Finding Depth As A Stay-at-Home Parent | Deep Questions Podcast with Cal Newport

00:00:00.000 | All right, Jesse, that's making me hungry, thirsty.

00:00:04.320 | I feel like I need some Magic Mind of Monk pack

00:00:06.600 | to get going.

00:00:08.360 | But let's dive into some questions.

00:00:10.160 | Our first question of the episode

00:00:14.760 | comes from Worried Housewife,

00:00:19.080 | who writes, "How can a housewife implement deep work

00:00:23.720 | "into her life, or is it only for advancing in career work

00:00:27.160 | "or for creator, writers, et cetera?

00:00:29.320 | "I love your book, however, I am mostly a housewife

00:00:31.720 | "and I feel a bit anxious because the self-help books

00:00:33.720 | "seem to imply unless I am writing books

00:00:35.960 | "or working towards business, my life is mediocre.

00:00:38.740 | "I wanna be among those who feel accomplished

00:00:40.280 | "and productive.

00:00:41.120 | "What would your advice be for someone implementing

00:00:43.520 | "the deep life in this situation?"

00:00:46.120 | So I don't know, Jesse, is housewife a word

00:00:48.680 | we're not supposed to use anymore?

00:00:50.120 | It doesn't feel like that's the word

00:00:51.320 | we're supposed to use anymore.

00:00:52.820 | - I mean, she listed it, so I guess you--

00:00:55.200 | - Yeah, it's her self-description.

00:00:56.920 | I'm reading verbatim.

00:00:57.760 | I'm thinking stay-at-home parent is probably

00:01:00.640 | the word of choice.

00:01:03.640 | So, well, for those-- - You're probably right.

00:01:05.840 | - For those who are concerned, I am reading verbatim.

00:01:08.720 | I'm reading verbatim the question.

00:01:10.720 | All right, so this is a good question.

00:01:12.440 | First of all, I think there's a semantic issue

00:01:14.160 | that we often have on the show, let's get back to,

00:01:17.440 | which is what exactly do we mean by deep work?

00:01:21.480 | Because again, I talk about this all the time.

00:01:24.120 | I think deep work gets generalized into areas

00:01:29.120 | in which it was not meant to originally apply.

00:01:31.420 | So really, the intention behind the phrase deep work

00:01:34.080 | is very focused.

00:01:36.140 | It is when you're doing a specific type

00:01:39.220 | of cognitive-heavy work, it is a mode of doing that work

00:01:42.760 | in which you minimize back-and-forth context switching.

00:01:45.940 | So you give the thing you're working on full attention

00:01:48.520 | with minimal back-and-forth context switching,

00:01:50.980 | the main argument being that if you have a hard cognitive

00:01:53.800 | task to do, giving that sustained attention

00:01:56.880 | without context shifting is gonna be more effective

00:01:59.080 | than trying to work on that task

00:02:00.560 | while also switching your attention back and forth.

00:02:02.600 | So that is functionally what deep work is.

00:02:05.760 | And then the larger hypothesis in the book "Deep Work"

00:02:09.240 | is that this is broadly valuable

00:02:13.560 | in a lot of knowledge work fields,

00:02:15.360 | and it's becoming more valuable

00:02:16.680 | in a lot of knowledge work fields,

00:02:17.840 | especially in the American context,

00:02:20.220 | and we're not paying attention to it.

00:02:23.200 | So that we're setting up work systems

00:02:24.920 | that have an accidental side effect

00:02:27.000 | of requiring lots of context switching,

00:02:29.520 | requiring lots of time fragmenting,

00:02:31.520 | make it very difficult to actually work on cognitive tasks

00:02:34.360 | in this manner, and so we execute those tasks worse,

00:02:37.240 | and so the argument is we should actually prioritize

00:02:41.400 | in that work context, giving people unbroken time

00:02:44.760 | to work without distraction.

00:02:46.300 | That's very narrow.

00:02:49.000 | So that would have very little relevance

00:02:51.680 | if you're asking about, I'm at home,

00:02:54.640 | I'm at home with the kids.

00:02:55.880 | So you're not working in a knowledge work job

00:02:57.640 | that's asking of you to do these sort of very specific

00:03:01.720 | cognitively demanding work tasks.

00:03:03.320 | And so these worries aren't relevant to that situation.

00:03:06.440 | But I think this is just a semantic issue

00:03:08.200 | because later in the question you say,

00:03:10.880 | what's your advice for someone implementing

00:03:12.600 | the deep life in the situation?

00:03:14.880 | And there I think we're getting to the fruitful question.

00:03:18.160 | I think this is what you're actually asking about

00:03:20.520 | is the deep life and perhaps the role of work

00:03:24.680 | or focused work in the deep life.

00:03:26.360 | And I think this is a critical question.

00:03:28.360 | 'Cause we often extrapolate deep work

00:03:31.560 | to mean the deep life, but they're two different things.

00:03:33.920 | Deep work can have a place in a deep life,

00:03:37.740 | but they're two different things.

00:03:38.760 | So I'm glad we have a chance to actually talk about this

00:03:41.840 | and to try to make a distinction.

00:03:45.280 | So in the theory of the deep life,

00:03:46.840 | which is something that was not developed

00:03:48.680 | in the book "Deep Work", I introduced the term

00:03:51.120 | in the book "Deep Work", but don't really get into it.

00:03:52.840 | I wasn't ready to get into that yet.

00:03:54.800 | But in the theory of the deep life that we've evolved

00:03:57.360 | on my newsletter and here on this podcast,

00:04:00.040 | the idea is you identify the areas of your life

00:04:03.640 | that are important.

00:04:04.600 | And in each of these areas, you focus intensely

00:04:07.920 | on the things that are high value

00:04:10.320 | and try to minimize time wasted on the things

00:04:12.960 | that are not important or of lower value in that area.

00:04:16.880 | So it's really triaging your time and attention

00:04:19.040 | towards the things that really matter.

00:04:20.920 | There's a core component to the deep life that says

00:04:23.080 | for the things that really matter in this type of calculus,

00:04:25.360 | you might even wanna make radical moves to support them.

00:04:28.840 | So make radical changes to how you live your life,

00:04:32.580 | to really invest in the small number of things

00:04:35.200 | that are most important to you.

00:04:36.080 | That is the underlying concept of the deep life.

00:04:39.820 | Craft is just one piece of the different areas of your life

00:04:43.580 | that might be important.

00:04:46.280 | And it's important depends on what you're doing,

00:04:49.360 | what your actual situation is.

00:04:50.520 | So I think regardless of whether you're working in an office

00:04:54.240 | or you're at home taking care of kids,

00:04:56.220 | or you're in between jobs and single,

00:04:59.400 | whatever the situation is,

00:05:01.680 | the calculus of the deep life is relevant.

00:05:04.000 | What matters to me in my life?

00:05:05.480 | Am I investing in those on things that really matter

00:05:07.880 | and not wasting too much time on things that don't?

00:05:10.600 | That's always relevant.

00:05:11.760 | And I think that is critical.

00:05:13.080 | If you don't have that framework,

00:05:14.120 | you're gonna be completely adrift.

00:05:16.240 | And so there's nothing about being at home with kids

00:05:19.120 | that says that framework's not gonna work.

00:05:20.600 | If anything, it's gonna be even more important.

00:05:22.320 | It's that framework that's gonna make sure

00:05:23.840 | that you don't get so caught up in X

00:05:26.040 | that you forget to actually think

00:05:27.160 | about this other piece of your life,

00:05:28.480 | the community involvement, constitution,

00:05:30.920 | your health and fitness,

00:05:32.400 | you're seeing the different parts of your life

00:05:33.760 | and making them important.

00:05:35.520 | The family commitment, the family there

00:05:37.680 | is gonna be really critical

00:05:38.720 | when you do that deep life calculus.

00:05:40.740 | I mean, this is a,

00:05:42.040 | we talk about radical moves to align your life

00:05:44.020 | with your current values.

00:05:45.420 | If you're dedicating your time

00:05:47.280 | to trying to help your kids raise

00:05:50.560 | in a stable, loving environment

00:05:51.800 | and cultivate the type of attributes and values

00:05:54.680 | you would want in leaders and adults

00:05:57.560 | who in the future we're gonna look to with respect,

00:05:59.400 | that's an incredibly important endeavor.

00:06:02.460 | And so when you're thinking about things,

00:06:04.520 | the deep life, work is just a piece of it.

00:06:07.120 | And the importance of that depends

00:06:09.520 | on what you're doing in your life right then.

00:06:10.640 | So I wouldn't worry about that at all.

00:06:11.920 | I would focus on the deep life

00:06:13.160 | and making sure that each of the areas

00:06:14.620 | of your deep life are getting attention.

00:06:16.840 | That let's say the kids needs aren't swapping other needs

00:06:19.560 | that are also important to you

00:06:21.280 | or to the other people in your life.

00:06:23.080 | Deep work by itself is not that interesting.

00:06:26.840 | It's interesting if you're a knowledge worker

00:06:28.760 | who works with your brain

00:06:30.280 | to try to add value to information,

00:06:31.700 | then yeah, you wanna be doing deep work

00:06:33.600 | because if you do it with a lot of context shifting,

00:06:35.160 | you're not gonna be doing it as well.

00:06:36.320 | But that's just a particular job.

00:06:39.360 | That's just a particular endeavor.

00:06:41.960 | I don't wanna put a moral valuation on deep work

00:06:45.200 | that basically focus cognitive work is somehow high value

00:06:48.320 | and anything else isn't high value.

00:06:49.640 | No, it's high value in the context of knowledge work,

00:06:52.280 | deep is better than distracted.

00:06:54.120 | But you leave the context of knowledge work,

00:06:56.320 | it's not relevant.

00:06:59.360 | So anyways, I hope that's helpful.

00:07:01.680 | Let's use the deep life as the framing,

00:07:04.960 | the thing that has some sort of moral valence to it.

00:07:08.420 | That this, that's a structure to your life

00:07:11.160 | that's trying to intentionally focus on what matters

00:07:13.560 | versus those things that don't,

00:07:15.800 | that is universally important.

00:07:17.680 | And let's narrow in deep work to say,

00:07:20.080 | this is an approach to doing a certain type of activity

00:07:24.900 | that a lot of people do and it's relevant

00:07:26.600 | and we need to care about it,

00:07:27.760 | but it is not by itself the necessary foundation

00:07:32.760 | of a good life.

00:07:35.800 | We get that a lot, Jesse, don't we?

00:07:38.520 | I think the deep work becomes a stand in for much bigger.

00:07:43.520 | - Yeah, we've been getting a lot of those questions lately,

00:07:45.280 | especially from folks who are maybe retired or at home,

00:07:48.440 | yeah, this question.

00:07:49.540 | Yeah, it's been coming up a lot.

00:07:51.720 | - Yep, yep, so good.

00:07:52.840 | I'm glad we had a chance to jump into that.

00:07:55.240 | (upbeat music)

00:07:57.820 | (upbeat music)

Finding Depth As A Stay-at-Home Parent | Deep Questions Podcast with Cal Newport

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