A Look Inside Cal Newport's Deep Work Hideaway

00:00:00.000 | I'm Cal Newport and this is my first weekly update video.

00:00:06.680 | Now the idea with this series is to give you a look inside my life as a professional writer,

00:00:13.600 | professor and podcaster.

00:00:16.680 | I want to get into some of my own personal struggles to work deeply in an increasingly

00:00:22.000 | distracted world.

00:00:23.000 | So here's the plan for today's episode.

00:00:34.040 | I want to start by giving you quick updates on the book I'm writing, what's happening

00:00:39.680 | with our podcast Deep Questions and my academic research.

00:00:43.480 | After I'm done with those updates, for the first time ever, I'm going to reveal to you

00:00:49.240 | a look in this Deep Work HQ hideaway where I retreat to do a lot of my own deep thinking.

00:00:56.640 | It's a hideaway above a storefront in downtown Tacoma Park.

00:01:00.840 | So I'll give you a look around what's going on here.

00:01:04.240 | Let's start by giving you an update on the book I'm writing.

00:01:07.240 | So here's the background.

00:01:09.160 | I'm under contract with the Portfolio Imprint of Penguin Random House to write a book titled

00:01:15.080 | Slow Productivity.

00:01:17.980 | The current subtitle is The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout.

00:01:22.840 | This will be my eighth book, believe it or not.

00:01:25.800 | It'll probably fall somewhere between 70,000 to 90,000 words when all is said and done.

00:01:32.480 | My current due date is March, but I'll tell you my plan is to get this done earlier.

00:01:38.380 | So right now, what am I trying to do with the book?

00:01:39.920 | Well, in the month of October, when I'm recording this, I have a chapter I'm trying to finish.

00:01:45.320 | So I have synced up one chapter to this month.

00:01:48.500 | I'm more or less on track to actually get this writing done in time.

00:01:55.080 | But I will say there have been some struggles.

00:01:57.120 | The main issue I'm having with not only this book right now, but also with some of my New

00:02:01.260 | Yorker writing is second draft syndrome.

00:02:05.800 | So I'm a big believer in take your time, figure out what you're going to write.

00:02:11.240 | I like to walk, develop my outlines, take careful notes, gather my sources.

00:02:15.360 | And then when I write, try to get it right the first time.

00:02:19.040 | So after that, you're really just editing the language.

00:02:21.000 | And I am finding myself section after section in this chapter, writing 1,000, 2,000 words,

00:02:27.920 | taking my time.

00:02:28.920 | It'll take me two days.

00:02:29.920 | So I'm doing careful prose and having to go back and extensively rewrite.

00:02:33.680 | And it's always in these second rewrites that I get what I like.

00:02:38.000 | And so I've been a little bit frustrated about this.

00:02:39.520 | It's happening in my book.

00:02:41.140 | This happened with almost every one of my recent New Yorker pieces, especially when

00:02:45.040 | the longer form ones I write.

00:02:47.320 | And I step back and say, no, no, no, I got to take another swing at it.

00:02:51.120 | So that's a struggle, but I'm overcoming it.

00:02:54.080 | Now, people are curious, what is my writing habit right now?

00:02:56.880 | Well, because I'm not teaching, I have flexibility on my schedule.

00:03:01.600 | And so what I'm doing, my ideal writing schedule I've been implementing this fall so far is

00:03:06.320 | first thing every morning, six days a week.

00:03:09.880 | Regular writing on Shabbat, Saturday.

00:03:12.300 | Every other day, write two to four hours, depending on what my schedule allows.

00:03:16.460 | And that's been going well.

00:03:17.580 | So this has been priority one is writing the book.

00:03:20.440 | I'm hitting my benchmarks.

00:03:22.260 | I'm not ahead of schedule.

00:03:23.260 | I'm not behind schedule.

00:03:24.260 | I'm having the second draft issue, but I'm just upping my hours to compensate for it.

00:03:28.140 | So progress is occurring.

00:03:29.140 | If you want to get a look at what my writing life encounters day to day, I'll show you.

00:03:35.620 | Here's my computer.

00:03:37.760 | This is what I'm seeing two to four hours every day.

00:03:41.100 | Scrivener triple pane.

00:03:42.900 | I got whatever I'm writing, research outline notes next to it, footnote inspector next

00:03:48.900 | to that so I can keep my footnotes straight.

00:03:51.380 | This is what I see hour after hour, day after day.

00:03:55.400 | Progress is going.

00:03:56.500 | So let me just conclude my discussion of my book by I'm loading up now in Scrivener the

00:04:00.660 | full word count of everything I've written so far.

00:04:04.780 | 35,961.

00:04:08.420 | Progress is being made, but I'm going to have to keep at it.

00:04:11.420 | And look, if you want to read what I've been writing, we'll put a link in the description

00:04:15.660 | of this video to my New Yorker archive so you can see all the articles I've written

00:04:19.180 | for them.

00:04:20.180 | If you want to learn more about my books, calnewport.com.

00:04:23.460 | It's all right there.

00:04:24.460 | All right, let's do an update on the podcast.

00:04:27.340 | So as you may or may not know, I host a podcast called Deep Questions with Cal Newport recorded

00:04:32.860 | out of the studio right here in this hideaway, my Deep Work HQ.

00:04:37.540 | So what's going on with the podcast these days?

00:04:39.100 | Well, we're still doing one episode a week.

00:04:42.860 | Longtime listeners know this is a change we made last spring.

00:04:45.920 | We went from a two episode a week format to one episode a week format to focus on the

00:04:51.860 | content.

00:04:52.860 | We wanted to get the show better, get the numbers up on single episodes before we went

00:04:58.300 | back to doing two episodes a week.

00:05:01.060 | So we're still doing that, but we're seeing our numbers start to rise at a rate that we

00:05:04.260 | like.

00:05:05.260 | The big change that's happening right now, and that my producer Jesse, who's right over

00:05:09.620 | here holding the camera, is really taking the lead on, is we're bringing in more other

00:05:13.820 | people.

00:05:15.740 | We want live callers so that on the episodes you'll actually hear me going back and forth

00:05:20.940 | interacting with a listener who has a case study or a call and we want to do more interviews.

00:05:25.420 | So in general, happy about the way it's going.

00:05:29.300 | We have some complexities.

00:05:31.340 | Just like with writing, let me update you on how I actually schedule this work.

00:05:35.980 | So my rule for the podcast is the half day rule.

00:05:40.260 | One half day once a week.

00:05:42.460 | That is what the show gets and we try to do as much as we can with that time.

00:05:47.380 | So today, for example, is a podcast day.

00:05:50.540 | We finished recording episode 218 of the Deep Questions podcast not long ago.

00:05:56.300 | I arrived here around lunchtime and it's now, let me look at my clock here, 5 o'clock.

00:06:02.980 | So this morning I could write and work on other things.

00:06:05.620 | Half day.

00:06:07.060 | So it's a good challenge to figure out how much we can fit into a half day, how much

00:06:10.720 | improvement we can do, but it also keeps the podcast from metastasizing over my whole schedule.

00:06:16.720 | I might be slowing down the progress with the show by doing this, but it makes the schedule

00:06:20.500 | work.

00:06:22.780 | So Deep Questions is the name of the podcast.

00:06:25.260 | The same YouTube channel where you're seeing this video, you can see videos of each week's

00:06:29.420 | episode.

00:06:30.460 | Also there's clips on this YouTube channel of popular questions and segments.

00:06:35.700 | All right, final update, academic work.

00:06:40.360 | So I'm not teaching this semester.

00:06:41.660 | I'm on teaching leave, but I am a working computer scientist.

00:06:44.740 | I do theory work on distributed algorithms.

00:06:48.500 | I am working on, at this point, primarily one paper.

00:06:54.420 | So I'm on my way to a conference two weeks after we record this where I'm actually presenting

00:06:59.420 | a paper I won an award for.

00:07:00.780 | I'm actually kind of proud of that.

00:07:02.220 | But let me get tactical about how I'm trying to fit this research into the other things

00:07:06.740 | going on in my academic and writing life right now.

00:07:09.780 | Because again, there's a bit of a pain point here.

00:07:13.560 | My plan was the second shift rule.

00:07:17.900 | Every day, deep work right away, right now that's my writing.

00:07:22.500 | Every day at some point have what I call a second shift of deep work.

00:07:27.220 | And it doesn't matter if it's only 30 minutes long, but you're always touching base with

00:07:32.420 | something unrelated to the primary deep work every day.

00:07:35.460 | So for me, it's going to be touching base with making progress on this academic paper,

00:07:40.680 | or it's typically doing some sort of research or thinking efforts for, let's say, like a

00:07:44.300 | New Yorker piece.

00:07:45.300 | And to understand how this complex mechanism works, when one of these things in the second

00:07:50.080 | shift gets near completion, it then takes over the primary shift.

00:07:55.800 | It's working okay.

00:07:57.520 | But I would say in the last week or so, my success rate with the second shift doing the

00:08:02.680 | second shift is 50%.

00:08:03.680 | All right, so that's what's going on.

00:08:05.520 | What I want to do next is give you a look inside what I call my deep work HQ.

00:08:10.440 | This is my secret deep thinking hideaway.

00:08:13.740 | It's in an office suite hidden above some stores on the main street of Tacoma Park,

00:08:18.880 | Maryland.

00:08:19.880 | It's a few blocks from my house, so it's easy to get back and forth.

00:08:23.280 | I've never actually shown this place to the public before, so this will be a first.

00:08:27.440 | Let me warn you before we get started, it's halfway renovated.

00:08:31.240 | All right, so the room we're in now is the main conference room of the deep work HQ.

00:08:38.520 | It's where we just did our update.

00:08:41.700 | I do work here.

00:08:43.400 | Producer Jesse does work here.

00:08:45.040 | I have computer science meetings here.

00:08:46.960 | I'll get together with other professors when we work on papers.

00:08:49.440 | There's some local writers in town who come for certain slots to come in here and write

00:08:53.360 | to get away from the noise at home.

00:08:55.760 | Nerve center of the deep work HQ.

00:08:59.280 | We have up on the wall here, these are actually proof sheets from our friends at Mouse Books.

00:09:07.240 | Mouse Books is a company that sells these pocket-sized books.

00:09:09.960 | The idea being don't pull out your smartphone when you're distracted, pull out a mouse book.

00:09:14.280 | These are actually the sheets that go to the printer, the things that get printed to make

00:09:17.400 | the mouse books.

00:09:19.040 | They sent us some.

00:09:20.760 | We have some foreign copies of the books over here.

00:09:24.100 | These books I've written are in something like 45 different foreign markets we have

00:09:28.640 | deals with.

00:09:29.640 | So you can find these books in a lot of places.

00:09:31.800 | You can find deep work in Mongolia, for example.

00:09:36.520 | I'll show you one little known flaw.

00:09:38.640 | Maybe this is very valuable.

00:09:41.120 | Here's the Russian edition of Digital Minimalism.

00:09:44.480 | The first edition misspelled my name.

00:09:47.560 | Call C-A-L-L Newport.

00:09:49.840 | They fixed it in the second edition, but I appreciate the thoroughness here.

00:09:53.440 | So this is now a collector's item, so I like to display that.

00:09:55.960 | It keeps me humble.

00:09:56.960 | All right, so let me take you out of this main room and show you the rest.

00:10:01.600 | One last thing to show you in the main room here is the whiteboard.

00:10:04.840 | It's where a lot of work gets done.

00:10:07.120 | This is actually from the last meeting I had with some of my computer science collaborators.

00:10:11.800 | Believe it or not, this is pretty meaningful.

00:10:13.760 | This is the beginnings of a paper that, if all goes well, will probably be submitting

00:10:18.680 | in February.

00:10:20.720 | There's actually some work happening here.

00:10:22.120 | The other side of this whiteboard actually has some business strategy, so I'm not going

00:10:25.600 | to show you that one.

00:10:26.600 | All right, out here we have the main hallway of the HQ.

00:10:31.880 | Display of my books.

00:10:32.880 | We have the ego wall here.

00:10:36.000 | This is a fan drew this for me.

00:10:39.960 | This is actually exactly how I look.

00:10:41.480 | I don't have my shirt on, so I think that's just good to know.

00:10:45.040 | If you're not in shape, you can't think.

00:10:47.600 | So we go down the hallway.

00:10:50.440 | We have two rooms here.

00:10:53.640 | This room is a mess, but it's going to be cool, so I'll just show it to you briefly.

00:10:58.480 | So right now, we're storing a bunch of the old lights we used to use and a bunch of other

00:11:05.260 | books and boxes we haven't set up.

00:11:07.120 | But just to give you the vision of this room, it is going to be the business office/maker

00:11:13.520 | lab.

00:11:15.180 | So me and my boys like to do DIY making, so here's our 3D printer.

00:11:19.240 | We're bringing in a bunch of electronics and circuit gear.

00:11:23.360 | So we're going to have one of the desks in here is going to be dedicated to building

00:11:27.640 | things.

00:11:29.000 | The other desk will be just the business office for the HQ, where me and my producer Jesse

00:11:34.400 | can get the actual day-to-day work done.

00:11:37.600 | So we've got a lot of work to do here, but we're excited about the possibilities.

00:11:40.480 | Finally, I want to show you where the magic happens, where the Deep Questions podcast

00:11:45.880 | actually gets recorded.

00:11:48.400 | Here is the studio.

00:11:50.560 | This is where it happens.

00:11:52.000 | You probably heard the sound get immediately flat as soon as I came in here.

00:11:55.560 | It's the whole thing soundproof.

00:11:57.460 | So I sit here.

00:11:59.020 | Producer Jesse sits there.

00:12:00.280 | We got our two cameras.

00:12:01.880 | The lights, because this is such a small space, the lights are actually installed on the ceiling,

00:12:06.460 | so we get our fill, hair, and key lights without having to take up any floor space.

00:12:11.840 | Mixing boards and sound processors.

00:12:14.400 | Jesse runs the camera switchers right off of that control board there.

00:12:20.200 | And the real magic to the show is the scripts.

00:12:23.900 | So each time we record, we have 20, 30 pages of ads and questions and reads and notes.

00:12:30.160 | That's the core of the podcast.

00:12:31.480 | It takes us about two hours of prep work to get this ready each week, and everything goes

00:12:36.000 | off of there.

00:12:37.320 | So that's a look inside my Deep Work HQ.

00:12:41.240 | It is itself a work in progress, but I got to say, having a place to retreat to that's

00:12:46.920 | just for thinking about this type of ideas, just for being deep, away from the distractions

00:12:51.160 | at home, away from the distractions of my life as a professor, has really been one of

00:12:56.640 | the favorite things I've ever been able to do as a writer.

00:12:59.480 | So anyways, I will keep you posted as we continue to update and improve this HQ, but I'm glad

00:13:03.880 | I had a chance to show you what's going on.

00:13:06.420 | That's my update this week.

00:13:07.680 | Be back next week, let you know what's happening in my life.

00:13:10.560 | [MUSIC]

A Look Inside Cal Newport's Deep Work Hideaway | Weekly Update #1

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