | I think a lot, and I wrote about this in The New Yorker, I think a lot of this like working

01:08:29.020 | from home is vital is more of a reflection of a deeper unrest about the unsustainability

01:08:35.660 | and deranging exhaustion of pseudo productivity that the pandemic pushed us over the edge

01:08:40.380 | about all of these things about knowledge work that I talk about in my books, Slow Productivity,

01:08:44.100 | that have become sort of unlivable.

01:08:47.720 | We began to push back about this, we grabbed at anything we had, and like working from

01:08:51.780 | home was something we could grab because when bosses said, "Let's come back to the office,"

01:08:56.380 | that felt like we were conceding something, we were just upset about work, we wanted to

01:08:59.860 | fix something.

01:09:00.860 | I don't think just saying let's work from home is going to fix these big problems, right?

01:09:03.940 | So I am not an absolutist about working from home.

01:09:08.940 | That being said, I think Jim Ratcliffe's response here gets things absolutely backwards.

01:09:16.100 | He said, "Look, at one of my companies, we did work from home Fridays and the email traffic

01:09:20.700 | went down by 20%.

01:09:22.980 | His takeaway from that is that working from home doesn't work.

01:09:25.940 | My takeaway from that statistic is the exact opposite."

01:09:29.980 | He should have said, "Wow, work from home Friday was a huge success because email traffic

01:09:36.040 | dropped by 20% when we did that."

01:09:40.100 | This equation of visible performative activity with useful effort, what I call pseudo-productivity

01:09:47.140 | in my book, Slow Productivity, is the core engine driving much of the exhaustion and

01:09:51.300 | burnout in this current economic sector.

01:09:53.840 | This idea that email is being sent back and forth, that that's what work is, and if that

01:09:57.780 | goes down, work is going down, is one of the most purified examples of the inanity of pseudo-productivity

01:10:02.540 | that I have recently uncovered.

01:10:06.520 | His company does not make money by sending and receiving emails.

01:10:09.260 | It makes money by producing whatever it is these various companies actually produce that's

01:10:12.300 | valuable in the marketplace.

01:10:13.980 | The constant sending and receiving of emails actually probably slows the pace at which

01:10:17.880 | this is produced.

01:10:20.340 | Writing The Atlantic back in March, when my book first came out, I wrote an op-ed for

01:10:24.180 | The Atlantic.

01:10:25.180 | They got a little bit of traction.

01:10:27.100 | And I actually suggested in that, your days that you work from home, so like what Ratcliffe

01:10:32.300 | calls work-from-home Fridays, if you have a hybrid schedule where some days people are

01:10:35.500 | at home and some days they're in the office, the days you work from home should have zero

01:10:39.820 | email and zero meetings.

01:10:42.940 | I call this hybrid attention, and I said this is the right way to take advantage of hybrid

01:10:47.500 | work schedules.

01:10:48.500 | Why not say, "When I'm at home on Fridays, don't touch your email inbox.

01:10:52.660 | Don't get on any sort of meetings.

01:10:54.700 | Just produce things."

01:10:55.700 | Now, if you're like, "How do I know if my employee's working?"

01:10:58.980 | Well, that's a bigger problem you have, right?

01:11:01.660 | You need a better way of actually saying, "What did you do for us in the last six months?"

01:11:06.780 | And if people can't clearly answer that question, then your whole company is just a mess of

01:11:10.220 | sort of incestuous pseudo-productivity, and that's a big problem, right?

01:11:14.780 | But that's an easily solved problem if you can just ask people, "What do you do?

01:11:18.900 | What did you do?

01:11:19.900 | What do you produce?

01:11:20.900 | You made this project.

01:11:21.900 | Did this project work?

01:11:22.900 | Where's your value?"

01:11:23.900 | Once you have that, you don't have to care anymore about, "At this particular hour on

01:11:26.540 | this particular day, are you actively at your keyboard?"

01:11:29.260 | Who cares?

01:11:31.060 | Produce stuff that matters.

01:11:32.060 | And once you care about people producing stuff that matters, you don't have to use these

01:11:35.580 | pseudo-productivity metrics to try to figure out who's useful and who's not.

01:11:39.580 | So your email traffic dropping by 20% on work-from-home Fridays is not only not a problem, but it's

01:11:45.860 | not going far enough.

01:11:47.140 | That number should be, you know, 100% would be optimal.

01:11:52.060 | So again, working from home is a complicated thing.

01:11:55.100 | Just simply saying, "Do your job, but do it from home," and doing Zoom doesn't solve a

01:11:58.300 | lot of problems, can make some things worse.

01:12:01.860 | But you cannot use email traffic.

01:12:03.940 | Email traffic as a measure of productivity means you don't have a sensical measure of

01:12:08.700 | productivity, which means you're probably getting a fraction of the possible actual

01:12:12.700 | useful effort that's latent in your employees, you're probably just extracting a fraction

01:12:18.380 | of what's possible there.

01:12:19.700 | If what you care about is this sort of just surface performative activity.

01:12:22.980 | So anyways, I had the exact opposite response to the statistic that scared Ratcliffe.

01:12:29.280 | This is not the only example of this, by the way.

01:12:32.380 | It happened back in the original experiments with remote work, it's 2011.

01:12:38.420 | I wrote a big New Yorker piece about this in May of 2020, about the history of remote

01:12:41.860 | work.

01:12:43.460 | You get May of, you get a 2011, I don't know when it was, but roughly 2011, all the technology

01:12:49.180 | had finally come to place for remote work to make sense because we needed ubiquitous

01:12:53.220 | broadband internet at home, we need low cost video conferencing, and we needed like the

01:12:58.340 | right infrastructure for shared documents, right?

01:13:00.860 | We had all of that in place by the end of the first decade of the 2000s.

01:13:05.900 | Companies start really experimenting with this.

01:13:07.620 | Anyways, one of the big experiments was Yahoo, they hire Marissa Meyers, her CEO.

01:13:12.320 | She said, "I don't like this, no more remote work, everyone has to come back."

01:13:16.100 | And she said, "I don't like this, no more remote work, everyone has to come back."

01:13:19.340 | And she was like, "I don't like this, no more remote work, everyone has to come back."

01:13:22.060 | And she was like, "I don't like this, no more remote work, everyone has to come back."

01:13:24.540 | And she was like, "I don't like this, no more remote work, everyone has to come back."

01:13:26.580 | And she was like, "I don't like this, no more remote work, everyone has to come back."

01:13:29.580 | And she was like, "I don't like this, no more remote work, everyone has to come back."

01:13:32.580 | And she was like, "I don't like this, no more remote work, everyone has to come back."

01:13:35.540 | And she was like, "I don't like this, no more remote work, everyone has to come back."

01:13:38.540 | And she was like, "I don't like this, no more remote work, everyone has to come back."

01:13:43.540 | And she was like, "I don't like this, no more remote work, everyone has to come back."

01:13:46.540 | And she was like, "I don't like this, no more remote work, everyone has to come back."

01:13:49.540 | And she was like, "I don't like this, no more remote work, everyone has to come back."

01:13:52.540 | And she was like, "I don't like this, no more remote work, everyone has to come back."

01:13:55.540 | And she was like, "I don't like this, no more remote work, everyone has to come back."

01:13:58.540 | And she was like, "I don't like this, no more remote work, everyone has to come back."

01:14:01.540 | And she was like, "I don't like this, no more remote work, everyone has to come back."

01:14:04.540 | In fact, again, I push even farther, if you're going to have a hybrid schedule, make the days really different.

01:14:09.540 | At home days are for thinking, at work days are for talking.

01:14:12.540 | And I bet you'll see over the next few months the needle really move on the stuff that you really care about being produced.

01:14:19.540 | So there you go.

01:14:21.540 | Manchester United, that's a very British reference.

01:14:24.540 | They play soccer.

01:14:26.540 | I figure that out as much.

01:14:28.540 | Ted Lasso.

01:14:30.540 | I've taught, yeah, interesting.

01:14:32.540 | Deep work.

01:14:34.540 | Ryan does more of this, Ryan Holiday does more of this than I do.

01:14:36.540 | But there's been a lot of interest in some of these ideas from professional sports teams here in the US.

01:14:41.540 | And I've talked to GMs from various sports or whatever.

01:14:45.540 | Maybe we should just lean more into that.

01:14:47.540 | Sports are fun.

01:14:49.540 | Get some good tickets.

01:14:50.540 | Get some good tickets, that's the key.

01:14:51.540 | That's what this is all about, folks, is the good tickets.

01:14:53.540 | All right, speaking of good tickets, that's all the time we have for today.

01:14:57.540 | Does that make sense, Jesse?

01:14:58.540 | Speaking of good tickets, that's all the time we have for today.

01:15:00.540 | That would only make sense if I said, "And I have to get to a game."

01:15:05.540 | I'm not going to a Nationals game right now because they just--

01:15:08.540 | they have a switch that says, like, on one side of the switch, like, "Let's play baseball."

01:15:14.540 | And then below it, it's like, you know, "Give up."

01:15:17.540 | And someone accidentally knocked into that switch last week.

01:15:20.540 | So I'm not really interested in watching them right now.

01:15:24.540 | That shouldn't stop Mike Rizzo from bringing me in to talk about D4.

01:15:29.540 | But anyways, enough time, enough of this.

01:15:30.540 | Thanks for listening.

01:15:31.540 | We'll be back next week as usual.

01:15:34.540 | Until then, as always, stay deep.

01:15:37.540 | Hey, so if you noticed earlier in this episode,

01:15:39.540 | I mentioned my use of a single-purpose notebook during my recent trip to London.

01:15:45.540 | You might enjoy checking out episode 292 where I go into detail

01:15:50.540 | about how single-purpose notebooks help you think more deeply.

01:15:54.540 | Check it out.

01:15:55.540 | So this idea of a small notebook dedicated to a single creative idea,

01:16:01.540 | what I'm calling a single-purpose notebook,

01:16:04.540 | is something that's now starting to fascinate me.

01:16:06.540 | So I want to explore it in today's deep dive.

Escape Your Desk: A Simple Way To Find Clarity & Make Hard Work Feel Like Play | Cal Newport

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