Ep. 238: The Joys Of The Reading Life

00:00:00.000 | So what I want to do today the deep question I want to dive into today

00:00:03.260 | Based on this article as a starting point. It's going to be

00:00:06.580 | Why is it important to?

00:00:09.400 | read books

00:00:12.120 | I'm Cal Newport and this is deep questions the show about living and working deeply in an increasingly

00:00:26.200 | distracted world

00:00:29.640 | I'm

00:00:31.360 | Here my deep work

00:00:33.260 | HQ joined as always by my

00:00:35.680 | producer Jesse

00:00:38.480 | Jesse I'm gonna make an announcement about something that you in particular have been working on in

00:00:43.120 | recent months, which is our

00:00:46.000 | new ish website

00:00:48.840 | the deep life

00:00:51.000 | calm

00:00:52.200 | So we soft launched this a couple months ago just to get used to the interface and to start populating it in content with content

00:00:59.760 | But the deep life comm is the official home among other things of this podcast

00:01:06.280 | Every episode has its own page at the deep life comm where you can listen to the episode

00:01:13.240 | Find it in all the various players

00:01:15.360 | Also any videos related to that episode to be found right there on the episodes page as well

00:01:22.800 | So that is going to be the home for this podcast the site for this podcast

00:01:27.320 | It's also the home for all of the video that we produce. So all of the video we produce

00:01:32.920 | Related to the podcast as well as the standalone videos that we produce

00:01:39.120 | Infrequently now, but probably more frequently in the future. All of those will be housed in addition to on YouTube at Cal Newport

00:01:46.680 | Meet YouTube slash California. They'll also be housed at

00:01:49.840 | The deep life comm so if you want to watch podcast episodes watch clips from episodes watch other videos

00:01:56.640 | We've done like our weekly update videos, but you're suspicious for example of the YouTube recommendation algorithms

00:02:02.540 | Watch them at the deep life comm nice clean interface in our

00:02:07.520 | Environment. So if you want to understand the idea behind this I mentioned this briefly

00:02:11.320 | Sort of buried in a recent episode in my answer to one of my questions

00:02:16.580 | But the reason why I've launched this separate website the deep life comm is that I'm trying to get some clarity

00:02:22.360 | between my work as an academic and writer and public intellectual where I write books and academic

00:02:30.200 | Articles and public facing articles for the New Yorker and I explore a lot of topics all roughly within this general this general

00:02:37.200 | Frame of technology and its impact on culture and society. I wanted there to be some clarity between that world and

00:02:43.320 | The direct engagement I do with you my listeners and readers with things like this podcast like my videos on the specific goal of trying

00:02:51.600 | to cultivate a deeper life

00:02:53.440 | Because unlike other I would say other personalities that are out there where their entire existence is tied up in their direct

00:03:00.900 | Engagement with their readers or listeners. They're a a YouTube podcaster and that's it

00:03:05.600 | I have this whole other life in the world of idea

00:03:08.080 | So the way I see it is I'm a thinker who writes and thinks about a lot of things

00:03:11.560 | I spun off this separate move at the deep life comm with the very

00:03:15.560 | Specific goal of being as I say at the top of that website the online home for the deep life movement

00:03:20.640 | So right now it's where my podcast is right now. It's where my videos are

00:03:24.520 | Conceivably in the future the deep life comm and the movement it represents could have some other voices on there as well

00:03:31.120 | Maybe another show on there other types of video series. So anyways, that is the deep life comm is the home for the podcast

00:03:38.160 | That's we're gonna find pages for every episode. That's where you can watch videos without having to see

00:03:42.840 | YouTube

00:03:44.760 | Recommendations. Yes, that looks good. Yeah. Yeah, so I'm gonna have to just see kind of is the mastermind behind

00:03:50.000 | Keeping it humming

00:03:52.080 | But it seems like it's working great. Like we have all the episodes are in here now or something like this

00:03:56.240 | Yeah, pretty big archive. We might in the future add

00:03:59.320 | Transcripts start adding transcripts to pages as we go forward as well. We haven't done that yet

00:04:04.160 | But when we do that's where to live. Mm-hmm. Each episode has its own has its own page

00:04:08.360 | We got start producing more video though. Yeah, I like video I get suspicious about YouTube sometimes

00:04:14.740 | So it's nice to have a place people can go

00:04:16.740 | To watch those videos if they don't want to actually be in the the YouTube universe

00:04:21.400 | Yeah, though. We're always happy to have you at YouTube youtube.com slash counterpart media. That is the YouTube page for all these

00:04:27.480 | Videos of these episodes and our clips are housed

00:04:31.520 | All right, so you may have noticed or you may notice if I drag a little bit in today's episode. I was sick this week

00:04:40.060 | You know

00:04:41.380 | Jesse knows this because we actually had to reschedule this taping because I was

00:04:44.540 | Too sick to do it on our the original time

00:04:48.560 | That we were going to record but being sick and this way I want to bring this up at the top of the show

00:04:52.840 | The day when I was the sickest which was on

00:04:56.280 | Wednesday

00:04:58.600 | Of this past week. I had an interesting epiphany. So I was really run down as nauseous my head hurt. I

00:05:05.040 | Couldn't read books. I

00:05:07.960 | Tried I couldn't concentrate. I just wanted I was like I can't follow this but I could

00:05:14.160 | read the internet on my phone and

00:05:16.160 | I believe and this is a

00:05:18.380 | Precise quantification. I believe I read on that day and I'm looking up the number here all of the Internet

00:05:25.400 | And I said that's the right way of quantifying it, but it stuck with me for a second. My mind was run down

00:05:32.140 | I was sick. I was at a

00:05:34.140 | Fraction of my energy. I was still able to do stuff online

00:05:37.080 | I could read stuff online, but I couldn't read books and it occurred to me

00:05:40.440 | There's something different going on

00:05:44.040 | in book reading

00:05:45.680 | Something much more demanding than when I'm scrolling on my phone and this is honestly what I was doing in

00:05:53.120 | The comment section on the talk NATS comm

00:05:57.000 | Web blog which has the the best online discussion community on the Internet for the Washington Nationals baseball team

00:06:03.760 | Those are interesting guys. I could read that I could read Mark Zuckerman's articles on massin

00:06:09.600 | About you know, what was going on with Josiah Gray's delivery couldn't read even

00:06:15.140 | Relatively straightforward books. So then I came across this was on my mind. I'm starting a little bit better

00:06:20.040 | fortuitously one of you my

00:06:22.800 | listeners sent to my interesting account newport.com address an article that got right to the heart of this and I'm gonna bring this up on

00:06:28.680 | The screen so if you're watching

00:06:30.280 | at youtube.com

00:06:32.280 | Cal Newport media

00:06:33.600 | This is episode 238 or if you're watching at the deep life calm this article

00:06:38.360 | I have a here up on the screen is called success and circuit lies. How do we cultivate deep reading?

00:06:43.360 | Processes in a digital age. It's from February and it's written by Marianne Wolfe

00:06:49.320 | Marianne Wolfe used to be at Tufts now. She's moved to a new center at UCLA

00:06:53.560 | She is an expert on the neuroscience of reading in particular. She's done a lot of breakthrough research on

00:06:59.200 | Dyslexia what actually happens in the brain with dyslexia? She wrote a great public-facing book called Proust and the squid which I really recommend

00:07:08.120 | this article had in it a lot of great insights about

00:07:12.360 | why reading is a

00:07:15.320 | special or exceptional activity

00:07:17.920 | for human beings why it does something for us that other types of consumption and media doesn't and why we should be worried about losing it and

00:07:25.840 | Be eager to fight to get more of it. These points were all embedded in this article

00:07:31.200 | So let's look at some quotes from this article

00:07:34.160 | There's a lot of different things going on here

00:07:35.680 | I pulled some quotes out of here not in their order that they appeared from the order that I think they're important

00:07:40.200 | To our discussion. So let me grab the first quote. I want to start with here. All right, here is

00:07:44.800 | Marianne and again, I have this on the screen if you're at youtube.com slash Calum port media

00:07:50.480 | This is episode 238. All right, so let's start with this quote

00:07:54.520 | No human was born to read

00:07:59.320 | Literacy requires a new plastic brain circuit plasticity allows the circuit to adapt to any writing system and any medium that catches that

00:08:06.900 | Circuits reflect the mediums character characteristics, whatever they are. So we'll start with this point

00:08:12.320 | It's a big point. It was made in Proust and the squid humans aren't meant to read. It's a highly unnatural activity. We hijack

00:08:18.720 | Significant portions of our brain that were originally evolved to do other things and we retrain them to do this reading

00:08:25.320 | This reading activity that humans invented. It's a cultural innovation

00:08:29.480 | that's relatively recent in the history of our species, but what Marianne is saying here is

00:08:33.760 | We're reshaping our brain to this new activity. So specific the specifics of this activity matter

00:08:40.240 | So what we're reading how we're reading it what format we're reading in

00:08:44.800 | Actually can have an impact on how the brain is shaped. All right second quote. I want to read here

00:08:52.880 | This is now about let's dive into how different mediums can affect how our brain is shaped around reading

00:08:59.040 | the medium of print

00:09:01.960 | Advantages slower more attention and time requiring processes

00:09:06.520 | the digital medium by contrast

00:09:10.080 | advantages fast processes and multitasking

00:09:13.000 | Both well suited for skimming information's daily

00:09:17.040 | bombardments

00:09:19.600 | Marianne has a little interesting piece here where she says stop for a moment and think about that sentence you just read

00:09:25.960 | Did you really read the whole sentence or did you skim and bounce around some words?

00:09:31.200 | Because as she goes on to clarify that's really how we engage with

00:09:35.820 | Words on screens and web browsers on social media, etc. We skim we jump around

00:09:41.280 | There's things called Z patterns and F patterns will read the first line the middle section

00:09:46.040 | We our eyes jump around we feel like we're going fast, but we're missing a lot of information. So

00:09:52.040 | different types of reading digital verse physical

00:09:55.880 | requires different types of processes

00:09:59.080 | So does this matter? Well, let's see

00:10:02.520 | Here's what Marianne says to skim to inform as we do when we read on digital

00:10:08.060 | Is the new norm for reading what goes missing? However, our deep reading processes

00:10:14.920 | Which require a quality of attention increasingly at risk in a culture and on a medium in which constant distraction?

00:10:21.960 | bifurcates our attention these processes include

00:10:25.400 | Connecting background knowledge new information making analogies drawing inferences examining truth value

00:10:31.740 | passing over into the perspectives of other expanding our empathy and knowledge and

00:10:36.640 | integration and

00:10:38.920 | critical analysis

00:10:40.720 | Here is the the key quote about summarizing all these things we get from reading a physical book

00:10:46.280 | Deep reading is our species bridge to insight and novel thought

00:10:51.520 | All right

00:10:54.200 | So let's think about what they're saying what what Marianne is saying here

00:10:57.080 | We have to reshape our brain to read

00:10:59.920 | if we're reading on a screen we tend to do what she calls skim to inform we jump around and

00:11:07.840 | See ideas try to get the gist of what's going on when we instead read on a physical page

00:11:12.520 | We instead are prioritizing processes that give us all of these

00:11:16.800 | all of these

00:11:19.000 | Advanced human cognition behaviors as we get the analogies inferences truth value passing over perspectives empathetic putting ourselves into the shoes of others

00:11:26.760 | integration critical analysis the things that she describes as our bridge to insight and

00:11:31.600 | novel thought as

00:11:35.120 | Marianne wolf goes on to

00:11:37.120 | summarize those traits we get from physical books, but not digital to deploy these interactive processes

00:11:45.240 | requires nearly automatic decoding skills and purposeful attention that moves as William James once put it from

00:11:53.040 | flight to purchase for thought

00:11:55.760 | Imperceptible pauses and reading can lead to lightning speed leaps in our thoughts furthest reaches by contrast when we skim

00:12:03.200 | we literally

00:12:05.200 | physiologically don't have time to think or

00:12:08.120 | feel

00:12:11.440 | So this is a big a big idea that's being made here

00:12:15.960 | slowly reading full sentences one after a time as we do when we look at a physical page is

00:12:21.240 | Supporting and kicking off all of these incredibly advanced deep thinking

00:12:27.400 | processes that are at the key of what makes humans human and

00:12:32.120 | It's not just being able to think clear. It's also being able to be more empathetic

00:12:35.480 | It's being able to integrate the ideas you're seeing into other ideas. What she's emphasizing here is just the ability to pause

00:12:41.560 | And just think for a moment about that sentence before you move on to the next allows you to integrate it

00:12:47.000 | Successfully to existing structures of thought therefore growing a much more sophisticated

00:12:51.560 | Understanding of the world all of this comes from the pace of reading the style of reading that happens on physical pages

00:12:57.320 | On a screen on a phone on an iPad. We don't get that we're skimming around

00:13:01.600 | And we literally physiologically don't have time to think or feel

00:13:05.720 | So we're not able to integrate the thoughts for reading

00:13:08.840 | We're not able to examine them successfully for truth value or understand how they fit in or challenge existing schemas

00:13:15.760 | We do not have the physiological or psychological space for empathy for the other people. So what we look for is

00:13:21.520 | Arousal

00:13:23.960 | Hey, this makes me mad. This makes me laugh. This makes me, you know excited about something. This makes me, you know scared

00:13:32.280 | Emotional arousal kind of captures our attention and we look for keywords about do I like this person or not?

00:13:36.960 | Is this on my team do I grew this idea or not? It's a primitive engagement with information

00:13:41.680 | Does this affect other types of thinking so if we spend most of our time reading in a

00:13:48.040 | Digital screen instead of reading on a physical screen will that impact the way we think not just when we're engaging with text

00:13:55.760 | But when we're trying to do other type of thinking in other aspects of our life

00:13:59.480 | Here the article provides evidence that yes, the answer there is yes

00:14:03.440 | Marianne points towards a recent study that was published in JAMA Pediatrics

00:14:08.960 | By a group of researchers from Singapore McGill and Harvard. It looked at over 500 young children

00:14:14.160 | what they found is

00:14:17.080 | increased screen time at a young age

00:14:20.080 | Was associated with weaker development of the brain regions responsible for the executive function skills that cover attention impulse

00:14:27.880 | inhibition and some aspects of memory

00:14:30.560 | So they're not getting

00:14:33.520 | the cognitive training

00:14:35.920 | That book reading in physical books gives you and without the training you're not developing those skills. So it's not just

00:14:43.360 | The act of reading itself while you're reading allows you to do this deeper thinking it's cognitive strength training

00:14:50.680 | It's making those parts of your brains able to do that type of thinking better in the future

00:14:54.540 | When you're doing other cognitive activities

00:14:57.800 | Now is this just for young kids? Well, no Marianne goes on to say

00:15:01.080 | The same sentence she's referencing a sentence that summarized what I just said

00:15:05.760 | Could as easily describe the experience of older children and indeed

00:15:09.640 | adults

00:15:12.400 | So to me

00:15:14.720 | These are important points

00:15:17.680 | Reading a physical book in a slow deliberative and careful manner

00:15:23.920 | Sharpens a type of innovative empathetic creative and critical thinking that is otherwise hard for humans to access

00:15:29.320 | It requires us to literally rewire our brain to do that type of thinking and without a concerted effort

00:15:35.200 | We will not develop those skills

00:15:37.320 | If we avoid the slow and deliberate reading of actual physical books if we mainly consume information on screens constantly keeping up

00:15:46.440 | With the news on Twitter looking at what's going on in Instagram jumping around

00:15:53.040 | highly engaging

00:15:55.040 | Websites or following links on social media even very highly educated people will do this and convince themselves. I'm really up on things

00:16:01.400 | I know what's going on

00:16:02.240 | I'm jumping back and forth between these sub stack quotes that I saw quoted in other tweets

00:16:06.360 | You feel like you're really engaged, but you're not doing the type of reading that supports innovative empathetic creative and critical thinking

00:16:13.160 | so what happens is the sophistication with which you understand and

00:16:16.960 | Later make sense of information is decreased and your ability to apply sophisticated thinking in other contexts is also

00:16:23.440 | atrophied

00:16:26.360 | Avoiding books is like being in ancient Sparta and avoiding doing any physical training

00:16:31.840 | You're going to be bad at the main activity that your civilization prioritizes for the Spartans. It was physical war for us as cognition

00:16:39.680 | You're making yourself much worse at that if you avoid physical books now if we think about this

00:16:46.840 | even more

00:16:48.800 | literally and

00:16:50.480 | We we go with this idea that wolf pushes

00:16:54.080 | That training our brain to do this type of innovative and empathetic and creative and critical thinking is something that's unnatural

00:17:01.640 | We have to hijack huge portions of our brain and doing this very difficult

00:17:04.560 | Unnatural activity that is sitting there and holding a codex and trying to decode the sentences that we have to do something incredibly

00:17:10.240 | unnatural again and again to train our brains to be this higher order of human if

00:17:13.960 | We're not doing that if we're substituting that time with screens

00:17:17.160 | We are in a literal sense evolving our brain backwards towards our pre literate tribal selves

00:17:23.520 | we're going backwards the type of brains we had before the advent of literacy and

00:17:29.640 | The impact that had on the plastic formation of how our brain actually functions. I spent all day

00:17:36.640 | Last Wednesday sick on the internet and here was my just my conclusion. It's a terrible place

00:17:44.500 | Seriously, there's no empathy. The thinking is simplistic

00:17:47.900 | there is a

00:17:50.460 | Automatic knee-jerk meanness to any perceived outsiders. In other words if you're bouncing around

00:17:55.820 | Twitter and social media and sub stack fights going back and forth. It's a digital paleolithic tribe

00:18:02.540 | It's exactly what wolf would predict if you don't do this effort that makes us more than our what we used to be

00:18:09.900 | we're gonna go right back to what we used to be and

00:18:13.380 | When I see Twitter today or what ten years ago would have been

00:18:17.300 | Tumblr fighting with 4chan

00:18:20.460 | And before that, you know, who knows?

00:18:23.020 | What I see there is the human brain going backwards

00:18:27.180 | That it's going back to where it's comfortable. Where's my tribe? How does this make me feel?

00:18:33.060 | Who's the bad guy? I want to feel something big right now

00:18:37.180 | And when we do that we get away from

00:18:40.900 | What characterizes and distinguishes?

00:18:43.140 | Humans the modern human from any other any other animal or beast that's ever come before

00:18:48.900 | You know Aristotle identified in the Nicomachean ethics

00:18:53.960 | concentrated deep thought the ability to sit here and manipulate ideas just within our head as the essence of

00:19:00.820 | What it means to be human what separates humans are teleological

00:19:04.820 | endpoint

00:19:06.980 | So to voluntarily move backwards from that is something that we should be cautious of. All right, so I'm being pretty philosophical here. Let's get more concrete

00:19:14.300 | What is my recommendation for you know, my listeners here to the show? I think we need to think about a serious reading habit as

00:19:22.540 | an exceptional activity one that you need to isolate and

00:19:27.060 | Support and really prioritize in your life no matter what else you think is important in your personal definition of a deep life

00:19:35.020 | I'm increasingly convinced the serious reading of good books needs to be in there

00:19:39.940 | So I have seven suggestions. I want to give

00:19:42.660 | seven suggestions about integrating real reading

00:19:47.220 | into your life

00:19:49.540 | All right. Number one

00:19:51.180 | Always be reading

00:19:52.900 | Something challenging. I don't care if it's fiction or nonfiction, but something that's challenging

00:19:58.620 | ideas you have to grapple with characters whose psychological reality is

00:20:04.460 | Difficult or pushes you into new

00:20:08.100 | Psychological or emotional places like in fiction but challenging number two

00:20:12.820 | read real books

00:20:15.380 | Not on a phone not on an iPad

00:20:17.380 | Kindle, I think is okay

00:20:19.060 | We're going to get into this later with a question later in the the program with a good collection of questions coming up

00:20:24.420 | But for now, I'll just say Kindle's okay physical books are okay

00:20:27.660 | Don't read on your phone. Don't read on your iPad wolf goes into this in this article. It's where the other distractions are

00:20:33.820 | And you're gonna read in those old ways if you're trying to read on those same devices

00:20:37.420 | You're gonna read in the skim style number three

00:20:39.420 | Read when possible and awesome awe-inspiring locations

00:20:43.420 | I don't like this mindset that reading is a take your cod liver oil

00:20:47.460 | Type of grin and bear it ice bath type self-flagellation behavior make it awesome

00:20:53.300 | It's sunny out

00:20:55.220 | I'm gonna go to a park and sit on a bench or hike into the woods for 20 minutes and bring a book by you

00:20:59.960 | Know Thoreau read at a coffee shop in the morning or as I would occasionally do when I lived in Beacon Hill for a while

00:21:06.880 | And I was at MIT

00:21:08.600 | Go to a pub. That's it. We the British are great at this Americans are terrible at this

00:21:13.760 | The the art of being a grad student that has a book that's a little bit too hard

00:21:18.940 | but you have a Heffa wise in in a

00:21:21.100 | back corner of a pub

00:21:23.640 | It's great. It opens up your great. I'm excited to read this feels like the right place to be doing it

00:21:29.940 | Take your time is number four

00:21:31.480 | Take your time when you read go slow seek to understand if you're reading a complicated book

00:21:35.500 | Use secondary sources to push yourself. So read books about the book you're reading

00:21:40.180 | It'll give you things to look forward to push your understanding and you'll come back to the book and be able to come at it

00:21:45.160 | more sophisticated

00:21:46.660 | Again, I'm not a big believer of just immerse yourself in a complicated thing and and you will just grow

00:21:51.580 | No, don't just grab Ulysses

00:21:54.500 | Read a book about Ulysses. So you have some understanding of what was going on with modernist English literature in this point

00:22:01.400 | Why is this so important? What are you looking for?

00:22:03.520 | Number five the quantity of books finished in the reading life is less important than the time spent actually reading

00:22:12.680 | so reading regularly

00:22:15.600 | Slowly and deliberately is what matters the quantity of books that translates to will depend on two things one

00:22:21.840 | happenstance

00:22:23.680 | The length of the books you happen to be reading and to just has your skill increases as you get better at reading

00:22:29.760 | You might finish books faster

00:22:31.760 | six keep notes

00:22:34.080 | keep notes when you are

00:22:36.160 | Tackling an idea that's important. Maybe you've read multiple books on it start a document somewhere keep notes

00:22:41.440 | This helps you practice puts you in the mindset of I'm not just reading the sentences

00:22:45.560 | I want to actually try to extract information from these sentences. You're gonna slow down

00:22:49.840 | You're going to allow those purchase for thought that William James talked about that pause in between that allows you to say, hmm

00:22:56.720 | What was said here reminds me of what was said there and it changes the way I think about what I wrote the other day

00:23:03.400 | That's where real interesting synthesis happens. And finally

00:23:06.600 | The support all of this reading when it comes to your life with screens, especially phones and iPads try to reduce

00:23:15.840 | The use of screens as a default response to boredom

00:23:19.520 | That should be a plan thing. It's okay. If you say tonight, I'm gonna watch a show

00:23:24.500 | that I'm going to stream or there is a baseball game today and

00:23:29.040 | At breakfast I am going to check on this site that site in this site to get the analysis of what happened there

00:23:36.040 | That's perfectly fine. What you want to avoid is when I'm bored whip this out. Hey

00:23:42.000 | Tick-tock algorithm or Twitter social dynamic show me some stuff that makes me feel big

00:23:47.320 | That you want to avoid you want your brain to not crave that so much

00:23:51.860 | You want your brain to be more comfortable with not having the big feelings at all moments

00:23:56.000 | So that when it comes time to do deep reading

00:23:58.000 | It doesn't complain

00:24:00.120 | All right, so that's my advice. So here's my summary here

00:24:02.180 | The reading life is a deep life the screen life the screen filled life can be downright primitive

00:24:08.880 | Which one do you want?

00:24:12.700 | It's all about books Jesse

00:24:14.700 | So I like that deep dive because as you know, we like to do one theme on the show each week and

00:24:21.780 | So we have five questions coming up and they're all about reading. Yeah, so I'm excited about I love reading questions

00:24:27.660 | Yeah, I like it too. It's popular topic to a lot of people watch those types of videos

00:24:31.540 | They're always interested in the books you read each month

00:24:33.380 | Yeah

00:24:33.980 | so we got five good reading questions that I want to dive into from you my listeners before I do I want to briefly first

00:24:39.540 | mention a

00:24:41.260 | One of our favorite sponsors of the show and that is our friends over at Blinkist

00:24:47.260 | You've heard me talk about Blinkist before the Blinkist app

00:24:49.980 | allows you to understand the big ideas from over five thousand five hundred nonfiction books and

00:24:56.700 | podcast in

00:24:58.780 | just

00:24:59.820 | 15 minutes

00:25:01.660 | You know, I'm realizing Jesse that's a little bit ambiguous as worded

00:25:04.540 | One potential reading of that is the Blinkist app will allow you to digest

00:25:10.380 | 5,000 books worth of ideas in 15 minutes. See I think that's too much of a summary

00:25:14.780 | But that's not what it means what it means is you can select from over five thousand five hundred books and for any one of

00:25:23.700 | those books

00:25:25.580 | Get a 15 minute summary that you can either read or listen to while you do something else. Those summaries are called

00:25:32.220 | blinks

00:25:34.260 | If you want to adopt a reading life like we just discussed

00:25:38.300 | There is no better sidekick than Blinkist because here's what it allows you to do

00:25:41.980 | Triage potential books to let into your life. You say I'm interested in this topic. Here's a few books on it. Which one should I buy?

00:25:49.740 | You listen to or read the blinks on all three of them

00:25:52.900 | You get the big ideas and quickly you can kind of hone in. I don't this one seems like it's a blog post

00:25:59.660 | It's expanded. Oh, this one seems serious. Oh, that's the one I'm gonna buy. That's the one I'm gonna read

00:26:03.860 | So if you're a serious reader Blinkist should be your sidekick

00:26:07.980 | They also have this new feature called Blinkist connect in

00:26:11.340 | Which you get two accounts for the price of one

00:26:14.420 | So you sign up for one and you can gift an account to a friend Jesse you and I both use Blinkist

00:26:19.500 | You have volunteered for me to actually bring up allow me to bring up your Blinkist app on the screen here

00:26:25.580 | Yeah, let's look at this real quick. Let me just jump over

00:26:27.940 | to it

00:26:29.780 | So for those who are watching at youtube.com slash Cal Newport media

00:26:33.460 | I've logged into the Blinkist app here. The reason why I want to do this was just to show you

00:26:38.220 | one other thing which I

00:26:40.860 | Like about Blinkist is they have these things called collections

00:26:44.700 | So it will also help you discover new books. So I'm looking at some collections on the screen here. Here's one

00:26:51.100 | Friend of the show friend of mine Adam Grant Adam grants book recommendations

00:26:56.460 | So I'm gonna click on that and what you get here is a collection of 14 books that Adam Grant is

00:27:02.300 | Recommending so you have like from strength the strength by Arthur Brooks

00:27:06.220 | Parenting by Jean Olin wing and so on

00:27:09.780 | obviously, this is a

00:27:13.300 | Nonsense list because none of my books are in it, but

00:27:16.180 | The point is you can also have books recommended and so there's 14 books in this list

00:27:21.500 | Click on any one of these things get the 15-minute summary to see if you want to buy it

00:27:25.380 | I'm telling you if the reading life is something that you think is important and you really should Blinkist is a great sidekick

00:27:31.580 | to have

00:27:33.780 | along to ride

00:27:35.460 | So right now Blinkist has a special offer just for our audience if you go to Blinkist comm slash deep

00:27:40.900 | To start your seven-day free trial. You will get 25% off a Blinkist premium membership. That's Blinkist spelled

00:27:48.060 | blinkist

00:27:51.100 | Blinkist comm slash deep to get 25% off and a seven-day free trial. That's Blinkist comm slash deep

00:27:57.700 | Remember now for a limited time you can even use Blinkist connect to share your premium account. You'll get two premium subscriptions

00:28:04.820 | for the price of one

00:28:07.580 | we also want to mention our

00:28:09.700 | sponsor ExpressVPN in

00:28:12.220 | Many prior ad reads I've explained why you need a VPN

00:28:17.460 | so that your internet provider or people who are

00:28:20.580 | Sniffing your packets as they move through the air from your device to a Wi-Fi

00:28:24.480 | Access point can't tell who you were talking to on the internet with a VPN

00:28:28.860 | You have a secure connection to a VPN server that talks to the sites and services on your behalf

00:28:33.300 | There's a kind of fun extra bonus reason why you might want a VPN like ExpressVPN

00:28:39.260 | Is that if you choose to connect to a VPN server in another country?

00:28:45.300 | The websites or services you talk to think you are in that country. I

00:28:49.500 | Was messing around with this recently, for example, I watched The Office

00:28:54.980 | by logging into a ExpressVPN server in the UK and

00:29:00.080 | Then log it into my Netflix account because Netflix UK has the rights to The Office whereas Netflix in the US does not it's on

00:29:08.260 | Peacock so you could fill that in for all all sorts of other

00:29:11.540 | regionalized shows

00:29:13.820 | Thinking about you know, the show Vikings on Canadian Netflix, for example or Korean dramas

00:29:20.320 | Go to a Korean server connecting the Netflix. You can see suddenly Korean dramas that you wouldn't normally see in

00:29:25.740 | the US so that's that's a cool bonus feature you get in addition to the

00:29:30.240 | Security and the protection and the privacy is like hey, you can put yourself into different countries. Actually the way I use that most often I

00:29:37.460 | would say is when I am traveling overseas and

00:29:41.700 | I'm homesick and I want American Netflix. I just want to watch a show. I'm in a hotel room somewhere in Berlin

00:29:46.660 | Connect to a VPN server in the US go Netflix and Netflix thinks you're back in the good old US of A so VPNs are vital

00:29:55.580 | They also let you do fun things like that

00:29:58.420 | ExpressVPN is the one I use because I think it has the most servers

00:30:01.500 | I love the available bandwidth and it's very easy to use click a switch. It's on you don't even realize it's on

00:30:07.940 | So if you want all the benefits security privacy

00:30:11.220 | Benefits of VPNs as well as access to hundreds of new shows go to expressvpn.com

00:30:16.700 | Deep right now and you can get an extra three months of ExpressVPN for free

00:30:20.940 | That's ExpressVPN.com slash deep ExpressVPN.com slash deep to learn more

00:30:26.380 | All right, Jesse. We got now five questions from our listeners all

00:30:30.020 | Related to our central deep question about why we should read more books. These are all

00:30:35.880 | book related questions who is first

00:30:38.800 | My first question is from bookish. I

00:30:41.720 | Thought about buying used physical copies of all the books. I've read on Kindle that I found worthwhile, but it seems wasteful

00:30:48.660 | Would this be crazy?

00:30:50.860 | The TLDR here is no

00:30:53.500 | and before I elaborate on that, let me

00:30:56.260 | Briefly detour to address the topic. I put a pin in earlier

00:31:00.620 | Which is Kindle used to read is that the same as reading physical books when it comes to the advantage talked about by?

00:31:07.120 | Marion Wolfe, I would say almost

00:31:09.200 | completely yes

00:31:11.480 | It's pretty close and the big issue. This is what Wolf points out the big issue with reading on a phone or an iPad

00:31:17.560 | Is it's the same screen we do all this other distracting behavior on and that's what pushes us into these skim patterns

00:31:24.760 | Kindle we only used to read books

00:31:27.440 | And so it does not seem at least anecdotally to induce that same skimming mindset

00:31:34.240 | I mean the Kindle is not really even a screen in the traditional sense of let's say an iPad or a phone where you actually have

00:31:41.020 | Different color lights being projected from these very small pixels that form an image. That's not exactly

00:31:47.200 | It's not how a Kindle works a Kindle. It's actually electromechanical

00:31:50.360 | It uses a technology called e-ink and all it is is a grid of very small disks

00:31:56.880 | laid out like a grid one side is essentially white the other side is essentially black and

00:32:02.560 | There is a little wires think about it

00:32:05.160 | Like there's wires to every little one of those things and if you put a little electrical pulse to one of the disk it flips over

00:32:10.640 | So what's happening with the Kindle is when you switch your page?

00:32:13.680 | There's a pulse to all these disks which flips them over into a pattern and now what you're physically looking at these physical disks

00:32:22.760 | White on one side black on the others have all been flipped in a way that what it shows you is the page with your

00:32:26.980 | Text so there's no light behind it. It's not shining pixels at you. It's actually physically a

00:32:33.320 | pattern of white and black

00:32:36.080 | Physical disks that's why you shine a book light on it like anything else. It's like you're reading paper

00:32:41.440 | It really is like you're reading paper electricity is only used to flip those. It's not steady-state supported by electricity

00:32:49.120 | That's a little bit

00:32:50.760 | In the weeds, but I think it helps explain why the experience arena Kindle really can be like reading a physical book in a way

00:32:57.380 | That reading on your eye your iPhone is not. All right, let's go back to bookish this question

00:33:01.520 | Is it crazy that if you like have a library book in your Kindle and you love it that you go and buy a copy

00:33:06.920 | Of it. No, I don't even think it needs to be a used copy

00:33:10.520 | Collect books that are important to you or you think are important

00:33:15.480 | I think that makes a lot of sense what better thing to collect you have in a single codex

00:33:20.920 | That is still the wisdom that might have come from years of effort and it had a real impact

00:33:26.120 | This very narrow thing that cost you twenty two dollars or eighteen dollars on Amazon has the ability

00:33:32.320 | to permanently rewire your cognitive

00:33:35.600 | Configuration changed the way you understand the world and live your life. I mean what's more powerful than that and you get it for $18

00:33:42.960 | Yes

00:33:44.640 | Celebrate these things if they've made a big difference in your life

00:33:47.000 | Buy a copy of a book that you think is really good have a library in that way. You're also supporting

00:33:53.000 | The construction of this art you're supporting writers who put all these efforts into it

00:33:58.360 | I am I'm not one of these people that thinks we should minimize our books or that having books is somehow fetishistic

00:34:05.120 | I mean, I think it is a one of the most important artifacts for the reasons

00:34:08.960 | We talked about in the deep dive that began the show

00:34:11.000 | they alone among

00:34:14.200 | All sorts of different things human produced are responsible for literally evolving

00:34:18.640 | The human brain allowing us to move to a higher more sophisticated creative empathetic state of being I think that's something that we can celebrate

00:34:26.520 | So yeah, buy the books bookish buy the books you like

00:34:28.960 | All right. What do got next Jesse?

00:34:31.840 | All right. Next question is from Patrick. I'm a theology grad student. I just signed my first nonfiction book contract

00:34:39.200 | I've been using your paper research database method, but I'm worried it won't be flexible enough for a full book

00:34:45.160 | What do you use to track notes for your books?

00:34:47.520 | Well Patrick congratulations on the contract

00:34:50.800 | That's a call

00:34:54.000 | callback to early Cal Newport comm D deep what he called the paper research database method I

00:35:01.400 | remember writing this it was a an article for my blog years ago and

00:35:07.320 | if memory serves I

00:35:09.320 | Had read an article or watched documentary about how the Pulitzer Prize winning nonfiction writer Taylor branch

00:35:15.880 | Collected and organized the notes for his epic three-part biography of Martin Luther King and he used a paper

00:35:23.840 | research database if again

00:35:26.240 | This is me pulling back pretty deeply into my memory banks. I did not refresh my memory of this article before the show

00:35:32.720 | I believe he used a Microsoft Access

00:35:36.320 | Database, that's how old this was and what he did is

00:35:39.360 | he immersed himself in

00:35:42.160 | Essentially every source about Kings life and when I say every source about Kings life

00:35:46.760 | I don't mean he read a lot of books about King. He did more than that. I don't just mean he went and read

00:35:52.680 | Important academic papers written about King. He did more than that. I don't mean that he went and read

00:35:58.400 | Every newspaper article that mentioned King during Kings life. He did do that, but he did more than that

00:36:04.680 | He would actually go and say

00:36:06.680 | King was in this town on this day. Let me see what's in the newspaper in that town in that day

00:36:13.520 | Just so I can see what's going on. What was it like in?

00:36:16.600 | Selma in

00:36:19.360 | 1954 on

00:36:21.080 | Tuesday April 17th, right and so to organize all these notes he put everything into a database that was all keyed by date

00:36:27.840 | Everything had a date and then he would summarize what's going on

00:36:32.160 | You would either transcribe relevant notes and what he observed from it and he just spent years and years doing this and the reason why

00:36:37.480 | He did is that when it came time to write his biographies he could say he had a timeline

00:36:42.000 | Okay, I'm at the point now where I'm talking about what happened in the summer of 1951

00:36:46.040 | He could essentially have his database spit out

00:36:48.320 | everything basically at all relevant to King in those three months in

00:36:53.120 | Chronological order and then he could immerse himself in all of that and from that be able to pull out a very nuanced

00:37:00.160 | Contextualized narrative about what King was doing not just King specific actions, but what was happening in the country at this time

00:37:05.120 | What was happening around King? So it's a really cool method

00:37:07.480 | Patrick I think that is too

00:37:10.680 | Probably too inflexible for your book unless you're writing historical nonfiction. You're gonna spend a lot of years on it

00:37:16.740 | But I can tell you what I do because I've evolved my paper note-taking

00:37:21.980 | Systems over the the books I've written, you know

00:37:25.620 | I've published seven of now in the middle of book number eight finished the first manuscript doing edits right now

00:37:30.680 | So I've done a lot of books. I have to write my books much faster than Taylor Branch

00:37:35.020 | You know

00:37:36.060 | I might have five months to put out one of my books because I have to fit this between other things like being a professor

00:37:42.420 | Etc, right and so in my systems I can say what I tend to prioritize is

00:37:47.660 | speed and

00:37:49.820 | Reducing friction. I want to be able to capture as much relevant information as possible and get to that relevant information as quickly

00:37:55.600 | As possible while minimizing obstacles the lower friction I have in collecting organizing and reviewing notes

00:38:02.480 | The more notes I can take and the more I can pull from when I'm trying to actually pull together my ideas

00:38:07.900 | So I can tell you for my most recent book the book I'm writing now on slow productivity

00:38:11.580 | I have moved to a system in which everything with one key exception about to tell you everything goes in the Scrivener

00:38:18.100 | So I write my my books in Scrivener, but I also keep all of my research notes in Scrivener

00:38:24.800 | A bunch of folders and documents within those folders. I have PDFs. I've dragged in there

00:38:29.280 | I have a bunch of websites

00:38:30.920 | typically what I like to do is put the URL of the web page and then copy all the text and put that in the

00:38:35.640 | Scrivener - so I don't have to go to the website again. All the information is right there

00:38:39.960 | I just have random observations of my own

00:38:41.760 | It's all organized in folders and the folders have subfolders and those subfolders have subfolders because it's incredibly easy to just throw stuff in there

00:38:48.440 | And that's where I write. So all the information is already where I write I write in Scrivener

00:38:53.600 | So everything I might need for a chapter when it comes time to write that chapter

00:38:56.780 | I've just been throwing random stuff in the folders for all sorts of chapters for months and when it comes time to write a particular

00:39:01.600 | Chapter I can just go to the folders relevant to that topic and review everything I have there. It's all right there

00:39:07.940 | It's like Taylor Branch saying what's everything that anyone ever wrote about King in the summer of 1954, but in this case about slow productivity

00:39:15.280 | And I have all my notes and then if I'm working on a chapter, I'll start with that build an outline

00:39:21.640 | Say I need more information here. I need a better story here

00:39:25.320 | I need to think more about that here and then I'll go get more research throw it on the Scrivener

00:39:28.760 | So I just take the notes and put them directly where they need to be

00:39:32.560 | When I'm actually going to write I don't want there to be

00:39:35.940 | Intermediaries, I don't want those notes going into other note-taking systems

00:39:40.000 | We're all done taken from those systems and pulling back into my book and that's because I write fast

00:39:43.200 | And I think the less friction I have

00:39:46.360 | The more notes I'll be able to take the deeper my writing will actually be able to be

00:39:51.800 | All right, so that's what I do it other systems could work too

00:39:54.360 | but again

00:39:55.120 | I don't think that Taylor Branch method is relevant unless you're Robert Caro or Taylor Branch or Robert Gross

00:40:01.600 | You know someone who's writing a book that they just spent the last decade on

00:40:05.280 | All right in the weeds Jesse I like this

00:40:09.160 | Are you impressed that I remembered?

00:40:12.040 | That paper research database. Yeah, I I think I got that right. I almost want to look it up now

00:40:17.520 | I don't know how old that is

00:40:19.520 | I think I got that right. I remember writing that article

00:40:22.800 | So good for Patrick for he's an old-timer. That's good. It's been around for a while. All right, what do we got next?

00:40:28.600 | All right next questions from Sam bit. I have a strange relationship with books

00:40:33.480 | I buy a lot of them, but I can't read them after the first 10 to 12 pages

00:40:37.240 | I feel bored and I stop reading I can't however listen to long podcasts with full attention. How do I become a reader?

00:40:44.360 | Well Sam, but the key thing is you have an ambition to become a reader. So let's give that a checkmark

00:40:49.800 | The second thing I want to point out here is you have inadvertently provided us

00:40:54.560 | I think a really good case study of one of the big ideas from the deep dive earlier in this episode

00:40:59.760 | You can listen to long podcasts. No problem

00:41:03.640 | But you're having trouble with books that just emphasizes in my mind the exceptional nature of book reading when it comes to all

00:41:11.200 | cognitive

00:41:12.800 | Consumption activities. I mean podcasts are complicated. It's not like you can't pay attention to something you're able to focus on a podcast

00:41:19.600 | You're able to listen to me and what I'm saying. So it just goes to show you that there is a unique

00:41:23.760 | Complicated but ultimately essential cognitive dance that happens when you're grappling with sentences

00:41:31.040 | Written on the physical printed page. So it's a good case study that you're providing us here

00:41:35.360 | Alright, so what you need to do is train. I

00:41:38.000 | Don't want you to despair. You're not there's no such thing as I'm not a reader. I am a reader

00:41:44.080 | There is I have trained to read or I have it and if you have it, how do you fix that you do the training?

00:41:50.080 | It's just like I wouldn't say I'm not a runner

00:41:53.480 | Because I just tried to run a 5k having never jogged in my life and then it go very well

00:41:58.560 | I would say I am NOT in shape to run a 5k

00:42:03.240 | But I'm sure if I trained within a few months I could run these on a regular basis

00:42:07.440 | So I'm gonna give you a training regime Sam

00:42:09.440 | Then I'm gonna suggest about how you become a better reader

00:42:13.160 | All right. So we're gonna start with books that you are

00:42:16.320 | excited to read so we want to take out of the equation early on the

00:42:21.160 | boredom factor or the comfort with intellectual discomfort, so this could be

00:42:27.560 | Genre fiction. That's really exciting. You might even want to start with you know short stories. I

00:42:32.880 | Recently read Ted Chiang's original short story collection of sci-fi short stories. It was excellent, right?

00:42:39.160 | But that they're 20 pages each. They're really gripping, you know, whatever

00:42:43.120 | So it could be genre fiction or could be nonfiction me pragmatic nonfiction like the type of books

00:42:47.040 | I write like yeah

00:42:47.840 | I'm gonna read digital minimalism because I'm really motivated to spend less time on my phone and and so you're motivated

00:42:53.000 | I'll read atomic habits or memoirs. I'll read you know

00:42:56.160 | Goggins is memoir because I I want to get fired up or get some discipline

00:43:00.080 | So start with books you're excited to read forget about what they are right now

00:43:02.960 | It's just about time on page number two find a cool reading location or ritual. I talked about in the deep dive

00:43:09.720 | It's gonna help you here

00:43:11.320 | Go into the coffee shop 20 minutes while I finish this one cup of coffee. I'm going to the pub

00:43:15.760 | Bringing the book with me

00:43:18.240 | If you go to a pub, it has to be an English style pub and you need to wear a scarf

00:43:23.440 | Or an ascot you gotta use your accent and you got to use it. Actually got to come in with an ascot

00:43:29.400 | Preferably a beret if you're gonna wear a shirt, it should be striped like a French sailor

00:43:34.360 | and you need to say

00:43:37.360 | Good day barkeep

00:43:39.600 | Pint of ale

00:43:42.840 | well, I

00:43:44.640 | peruse

00:43:46.280 | my book by David Goggins

00:43:50.760 | Talk like that and they're like look this is this is like a member of the lost generation

00:43:55.000 | Essentially essentially we we have Steinbeck here. All right

00:44:01.280 | Then I'm gonna say so that's the setup

00:44:05.160 | Scheduled interval training five days a week. You're gonna read ten minutes at a time do that for at least two weeks

00:44:13.560 | Then up at the 15 minutes do that for at least two weeks up at the 20 minutes. You're giving your mind

00:44:20.320 | Support I'm excited about the book. I have an awesome accent in a bar somewhere. Everyone just thinks I'm awesome

00:44:26.320 | You're fighting

00:44:28.960 | You're fighting, you know

00:44:30.240 | the the secretly beautiful but kind of nerdish women because they have the glasses on when you take off the glasses are actually models that are

00:44:35.440 | Just so attracted to the fact that you're clearly like a serious intellectual because you're ascot and you're reading in the pub

00:44:39.680 | You're fighting off women as you're trying to read

00:44:41.640 | So you've given yourself you've set it all up and now you're doing a very reasonable amount of time

00:44:45.640 | Ten minutes at a time you did for two weeks. You can go up to 15 minutes

00:44:48.520 | You're just you're pushing your mind's comfort actually reading beyond a few pages and then once you get to 40 minutes

00:44:54.160 | Stop upping your time

00:44:57.280 | Fix that as the time you're going to read four to five days a week

00:45:00.000 | And what you're gonna start upping is the complexity of your books

00:45:02.640 | So you get really comfortable at reading most days for 40 minutes and then you start upping the complexity

00:45:10.680 | Slightly harder books slightly more challenging books and you sort of push yourself up the up the ladder

00:45:17.120 | It may be a year or two of this you can get to the point where you're ready to actually tackle

00:45:21.200 | Classic books really complicated books books that require secondary sources

00:45:25.280 | I'm gonna read the secondary source first then I'm gonna read that I'm gonna read the book. I'm telling you one year Sam bit

00:45:31.080 | You can be a reader

00:45:33.320 | He's got trained now why you have to do training more training than other people as other people just inadvertently or through whatever

00:45:38.480 | Circumstance or through inclination or how they were raised just got more of this training already

00:45:42.560 | So they've already done the training

00:45:45.360 | They grew up with a family of athletes

00:45:47.360 | They ran every day Arnold Schwarzenegger's dad in Austria made him do push-ups before he could get a meal

00:45:54.160 | He had an advantage by the time he got to the military and started bodybuilding. He was around it

00:45:58.120 | Okay, you didn't have Arnold Schwarzenegger's dad

00:46:00.200 | Making you do push-ups in the cognitive realms. You got a little more training to do. It'll take you a year. You'll catch up

00:46:05.880 | Actually, you don't want Arnold Schwarzenegger's dad

00:46:11.840 | Actually his by his autobiography good fantastic you got a I listened to it, but I love that

00:46:17.240 | it's such a great autobiography, but his dad was from a generation of

00:46:20.760 | Austrian men who post-world war two were just depressed alcoholics. Yeah, just trying to grapple with you know

00:46:29.040 | it's not like he was a

00:46:30.800 | member of the Nazi Party or something, but they were all sort of

00:46:33.280 | Complicit and what was going on and it just was so that there's just a destroyed generation of men. So

00:46:39.760 | advantage of Arnold Schwarzenegger

00:46:41.760 | Extra push-ups

00:46:45.160 | Disadvantaged depressed alcoholic sort of Nazi collaborator dad. So I I would say you could probably figure out a push-up routine on your own

00:46:51.560 | All right, that's kind of going to

00:46:53.560 | Safari it is a really cool, but you know, I like about that book is I love his the

00:46:59.040 | fact that Schwarzenegger comes over here and weightlifting and basically becomes a millionaire before he really gets in the movies by just

00:47:05.840 | He builds he does these businesses other people don't want to do like brick Lane and stuff like this. Yeah and

00:47:11.520 | invest money in real estate and

00:47:14.120 | Not Santa Monica. Where was he investing?

00:47:17.160 | Speech I think yeah. Yeah investing in real estate by the beach

00:47:21.160 | Just doing hard for a mail order business. Yeah, he like built up a fortune and then was like, oh, I'm gonna get in the movies

00:47:27.320 | That um, so your answer to Sam, but reminded me a couple of things

00:47:32.440 | About location. I went to the Library of Congress a couple weeks ago. My friend gave me a tour and that was like pretty inspiring

00:47:38.760 | Yeah, I I have it's expired. I told Jesse I have a researcher card there just because I like to go and work

00:47:45.600 | You know where I would work when I go to the Library Congress was not the big room with the spot like the desks

00:47:50.600 | They're all in a circle. Mm-hmm, but in the like the Arts and Industry Library

00:47:54.080 | It's pretty cool because it has these like 1920s art deco like light fixtures and it's a cool place

00:48:00.760 | Yeah, I told Jesse that my I gotta find a way to write a book

00:48:04.720 | At some point soon that requires me to access the collection at the Library of Congress

00:48:09.920 | Just so I can spend days in that massive reading room and have people like bring me because if you're an academic

00:48:15.040 | You can get a researcher card and they'll just have these awesome collection and it takes them a couple hours

00:48:21.040 | But you can basically get any book you want and they'll bring them all to you in a cart to your desk and you can work

00:48:25.720 | On it all day. And so I I need a reason to do that. The other thing I do

00:48:31.040 | Thanks to you is I put on my weekly plan every week just

00:48:34.440 | Some of the stuff I want to get through because I get a lot of magazines and I have different books

00:48:38.960 | I was you look at it reading on your weekly plan

00:48:41.960 | Yeah specific and then I like if I have like a pile of New Yorkers. I'll just yeah, I get through a

00:48:47.320 | couple of them so you might put like

00:48:49.960 | Thursday Thursday afternoon. I'm gonna like do some New Yorker reading. Yeah

00:48:55.400 | Yeah, I put like what I want on then when I do my daily plan. I just put it in there

00:49:00.000 | I'm gonna read this that's nice. You have you have a queue of what you want to read that week

00:49:04.080 | Yeah, when you have when you're doing a plan keep track of it and I'd forget about certain things

00:49:08.040 | So now I just kind of I like that strategy

00:49:09.680 | So it's like here's my reading queue for the week and when you're doing a daily plan

00:49:12.900 | You're used to putting aside time for reading

00:49:14.600 | But now you could actually pull something from that queue and say this specifically is what I'm gonna read

00:49:17.800 | Yeah, it's been working out

00:49:18.800 | Yeah

00:49:19.240 | and the other thing that I do too is especially after going to Library Congress and you know,

00:49:22.680 | Looking online stuff. It's like he's got to be comfortable knowing that you're never gonna read everything like there's so much stuff

00:49:29.060 | And just get through what you can just kind of what you talk about. It's slow and I'm surprised by how often

00:49:34.220 | I'm a big library guy. We're gonna personal library person and the next question is gonna get at this

00:49:39.240 | I'm surprised by how often I'll get a book

00:49:41.520 | Like I just finished a book last night that I originally bought

00:49:46.960 | Five years ago

00:49:50.280 | But I kept it in my library like this

00:49:52.280 | It's like it's a book I want to read

00:49:54.320 | You know, but sometimes you have to wait till you're in the right mood and it took five years

00:49:58.200 | Mm-hmm. I read it. I finished it last night. Yeah, you know, and I'm surprised by how often that this way

00:50:02.900 | I love libraries how often that'll happen, you know, sometimes I'll buy a book like I'm not gonna read this right now

00:50:08.300 | But I want to own this I think I'm gonna read this

00:50:10.240 | I think it's important thing to have I get to these things and it can take me years, but I

00:50:13.980 | cycle back to things

00:50:16.860 | All right, speaking of libraries, we have a good library question. Let's do this next one. All right. Next question is from Quran

00:50:22.660 | I'm becoming more of an avid reader. Thanks to gal. How should I build my library?

00:50:27.540 | All right. Well, I'm a big fan of as I just talked about libraries

00:50:30.720 | My current library setup just so we can calibrate

00:50:35.700 | So now we're down to we have we have one full bookshelf here in the HQ

00:50:40.820 | Then in my study at home, the whole room is built in bookshelves now on one one half of the room

00:50:47.460 | It's all kids book. We have a really great collection of kids books of various readers age and then all the other shelves are

00:50:54.640 | Adult books and then in our living room. We also have a full wall of built-in bookshelves

00:51:00.600 | I sort of have you know, kind of three major libraries. So a big fan of personal libraries. How do you start one from scratch?

00:51:07.360 | Well, all right. I have a method

00:51:10.080 | Here's my here is my method you start with a single bookshelf and you start filling that bookshelf somewhat haphazardly

00:51:16.560 | You know you buy books that are interesting you go to use book sales. Let me try this books

00:51:21.560 | You want to read right away books you want to get to at some other point if you live in a town like I do

00:51:25.940 | With a lot of little free libraries. Hey, this book looks interesting. I'm gonna

00:51:29.200 | Grab it from there, right?

00:51:31.360 | So you're kind of filling this bookshelf with books you bought books you've read books. You might want to read some

00:51:37.280 | Really good and some you're like, I don't know so much about this

00:51:40.480 | Once the book is the bookshelf is full

00:51:44.140 | Then for a while what you do is to replacement rule

00:51:47.680 | When you get a new book you say I have to make room for this on the bookshelf

00:51:50.900 | So let me take off whatever sort of very low on my ranking of books on here. What's a book?

00:51:56.840 | This is probably my least favorite book that's on here. This is kind of dumb

00:52:00.640 | Replace the replace that with the new books. You're replacing sort of worst book with new book

00:52:06.040 | You do this for a while. So now you're kind of cycling through

00:52:10.000 | the same bookshelf that bookshelves quality on

00:52:15.520 | Average begins to increase and after a while most of this books on these bookshelves are pretty good

00:52:21.060 | I mean they've survived this calling for a long time most of the stuff that was you know

00:52:25.360 | Here's this random book on quilting that I you know

00:52:28.040 | Got at a yard sale and I never really did that stuff is gone and now your bookshelf is pretty good

00:52:32.680 | Then you can buy a second bookshelf

00:52:35.160 | And you can start kind of doing that same process over there and you do that until you have the number of shelves you think

00:52:40.000 | Is appropriate for where you live and your interest and how you feel about books?

00:52:43.760 | I'm a big fan of that bill then replace for a while to get the average quality up and wait till a shelf is of high

00:52:49.200 | quality before you actually

00:52:51.200 | Move on to get a new shelf. I mean, there's a whole art to

00:52:53.920 | Library tending and I would say

00:52:56.880 | Jesse of the personal libraries we've seen or looked at at the show

00:53:00.020 | Probably our man Ryan holiday wins. He's got a lot of books. He's got a lot of books

00:53:06.160 | He's got a lot it helps to be so Ryan and I have the advantages of writers we get sent a lot of books

00:53:13.040 | Which is great

00:53:14.760 | And I buy a lot of books because I feel like it's important for my job. Yeah, but still he has a lot of books

00:53:20.320 | I have a lot of books. He has a lot of books. So I had a bookstore

00:53:24.760 | Yeah, eventually had to get a to get a bookstore. Hey

00:53:28.120 | Bookstore is supposedly coming to come to park. Really? Yeah, are you involved?

00:53:33.640 | I don't I don't they're they're new to the town

00:53:38.360 | Having coffee with him. Oh, he's gonna or he or she is gonna love you. Yeah, it's a family

00:53:42.040 | Yeah, if kids so, I don't know I just was like look I want to I want to meet these people

00:53:46.840 | Yeah, just like give us just give a sustained round of applause

00:53:50.040 | And I'm excited about the idea of having you'll be a good customer. Yeah

00:53:54.680 | Yeah, I'll be there all the time what I'm gonna tell them is

00:53:57.880 | I'm gonna do like three or four days a week

00:54:01.120 | multi-hour long signings

00:54:04.040 | Like just usually not going to be people there coming to see me because I'm gonna be there something like 15 20 hours a week

00:54:09.640 | I'm just gonna show up a lot randomly and just like have a have a book. It's gonna be like and this is

00:54:14.800 | sad, that's not sad, but there's

00:54:18.160 | one of our favorite museums is the the air and space museum out by Dulles and

00:54:22.960 | It's I think it's cool that they allow people who have published books about their experience and usually like military

00:54:31.120 | Deviation come and like sign books or whatever, but they don't really promote anything

00:54:35.520 | They just like have them on a table sort of over by the bar

00:54:37.920 | And they so they're always just sort of there and I always feel sort of bad about it because as an author you really are

00:54:42.680 | Empathetic to unpromoted book signings. It's the worst. It's nothing worse

00:54:46.720 | We've all had it you're on book tour and like three people show up or whatever

00:54:50.360 | But anyways, I'm gonna lean into that just unsolicited. That's good news. Yeah. Yeah, so I hope that works out

00:54:56.080 | Real and we'll be able to around the corner from here

00:55:00.440 | You great

00:55:02.440 | All right libraries, all right, let's do a let's do one more question we got time it sounds good next questions from Sarah

00:55:09.120 | Would Cal like to comment on this quote from saying Sam Bank been freed. I'm very skeptical of books

00:55:15.760 | I don't want to say no book is ever worth reading, but I actually do believe something pretty close to that

00:55:20.160 | I think that if you wrote a book you f'd up and it should not have been a sick and it should have been a

00:55:25.720 | six-paragraph blog post

00:55:28.240 | well

00:55:30.120 | If you don't know who Sam Bankman freed is look it up and I think this question will make more sense

00:55:36.320 | Sarah here's my answer. Let's look at the state of my life today in the state of Sam Bankman Freed's life today

00:55:44.080 | someone who prioritizes the creativity innovation empathy and critical thinking that is

00:55:50.840 | Developed by reading and someone who prefers six-paragraph blog post

00:55:55.520 | Where would you rather be?

00:55:58.120 | Whose life would you rather have right now?

00:56:00.120 | I'll leave it there and rest my case

00:56:03.200 | Have you seen pictures of Sam Bankman freed

00:56:07.120 | Recently or yeah, I want to look at him for book advice. I want to look at him for fashion advice either

00:56:12.800 | I'm doing a panel in San Francisco later this spring and we were talking with some of the other panel members and

00:56:19.360 | We were joking of like so we so it's a dress code Sam Bankman freed because you do these panels with

00:56:25.120 | There's a picture of him doing a panel with former president Bill Clinton and he's wearing shorts

00:56:30.120 | Cargo shorts flip-flops and a t-shirt. He was like that in the commercials, too

00:56:35.320 | Yeah, but his parents professors, right? Yeah lawyers law professors. So you think you must have read at some point? Yeah, I mean, he's obviously a

00:56:42.620 | Intelligent person. I mean went to MIT and everything. I just think his

00:56:46.600 | Yeah, got a little that brain got shook up somewhere

00:56:51.320 | Something done broke. I think it's because he didn't read enough

00:56:54.920 | He's a PSA. This is your brain. It's a PSA

00:56:58.200 | This is your brain not on books and then there's like a quick montage of Sam Bankman free

00:57:02.320 | And then like this is your brain on books and it's me at a table

00:57:07.400 | All by myself in the new bookstore in Tacoma Park

00:57:10.920 | with an ascot and a striped shirt

00:57:14.000 | Drinking a beer use your English and your French accent mixed together. Yeah. Yeah flexing furiously. He's got him both got him both

00:57:22.000 | Well, they're both intellectual people. All right enough of that nonsense

00:57:25.280 | All right

00:57:25.800 | So what I like to do in the third

00:57:27.280 | Act of the show is shift away from our main question and talk about some interesting things that readers have sent me

00:57:33.000 | Before we do let me mention a another sponsor that made this show possible

00:57:38.120 | This may be our very first sponsor

00:57:40.800 | I got to go back and confirm that like from way back in the pre Jesse days, but that is our good friends at grammarly

00:57:47.200 | The feature I have been messing around with with grammarly that I am most impressed by is grammarly premiums

00:57:53.460 | advanced tone

00:57:55.960 | Suggestions. This is why this is so important in a knowledge work world and especially in an increasingly

00:58:02.820 | remote knowledge work world where more communication is textual

00:58:07.320 | emails chat under the zoom window slack communication

00:58:11.820 | The quality clarity of your writing plays a big difference

00:58:15.720 | Now I actually think there's an opportunity embedded in this evolution of our office landscape

00:58:21.020 | There's a lot of issues I have with the shift towards everything being textual communication

00:58:24.840 | But there is one opportunity for you the lister of the show

00:58:27.600 | Which means if you get really good at clear textual communication you get the sudden competitive advantage over everyone else

00:58:34.000 | You come across as more confident and smarter and more on the ball just because you're writing better

00:58:38.760 | So there's no other time in the history of the world of business where clear communication clear written communication is more important

00:58:45.560 | And grammarly premium and a particular grammarly premiums advanced tone detector can help you get there faster

00:58:52.320 | So I have a couple examples. I want to tell you here Jesse

00:58:55.280 | of

00:58:56.920 | the tone detector in

00:58:58.920 | Work. All right. So some real sentences here real corrections from the tone detector. So one thing it can do is

00:59:04.960 | Help you with confidence in your communication. So here's a real sentence

00:59:10.800 | We may want to consider providing an update

00:59:14.400 | Here's the suggestion from the tone detector for increasing confidence. We should consider providing an update

00:59:20.760 | Seems like a small change, but you come across more confident in that email in that slack makes a big difference

00:59:27.020 | All right. Here's another thing the advanced tone detector does

00:59:29.680 | reframe

00:59:32.160 | Negativity. So here's something you might write. Yeah, this marketing strategy isn't right

00:59:36.200 | Just throw that in a slack message, but that's going to come across as negative people might feel attacked

00:59:41.720 | Here's an actual suggested correction from the tone detector for that sentence. The marketing strategy needs to be different

00:59:47.160 | Small change makes a huge difference in the impact on the reader

00:59:51.880 | There's obviously a lot of other things you get with the grammarly product from even just the basic fixing your broken grammar

00:59:58.120 | To these much more advanced tone suggestions and sentence rewrites

01:00:01.600 | But anyway, it's it's like having a personal editor who sits there and helps you be a better

01:00:05.960 | communicator

01:00:07.960 | The right tone can move any project forward when you get it just right with grammarly

01:00:11.600 | So go to grammarly.com slash tone t o n e to download and learn about grammarly premiums advanced tone suggestions. That's g r a

01:00:19.840 | M m a r l y dot com slash tone. Let's also talk about our friends at my body tutor

01:00:27.600 | If you want to get in better shape if you want to get healthier, the problem is not information

01:00:36.240 | You know how to do it

01:00:38.240 | The problem is actually accountability. How do you actually get motivated?

01:00:42.920 | To continually take that action. This is where my body tutor enters the picture

01:00:48.000 | It's a 100% online coaching program. It connects you with a

01:00:52.000 | Dedicated online coach they work with you the specific circumstances of your life

01:00:59.560 | right

01:01:01.760 | Are you and I'm just being hypothetical here a 40 year old male with three three kids ten or under who are sick all the

01:01:08.000 | Time and have seven jobs. The workout plan is going to be different

01:01:11.520 | Then if you are 22 year old Arnold Schwarzenegger

01:01:14.480 | On the bodybuilding circuit in Venice, California, you know in the 1970s, so they build a plan that makes sense

01:01:21.120 | Here's let's think about your eating. Let's think about your exercising that makes sense for you and then

01:01:25.640 | It's a big magic you check in every day

01:01:28.600 | You do it an app. It's real easy

01:01:31.480 | You say here's what I did. So I ate here's I worked out. Here's any questions I have they give you feedback

01:01:35.520 | And that's where you get the consistency. That's what makes it work

01:01:38.760 | It's like having the dedicated dietitian and trainers that the actors get to train for Marvel superhero movies

01:01:45.680 | But without having that huge expense of having to pay people to come to your house because it's all on

01:01:50.240 | line

01:01:52.080 | Adam and his coaches at my body tutor are the best in the world at delivering highly personal accountability and coaching

01:01:58.480 | So if you're serious about getting fit Adam will give you $50 off your first month if you mention deep questions when you sign up

01:02:04.840 | So when you sign up you just mention deep questions, and they'll give you $50 off

01:02:09.240 | So my body tutor tutor comm mentioned deep questions and get $50 off

01:02:14.920 | All right final segment of the show something interesting. I usually just talk about one interesting thing that listeners sent me today Jesse

01:02:22.200 | I'm gonna do three

01:02:24.200 | Going crazy today like it. Yeah

01:02:27.080 | Number one, this is visual. Hold on. I'm gonna grab something here from the ground

01:02:30.080 | So if you're not watching

01:02:33.680 | youtube.com slash calendar port media or at the deep life comm

01:02:36.680 | You're missing out here. It's the end of an era Jesse. I have has been made fun of for months now

01:02:43.420 | After I revealed on one of our weekly update videos the state of my computer keyboard

01:02:48.960 | Because you may not know this about me. I write a whole bunch

01:02:52.360 | I had worn away all of the keys on my keyboard from just hitting them too much only the like Q and the Z keys actually

01:02:59.160 | Still remained

01:03:00.360 | All right. Here we go. Jesse. Oh, wow end of an era

01:03:04.400 | Completely clean keys that comes off real easily, right?

01:03:08.920 | So what it is is just a little just a little silicon thing. So let's show them the ones. Yeah. Look at that

01:03:15.680 | So I can actually see the keys I'm off the touch type all the time

01:03:21.920 | Advantage and I do like Apple products, but the new MacBook airs is the 2018-19 models. The keys were too low. I

01:03:28.520 | Really care about the tactile feel of keys

01:03:32.040 | I write for a living and they got too low like your keys are a little on that dealt. They're a little bit higher

01:03:37.540 | Yeah, that's a much better experience

01:03:39.560 | Adding the silicon cover to my keys gives me an extra little eighth of an inch and you have a little bit more

01:03:44.400 | Carry on each press. I like it better. So your next computer is it gonna be a Mac or is it gonna be?

01:03:49.920 | Yeah, I like the Mac ecosystem, but I this is whoever's in charge of this now

01:03:54.120 | You got to work with writers when you build your keys on the keyboard the they can't be too low

01:03:59.620 | We got it. We need some spring. You need the fingers to do a little effort and the pound up a little bit

01:04:05.040 | So I'm simulating that with the gives you momentum gives you momentum

01:04:08.720 | I'm a fast writer when I get I mean I fast hyper as you might imagine so I need momentum

01:04:13.600 | All right. So the second thing is a quote

01:04:17.080 | That was sent to me the interesting that Cal Newport comm email address

01:04:22.400 | This is from a TI L reddit forum in a previous episode readers told me that stands for today. I learned

01:04:30.040 | so TI L

01:04:33.000 | What TI L means is that recursive? Anyways, here was a quote from that forum

01:04:37.760 | Napoleon Bonaparte

01:04:40.200 | Refused to open his mail for three weeks

01:04:42.480 | By that time most of the issues raised in letters had resolved themselves and no longer retired his attention. I

01:04:48.520 | Like this strategy

01:04:51.000 | Just ignore your email until people

01:04:53.120 | Yeah moved on in anger. The only issue is it helps not it necessary

01:04:59.560 | But if you can arrange this it helps for the strategy to be the Emperor of Europe

01:05:03.880 | It's a little bit harder if you are not the Emperor of Europe to do the strategy, but still a good one

01:05:11.360 | Alright, the third interesting thing I want to talk about is an article

01:05:14.520 | that was sent in from a

01:05:17.320 | product management website now this article is

01:05:21.120 | This is a technical I'm not going to get lost in the technical details

01:05:25.560 | What I care about here is a big picture idea that I think is relevant to slow productivity

01:05:30.760 | So if you're watching this on the screen

01:05:32.760 | You will see the title of this article. I have up here right now is called

01:05:38.040 | Stop obsessing over development velocity

01:05:41.080 | focus on

01:05:43.160 | this instead and so if you read this whole article

01:05:46.600 | It's talking about software development and it says there is an issue of software development to focus on the velocity of

01:05:54.120 | features getting completed

01:05:56.680 | How many features do we complete and add to the product this month or this week and it's this?

01:06:02.200 | Endless hurry up cycle to push more and more of those features

01:06:06.440 | This article makes the argument that that's not necessarily the way to maximize the value you produce

01:06:11.560 | so here's a few points this is actually the summary that the listener sent me along with this article and

01:06:16.400 | Software most new features don't make a positive impact for users because of that

01:06:21.600 | Increasing the velocity that is the number of features you ship per unit of time can create more waste

01:06:27.680 | If you obsess instead over making a positive impact

01:06:32.560 | You deliver more value with fewer features

01:06:35.920 | and

01:06:36.880 | Because existing features good or bad slow down the development of new features due to code complexity and the maintenance requirements and supporting them the positive effect

01:06:44.600 | Of building fewer but better features compounds as time goes on. I think there's a cool idea there

01:06:50.640 | It is relevant well beyond just software

01:06:53.040 | development

01:06:55.440 | focusing on a

01:06:57.240 | Smaller number of things that are clearly very important and high impact and doing them very well in

01:07:03.720 | Many different areas can end up producing more value and therefore more success economically

01:07:09.960 | Then just trying to do as many things

01:07:12.760 | This approach of course falls out of the three big principles of slow productivity do fewer things working at a natural pace

01:07:20.000 | Obsessing over quality. So looking at impact over velocity is exactly the type of strategy

01:07:25.600 | You might adopt if you are a believer in those three principles and I can imagine this in so many different areas. I mean think about

01:07:33.280 | academic service

01:07:35.280 | Instead of saying like how many different issues can we get through as a faculty during this semester in our faculty meetings?

01:07:41.080 | It might be let's really take our time to figure out. What's the biggest thing we could do

01:07:45.720 | Let's do that. Well and take our time and do it really well, you know, you're probably gonna end up better

01:07:50.600 | You imagine working on client service

01:07:53.840 | Let's try to do this one thing really well really change that clients business as opposed to like look at how many things we responded

01:07:59.160 | To and and got back to him on I could imagine this impact verse velocity trade-off happening in a lot of different areas

01:08:04.440 | I love that mindset

01:08:06.360 | And so I love this way of thinking so I wanted to highlight that this article is by

01:08:09.760 | Itamar Gillad, so good for you smart ideas if you're software developer

01:08:17.080 | Follow the link in the show notes so you can get lost in the weeds here. But for everyone else, let's just like this idea

01:08:21.800 | Velocity is not always the key

01:08:24.480 | to producing more value

01:08:28.640 | All right, everyone so that's all the time we have for today

01:08:31.680 | You can now shut down your podcast player and go read a real book

01:08:37.320 | We will be back next week with another episode of the deep questions podcast and until then as always stay deep

01:08:45.960 | *outro music*

01:08:47.960 | (upbeat music)

01:08:50.540 | (upbeat music)

Ep. 238: The Joys Of The Reading Life

Chapters