back to indexThe Productivity System To Win At Anything - Achieve More By Doing Less | Cal Newport
Chapters
0:0 Doing better, do less
33:45 Is my job too hard?
38:14 How do I sell myself better?
41:3 How do I convince myself to do actual hard work?
44:8 How do I find time to get better if I'm busy?
48:47 What is the values plan?
57:6 The 5 books Cal read in February 2024
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So today, I want to tell you the story of the singer Jewel and how she became famous. 00:00:04.720 |
Not because this story is fascinating, though it is, but because it highlights a key principle 00:00:10.320 |
from my book, Slow Productivity, about how to move your professional life away from busyness 00:00:16.800 |
and toward producing results that matter. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to tell Jewel's story 00:00:22.640 |
and then I'm going to draw concrete lessons from her story that you can apply in your specific job. 00:00:27.440 |
I'll give you specific examples about how you might put these lessons into practice. I'll end 00:00:31.280 |
with a couple of common pitfalls that afflict a lot of people who attempt to escape busyness 00:00:37.200 |
and fail to do so. All right, so let's start with Jewel. Jewel has an interesting origin story. I 00:00:45.680 |
went deep on this when researching Slow Productivity just because I found it fascinating. 00:00:50.720 |
She grew up in rural Alaska, Homer, Alaska, to be more precise, and she was part of a family 00:00:58.000 |
that were traveling musicians. So she was part of a family traveling musician troupe. 00:01:04.000 |
They have Swiss heritage, so she learned how to yodel at an early age, which actually gave her 00:01:08.560 |
really interesting vocal control, which she really leveraged, I think, later on in her style. 00:01:15.360 |
At some point, her mom leaves the family, so it's just her and her dad and her brother, 00:01:18.880 |
and they're touring, and they're touring some pretty rough places. These are not 00:01:21.760 |
the Von Trapp family singers. We're talking biker bars. We're talking rural interior Alaska 00:01:27.760 |
doing shows. We're talking not so great hotels, right? So she sort of had this rough upbringing. 00:01:33.440 |
There's a part in her story where she's living in Homer, Alaska, and commuting to her job in town. 00:01:38.800 |
She lived in a cabin by a lake somewhere. She commuted to her job in town on a horse. 00:01:45.760 |
She didn't have a driver's license, and a horse was an easier way to get over the rough terrain, 00:01:50.720 |
right? So this is Jewel, this prodigious singer in this really unusual, rough childhood. 00:01:57.120 |
So in the town of Homer, she comes across someone who is visiting from the Interlochen Academy. This 00:02:06.080 |
is a really well-known arts academy in Michigan, and he recognizes her talent and says, "Look, 00:02:12.240 |
we have scholarships. You should come formally study how to sing at this arts academy. I'll show 00:02:20.000 |
you how to do it. I'll record your audition tape, and I'll walk you through the application process." 00:02:24.720 |
This was all foreign to Jewel, and he walks her through, and she gets accepted. They raise money 00:02:30.400 |
in the town. They don't give you money. You have to raise money just to get the plane tickets 00:02:33.280 |
to get to Michigan to go. It's a beautiful academy. It's spread out over this big 00:02:39.840 |
acreage. You sort of walk through the woods between buildings. It's a beautiful place. 00:02:43.280 |
She shows up there, fish out of water. It's an understatement. Almost immediately, the dean calls 00:02:50.720 |
her into his office and says, "Jewel, you can't walk around with a hunting knife strapped to your 00:02:56.480 |
leg." See, to Jewel from rural Alaska, of course, you're going to have a knife with you. It's very 00:03:01.840 |
useful. You wouldn't be anywhere without your knife, and he had to sort of kindly tell her, 00:03:05.280 |
"All right, here in suburban Michigan, you don't walk around with a large knife strapped to your 00:03:10.160 |
leg." Anyways, she gets formal training. She becomes a better singer. She becomes more exposed 00:03:16.560 |
to music. She can't afford to go home during the breaks, so she begins hitchhiking, doing these 00:03:22.560 |
long trips during the breaks with her guitar, and she begins songwriting. She begins to write 00:03:26.480 |
some songs that become some of her best-known songs from her initial debut album that will 00:03:32.720 |
come much later, right? So we have this interesting story. She makes her way to San Diego. Her mom's 00:03:37.520 |
there. They're living together for a while. They lose the house. She moves into her car. She's not 00:03:42.400 |
doing great, but she has this prodigious talent. It's rough, but this prodigious talent in singing, 00:03:49.360 |
living out of her car in San Diego. She comes across a coffee house, the interchange coffee 00:03:55.440 |
house. That coffee house is sort of struggling. She talks to the owner, Nancy, and says, "Look, 00:04:00.320 |
let me make you a deal. I'm going to perform here, just here, me and my guitar, and just give me a 00:04:06.400 |
cut of the proceeds. I think that could help me out, and I think it could help your store actually 00:04:13.360 |
grow." So Jewel forms what's essentially a residency at this small coffee house, and she 00:04:19.440 |
just goes to promote her shows. She busks on the San Diego beachfront. When people come up to hear 00:04:25.520 |
a player to put a dollar in her guitar case, she says, "Hey, come to my show." The first show, 00:04:29.760 |
her memory is somewhere between two to four people showed up. Two to four surfers she met 00:04:34.480 |
who thought she was cute on the beach, and they showed up. That was it. But she played her heart 00:04:38.880 |
out because she had all this pain. I mean, I talk about this in Slow Productivity that Jewel is 00:04:45.120 |
defined by these intertwined forces of talent and pain. She can sing, but there's a real heart to 00:04:53.440 |
it. So she begins doing these epic performances that are like hours long. It's a lot of original 00:04:58.880 |
songs, some covers. She's really burying her soul. They're emotional. People are crying. 00:05:04.240 |
So the word gets out, like, "What the hell? What's going on? There's something special. 00:05:08.160 |
It's rough, but there's something special going on here." She recalls there being basically 00:05:12.080 |
exponential growth. There's two people, then four people, then eight people, then 16 people. 00:05:15.920 |
After a few months, people are spilling out onto the sidewalk outside of the interchange coffee 00:05:20.400 |
house. They have to put up speakers outside just so you can hear the show if you can actually get 00:05:26.080 |
in. Word gets out to the record executives, and they start showing up. They're like, "Okay, 00:05:32.000 |
there's something special here." They begin flying her to meetings, like, "Okay, we want to talk to 00:05:36.640 |
you about signing with us because, look, clearly you have talent, and we don't want you to go to 00:05:41.040 |
another record label." Finally, the record executive sits her down. This is where the story is where 00:05:46.160 |
we're going to start to intersect with Slow Productivity here. Sits her down and says, 00:05:49.920 |
"Okay, I'm putting this on the table right now, a million-dollar signing bonus." Remember, 00:05:56.000 |
this is the '90s, early '90s, a million dollars is a lot of money. Still is today, but even then, 00:06:00.080 |
a lot of money. Jewel's living in her car, a million dollars on the table. She's like, "All 00:06:05.680 |
right, let me go think about this." She's a fighter. She's incredibly self-reliant, right? 00:06:11.360 |
She's like, "Hold on. Let me think about this." She goes to the library and gets out a book from 00:06:17.040 |
the library about how to succeed. Not even how to succeed. I think it was just how the music 00:06:21.680 |
industry works. With the help of the fact checker with my book, we tracked down the actual title of 00:06:26.400 |
the book. She got it wrong in the interviews, but we found the real book she was talking about. 00:06:29.440 |
It's like a guidebook to the music industry. She looks into this and she says, "Okay, 00:06:36.320 |
how do these signing bonuses work?" "Oh, they're in advance. They're in advance on the royalties 00:06:41.760 |
you're going to make, so they give you a million dollars up front. The first million dollars you 00:06:45.360 |
make goes to paying that back. Then after you pay it back, you get to keep any royalties beyond 00:06:50.640 |
there. It's a standard advance set up. It's how books work as well, by the way. You get an advance 00:06:54.320 |
on royalties and only after you pay back your advance do you actually earn any further royalties." 00:07:00.400 |
She looks this up. She thinks about it. She goes back to the record executive 00:07:04.160 |
and she says, "No, thank you." She turns down a million dollars. She's living in her car. She 00:07:09.920 |
turns down a million dollars. So what's going on here? Well, Jewel, we really have to give her 00:07:17.040 |
credit for this. She recognized that she had real talent, but also she was rough. Her only performance 00:07:25.680 |
experience as a solo singer songwriter, not as playing Yodeling with her family or whatever, 00:07:31.840 |
but as a solo singer songwriter, her only experience was really playing in the Interchange 00:07:36.640 |
Coffeehouse and a few other shows that she had done with friends. She knew if she'd accepted 00:07:40.960 |
a million dollar signing bonus, the record label is going to say, "We have to go all in right away. 00:07:45.680 |
We need that money back. Let's throw you out there and see if you can become a superstar right away 00:07:51.360 |
and make back the money. If you don't, I'm sorry, you're gone." That would have been her chance. 00:07:55.680 |
She thought, "I'm not ready for that yet. I need to learn how to get better at this, 00:08:02.560 |
how to harness my craft." Her logic was absolutely right. If I don't cost the record label a lot of 00:08:08.720 |
money, they won't care enough to kick me off the label if I'm not doing something right off the 00:08:16.400 |
bat. They will let me stay as a signed musician performing and recording as long as I don't cost 00:08:23.200 |
them a lot of money. I need that time. She had a phrase she had learned from her grandmother, 00:08:29.360 |
"Hard wood grows slowly." She needed that time. She realized if she was going to be a real star, 00:08:36.080 |
she needed time to get there. She said, "No million dollars." 00:08:41.120 |
And then, oh, she's so clever. Such a shrewd sort of practicality in Jewel. She says, "But what we 00:08:48.400 |
can do because I know they felt bad." She's turning down a million dollars. She said, "Well, 00:08:53.600 |
why don't we just make my back end higher? So if I do sell a lot of records, I'm going to make more 00:09:01.120 |
money." And they're thinking, "Oh, look, she's probably not going to happen. This is great. 00:09:05.280 |
She's so cheap." So she gets a bigger back end than normal, which is going to pay her back 00:09:10.240 |
handsomely in the future. Anyway, so now she's signed. Now she's signed, small advance, big back 00:09:16.480 |
end, and she has to go record this album. And she was absolutely right. She wasn't ready to be a 00:09:21.520 |
star. So she's thinking, and I love the details of this because it reminds me of what it's like and 00:09:27.040 |
the complexities of ambition and actually living up to ambition. My whole life is defined by this 00:09:33.360 |
at a much smaller scale, the ambition and the failures to fully reach that ambition and the 00:09:38.160 |
glimpses of real success that are followed by the frustrations. So she wants to do something special 00:09:43.760 |
and she turns down. They're giving her all these producers, the record labels, like, "Here's a 00:09:47.920 |
hotshot pop producer. Here's another hotshot pop producer." She's like, "That's not what I want to 00:09:51.680 |
do. Here's what I want to do. Neil Young's producer, whoever produced Harvest." Hey, 00:09:58.400 |
quick interruption. If you want my free guide with my seven best ideas on how to cultivate 00:10:05.360 |
the deep life, go to calnewport.com/ideas or click the link right below in the description. 00:10:12.880 |
This is a great way to take action on the type of things we talk about here on the show. 00:10:18.160 |
All right, let's get back to it. I love that sound. That's what I want to do. 00:10:21.280 |
They're like, "Okay. I mean, this is weird. It's like the '90s. It's like Lisa Loeb. 00:10:26.320 |
Pop punk is coming out of the grunge era at this point. You want to do a Neil Young? Okay." 00:10:32.560 |
You know, they're like, "Okay, whatever. It's not costing us much money. Whatever you want to do." 00:10:35.920 |
And she goes actually out to Neil Young's ranch, records her album with the Stray Gators, 00:10:41.600 |
with Neil Young's band in Northern California and his ranch with his producer, 00:10:47.360 |
and they record her first album. It's not great because the problem is, and she was right, 00:10:53.120 |
she was nervous. All of her performance experience was her alone in a coffee shop, 00:10:57.680 |
and now she's playing with the Stray Gators with Neil Young's backing band. She's nervous about 00:11:02.400 |
this, and it shows. It's tentative, right? I mean, it's like, "Okay. The songs are okay." 00:11:09.200 |
She had a good collection of songs from traveling and hitchhiking while she was at Interlochen, 00:11:13.200 |
but it was nervous. They weren't great. The album comes out and not much happens. This thing is not 00:11:17.360 |
selling. If she had done the million-dollar signing bonus, this is where they would have been 00:11:20.880 |
like, "You're out of here." In fact, they wouldn't even let her have this experimentation. They would 00:11:26.240 |
have made her done probably a real poppy type of album, like, "Let's get right after it." It 00:11:32.800 |
wouldn't have worked, but she didn't cost them any money. It's like, "All right. We're not going to 00:11:37.200 |
drop you. Why don't you go? I guess you can tour." She's like, "I'm going to tour really cheap. No 00:11:41.920 |
van, no bus, a car, and I'll just drive along myself and tour really cheap." In fact, for a 00:11:50.800 |
while, she was even performing with a group called Earth Jam that would perform, and I'm not kidding 00:11:56.720 |
you here, environmentally-themed concerts for high schools during the day in exchange for them 00:12:03.520 |
giving her transportation to her gigs at night. She was costing people nothing, performing, 00:12:10.640 |
getting experience, starting a lot of college shows, a lot of live performances on college 00:12:15.440 |
radio, playing at colleges. Really there, that vibe is where she began to pick up her confidence. 00:12:20.880 |
She did this for like a year of this going on, finally getting the training she needs to figure 00:12:25.760 |
out, "How do I do this? How do I perform? How do I be more of a star and not just a coffee shop 00:12:31.280 |
crooner?" Then she goes back and says, "Okay, let me re-record what I think could be a really big 00:12:38.960 |
song, 'You Were Meant For Me.' I was nervous. I was reporting this with the Stray Gators. I feel 00:12:42.960 |
better now." She goes back and re-records it. She has her friend from California, Flea, 00:12:48.160 |
the bassist from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, plays on that new re-recording. 00:12:52.640 |
Now, this one's working. It's more confidence, more sultry. Finally, things start to happen. 00:12:58.400 |
She begins with all her college touring to show up on the college charts. From there, 00:13:03.360 |
"Who Will Save Your Soul" starts to kind of make a move. It's kind of peaking up and people are 00:13:07.360 |
listening to it here and there. Then she records this great video for her newly re-recorded version 00:13:12.000 |
of "You Were Meant For Me," and that just explodes on MTV. She's ready for it now. We're like a year 00:13:17.280 |
and a half out from her turning down a million dollars. She's ready for it now. That album, 00:13:21.760 |
"Pieces of You," just explodes. Remember, she's getting extra backend, so the money is flying at 00:13:29.680 |
her. Anyway, that's what happens with Jewel. What's the lesson here? Well, there's a principle 00:13:37.680 |
in slow productivity that is titled "obsess over quality." Jewel's story gets to why this is 00:13:49.040 |
important. See, when you obsess over quality, "I want to do something really well," escaping 00:13:56.960 |
busyness and moving towards something more slow and sustainable becomes inevitable. It becomes 00:14:05.520 |
natural. It becomes what's attractive to you. When you're not obsessed over doing something 00:14:09.200 |
really well, there's an appeal to the busy and the frenetic because it's something to do. 00:14:15.120 |
You feel like, "I'm making moves. I'm jumping on calls. I have all these plans. I'm on Slack 00:14:20.240 |
channels telling everyone things. I'm putting up videos of this over on TikTok." There is a 00:14:25.520 |
warmth from the heat generated by the friction of freneticism, 00:14:29.440 |
but that warmth doesn't turn into real fires. It's not hot enough, but on the other hand, 00:14:35.840 |
when you say, "No, no, I want to do something really well. I want to produce an album that's 00:14:39.680 |
going to explode," I have to slow down because I need to get better. I need to get really good. 00:14:46.480 |
So I'm going to get a small record deal to have the record label leave me alone so I can just 00:14:50.400 |
spend a year and a half touring and finding myself, finding my voice, getting advice, 00:14:54.880 |
going back, re-recording, tinkering. She did a couple other versions of "You Were Meant for Me," 00:14:58.720 |
by the way, including a real poppy version with a top pop producer that was no good. 00:15:07.520 |
I've heard it. It's no good. She needed time and she had to slow down. 00:15:13.280 |
So when we try to parabolize this to our lives, not as singers, but as just knowledge workers 00:15:19.840 |
doing whatever we do, accepting the million dollars is like the busyness, just like running 00:15:24.400 |
around and doing everything. Turning down the million dollars and taking your time to figure 00:15:28.240 |
out how to be a performer, that's slowing down. So that's the first lesson from Jewel's story. 00:15:33.440 |
Once you begin prioritizing doing something really well, the only thing that feels natural 00:15:38.160 |
then is being less busy. The focus of quality is the antithesis of freneticism. 00:15:51.520 |
But there's a second lesson in here as well. So if we return to Jewel, what happens? Well, 00:15:56.560 |
that album "Pieces of You" is just crazy. She makes a lot of money. How do we know she makes 00:16:02.640 |
a lot of money? We know because for an unfortunate reason, there's this unfortunate side note to Jewel's 00:16:09.360 |
story that her mom comes back into her life and basically takes over as her manager. We've heard 00:16:16.560 |
this story before. This is the Colonel and Elvis. Look, there's nothing here that's that unusual. 00:16:24.160 |
Anyways, she steals a lot of Jewel's money. She steals a lot of her money. Eventually, 00:16:29.760 |
there's a lawsuit. Jewel steals her mom. The only reason why that's relevant to us is in that 00:16:33.360 |
lawsuit an amount is named. So we get a sense of how successful Jewel was with these initial albums. 00:16:39.440 |
The specific number she cited that her mom stole from her was $200 million. 00:16:43.680 |
So if it's possible for someone to steal $200 million for you, you're probably doing from a 00:16:51.120 |
financial perspective. And again, I'm not an expert on this, but I would say pretty well. 00:16:55.760 |
Okay. So she's getting very successful. There's this whole mechanism now that surrounds her. 00:17:00.720 |
The better you get at doing something you love, the more the world conspires to try to prevent 00:17:06.240 |
you from doing that thing. That's an axiom that all creatives know. This happens to Jewel. 00:17:11.600 |
So they send her on an international tour, exhausting, a Taylor Swift type thing. She 00:17:17.520 |
comes back from the tour and now her agents are saying, "Okay, you're young and attractive. You 00:17:25.680 |
need to do movies too. So move to Hollywood. Get her in the Devil's Backbone and Ang Lee movie. 00:17:31.120 |
Here's the plan. Move to LA. We're going to do international tour movies. International 00:17:35.040 |
tour movies. You're going to be a multimedia mogul star." And Jewel says, "Well, wait a second. What 00:17:42.240 |
do I want to do? I want to produce great music. I don't worry about money. I have plenty of money. 00:17:46.320 |
I want to produce great music." "No, thank you." Never does an international tour again, 00:17:52.640 |
leaves the movie business, does not settle in LA, goes to a ranch in Texas with her boyfriend, 00:17:58.400 |
who was a rodeo rider, and just writes music. So there's another lesson in there. And again, 00:18:05.040 |
I'm trying to parabolize this and the lessons are going to be relevant to us who are not 00:18:08.000 |
really fancy and successful movie stars. The lesson here is that by getting really good at 00:18:15.360 |
something, Jewel was able to gain autonomy over what her work was like. So getting good at 00:18:21.840 |
something enables slowness. So as you quest to get good, lesson number one, you crave slowness. 00:18:28.400 |
As you get better at things, lesson number two, you gain the autonomy to actually enforce more 00:18:33.760 |
slowness in your life. Jewel is a very successful musician, so she could basically say, "No, 00:18:38.080 |
I don't want to do this other stuff. I just want to write music. I have enough money. I have enough 00:18:43.520 |
F.U. money to say, 'No, I'm going to shape what my life is like,' and I want it to be slow." 00:18:50.400 |
So we've got these great two lessons in here. Quality makes slowness something that is necessary 00:18:57.520 |
and appealing. The pursuit of quality also eventually makes slowness something that you 00:19:01.680 |
can more easily enforce or maintain in your life. So we have a virtuous flywheel here. It's why I 00:19:07.440 |
call this last principle, obsess over quality, the glue that holds all the other principles of 00:19:12.000 |
slow productivity together, because it makes the other ideas possible. The other ideas are about 00:19:18.560 |
doing fewer things and working at a more natural pace. The obsession over quality 00:19:22.240 |
really makes that much more possible. All right, so let's try to apply this to a normal knowledge 00:19:28.720 |
work job. What is the template we want to apply if you're a marketing director or a programmer and 00:19:35.200 |
not a music superstar? Well, think about it this way. One, figure out what you do best 00:19:43.760 |
or what you could do that's going to be the most valuable for your sector or organization. 00:19:50.400 |
We often skip over this step, but it's really hard sometimes to figure out what really matters. 00:19:56.240 |
What is our equivalent of Jewel's performance singing ability? It's not always obvious in 00:20:02.080 |
non-specifically creative careers, so we have to go find it. And then once we find up, we have to 00:20:08.720 |
create our equivalent of Jewel's training regime. She spent a year and a half on the road figuring 00:20:12.880 |
out, "How do I perform? How do I find my voice? What is my voice? How do I translate what I was 00:20:19.840 |
doing in the interchange coffeehouse into something that translates to a CD that's 00:20:23.440 |
going to MTV? I'm going to work on that craft." Well, you have to have a similar training regime 00:20:28.560 |
where you haven't just identified, "Here's what matters in my job," but you know how you're 00:20:32.880 |
getting after that, how you're improving that. And then three, as you get more successful, 00:20:37.840 |
cash that in to gain more autonomy over your work so that you can have whatever level or definition 00:20:42.880 |
of slowness appeals to you. So you can step away from busyness and keep your work crafted 00:20:48.480 |
around the things that really resonate. That's hard as well. That's hard as well because, 00:20:55.680 |
well, as you get better, people aren't going to be offering you to do less. 00:21:00.000 |
So you're going to have to actually make that call yourself. So let's look at some concrete 00:21:05.600 |
examples here. Let's go back to I mentioned marketing director. What might this dual 00:21:10.480 |
strategy look like, obsessing over quality, look like if you're a marketing director? 00:21:13.600 |
Well, maybe what you realize is, okay, when you get measurement-based, 00:21:19.920 |
you can really get fine-tuned about figuring out what marketing efforts work and what don't, 00:21:25.360 |
how to lean in heavily on the things that work and away from the things that don't. 00:21:29.600 |
And so maybe you decide, "I'm going to become ruthlessly measurement-based in designing of 00:21:33.360 |
my marketing strategies, even if this is kind of scary because I'm not just doing here's a standard 00:21:37.760 |
mix of things. You can't really get mad at me. I'm doing sort of the right things." Like, "No, 00:21:41.520 |
I'm ruthlessly measurement-based. I'm learning these measurement tools. 00:21:45.600 |
I'm trusting the data. I'm pushing the things that are working well beyond what is normal." 00:21:50.640 |
And maybe as a result, by doing this, your campaigns are unusual and innovative and very 00:21:58.640 |
successful. So you figured out what's important. My campaign's working and a training regime for 00:22:04.400 |
getting there. I'm going to do this sort of leaning into evidence-based in this example. 00:22:07.280 |
Now you have to use that success to gain autonomy. So now imagine you say, "Okay, 00:22:12.000 |
I'm really desirable in this sector. I'm leaving my company to go freelance. You can hire me to 00:22:16.480 |
run the marketing for your particular whatever it is, product or launch or whatever. 00:22:21.680 |
And I'm going to charge a good amount of money because I'm really good at this. 00:22:26.800 |
I can back it up and I'm going to do this eight months a year. Four months a year, 00:22:30.160 |
I don't take contracts. That's just the deal. So if your contract overlaps those four months, 00:22:35.520 |
I just can't do it." Imagine that now. Now you've created this really nice sort of slow rhythm where 00:22:42.720 |
you're doing great work. You have four months a year, you're not working at all. I mean, 00:22:45.680 |
you could just imagine in this daydream here how you've escaped just being like a lower-level 00:22:50.640 |
marketing director that they don't really trust. They're bothering you with emails and you're 00:22:54.320 |
working all the time and you're always worried about your job. All right, what about if you're 00:22:57.200 |
a programmer? Let's give another concrete example here. Maybe you really look around and say, "Oh, 00:23:02.080 |
this particular specialty is incredibly valuable right now." Maybe it's like API development for 00:23:09.840 |
platforms, or maybe it's something in the AI space, like you're very comfortable 00:23:16.640 |
working with the ML libraries for Google. I'm very comfortable working with 00:23:23.840 |
doing efficient training code for neural nets or something like that. You figure out like, 00:23:30.880 |
"This is the thing that's really valuable. We don't have a good person for this. These people 00:23:34.800 |
are really desirable." And you just work an hour a day. You train yourself. You read and do sample 00:23:40.320 |
projects. You're just doing this, forcing yourself to get better and better and better at this. 00:23:46.320 |
And as you get better and better, you eventually be considered a 10X programmer. 00:23:51.440 |
Your salary jumps up. Maybe you begin to dictate more the terms of how your work happens. I do one 00:23:58.080 |
project at a time. I take sabbaticals every three years. They're just happy to have you because they 00:24:02.320 |
don't want the other team to have you. Completely different, less busy life. You can dictate the 00:24:06.320 |
terms. Those are just some concrete examples of what I'm trying to show you here is that 00:24:10.480 |
this dual strategy of figuring out what matters, systematically pursuing it, leveraging success to 00:24:17.440 |
gain autonomy and to move away from busyness and towards something more meaningful really can apply 00:24:22.160 |
to many different jobs. All right. So what are the pitfalls here that you want to avoid? I have 00:24:25.840 |
three real quick I want to mention. This first one actually came up in my conversation with Ryan 00:24:31.760 |
Holiday when I did his podcast recently to talk about slow productivity because it was actually 00:24:36.640 |
an idea of his that we sort of riffed on. And this was this idea of you want to make sure that 00:24:41.440 |
you're not playing the wrong game. So one of the biggest pitfalls is like, look, I want to do really 00:24:47.440 |
well, but you're doing well at the wrong game. And the example he gave, which I think is a good one, 00:24:52.800 |
is focusing on pleasing over impressing. And he said, OK, here's what I want to do 00:24:58.400 |
is I'm going to be super responsive. Like I make everyone else's life easier. You need something, 00:25:04.160 |
I'll do it. Even if I have to stay up late, I'll answer your emails right away. 00:25:07.840 |
Like my job is to reduce stress in everybody else's life. And people will love you for that. 00:25:12.240 |
But they won't respect you for that. You're not going to gain yourself autonomy or leverage doing 00:25:18.400 |
that. You're going to you're going to gain yourself a lot more work. Now, consider the 00:25:22.720 |
other game to play, which is I want to impress all these people. It's not impressive to be super 00:25:27.440 |
responsive and to do what it takes to get these small things done. It's not impressive. It's 00:25:32.400 |
useful to them. Impressive is I can program these transformer matrix manipulations for this AI thing 00:25:39.440 |
better than anyone else, you know, and it gives us a 10x speed up in the training when I do it, 00:25:44.080 |
when I'm on the team and I'm like fine with email. I'm kind of you know, I'm not like a jerk about 00:25:49.760 |
it, but I'm I'm not like great at the small things you give me, but I can do this really 00:25:53.280 |
well. And that's really impressive. That is much more valuable. Playing the game of being 00:25:57.760 |
impressive instead of playing the game of pleasing people. Pitfall number two has to do with the 00:26:04.880 |
training aspect. Right? So these pitfalls, by the way, correspond to the three part lessons of the 00:26:12.960 |
first part was figure out what you do best. Playing the wrong game is a pitfall about getting that 00:26:16.720 |
wrong. The second part of our three step system was create a training regime. So the pitfall here 00:26:21.200 |
is what I call going on fun runs instead of interval training. Right? So like when people 00:26:26.160 |
want to become a better runner, they're amateur runners, they want to just like go for 5k runs 00:26:32.320 |
and blast music and kind of like go fast at the end and work up a sweat, but never really do 00:26:36.720 |
anything that hard. Right? Whereas like serious runners like no, no, no, I'm either doing 10 mile 00:26:41.120 |
runs to build up my aerobic base, or I'm doing vomit inducing intervals to get my speed up. 00:26:46.000 |
It's not fun. Right? The professional runners are doing the stuff you really need to do to get 00:26:51.760 |
better. The amateur runners are doing the stuff that they they want to do. So they kind of tell 00:26:55.600 |
the story that that's what's important. Same thing happens with knowledge or professional skills all 00:26:59.920 |
the time. We write a story about what we want to do, because we like the idea of like, I spent 30 00:27:05.200 |
minutes doing this you to me course on programming every day, I can find time for it. It's not too 00:27:10.640 |
hard, but it makes me feel productive. We write stories about what we want to be important. 00:27:15.280 |
Instead of figuring out the things that actually matter. And almost always the things that 00:27:20.320 |
actually matter aren't fun, you have to learn to actually get the pleasure out of doing the 00:27:23.600 |
hard thing other people won't do. Athletes know this. You have to you have to alchemize 00:27:29.520 |
intense discomfort of certain training, I can't understand this math, but I'm going to crack it. 00:27:35.120 |
alchemize that into fulfillment. Yeah, other people are going to give up. I'm not. 00:27:39.360 |
I'm not going to give up here. All right, the third pitfall here. So when it comes to using 00:27:46.000 |
success to gain more autonomy, the pitfall here is what I call the control trap. This was in my 00:27:50.240 |
book so good, they can't ignore you. The control trap. The control trap basically says, as you get 00:27:57.360 |
good enough to gain control over your career, and the potentially use this to gain more autonomy 00:28:01.600 |
to gain more slowness, that is exactly the time where you're going to be presented with all of 00:28:05.680 |
these really flattering opportunities to get paid more and get more whatever respect, I guess, 00:28:12.720 |
like more clout in your field, in exchange for having a busier, more frenetic job. 00:28:17.840 |
Like as soon as you get good enough to be able to demand slowness, 00:28:21.280 |
people will start offering you fastness on the most appealing platters you've seen. 00:28:25.040 |
Hey, good news. You could be a managing partner at our law firm. Like, oh, man, that's hard. 00:28:30.880 |
And that, you know, that pays a lot of money. Yeah, that's definitely what I want to do. 00:28:35.280 |
By the way, it's twice to work, you know, so as you get really good at something, 00:28:41.520 |
people don't come to you and say, hey, you're really good. You want to like chill? 00:28:45.280 |
Like we'll pay you the same amount of money and you can work half the time if you want. 00:28:48.640 |
They don't say that. They say, how about we double the money and double the amount of work you do? 00:28:52.080 |
That's the control trap. So you're going to have to fight against the grain. 00:28:57.120 |
No one is going to hold your hand, applying your hard won leverage in the market to try 00:29:03.680 |
to make your life slower. No one wants you to be slower. You have to be the one to demand 00:29:08.480 |
it and have faith in yourself. All right. So this is a pitfalls. All right. So anyways, there we go. 00:29:13.680 |
That's the story of Jewel. I think it's a really cool story. I tell it in detail and slow productivity, 00:29:18.000 |
but those are the lessons to pull from it. Obsessing over quality makes slowness seem 00:29:23.920 |
absolutely necessary. Obsessing over quality eventually gives you more options than you 00:29:27.680 |
thought you ever had to actually put slowness into pursuit. So quality and slowness are 00:29:33.200 |
intertwined. If you want to escape overload and crushing busyness, paradoxically, focusing on 00:29:39.760 |
what matters and sometimes working harder on what matters is going to make your life easier. 00:29:43.840 |
All right. So we have some great questions to get to. First, however, I want to talk about one of 00:29:50.400 |
the sponsors that makes this show possible. That is our good friends at Shopify, the global 00:29:57.840 |
commerce platform that helps you sell at every stage of your business from the launcher online 00:30:03.760 |
shop stage to the first real life store stage, all the way to the, did we just hit a million dollars 00:30:08.560 |
in order stage? Shopify is there to help you grow. You have an all-in-one e-commerce platform. 00:30:16.880 |
You have an in-person point of sale system, whatever you're selling, they've got you covered. 00:30:22.160 |
Look, if you're doing e-commerce, Shopify has one of the best converting checkout packages on the 00:30:29.200 |
internet, 36% better on average and converting people in the buyers compared to other leading 00:30:34.240 |
e-commerce platforms. Jess and I always talk about, we should start a store at some point, 00:30:41.280 |
a deep question store. And then we have terrible idea for merchandise by which I mean, brilliant 00:30:46.320 |
ideas for merchandise. My best idea, of course, being the shirt that has the VBLCPP, VBLCPP, 00:30:52.880 |
VBLCBP slogan right across the front, values-based lifestyle center, career planning, 00:31:00.160 |
and just assumes people know what that means because you can wear that shirt and be like, 00:31:05.280 |
and then offer high fives to people. And then they're confused and they kind of walk by and 00:31:08.720 |
that's the type of fun you could have. Anyways, when we open our store to sell that shirt, 00:31:12.000 |
we would of course use Shopify. Basically everyone I know in this game who sells their own things, 00:31:19.360 |
they use Shopify because it makes it easier and it works well. So you can sign up now for a $1 00:31:26.480 |
per month trial period at shopify.com/deep, but just put that into your browser, all lowercase, 00:31:34.000 |
go to shopify.com/deep, all lowercase to grow your business no matter what stage you're in, 00:31:40.320 |
shopify.com/deep. I also want to talk about our good friends at Element. Look, 00:31:49.120 |
healthy hydration isn't just about drinking water. It's about water and electrolytes. 00:31:54.800 |
It makes sense. You lose both water and sodium when you sweat. Both need to be replaced to 00:31:59.280 |
prevent muscle cramps, headaches, and energy dips. But most people only replace the water 00:32:03.920 |
because we keep being told, "Hey, just drink a lot of water." But drinking water beyond just 00:32:09.360 |
your thirst is a bad idea. It could dilute blood electrolyte levels, especially sodium levels, 00:32:13.600 |
which leads to headaches, low energy, cramps, confusion, or more. The solution is not to stop 00:32:17.840 |
drinking water. It's to add more electrolytes to your water. This is where Element, L-M-N-T, 00:32:23.360 |
enters the scene. Created by former research biochemist, Rob Wolfe, and KetoGains founder, 00:32:30.160 |
Louis Valseigneur, Element has enough sodium, potassium, and magnesium to keep you feeling and 00:32:34.880 |
performing your best, plus zero sugar, zero artificial colors, and no dodgy ingredients 00:32:41.840 |
in it. You've got a lot of great flavors you can love, including citrus salt or raspberry salt. I 00:32:48.640 |
like citrus salt. They also have spicy flavors like mango chili or chocolate salt, which you 00:32:54.480 |
can mix into your morning coffee for a mean mocha. I was actually just out, as I mentioned, at Andrew 00:33:00.240 |
Huberman's studio. And I can tell you, Huberman and I mixed up some Element to stay hydrated for, 00:33:08.320 |
I believe our episode was, and I'm checking this here in the notes, 17 hours long. 00:33:12.720 |
Look, I get dehydrated not just from exercise, but from talking all the time. 00:33:18.480 |
Element is absolutely what I drink to get those electrolytes up without having to have sugar and 00:33:23.200 |
all the other weird stuff. So anyways, Element has a fantastic offer just for us. Go to 00:33:28.000 |
drinkelement.com/deep to get a free sample pack with any purchase. That's drinkelement, L-M-N-T.com/deep. 00:33:36.720 |
All right, let's get back to our show and do some questions. 00:33:44.880 |
Our first question comes from Claire. Look, I always, for those who are watching on the video, 00:33:50.080 |
by the way, you see, I keep checking over here. There's no Jesse. So it's up to me to make sure 00:33:54.640 |
that we're actually still recording. I believe we still are. All right. Our first question comes 00:33:58.240 |
from Claire. Claire says the following, "I am judged based on productive output, where I have 00:34:05.840 |
to complete seven or eight reports per day that take an hour each. So instead of being able to do 00:34:11.360 |
a few hours of deep work and take a break, I am working eight hours and a half deep work state. 00:34:17.280 |
I need to focus, but not that intensely. I have a number of side projects I want to work on in 00:34:21.360 |
my off time, but I'm tired. Should I try to find a job that's not too hard?" Well, Claire, maybe, 00:34:27.120 |
but let's talk first about what you could do with this current job. And then maybe that will help 00:34:31.600 |
you think through a little bit more critically about whether it's worth trying to change this 00:34:35.440 |
job or not. First, I want to just point out seven or eight hours of semi-deep work on reports is 00:34:45.440 |
actually still a lot better than what a lot of people have, which is zero deep work hours, 00:34:50.160 |
plus about 10 hours of partial continuous attention, non-deep context switching, 00:34:55.440 |
overload nonsense. A day full of meetings and email and Slack, which is all administrative 00:35:00.800 |
overhead generated by the too many tasks that they've agreed to and are on their task list, 00:35:05.600 |
leading them to a nihilistic sense of absurdity that all I ever do is talk about work and almost 00:35:09.360 |
never, nothing actually gets done. Few exhaustions are more deranging than that of having to switch 00:35:14.720 |
your attention every few minutes and yet never feeling like you're making progress. All this to 00:35:18.880 |
say, "Hey, this kind of sounds nice that you could work on one thing at a time and aren't have to be 00:35:25.440 |
on email and chat." So look, there's some silver lining here, but here would be my first suggestion. 00:35:29.840 |
Why can't we change this to five to six reports per day? 00:35:32.160 |
Wouldn't that make your life a lot easier? Now, look, I don't know the setup of your job. Maybe 00:35:38.240 |
that would mean having to take less money. That might be worth it, by the way, but I wouldn't 00:35:42.480 |
offer that right away, less money. Just do the reports better and just say, "Look, this seven 00:35:47.360 |
to eight is too many. My quality is flagging. I want to do five or six. Hey, but check my quality. 00:35:52.080 |
These are going to be great. They're going to be better. And I think this is better." And just do 00:35:54.960 |
it. And they might end up being like, "Okay, fine. These are better." Maybe you didn't need to be 00:35:59.920 |
doing seven to eight. You just set that arbitrary standard. Now, maybe they say, "No, no, no. Even 00:36:04.560 |
if they're better, we're going to pay you less." That still might be worth it. That still might be 00:36:10.480 |
worth it because even if they're paying you less, five to six reports a day means five hours of work 00:36:17.120 |
maybe, and you could be done. I like the sound of that. All right. So let's think about this some 00:36:23.520 |
more. Instead of doing one hour per report at a half state of deep work, I want you to consider 00:36:29.680 |
doing 30 to 40 minutes of really intense deep work supported by rituals and a structured process for 00:36:35.840 |
how you go through these reports. So it's not just haphazard thinking that gives you 30 to 20 minutes 00:36:41.600 |
of rest in between each report, or allows you to do two reports, take an hour off, two reports, 00:36:46.000 |
and an hour off. I want to find a way that you're not going constantly, but you have more of a 00:36:49.920 |
rhythm of intensity and non-intensity. Now, if you're working 30 to 40 minutes and then taking 00:36:54.480 |
a break, you're going to want to make those breaks. You have to be careful with those breaks. 00:37:00.800 |
You have to take what I call deep breaks, which means you need to be careful not to have this 00:37:05.360 |
break be a hard context shift. You don't want to look at email or unrelated, highly emotionally 00:37:11.600 |
salient information. You're going to want these other breaks to focus on things that don't really 00:37:17.600 |
change your context too much so that you can 20 minutes later, get back into the next report 00:37:21.120 |
without having to start from scratch. So try those two things. And I think this could be better. 00:37:28.960 |
Okay. Those who are watching the video see I keep looking around because I have a mysterious buzzing 00:37:36.080 |
happening in my ear here. Hold on a second. I'm doing some live debugging. I don't think 00:37:41.040 |
this is showing up on the recording. It's driving me crazy. Hold on one second. 00:37:48.800 |
All right. Well, that's exciting. Podcasting right there is what you get for solo podcasting. 00:38:00.640 |
By the way, we're pretty svelte with one producer here. Some shows are like that. A lot of other 00:38:06.400 |
shows I've noticed where really they have a lot of pretty large teams. So I think we're pretty 00:38:10.800 |
svelte here. All right. Our next question comes from Evan. Evan says, I'm in the early stages of 00:38:16.240 |
my career and realized that a disproportionate amount of success in the corporate world depends 00:38:22.000 |
on your ability to sell yourself. I've seen competent, quiet managers get fired while 00:38:28.160 |
talking heads get steadily promoted. How do I sell my skills better? And if needed interview better. 00:38:35.760 |
Well, Evan, this is a key place where I want to bring up one of the pitfalls that we discussed 00:38:41.680 |
when talking about the story of Jewel in the deep dive, which was the fun run versus interval 00:38:46.640 |
training pitfall, which says the key here is to not to write your own story about what matters, 00:38:54.880 |
but to learn what actually does matter. All right. So it's very tempting in this type of situation 00:39:00.640 |
to come up with what you want to be important. This is what I want to work on. And if I do 00:39:05.680 |
this, then I'm going to get more notice. I'm going to be more successful because I like the sound of 00:39:09.840 |
it. I like the sound of it. It's tractable. It's not too hard, but it sounds good. No, 00:39:17.440 |
you need to go figure out for the people who are good at what you see as being needed for success 00:39:21.680 |
to people who are good, who are getting steadily promoted. What specifically are they doing that 00:39:25.760 |
matters? This might mean actually talking to them. I want to learn from you. How did you get this 00:39:30.640 |
promotion? What about this one? What was key? What were you doing that other people who are up for 00:39:34.400 |
that promotion didn't do? Learn what really matters. You might discover, for example, 00:39:40.560 |
that actually it's not about them selling themselves. Like maybe it turns out, and I've 00:39:45.840 |
been down this road before in my own life, where I thought it was a marketing thing mattered. 00:39:49.280 |
And it turned out like, no, actually the thing they were doing was just better than what I'm 00:39:52.000 |
doing. So it might turn out, oh, this is the skill that really matters. It's very hard. I'm doing 00:39:56.560 |
that. Okay. They're doing it better. This is not about them selling themselves, or maybe it is 00:40:00.000 |
about selling themselves, but you learn out what that means. What aspect of selling themselves 00:40:06.000 |
is it that in the end really matters? So you've got to get to the bottom of what matters. Don't 00:40:10.800 |
write your own story. And then you can decide, do I want to do that or not? And if so, what's 00:40:14.800 |
my training regime? And let's get after it systematically head down relentlessly. And if 00:40:18.400 |
not, at least, you know, why not? Oh, this is harder or requires sacrifices that I'm not right 00:40:22.560 |
now willing to make. And by the way, that second answer is fine as well. So there's a technological 00:40:28.400 |
piece to this because a lot of people have this sense about social media promotion. 00:40:31.760 |
I think what matters is that professor, that manager, that writer, it's what they're doing 00:40:37.120 |
on social media that matters. So maybe I need to do more of that. If I just did more of that, 00:40:42.080 |
I'd be more successful, right? It's a common story that we tell ourselves when we're looking 00:40:47.040 |
at self-promotion and success. But when you dig deep in a lot of these cases, it turns out 00:40:50.960 |
it's not the key. The key is what they're doing is good. They're doing something different. They 00:40:54.880 |
got lucky, you know? So anyways, reality is more complicated. You got to actually confront the 00:41:01.120 |
reality. Let's move on here. We got Mike. Mike says, I'm an animator and I have good productivity 00:41:08.560 |
and focus in the office. However, I struggle to work on my personal projects at home. I only do 00:41:14.320 |
tasks that have the least resistance, such as organizing files instead of doing the actual work. 00:41:19.920 |
How can I do the hard tasks for my personal projects? Well, Mike, first of all, 00:41:26.560 |
the stuff you're mentioning as least resistant, such as organizing files, maybe this is not so 00:41:32.720 |
unimportant. A lot of what's important in household labor is actually pretty organizational. 00:41:37.440 |
It's keeping the household as basically a pseudo business running well, which is often less about 00:41:44.880 |
big leaps of deep work or Bravo performance and more about actually keeping a lot of balls very 00:41:50.480 |
carefully moving in the air so none of them fall. Also, you might consider just doing fewer projects 00:41:57.520 |
and making the projects you do better. So when it comes to personal projects, 00:42:00.720 |
there's a couple of reasons why you might not be coming back to them. There's a couple of reasons 00:42:07.040 |
why you might be looking to lesser resistant alternatives. One could be you don't really 00:42:12.240 |
love the project. It was just like, I want to do this. I want to learn Spanish. And you don't 00:42:15.360 |
really love the idea. You're not that excited about it. And you're tired because you have a 00:42:18.160 |
hard job and you're trying to take care of your house and maybe your family and that limited 00:42:22.400 |
time and energy. If it's a project you don't love, your mind might say no moss. 00:42:25.680 |
See what I did there? That was Spanish. Here's the other problem. Maybe you do love the project, 00:42:31.760 |
but your plan stinks. Like I want to be a novelist. And so like, why don't, 00:42:37.440 |
why am I just not going down to my writing room and writing? Because your mind says that's just 00:42:40.960 |
not, that's not enough. You go into that room and writing is not going to produce a novel. 00:42:44.880 |
That's going to sell. We need to learn more about this. We've got to get better at writing. We need 00:42:47.840 |
an editor. You know, this is not a good plan. Your brain knows it's not a good plan. And so when 00:42:52.880 |
you're saying maybe I should go spend some hours writing at the library, whatever your brain says, 00:42:56.240 |
let's organize the files. Come on, let's get real. It's a good future plan evaluator. 00:43:00.720 |
All right. So maybe you need fewer projects and the projects you choose need to be better, 00:43:06.480 |
but also just ease up. You know, I came across like several in recent weeks meeting impressive 00:43:13.120 |
people while working on book promotion who had the same thing. They told me the same thing. 00:43:19.360 |
They don't really have a lot of hobbies right now. They're trying to do something professionally. 00:43:22.960 |
It's really important. They have families. They're trying to keep their health up because they're 00:43:25.600 |
reaching middle age and it matters. A lot of people, my age and my situation, for example, 00:43:29.440 |
just don't have a lot of personal projects. That's fine too. You don't have to have a lot 00:43:33.120 |
of personal projects. Having a good job, staying, like keeping your body running, 00:43:39.360 |
being a leader for your family, like that's a lot, that's a hard job. So if you're not feeling it 00:43:44.640 |
right now in your current stage of life, you're not out there doing the complicated hobbies or 00:43:49.120 |
whatever, you can ease up on yourself a little bit. I think that's okay. We don't always have 00:43:53.280 |
to be doing that, especially if our setup is not one that makes that easy to do. If we don't have 00:43:59.920 |
a highly autonomous setup with a lot of time or it's an activity that we've done for a long time 00:44:03.680 |
and really love. All right, we've got a question here from Elena. Elena says, "My day consists of 00:44:10.240 |
waking up at 5 a.m., getting ready for the gym, reading for 15 to 20 minutes, returning from the 00:44:15.680 |
gym by 7.30, finishing showering, having breakfast by almost 9. Currently, I can't say that I have 00:44:21.360 |
rare and valuable skills to offer and I have a job from 9 to 6 that doesn't offer that many 00:44:25.440 |
opportunities to develop those skills either, although it pays very well. In this scenario, 00:44:30.240 |
how can I do less at a natural pace but at least include a chunk of deliberate practice into my day 00:44:35.440 |
to learn rare and valuable skills that allow me to build a remarkable life without falling into 00:44:39.120 |
busyness?" Oh, Elena, you got a lot going on. I mean, look, I'm very impressed by your drive here, 00:44:47.440 |
but let's slow down a little bit because I worry that you're approaching the problem 00:44:55.600 |
of wanting a slower work life by pushing more fast activity into it. 00:45:01.440 |
And that might not be the right way to solve this. Let me be specific here. This is hypothetical. I 00:45:06.880 |
don't know the exact details of your situation, but let me give you a sense about this. 00:45:11.600 |
What if we instead said we're going to make these changes? Your goal is to end your day at 4.30, 00:45:17.120 |
instead of 6, you're going to go to the gym at 4.30 instead. Hold on to the complaint for now. 00:45:23.760 |
I'll never get my work done if I finish at 6. People will notice that's too early. Hold that 00:45:27.840 |
aside for now. It's going to be our goal to finish work by 4.30, go to the gym then. 00:45:34.400 |
Now, this means you don't have to wake up at 5. Now, you can actually sleep, get more sleep, 00:45:39.680 |
sleep to a more reasonable hour. Using that extra time, even sleeping later, 00:45:45.360 |
you're going to be able to start your workday earlier. Because we've gotten rid of this time 00:45:50.080 |
in the gym and the morning reading. So you can start your work earlier and do it in a very 00:45:54.240 |
demonstrable way. The key idea from slow productivity is that we use a lot of pseudo 00:46:01.760 |
productivity right now. This idea of using visible activity as a proxy for useful effort. So lean 00:46:06.960 |
into that a little bit, take advantage of that, be visibly starting your workday a little bit earlier, 00:46:10.720 |
but spend the first hour of that workday doing deliberate practice on a skill that you want to 00:46:14.560 |
get really good at. So going back to the JUUL example, you've isolated a rare and valuable 00:46:19.840 |
skill you do want to develop. You have the first hour of every day you're doing deliberate practice. 00:46:23.440 |
Your bosses don't necessarily know that's what you're doing. They just know that like, "Hey, 00:46:26.160 |
Elena's here. It's 8 or it's 8.30 and she's getting after it." And they don't know what 00:46:30.880 |
you're really doing is training more than answering emails or doing something else. 00:46:36.160 |
Now, because you're starting work earlier, it's not as big of a deal that you're ending earlier. 00:46:42.480 |
Now you also still have to get better at your work itself. Like if you're working from nine to six, 00:46:46.720 |
like probably I'm going to guess this is a pretty haphazard day. So you know the stuff 00:46:51.040 |
we talk about on here. You need a multi-scale planning. You probably need to reduce, this is 00:46:57.840 |
a key idea from slow productivity, reduce the number of things you're actively working on at 00:47:01.600 |
once. It's like, here's the three things I'm working on right now actively. These five things 00:47:06.160 |
I'm waiting to work on as I finish one of these, I'll pull one of those in. This reduces the 00:47:11.200 |
administrative overhead you're facing at any one moment, which allows you to actually move faster 00:47:14.720 |
with completion. There's a whole chapter in slow productivity that gives you specific step-by-step 00:47:19.680 |
tactics for how to do this in your job in a way that people will tolerate and will really work 00:47:23.680 |
really well. You do these things so that you're able to get more work done, the right work done 00:47:28.640 |
more effectively. And you'll be producing more by 4.30 than you were by six. And your bosses 00:47:34.720 |
think you're starting work early anyways. And you know, they're like, "Oh, Elena's really into 00:47:37.920 |
exercise and she comes in early. She leaves a little early. She does really good work. This 00:47:41.440 |
is great." But you've transformed your life in this plan. Now you're not waking up at five, 00:47:45.920 |
you're getting an hour of deliberate practice in, you're ending your workday with an exercise, 00:47:50.480 |
which I do. I think it's a great way to transition from work mode into after work mode. 00:47:56.640 |
By six now, when you used to finish work, you're done with your exercise and you're done with your 00:48:02.000 |
work. You got some sleep, you did your deliberate practice, and you can read at night. That could 00:48:06.400 |
be like a really good activity is that you read instead of watching TV show. You have a lot of, 00:48:10.480 |
you have this evening free now. You don't have to go to bed at nine because you're waking up so early. 00:48:14.720 |
So, you know, I don't know if for your particular situation, that particular reconfiguration works, 00:48:20.000 |
but it's a good sample reconfiguration because it highlights the possibilities here. 00:48:24.160 |
It highlights the possibilities that you have when you think about slowness, that 00:48:29.360 |
structuring your time, being more careful about when you do things. You can produce a lot and be 00:48:34.240 |
very successful. You have more options than you think about how you produce a lot, how you're 00:48:37.360 |
successful. You can take the reins a little bit more to make your life more sustainable. 00:48:41.680 |
All right, let's do one last question here. This one's from Cameron. Cameron says, 00:48:46.800 |
I have a hard job and I'm trying to use the deep life stack 2.0 to balance everything. 00:48:51.280 |
For my discipline stack, I take daily walks, go to the gym and read. How is this different 00:48:55.760 |
than the value stack where I create rituals and routines for hard work? Well, Cameron, 00:49:02.720 |
I wanted to end with a little bit of deep life pontificating, I guess I would say. The bigger 00:49:09.840 |
picture here of living a deep life, which encompasses a lot more than just work. 00:49:14.000 |
We talked a lot in today's episode specifically about knowledge work and using quality to slow 00:49:20.080 |
down and getting away from busyness and strategies to get there. But I like to bring it back in the 00:49:24.080 |
end to the broader goal here, which is work is one part of an overall deep life. And that's really 00:49:28.240 |
our goal in the show is in this world that's increasingly defined by technological forces, 00:49:32.800 |
by email, by social media, by artificial intelligence, all these forces that are 00:49:37.600 |
shaping our lives and reshaping our lives and destabilizing things that we know and making 00:49:41.280 |
things harder or weirder or newer. How do we build a life that's deep and rooted, that's really human, 00:49:45.840 |
that we like, that's meaningful, that's sustainable. And this has a lot more to do than just 00:49:50.080 |
work. So I want to end on that question. Now, Cameron, I think the issue here is you're mixing 00:49:55.520 |
things up. So when we talk about values in the context of the deep life, when we talk about 00:50:00.080 |
rituals and routines for values, these are not rituals and routines for hard work, as you write 00:50:04.400 |
here. They're rituals and routines for reinforcing your values and your values have nothing to do 00:50:09.040 |
with work. Your values are the underlying things that you think are critical to a life well lived. 00:50:15.040 |
These are the things that if there was an apocalypse and you were starting over 00:50:20.560 |
and you're escaping from the vampire cannibals, the things that you would rebuild from, 00:50:25.360 |
the respect for other individuals, the being of infinite worth, leadership and character, 00:50:31.680 |
integrity, that are trying to be someone who produces things of impact, showing up when people 00:50:37.600 |
need to be there. I mean, these are values. Routines and rituals are about reinforcing 00:50:42.880 |
these, these most fundamental atoms of what actually comprises the human life well lived. 00:50:49.040 |
Nothing to do with hard work. So what are routines and rituals that reinforce these values? I mean, 00:50:54.400 |
rituals are things that you do on a regular basis that helps reconnect you to these things you care 00:50:59.040 |
about. And it could be the gratitude walk you do through the woods to reconnect to the wonders of 00:51:05.760 |
the world. It could be a ritual built instead around prayer that connects you to the divine 00:51:14.640 |
as a source of strength to go through the hardships of life. Routines here could be things you just do 00:51:21.840 |
on the regular to help make sure that you're connected to your values. Things that actually 00:51:28.880 |
have practical values. Rituals have no practical values other than just to reinforce a value. 00:51:33.840 |
Routines are things you do to put those values regularly into your life. I volunteer two days 00:51:38.640 |
a week because that pragmatically puts one of these things I value into my life on a regular basis. 00:51:44.400 |
For example, I read five books a month because the life of the mind as like this Aristotelian 00:51:50.560 |
theological goal of the human existence is important to me, but this routine of reading 00:51:55.840 |
every day. So I read five books so I can get to five books a month because that puts my value 00:52:00.160 |
into action. So rituals is just about reinforcing psychologically the importance of a value to you. 00:52:05.120 |
Routines are about pragmatically putting values into actions on a regular basis into your life. 00:52:09.440 |
And this is not about hard work. It's not about going to the gym. It's really about the things 00:52:15.680 |
that make humans, humans. And why this is so important in the context of a deep life is that 00:52:20.000 |
work comes and goes and it goes well and it goes bad. And sometimes it's in your control and 00:52:23.840 |
sometimes that's not. And sometimes you get sick and you can't work the way you used to work before 00:52:28.160 |
or you thought you're going to be really good at this. And people come along and say, no, you're 00:52:31.120 |
not, or you have the big plan and it fails and you lose all the money and you have to start over. 00:52:34.720 |
And it's kind of humiliating. So it can't just be work that you're trying to build this whole 00:52:39.280 |
edifice on. It's got to be something deeper, more fundamental, more human. And that is, 00:52:43.520 |
that's what I mean by values. But Cameron, I appreciate the question 00:52:46.560 |
because it allowed us to talk deeper about the deep life. All right. So speaking about the deep 00:52:53.920 |
life, I mentioned reading as part of it, which means I want to talk about the books I read in 00:52:57.600 |
February. First, I want to briefly mention another sponsor that makes this show possible. 00:53:03.280 |
That's our friends at My Body Tutor. I've known Adam Gilbert, My Body Tutor's founders for many 00:53:09.360 |
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smart idea because it is a 100% online coaching program. So you can get a coach like the Hollywood 00:53:23.440 |
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to have someone in your home gym telling you to use the combat ropes. So the way it works is you 00:53:43.520 |
get assigned this coach. You tell them what you care about with your health journey. They help 00:53:48.640 |
you figure out like, what are we gonna do with your diet? And let's come up with a plan here 00:53:52.160 |
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makes sense for you and your circumstances? And then every day you check in with that coach using 00:53:59.280 |
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I also wanna talk about our longtime friends at Blinkist. Blinkist is an app that gives you 00:54:52.000 |
more than 6,500 book summaries and expert-led audio guides to read and listen to in just 00:54:57.360 |
15 minutes per title. You can access best-in-class actionable knowledge from 27 categories such as 00:55:03.440 |
productivity, psychology, and more, and also get entertained at the same time. 00:55:08.640 |
The way Jesse and I use Blinkist is as a triage tool for the books we read. If there's a book 00:55:16.080 |
that we think might be important, we will put it on a list. And to help make the decision about 00:55:21.440 |
whether or not we buy that book, we will read the Blink, which is what they call the 15-minute 00:55:26.160 |
summary of the book. I'll sometimes listen to them. Jesse likes to read them. This gives you 00:55:31.600 |
a really good sense about the book. Sometimes once you get that 15-minute summary, you're like, 00:55:35.920 |
"Okay, this isn't quite for me. I get the gist of it. I don't wanna spend a week with this book." 00:55:41.120 |
But I got the main ideas. That's useful. And sometimes the Blink, it's like, "Oh, that's 00:55:44.640 |
exactly what I wanted. That's what I was looking for. Great. Let me definitely buy this book." 00:55:48.080 |
And it makes your success rate with nonfiction book buying, the rate at which you actually love 00:55:52.480 |
and get something out of the books you buy, go from what would normally be for most people like 00:55:56.800 |
50/50 to more like 90 to 95% success rate. Now, there's other reasons why I'd use Blinkist, 00:56:02.720 |
sort of to learn about a whole new field without having to read all the books or just because 00:56:06.320 |
they're entertaining. A lot of ways to use it. People blink in different ways, but I like to use 00:56:11.840 |
it as a triage tool for the reading life. However you use it, it is a really useful tool. They also 00:56:17.760 |
have a new feature called Blinkist Connect, which will allow you to give another person unlimited 00:56:22.720 |
access for free. It's basically a two-for-one deal. So that's cool as well. So right now, 00:56:30.080 |
Blinkist has a special offer just for our audience. Go to blinkist.com/deep to start 00:56:35.520 |
your seven-day free trial, and you will get 40% off a Blinkist premium membership if you sign up. 00:56:41.920 |
That's Blinkist spelled B-L-I-N-K-I-S-T. Blinkist.com/deep to get 40% off any seven-day 00:56:48.320 |
free trial. Blinkist.com/deep. And now for a limited time, you can even use Blinkist Connect 00:56:54.880 |
to share your premium account. You will get two premium subscriptions for the price of one 00:56:59.440 |
at Blinkist.com/deep. All right, final segment of the episode. 00:57:03.520 |
At the beginning of each month, I like to review the books I read in the previous month. 00:57:09.040 |
So we're in March, so I need to summarize the books I read in February, 2024. 00:57:13.040 |
As usual, my goal is to read five books a month. So here's what I read in February. 00:57:18.400 |
Number one, The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel. I wrote a newsletter post about this. 00:57:25.840 |
You can find it at calnewport.com/blog from a month or two ago from February when I finished 00:57:31.760 |
it. Worth reading because I think it's an interesting, fantastic book. There's a secular 00:57:38.400 |
message in this. It's not just Jewish theology. There's a secular message in this about work 00:57:43.040 |
and what there is outside of work. It's not just about like the day of rest captures not just 00:57:50.160 |
preparation to work better, but ancient Jewish scripture tells you the day of rest is about 00:57:55.040 |
actually anticipating the kingdom of God to come, which is a way we can secularize that as thinking 00:57:59.360 |
about rest sometimes is about rest itself, about admiring and having gratitude for the other parts 00:58:03.920 |
of life that are unrelated to work. It's a short book, beautifully written from the fifties. 00:58:08.480 |
I really enjoyed it. I also really enjoyed the second book I read, which was Making Movies by 00:58:14.560 |
Sidney Lumet. Fantastic, just nuts and bolts book about how you make a major motion picture. 00:58:21.120 |
Sidney Lumet, of course, being this fantastic director. I went back and watched several of 00:58:26.880 |
his movies after reading this book. I watched Murder on the Orient Express, the Kenneth Branagh 00:58:33.680 |
version, not the Kenneth Branagh version. That's the new version. His version, Sidney Lumet's 00:58:38.640 |
version is from the 1970s as Sean Connery is in it. I also went back and I'd never seen before 00:58:44.560 |
Dog Day Afternoon, which I really enjoyed. It's a fantastic movie, but cool book because basically 00:58:49.920 |
each chapter is a different part of the movie production process and he gets into it. But a 00:58:54.560 |
lot of examples from his own experiences and you really get a sense of what it's like to make a 00:58:58.960 |
movie. If you're a cinephile or you like movies, you sort of have to read this book. I kind of 00:59:04.240 |
embarrassed it took me this long, but I'm glad I got to it. Speaking of being embarrassed it took 00:59:08.880 |
so long, I went ahead and read Killers of the Flower Moon by David Gran. So each year I try, 00:59:16.960 |
my wife and I try to watch all of the movies nominated for best picture. There's 10 of them 00:59:22.000 |
now, so it could be hard, but this year we succeeded. We saw all 10. After we watched 00:59:26.000 |
Killers of the Flower Moon, I wanted to read the book because I had some questions about what 00:59:30.480 |
happened in the movie. And it's classic David Gran. David Gran's a great New Yorker writer. 00:59:34.960 |
He's very good at these types of books where he goes to the archives for a couple of years and 00:59:39.360 |
pulls out these narratives with interesting, weird, flawed characters, and then lets them 00:59:44.160 |
unfold with the pace of a mystery novel. It's a bravo performance in writing. Great book, 00:59:50.960 |
great movie too. Very epic. I read Orthodoxy by J.K. Chesterton. I didn't like it as much 00:59:57.600 |
as I thought. I was thinking that in his argument for the power of orthodoxy, so this is sort of 01:00:04.960 |
Christian apologia, there would be something interesting in there about ritual and routines. 01:00:10.160 |
It was okay. It wasn't as powerful of an apology as I expected. It was fine. It's a short book. 01:00:16.400 |
Smart writer, but it's not punching the gut apology, so maybe worth passing on. 01:00:22.320 |
Finally, I read The Good Shepherd by C.S. Forrester, 1950s book about a convoy crossing 01:00:31.440 |
the North Atlantic in World War II. It takes place entirely, entirely follows in real time 01:00:40.000 |
the commander of a destroyer that's helping to protect this convoy. They made a movie about this 01:00:44.320 |
recently, Greyhound, starring Tom Hanks. Fantastic movie. I recommend it. This is the book it's based 01:00:48.320 |
on. I love this book. This has to be one of the original techno thrillers because what Forrester 01:00:54.000 |
does here is he just throws you into this world. You never leave. It's third party, third person 01:01:00.480 |
omniscient, right? The narrator. So you get access to the thoughts of this captain, but it's the only 01:01:07.040 |
character that it follows. So he's always in the scene. You see nothing where the command, the 01:01:11.600 |
captain is, it's a commander, I guess, as a destroyer. Nothing where the commander is not 01:01:15.840 |
there. And the only thoughts you get access to is the commanders. The third person omniscient, 01:01:20.160 |
but focused on a single character. And it just throws you into this like technical world. All 01:01:25.040 |
the lingo, no explanation. You just sort of piece it together as it goes along, like what's going 01:01:29.680 |
on. And it's nail biting. And he really does capture the sort of the physical stress, the 01:01:35.280 |
psychological fatigue of what it was like to be under attack by a U-boat wolf pack as you're 01:01:40.720 |
trying to direct these convoys across. And you begin to learn and the rhythms of like how this 01:01:45.920 |
works. But it's techno thriller at its finest. It's a proto techno thriller. I'm probably going 01:01:51.440 |
to buy a first edition of this. I think it'd be a cool thing to have in my collection because I 01:01:54.480 |
love techno thrillers. And this is like a prime example of it. Fast paced in the world, surrounded 01:02:02.160 |
by it. You begin to learn and the feeling of being in that world is transmitted. And then you make it 01:02:08.000 |
through the other side, you get a sigh of relief. The Tom Hanks movie, by the way, does a fantastic 01:02:12.080 |
job of capturing the feel of this book. I recommend watching Greyhound. I think it's on Apple TV plus. 01:02:17.440 |
Probably my favorite. That and The Sabbath were my two favorites. Making movies, killers. They 01:02:22.720 |
were all, except for Orthodoxy, which was fine. The other four books I read, this was a good month, 01:02:27.200 |
were really fantastic. So I'd recommend all of them. All right. Well, speaking of fantastic, 01:02:32.160 |
what is more fantastic than me being back at my Deep Work HQ? Next week, Jesse will rejoin me. 01:02:38.000 |
We'll be back to our normal type of episodes and our normal type of topics, et cetera. I'm just 01:02:44.240 |
really happy to be back. Check out Slow Productivity, my new book. If you like the type of 01:02:51.040 |
things you hear about at the show, you can find it anywhere that books are sold. I'll be back next 01:02:55.360 |
week. Until then, as always, stay deep. Hey, so if you enjoyed our discussion today, I think you 01:03:02.080 |
might also like episode 275, which gives a general system for achieving hard goals. So check that out. 01:03:11.360 |
So the question I want to dive into today is, how do you follow through on transformative goals?