The Simple Rule To Double Your Productivity Everyday

00:00:00.000 | Actually, I want to shift towards the more practical world of controlling your time.

00:00:08.440 | And the occasion of me talking about this is the recent publication of the second edition

00:00:14.940 | of my Time Block Planner.

00:00:17.040 | So if you're watching this, this is episode 261 at the deeplife.com or you can find it

00:00:22.860 | at youtube.com/kellennewportmedia.

00:00:25.280 | And I am holding up to the camera the new and improved second edition of my Time Block

00:00:31.120 | Planner.

00:00:32.120 | So I thought this was a good occasion to do a refresher on time blocking.

00:00:36.800 | It is at the core of my ability to fit in seven jobs without working past 5.30 on most

00:00:44.120 | days.

00:00:45.120 | Time block planning will double the amount you're able to get done in a day or alternatively

00:00:51.100 | cut in half the time it requires you to accomplish the work you're already doing.

00:00:55.520 | So to celebrate the new edition of my planner being available, I want to do a quick review

00:01:01.380 | of time block planning and why it works.

00:01:03.400 | Then I'll show you the new features of this planner.

00:01:05.540 | And then I have four new pieces of advanced time blocking advice that I will share.

00:01:12.140 | So for all of you veteran time blockers out there, I have four new pieces of advice to

00:01:16.040 | offer to up your time blocking game.

00:01:19.960 | All right, so what is time blocking?

00:01:22.800 | Time blocking is my approach to managing my time on the scale of days.

00:01:29.800 | So if we're going to think about our deep life stack concept, this is really right in

00:01:35.320 | the core of that control layer, that layer of controlling your time so you have the space

00:01:39.680 | to think and figure out what you want to do.

00:01:42.720 | How it works, and this is pretty straightforward, is during your working hours, you give every

00:01:49.720 | minute a job.

00:01:50.920 | So you are blocking off the actual hours of your day into blocks that are dedicated to

00:01:56.760 | specific activities.

00:01:58.080 | I'm going to pull up a screenshot here for those who are watching online.

00:02:04.200 | This is actually, this is taken from the website for my planner, timeblockplanner.com.

00:02:09.400 | So if you're listening, you can at your leisure go to this website and you'll see what I'm

00:02:13.920 | talking about.

00:02:14.920 | Okay, so I'm at this website and I'm scrolling up here.

00:02:19.120 | I want to show you a sample time block plan that's on this website.

00:02:22.240 | Okay, so you should see this on the screen.

00:02:25.360 | So what you'll see if you're looking on the screen over here on the right is a schedule

00:02:30.040 | that's been blocked out.

00:02:31.080 | So you see from 9 to 1030, I've blocked off, drawn a block for that 90 minute interval

00:02:36.920 | and it says finish report.

00:02:38.880 | From 1030 to 11, the number one is written to that block and then over here on the right,

00:02:44.400 | that number one is replicated because it's actually representing a list of small things

00:02:48.880 | to do and those things are listed under it.

00:02:50.840 | Then we have an hour blocked off for client research and 90 minutes blocked off for lunch

00:02:55.340 | with Sam and a half hour blocked off for email, et cetera.

00:02:58.560 | So that's a time block plan.

00:03:01.040 | You're blocking off the hours of your day and giving specific tasks at specific times.

00:03:06.320 | Now if you'll notice in this example I have on the screen, starting at 11, the plan is

00:03:10.600 | crossed out and in the column next to it, a new plan is written from that point down.

00:03:16.920 | So that's the other key of time blocking is that if you fall off your plan, which you

00:03:22.320 | will because it's hard to estimate exactly how long things take, you just wait until

00:03:25.720 | you have a moment free and you create a new time block plan for the time that remains.

00:03:32.440 | So in my planners, for example, I currently have one, two, three, four columns.

00:03:37.320 | So you can march over and make a corrected time block plan three different times after

00:03:41.360 | your original plan.

00:03:42.680 | So the goal is not to predict perfectly at the beginning of your day exactly how long

00:03:47.360 | things are going to take.

00:03:48.360 | It is instead to have some sort of intention behind what you're doing with your time at

00:03:54.200 | any moment during the day.

00:03:57.480 | So that's time block planning.

00:03:58.480 | You make a plan for every hour of your day.

00:04:00.120 | You have a clear shutdown for when that plan is done and then you switch from time blocking

00:04:03.680 | mode into a much more relaxed mode.

00:04:06.920 | So why does time blocking work so well?

00:04:09.120 | And again, my claim with time blocking is it's two X more efficient.

00:04:14.040 | You give me an amount of work.

00:04:16.440 | How much time does it take you to get that work done without time blocking?

00:04:19.760 | Cut that in half if you're using time blocking.

00:04:23.320 | So why does it work?

00:04:24.320 | Well, there's three things that are going on here.

00:04:25.880 | One, you make a better use of your available time in a given day, right?

00:04:31.240 | Because you actually see the whole picture.

00:04:32.600 | I have a meeting here, a meeting there.

00:04:34.160 | Oh, there's a, this block of time in the morning maybe is more valuable than I would have realized

00:04:37.680 | if I wasn't time blocking.

00:04:38.680 | Let me get started here.

00:04:39.680 | Oh, I have these slivers of time between these meetings.

00:04:42.440 | Let me consolidate my task.

00:04:44.320 | That's the best usage of it.

00:04:45.400 | So when you're considering your whole schedule for the day as a whole, and you're holistically

00:04:49.840 | saying of the different things I'm going to try to get done today, what's the right way

00:04:52.920 | to assign this work to the various free time?

00:04:55.200 | You just make better use of that free time.

00:04:59.440 | Then the alternative of just saying, I don't know, I'm going through my day.

00:05:02.120 | I have a to-do list.

00:05:03.120 | I have my email.

00:05:04.120 | I'm just sort of thinking, what should I work on next?

00:05:05.840 | You're going to, with that alternative default approach, you're going to make much less efficient

00:05:10.680 | use of the time that's available.

00:05:12.640 | The second reason why time blocking works so well is that it helps you focus.

00:05:18.200 | When you know, okay, at this moment, I am in a block to be working on this and this

00:05:22.360 | block last one hour, that clarity allows you to focus.

00:05:25.460 | That's what I'm doing during this hour as I'm working on this report.

00:05:28.720 | And then you focus on that.

00:05:30.600 | If you're working alternatively in a more ad hoc or haphazard fashion, what happens

00:05:35.800 | instead is you say, okay, I'm more or less working on this report, but why not also check

00:05:40.320 | email or why not also jump over here and work on this other thing for a while and I'll come

00:05:44.240 | back to it.

00:05:45.400 | You're making a decision moment to moment of should I keep working on this?

00:05:49.040 | Should I stop?

00:05:50.040 | Should I take a break?

00:05:51.040 | Time blocking takes all those decisions out of the question.

00:05:53.440 | This is what I'm doing in this current block.

00:05:55.840 | Let's execute.

00:05:57.360 | And the final reason why time blocking works so well is that if you do it for a while,

00:06:03.020 | you gain a much more realistic understanding of how long things actually take.

00:06:07.860 | And this is usually hard one wisdom because at first, some sort of reoccurring task that

00:06:14.480 | shows up in your life quite a bit, you'll probably not be giving it enough time and

00:06:19.640 | you'll have to have that painful feedback of redrawing your plan as you blow past your

00:06:23.840 | plan every time this piece of work comes up.

00:06:25.960 | So over time, this feedback mechanism means you learn, oh, this really takes three hours,

00:06:29.920 | not one.

00:06:30.920 | Oh, cleaning my inbox or checking my inbox.

00:06:32.840 | I need a whole hour for that.

00:06:34.240 | I can't put that in a half hour block with five other tasks.

00:06:37.640 | So you learn through experience with clear feedback, how long things actually take.

00:06:42.240 | And once you know how long things actually take, you can much better control your workload

00:06:46.640 | because you have a much more accurate assessment of how much work is really on your plate and

00:06:51.160 | you will start things at appropriate, appropriate times.

00:06:54.120 | You'll say, this is harder than I think I'm going to start it a week in advance.

00:06:58.840 | So by gaining this knowledge of how long things actually take, you become much more efficient

00:07:02.800 | at managing and scheduling your workload.

00:07:06.080 | All right, so that's time block planning and that's why it works.

00:07:09.640 | So where should you actually do time block planning?

00:07:11.760 | Well, for the last few years, I have been selling a time block planner that implements

00:07:16.440 | exactly the format in which I do time block planning available now for the first time

00:07:22.000 | is this second edition of the time block planner.

00:07:26.640 | So if you're buying this on Amazon, make sure you're looking at the second edition, which

00:07:30.240 | has the spiral binding.

00:07:32.640 | The first edition is still going to be available until that sells out.

00:07:35.400 | So you want to make sure you're buying the right edition.

00:07:37.320 | Let me do a quick overview of what we changed because this was just took a lot of time.

00:07:42.040 | I have six different dummy planners we went through trying to get this just right.

00:07:46.000 | Here's a quick reviews of what we have updated.

00:07:47.640 | It is a slightly smaller trim size.

00:07:51.280 | So it is smaller than 8.5 by 11.

00:07:53.040 | So it's a little bit more handheld, a little bit more portable.

00:07:55.960 | You can fit it into more things.

00:07:58.040 | I think it feels a little thicker and it's just a better size.

00:08:02.560 | It's felt more planner size to me.

00:08:04.420 | Number two, and probably the most important difference, high quality double wire spiral

00:08:08.920 | binding.

00:08:11.040 | So this piece just lays completely flat open.

00:08:15.120 | You can lie it right there next to where you're working and have it there to reference, just

00:08:20.160 | have it open to add things to your task list, have it open to see what's going on your time

00:08:24.300 | block plan.

00:08:25.760 | This was the biggest request people have and it's fantastic.

00:08:28.720 | I have loved having this feature.

00:08:32.560 | We have a new cover with the spiral binding, sort of a nice thick material.

00:08:37.040 | No more of the bending of the cover that happened with the first edition over time.

00:08:41.440 | This is a good substantial cover that just lies flat, keeps this thing really solid,

00:08:46.640 | really solidly closed.

00:08:48.600 | On the interior, the paper was updated.

00:08:52.440 | I love the paper in the new planner.

00:08:54.760 | It is optimized for my pin of choice.

00:08:57.360 | So I hate to be selfish about it, but I optimized the paper for the pin I use, which is the

00:09:01.700 | Uniball Micro 0.5 millimeter ballpoint pen.

00:09:09.080 | The paper has a little bit more absorbency than the last one.

00:09:11.960 | It soaks the ink up nicely, but at this flow rate does not blot.

00:09:16.400 | It's fantastic paper.

00:09:17.600 | I love the paper.

00:09:18.920 | The final thing we did is I changed how weekends are handled.

00:09:24.000 | The first edition of the time block planner had full time block spreads, full time block

00:09:30.080 | grids and capture for Saturday and Sunday.

00:09:33.040 | However, I typically advise people not to time block your weekends.

00:09:36.520 | Time blocking is hard.

00:09:37.800 | You can't be in time block mode all the time.

00:09:40.560 | So to reflect that in the new planner, we now have something called weekend pages where

00:09:45.760 | what you'll see, and it's a little bit hard to see on the screen, but I'll hold it up.

00:09:48.960 | It'll probably be reversed because it's the camera, but you'll see there's just a, there's

00:09:53.360 | a open space for Saturday and Sunday on the same page.

00:09:57.400 | It's enough space to have a quick schedule of what you're doing those days and the metric

00:10:01.640 | track if you track metrics, and then a big capture for things to come up during the weekend

00:10:05.680 | that you can then process when you get the Monday.

00:10:08.680 | This is right across from the weekly plan page.

00:10:10.720 | So now you have the weekly plan page right next to your weekend planners.

00:10:14.560 | So when you plan your week for the week ahead, you can process anything off of here and that

00:10:19.360 | weekly plan is ready to go.

00:10:21.860 | Not only is this better match how we used a planner, it saved a lot of pages.

00:10:25.180 | So now there is four months worth of planning in here instead of three.

00:10:30.360 | So it's a full semester.

00:10:32.320 | You only need three of these per year.

00:10:34.380 | It can match the academic calendar, sort of fall, winter, early spring, spring, summer,

00:10:39.280 | if that's the way you choose to do it.

00:10:41.600 | So anyways, if you want a time block plan, you can do it however you want to do it.

00:10:46.160 | I used to do this in black and red notebooks or red and black notebooks, whatever they're

00:10:50.200 | called.

00:10:51.200 | But this is basically my version of time block planning.

00:10:53.900 | This was built for me.

00:10:55.040 | It's exactly the format I use, the exact right paper, the exact right trim size, all of it

00:10:59.800 | right here.

00:11:01.360 | You can hold this thing substantially.

00:11:02.960 | It's an analog thing you can bring with you at your computer screen, away from your computer

00:11:07.040 | screen.

00:11:08.040 | It's open on your dresser at home.

00:11:10.080 | So if you have ideas, remember stuff, you can just jot it down on the next day's capture

00:11:14.200 | page and know you're not going to forget it.

00:11:15.800 | I love it.

00:11:16.800 | I love the new format.

00:11:18.400 | So you can buy that at Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

00:11:21.160 | But remember, it's the second edition.

00:11:22.720 | All right.

00:11:23.720 | So that's out.

00:11:24.720 | I want to get four new advanced time blocking tips.

00:11:30.940 | So you'll see in my planners, I have this big long introduction in the beginning that

00:11:34.020 | explains time blocking and has some tips.

00:11:35.800 | I'm adding four to it.

00:11:37.560 | All right.

00:11:38.880 | Number one, pre-block important or timely work on your calendar.

00:11:46.880 | So what happens with time block planning is when you make your time block plan for the

00:11:50.120 | day, you look at your weekly plan, you look at your calendar because you're going to transfer

00:11:54.260 | from your calendar any meetings or appointments you have onto your time block plan.

00:11:58.540 | What I suggest is if something is timely or important, once you know about this thing

00:12:04.080 | on your radar, consider going ahead in your calendar and actually adding non-appointment,

00:12:09.880 | non-meeting blocks onto your calendar for when you're going to get that work done.

00:12:16.040 | Right now, for example, I'm reviewing copy edits for my upcoming book, Slow Productivity.

00:12:21.960 | It's very important and very timely.

00:12:23.280 | I have a very short amount of time to turn these around.

00:12:26.040 | So what I did is when I knew what date these were coming back, I actually went in advance

00:12:30.400 | and took three big blocks of time and just scheduled it on my calendar like a meeting.

00:12:34.840 | And now when I got to those days, I just transfer that work over to my time block plan for the

00:12:38.560 | day.

00:12:39.560 | So pre-blocking time, once you're in a time block discipline mindset, pre-blocking time

00:12:45.700 | is a great way to make sure that you don't, for example, over clutter your schedule in

00:12:49.780 | times when a lot is due.

00:12:51.440 | All right.

00:12:52.440 | My second tip-

00:12:53.440 | >> So that's a little different than autopilot, right?

00:12:55.860 | >> It's different than autopilot.

00:12:56.860 | It was a good question.

00:12:58.320 | Autopilot is you're pre-scheduling work that occurs on a regular basis.

00:13:02.920 | So if you know, I always have to file a report on the last Friday of the month, you can figure

00:13:09.120 | out when and how you do that work and just set that repeating on your calendar into perpetuity.

00:13:14.340 | With pre-blocking, it's for one-off projects.

00:13:17.340 | So you're not finding a regular time to work on copy editing because it only happens once

00:13:20.860 | every few years, but you know that's really important and it's going to have a short turnaround.

00:13:24.360 | So you go protect that time in advance.

00:13:26.520 | And then because you time block, you know when you get there, that'll be safe.

00:13:30.400 | All right.

00:13:31.400 | Second tip, time block relaxation into your workday.

00:13:35.200 | Right?

00:13:36.200 | So at first you might just be putting in a half hour break.

00:13:41.640 | It's in your time block plan.

00:13:43.320 | And when you get there, you know, okay, I'm going to just completely turn off work.

00:13:47.840 | But once you're in the habit of time blocking relaxation, you'll tend to get more aggressive

00:13:53.600 | about this.

00:13:54.600 | Because see, this is the advantage of time blocking from a sustainability point of view.

00:14:00.040 | A critique, which I think is flawed of this approach is that people say, well, this is

00:14:04.080 | all about just optimizing every minute of your day.

00:14:06.880 | But time blocking can actually help you much better do the opposite.

00:14:10.600 | Once you're in the habit of, I put breaks into my day and you have control over your

00:14:15.600 | time.

00:14:17.160 | Now as your workload gets under control, you can get more aggressive about that.

00:14:21.240 | And you can say things like, you know what?

00:14:22.680 | On Wednesday, I'm going to make very efficient use of the morning and then block off three

00:14:27.320 | and a half hours to go see Oppenheimer in the afternoon.

00:14:29.920 | You can now do that with confidence because you're controlling all of your time.

00:14:33.200 | So when you can control your time, not only can you get more work into your time, into

00:14:36.840 | your day, you can also get more relaxation the day without it causing trouble.

00:14:41.160 | So just introduce the habit of many days during the week.

00:14:43.840 | I put little breaks into it.

00:14:45.920 | Once you have that habit, as you get to periods where your workload's a little less, you can

00:14:50.080 | lean into completely guilt-free, unnoticeable larger breaks.

00:14:54.920 | And that type of variation of work pacing is something that's going to make work much

00:14:59.280 | more sustainable.

00:15:00.280 | So you're not just trying to fit in work.

00:15:02.380 | Use time blocks to also fit in relaxation because you can trust that relaxation is fine,

00:15:09.280 | it's scheduled, you know when the other work's going to happen, nothing bad's going to happen

00:15:12.840 | if you turn off for a while.

00:15:14.920 | All right.

00:15:16.180 | Another advanced tip is when doing admin blocks.

00:15:19.840 | So I'm a big believer of admin blocks.

00:15:21.480 | I talk about this in the introductory material of the Time Block Planner.

00:15:26.680 | For tasks, you want to have one block in which you execute multiple things, consolidate tasks.

00:15:32.560 | All right.

00:15:33.560 | That's standard time blocking.

00:15:35.440 | What I've been experimenting with recently is having smaller admin blocks, theming the

00:15:41.520 | admin work by cognitive context.

00:15:46.460 | So what I mean by that is if you have five different tasks to do that are all related

00:15:53.700 | to different projects or different types of work, it can be more difficult than you think

00:15:58.180 | to go one, two, three, four, five and execute those.

00:16:01.760 | And the reason why it's difficult is because as you switch from one task type to another,

00:16:06.300 | your brain has to switch its cognitive context.

00:16:08.560 | Oh, we're thinking about this type of project.

00:16:10.760 | Now we have to think about like my kid's little league and some social event.

00:16:13.840 | Well, that's a completely different type of context.

00:16:15.960 | And you will notice the difficulty of this context switching.

00:16:18.760 | You will notice it subjectively as a feeling of resistance, of mental fatigue.

00:16:24.680 | So if you instead theme tasks so they're in the same cognitive context, what you'll realize

00:16:28.360 | is you get through them much faster.

00:16:30.820 | So if I'm doing four things related to social planning for the family, those four things,

00:16:36.760 | if I do them one in a row, it's going to go much more smoother because once I switch into

00:16:40.340 | that context, now I can do the three, four, five other tasks and it's going to come without

00:16:44.760 | that subjective resistance.

00:16:46.480 | And then maybe I have another small block later with a bunch of things surrounding a

00:16:50.240 | particular type of project I'm doing for work.

00:16:52.920 | Oh, I have a lot of things surrounding a conference I'm organizing.

00:16:56.080 | Let me put a 20 minute block over here where I'm just going through a bunch of those in

00:16:59.520 | a row.

00:17:00.560 | So shorter blocks of themed admin tasks is way more comfortable than having bigger blocks

00:17:07.560 | where you mix together different types of admin tasks.

00:17:10.300 | This is why the single hardest batched admin tasks that most people do on a regular basis

00:17:15.060 | is cleaning their email inbox.

00:17:17.980 | Because if you're just going through your inbox one by one, why is that so hard?

00:17:21.020 | Because you are switching context from message to message.

00:17:25.380 | So even your email inbox, you can break out into themes and say, okay, during this admin

00:17:30.380 | block, I'm doing some family related tasks and I'm responding to all emails related to

00:17:36.300 | family related tasks.

00:17:38.300 | And then later in the day when I'm doing tasks that are just related to this conference I'm

00:17:42.180 | organizing, I will then go through my inbox and handle all the emails related to that

00:17:46.140 | conference.

00:17:47.140 | And what you're going to find is those encounters with your inbox are going to go so much more

00:17:50.820 | smoothly because you are not behind the scenes trying to keep switching your cognitive context.

00:17:56.340 | All right, my fourth bit of advanced time blocking advice is whenever you put a meeting

00:18:03.060 | of any significant length or complexity onto your time block plan, add a short block after

00:18:09.940 | it for just postmortem organizing what you learned, making a plan for what to handle,

00:18:16.460 | getting the information for that meeting into your systems.

00:18:19.220 | Never let a interaction based time block be immediately followed by another time block

00:18:26.260 | focused on something different.

00:18:27.760 | You have to close down to work of meetings.

00:18:31.180 | You need 15 to 30 minutes to do this.

00:18:33.300 | Okay, the meeting is over but I have 15 to 30 protected minutes to go transform my notes

00:18:38.380 | and the tasks and to put reminders on the calendars and if there's follow up emails,

00:18:42.100 | let me just do them right now.

00:18:43.580 | Now I can completely shut down that thing.

00:18:45.860 | I don't have a ton of open loops hanging in my head as I jump from this meeting to the

00:18:49.260 | next.

00:18:50.260 | I don't have a ton of open loops in my head as I jump from this meeting right into trying

00:18:53.080 | to do deep work.

00:18:54.300 | So that should just be instinct.

00:18:56.220 | When you write a meeting time block, you put another block under it and you can even just

00:19:00.460 | I'll sometimes just shade it in.

00:19:02.380 | This little shaded in block under each of my meetings and that's the catch your breath,

00:19:08.580 | process everything that just happened in that meeting.

00:19:10.860 | Again it's going to make the whole day go smoother.

00:19:13.660 | That extra 15 or 20 minutes after every meeting makes the whole rest of the day actually make

00:19:18.580 | sense.

00:19:19.580 | All right.

00:19:20.580 | So that's my-

00:19:21.580 | >> That's the same concept.

00:19:22.580 | >> No, go ahead.

00:19:23.580 | >> That's the same concept that you always suggested with students and answering all

00:19:27.500 | their questions like after a lecture and stuff.

00:19:29.540 | >> Yeah, that's a good point.

00:19:31.100 | Right.

00:19:32.100 | I used to recommend the same thing for students that when you're taking notes in lecture,

00:19:36.500 | you clearly mark everything you didn't fully understand.

00:19:39.980 | And as soon as lecture is over, you see how many of these things can I resolve?

00:19:43.380 | I mean, I guess the first- so this is from my book, How to Become a Strategist Student.

00:19:47.420 | And I say there's multiple lines of defense for filling in these question marks.

00:19:51.780 | The first line of defense is you ask questions right away.

00:19:54.300 | Wait, I didn't get that.

00:19:56.460 | Can you say that again?

00:19:57.460 | The second line of defense is you go up to the professor right after class.

00:20:00.820 | I don't understand this.

00:20:01.820 | Can you explain it to me?

00:20:03.260 | The third line of defense is some combination of TAs, textbooks, office hours, and asking

00:20:10.580 | classmates.

00:20:11.580 | And the key is do that as soon as possible.

00:20:13.660 | Do not let the questions- don't let the questions just sit there as I don't understand this

00:20:18.340 | math technique.

00:20:19.340 | I guess I'll deal with that when I'm studying for the test a month from now.

00:20:22.860 | Close that down.

00:20:23.860 | You want to try to close down and consolidate your understanding of lectures as soon as

00:20:27.060 | possible after you encounter the lecture.

00:20:28.500 | So this is kind of similar.

00:20:29.500 | If you have a meeting, process everything related to it right away.

00:20:33.260 | Don't just let that sit and maybe tomorrow I'll remember what to do about it.

00:20:37.100 | Closing loops I think is really important for having sustainable cognitive work.

00:20:41.980 | All right, so that's time block planning.

00:20:45.860 | Good to revisit it.

00:20:47.860 | Enjoy the time block planner.

00:20:48.860 | If you want to find out more, I have a website, timeblockplanner.com.

00:20:52.860 | That has a video where I really go through and show you a lot of examples of exactly

00:20:57.300 | how time blocking works.

00:20:58.300 | You can go watch that video there and it has links to where to buy the second edition from

00:21:02.940 | Amazon.

00:21:03.940 | But I'm just- look, whether or not anyone buys it, and a lot of people are, but whether

00:21:06.900 | or not anyone buys this, I am so happy to have it because it is just a perfected tool

00:21:13.140 | for exactly this method of time management that I have so long sworn by.

00:21:18.140 | All right, so here's our plan for the rest of the episode.

00:21:20.860 | I have a bunch of questions to get to that one way or the other all have some relation

00:21:24.580 | to time block planning and time management.

00:21:28.140 | And then after that, we have a something interesting segment where it's actually going to react

00:21:32.700 | to a news article that, believe it or not, somehow connects Oppenheimer to digital distraction.

00:21:39.900 | So stay tuned for that.

00:21:40.900 | I think that is going to be interesting.

00:21:43.020 | But first I want to mention a brand new sponsor of the Deep Questions podcast.

00:21:49.860 | And that is our friends at MOSH, M-O-S-H.

00:21:53.500 | And in particular, I want to talk about the MOSH Bar.

00:22:00.460 | So with six delicious flavors, each MOSH Bar includes 12 grams of protein and is made with

00:22:06.300 | ingredients that support brain health like ashwagandha, lion's mane, collagen, and omega

00:22:12.740 | threes.

00:22:13.740 | It's 160 calories per bar, but only one gram of sugar.

00:22:18.180 | So MOSH protein bars are the guilt-free snack your brain and body will crave.

00:22:23.500 | You know, Jesse, I ate through all the ones they sent me almost immediately because these

00:22:27.220 | taste great.

00:22:28.220 | Like let's put aside the fact that they're sugar-free and they have a lot of protein

00:22:32.060 | and they're supporting cognition.

00:22:34.440 | They taste really good.

00:22:36.820 | It's a mixture of soft and crunchy, which I love.

00:22:40.020 | And the flavors are really great.

00:22:43.140 | The way I think about these type of bars is if I am in a busy time block day, I'm going

00:22:49.260 | from thing to thing, taking advantage of my time block schedule.

00:22:52.900 | And I know that I need a little bit of energy recharge to keep myself from crashing.

00:22:57.960 | The MOSH Bar is exactly the type of thing I want to grab.

00:23:00.700 | Tastes great, bunch of protein, no sugar to crash you.

00:23:03.340 | You have some lion's mane or omega threes in there, and you're able to keep that cognitive

00:23:07.900 | energy going.

00:23:09.840 | This is an interesting backstory on these bars.

00:23:15.420 | They were founded, so this company was founded by Patrick Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver.

00:23:22.160 | So MOSH is actually a mission-driven brain health and wellness company that donates a

00:23:26.480 | portion of all proceeds to support women's brain research through the women's Alzheimer's

00:23:31.900 | movement at Cleveland Clinic.

00:23:34.700 | So you also have, there's a little bit of social action built in to this company, but

00:23:42.320 | essentially this is a great choice if you want to have a snack you don't feel guilty

00:23:45.600 | about to keep your brain operating as you move through a hard schedule.

00:23:49.960 | So don't settle for a mediocre snack when you can nourish your body and mind with the

00:23:54.480 | fuel it needs to succeed.

00:23:56.440 | So whether you're at the gym, on the go, or just living your best life, MOSH protein bars

00:24:00.640 | will keep your brain and body fit, fueled, and feeling good.

00:24:03.920 | Head to moshlife.com/deep to save 20% off plus free shipping on your first six-count

00:24:12.120 | trial pack.

00:24:13.120 | That's 20% off plus free shipping on your first six-count trial pack, which includes

00:24:17.680 | all six mouth-watering flavors.

00:24:20.960 | That's M-O-S-H-L-I-F-E.com/deep.

00:24:23.960 | I also want to talk about our longtime friends at 80,000 Hours.

00:24:33.480 | 80,000 Hours is a nonprofit that aims to help people find careers that aim at solving the

00:24:40.760 | world's most pressing problems.

00:24:44.840 | People know, my longtime readers and listeners know, I'm not a big fan of simply telling

00:24:48.920 | people follow your passion.

00:24:51.440 | If you just follow your passion, you'll love your job and you'll live happily ever after.

00:24:56.000 | Careers are more complicated than that.

00:24:57.720 | And the philosophy of 80,000 Hours is what you could do with your working life instead

00:25:02.000 | of just following your passion is actually use the 80,000 Hours the average person is

00:25:07.040 | going to spend at work to make as much positive impact as possible on the world.

00:25:15.000 | This is what 80,000 Hours does.

00:25:16.560 | It is a nonprofit that aims to help you find a career that is both fulfilling but also

00:25:20.440 | makes a big positive difference.

00:25:23.680 | They have done over 10 years of research along academics at Oxford University into how to

00:25:28.040 | find a fulfilling career that does a maximum amount of good.

00:25:32.520 | I've known these guys for a long time.

00:25:34.600 | 80,000 Hours got started right around the time I published my career book, So Good They

00:25:39.760 | Can't Ignore You.

00:25:40.760 | So we've had conversations.

00:25:42.160 | I've known philosophers there at Oxford and the people at 80,000 Hours.

00:25:45.160 | I've known them for a decade now and they really are locked in.

00:25:48.760 | How can you use your career to do as much good as possible?

00:25:54.000 | Now there's a few different things.

00:25:55.200 | If you go to their, there's a few different things you can get by going to their website,

00:26:01.240 | which is 80,000hours.org/deep.

00:26:05.720 | So 80,000, which is spelled out as the numbers, 8-0-0-0-0-hours.org/deep.

00:26:13.500 | If you go to your website, they have all sorts of articles about how to find the most important,

00:26:18.720 | impactful job, things to look at, how that actually works.

00:26:21.720 | You'll also learn there about their newsletter, fantastic way to get this information sent

00:26:27.120 | to your inbox.

00:26:28.120 | You can find out they have a job board there that can help you directly find impactful

00:26:33.320 | jobs and you can learn about their podcast in which they bring on some of the world's

00:26:37.040 | smartest thinkers and get into really deep conversations.

00:26:40.520 | I really recommend their podcast a lot.

00:26:42.160 | So just go to 80,000hours.org/deep, that's 80,000hours.org/deep to learn more about how

00:26:49.800 | to use your career to make a big difference.

00:26:53.520 | All right, let's move on to some questions.

00:26:56.920 | Jesse, I think all the questions we've chosen today have at least a tangential connection

00:27:01.080 | to time blocking or time management.

00:27:03.880 | So let's get our productivity geeks hats out and put on and get rolling here.

00:27:09.960 | So what's our first question?

00:27:12.560 | Here we go.

00:27:13.560 | First question is from Piyumi.

00:27:15.760 | I live my day using time blocking combined with autopilot scheduling for my mornings.

00:27:21.360 | Every morning I do two hours of my work on my research.

00:27:23.880 | Sometimes, however, I have to stay up late and I miss my morning blocks.

00:27:27.880 | I want to know how to deal with these setbacks.

00:27:30.800 | I feel guilty for the whole day for not executing my autopilot schedule because I slept in.

00:27:35.600 | Well, we have two different related concepts to differentiate here.

00:27:41.160 | I think that's going to help you find a solution.

00:27:45.080 | So autopilot scheduling, which is what you referenced in your question here, is where

00:27:50.480 | for regularly occurring work, you have a set time on a set day and typically a set location

00:27:58.800 | for which you do that work.

00:28:00.120 | The whole idea is to take the decision of working on this out of your day to day decision

00:28:06.680 | making process.

00:28:07.680 | It's just there on your calendar.

00:28:09.560 | Tuesdays at 10, I go to this library and work on my problem set.

00:28:13.880 | That's just when I do that.

00:28:15.320 | So that's autopilot scheduling.

00:28:17.600 | Now what you're doing is maybe not exactly autopilot scheduling.

00:28:20.680 | What you're trying to do is start each morning with two hours of research.

00:28:24.680 | So it feels like an autopilot schedule because like, oh, it's work I do on the same, the

00:28:30.080 | same time every day.

00:28:31.720 | But I would say what you're really doing instead is what we might call a heuristic autopilot.

00:28:38.920 | So a heuristic autopilot is not a calendar appointment that is set to show up on a regular

00:28:46.720 | basis and you treat like any other calendar appointment, like a dentist appointment or

00:28:50.360 | a meeting.

00:28:51.360 | A heuristic autopilot is a rule.

00:28:54.560 | It's something you're going to write down on the top of your weekly plan.

00:28:57.680 | For example, a rule that you think about when you're creating your schedule for each day.

00:29:03.560 | So I think what you're really doing here is you have the heuristic autopilot that says

00:29:07.880 | when possible, spend the first hour or two of each day working on research.

00:29:14.060 | So some days that's not possible because you you're up late and you have to sleep in, but

00:29:19.640 | you're not violating an appointment on your schedule.

00:29:22.720 | So if this was an actual appointment on your schedule, this was a true autopilot schedule.

00:29:26.440 | You would treat this like a real appointment, like a meeting with your boss and you wouldn't

00:29:29.940 | say to your boss, yeah, sorry, I didn't show up.

00:29:31.640 | I slept in.

00:29:32.640 | You would have to go to that.

00:29:33.740 | But what you're doing here is more flexible.

00:29:35.200 | So that's why I call it a heuristic.

00:29:36.460 | It's a general rule for how you get a certain thing done.

00:29:41.040 | Another example of a heuristic autopilot is sometimes when I'm deep in the problem solving

00:29:46.840 | phase of a theoretical computer science paper, I'll have a heuristic that says, okay, the

00:29:51.600 | drive to work every day for the next week to the extent possible, use that to think

00:29:56.320 | about the problem.

00:29:58.480 | It's not something that's on my calendar.

00:30:00.240 | When I actually drive to work might differ based on the days, but it's a heuristic.

00:30:03.440 | Keep this rule in mind each day when you're planning out your day.

00:30:06.800 | Another heuristic autopilot.

00:30:09.080 | Sometimes I have a lot of tasks that are floating around for something that's coming up.

00:30:12.720 | I'll say 20 minutes every day dedicated only to working through tasks related to this upcoming

00:30:20.000 | thing.

00:30:21.000 | That's a heuristic autopilot.

00:30:22.000 | And then when I get to each day, I'll say, okay, I have to find where this is going to

00:30:25.480 | fit, but I'm going to try to find 20 minutes where I can work on tasks and try to do that

00:30:28.720 | every day this week.

00:30:29.720 | So I think that's going to help you here.

00:30:31.840 | You really have a heuristic, not a hard autopilot schedule.

00:30:34.640 | And once you know that you shouldn't be so worried that occasionally you don't get to

00:30:38.840 | do research in the morning.

00:30:39.920 | What matters is you're following a heuristic rule of when there's time in the morning you

00:30:43.400 | do.

00:30:45.080 | Now if you find that you're almost never actually applying this rule, that almost always you're

00:30:50.980 | sleeping in too late to get this research done.

00:30:53.680 | Well then you need to change something, right?

00:30:55.160 | That's no longer a good heuristic.

00:30:56.600 | You need to change where the research happens or you need to change your habits so you're

00:30:59.200 | not sleeping in.

00:31:00.200 | That's possible.

00:31:01.200 | But if what we're talking about here is once a week, you don't do morning research the

00:31:04.460 | other four days you do, I think it's a perfectly fine example of a heuristic autopilot schedule.

00:31:10.040 | All right, what do we got next?

00:31:13.160 | Is that similar to when you were in writing mode last summer, you would write?

00:31:19.400 | Was that heuristic?

00:31:20.400 | Or was it a little different?

00:31:21.400 | No, I think that's a fair point.

00:31:23.600 | Last summer when I was writing slow productivity, it was, you know, try to write first thing

00:31:28.820 | before we go out and do activities, you know, try to write first thing every day if possible.

00:31:32.920 | And we were on vacation.

00:31:34.600 | So last summer, we were up in Vermont, the Mad River Valley.

00:31:38.820 | Some days it was look, we got to get going early in the morning because we're taking

00:31:41.960 | the family out to see something as a couple hours away.

00:31:44.760 | And I just want to write that day.

00:31:45.920 | But it was okay.

00:31:46.920 | The default is try to just write every morning.

00:31:49.640 | And Julie was understood that schedule.

00:31:51.480 | So she's a lot of mornings like, yeah, we might go do something in the morning, I might

00:31:54.240 | take the boys to do something brief before we do our larger trip.

00:31:58.240 | And you're right, it was a heuristic.

00:31:59.800 | And I couldn't do it every day.

00:32:01.980 | But most days I tried to write first thing.

00:32:03.880 | So that was a heuristic autopilot schedule.

00:32:06.560 | And again, yeah, it's very different than these days, these hours, this location, I'm

00:32:10.240 | always doing this work.

00:32:12.200 | Okay.

00:32:13.200 | All right, moving on.

00:32:15.520 | What do we have next?

00:32:17.780 | Next question is from Moritz.

00:32:19.960 | You say that a defining feature of slow productivity is that no one day or hour is critical.

00:32:26.520 | How do you reconcile that with the urgency implicit in time blocking?

00:32:30.640 | Well, I think it is a good question.

00:32:34.320 | It seems like a contradiction, but it's actually really core to thinking about slow productivity

00:32:40.760 | and multi-scale planning.

00:32:43.120 | So time blocking, Moritz is absolutely right here, generates urgency.

00:32:48.440 | I have a time block schedule, I need to stick to the schedule.

00:32:52.380 | If this is the block I'm in, and this is how much time I have, I want to try to focus intensely

00:32:57.540 | to get this work done in the time I have.

00:33:00.040 | This is why time blocking leads to such a large increase in efficiency, because it's

00:33:05.920 | really focusing your attention and it does feel very urgent.

00:33:08.480 | Meanwhile, the defining feature of slow productivity, as Moritz says, is this sense of if I was

00:33:12.880 | sick tomorrow, it's not a big deal.

00:33:16.280 | No one day is urgent.

00:33:17.720 | What matters is I'm making regular progress on something important, and that will add

00:33:22.080 | up over time to a really big accomplishment.

00:33:25.160 | It doesn't matter if this week I was doing something else, so long as most weeks I am

00:33:28.520 | making progress on it.

00:33:30.120 | It sounds like a contradiction, but I actually think they fit together quite well, because

00:33:33.440 | what this is saying is when you choose to work, do that work with urgent efficiency.

00:33:41.840 | So from the slow productivity scale, that means, okay, if I'm going to write today,

00:33:46.120 | when you write, block that off and write intensely.

00:33:48.480 | Give it your full concentration.

00:33:49.480 | Then when you're done, be done.

00:33:50.720 | And if I'm not going to write today because something came up or I'm not feeling well,

00:33:54.880 | which is slow productivity says is perfectly fine, then you're just not putting aside any

00:33:58.300 | time to write, and that's fine as well.

00:34:00.320 | So really what the urgency of time blocking is saying is not that you should always be

00:34:04.640 | urgent, but that if you're going to work, work with focus.

00:34:08.040 | If you're going to work, work with urgency.

00:34:11.460 | Do it all out.

00:34:12.460 | Be done when you're done.

00:34:13.460 | Now, when you work and how much you work and what you work on, those are all decisions

00:34:16.600 | that slow productivity can help you make more sustainably.

00:34:20.480 | This is why, for example, I say time block relaxation, have some days be shorter than

00:34:24.840 | others.

00:34:25.840 | Don't time block your weekends, because when you're executing a time block schedule, you're

00:34:29.360 | executing with intensity and urgency, and that can get draining after a while.

00:34:32.760 | So you want to use this tool.

00:34:34.200 | You want to use it carefully and make sure that it's balanced off with non-time blocking

00:34:37.720 | time.

00:34:38.720 | But I don't think there's any scenario.

00:34:39.720 | If we flip this around, I don't think there's any scenario where it makes sense to say when

00:34:43.840 | you work, do so haphazardly and without intention.

00:34:49.880 | That's not going to make you feel more relaxed.

00:34:52.760 | It's going to make your work take longer.

00:34:55.120 | It's going to make your work feel more stressful because you can't get your arm around everything.

00:34:59.240 | It is not going to make you more relaxed to have a more relaxed attitude to the execution

00:35:04.640 | of work.

00:35:05.640 | And then maybe that's paradoxical, but it's not really.

00:35:07.960 | So being very structured and intentional about when you work, when you work actually can

00:35:11.280 | support much better at larger scales, a more natural pacing, up, downs, up periods and

00:35:18.400 | down periods, busy weeks and non-busy weeks, busy days, non-busy days.

00:35:22.240 | So the urgency in the moment, I think, allows for more peace and relaxation over the long

00:35:28.080 | haul.

00:35:29.080 | All right.

00:35:30.080 | What do we got next, Jesse?

00:35:34.840 | Next question is from John.

00:35:36.880 | How would you suggest consuming internet articles mindfully as a busy working parent?

00:35:42.040 | I don't use social media and I try to time block my consumption to 1.5 hours in the evenings,

00:35:48.080 | three evenings a week.

00:35:49.800 | There's so much high value content coming in every day.

00:35:52.480 | I can't keep up with these blocks and the growing list of unread articles in my queue

00:35:57.440 | stresses me out.

00:35:59.400 | Well, John, maybe this won't surprise you.

00:36:03.720 | I think Jesse knows probably what I'm going to say.

00:36:06.680 | I'm going to say you don't need to spend four to five hours a week reading internet articles.

00:36:14.960 | And what I would suggest is let's take a 30-day exercise here, a 30-day exercise where you

00:36:21.680 | essentially read no internet articles.

00:36:23.920 | All right.

00:36:24.920 | This is an experiment I'm going to suggest that you do.

00:36:28.320 | So if you want to keep up with the news, listen to a news summary podcast, that's fine.

00:36:34.080 | And you can keep listening to podcasts.

00:36:35.800 | That's fine.

00:36:36.800 | Like when you're driving somewhere or walking, you can listen to interesting podcasts like

00:36:39.120 | ours.

00:36:40.120 | That's fine.

00:36:41.160 | But don't read any articles.

00:36:43.200 | No social media posts that have gone viral, no New York Times piece that a lot of people

00:36:48.400 | are emailing around.

00:36:50.160 | Just I'm not reading internet content.

00:36:53.560 | Listen to podcasts when I have free time and put that energy instead towards reading stuff

00:36:58.000 | that's less current, reading books, spending time and going slower with deeper ideas that

00:37:03.800 | have been more thought through.

00:37:05.360 | Here's what I think you're going to find after 30 days.

00:37:08.160 | You are absolutely fine having not read all those four hours or five hours a week of online

00:37:12.720 | time.

00:37:14.480 | That you're informed enough and you don't need all these other takes, that you're less

00:37:17.560 | stressed, that you're more relaxed, and that your brain actually feels much more improved

00:37:23.840 | having spent time instead with the slow consumption of media.

00:37:29.360 | Spending a whole week just reading one book and just enjoying one idea and thinking it

00:37:34.400 | through.

00:37:35.400 | I mean, I think the issue here, the issue here that we're combating, this is very common

00:37:39.520 | mindset that I think John is expressing quite clearly.

00:37:43.840 | This very common mindset that we need to be fast consumers of many multifaceted streams

00:37:49.520 | of information.

00:37:52.240 | And I reject that as actually being fundamental to having a fulfilling and effective intellectual

00:37:56.800 | life.

00:37:58.080 | Now if we look to someone like Neil Postman, a cultural critic like Neil Postman, we'll

00:38:01.680 | see warnings about this.

00:38:03.080 | What does Neil Postman argue, for example, in Amusing Ourselves to Death?

00:38:08.080 | He says the dominant media technologies of a given era will change the way we conceive

00:38:15.960 | of cognition.

00:38:16.960 | It will change the way we conceive of our place in a information landscape.

00:38:21.480 | And this is exactly what's happening now.

00:38:24.100 | Social media platforms and the online attention economy more generally is built on this idea

00:38:31.480 | of high velocity of content.

00:38:33.640 | High velocity of interesting content is what keeps people engaged, is what allows them

00:38:37.440 | to show more advertisements to you and to gather more data about you.

00:38:41.240 | And so as we shift to that media landscape, we changed our conception of what it means

00:38:45.000 | to be a consumer of information.

00:38:47.160 | We say, well, this is what it means to be a consumer of information.

00:38:49.760 | You have all these fragmented constant streams of information.

00:38:52.640 | It's like you're a producer at a news program that has to constantly be checking on all

00:38:57.440 | the wire services to see what breaking news is happening, what you need to know.

00:39:01.600 | But you go back even 25 years and this would be seen as idiosyncratic and eccentric.

00:39:08.240 | Why are you jumping around to all these articles?

00:39:10.960 | This is not how we consume information.

00:39:12.400 | We see the daily news and read books.

00:39:16.120 | And so keep in mind this thought that I have to keep up with all this fragmented streams

00:39:20.460 | of information.

00:39:21.600 | That is an artifact of particular tools that were introduced in the last 10 to 15 years

00:39:26.760 | as more effective ways to sell advertisements.

00:39:29.120 | Ignore that.

00:39:30.120 | I think you're going to be perfectly happy and comfortable returning to a prior generation's

00:39:36.120 | understanding of information, which is slower, better, and more consolidated.

00:39:43.320 | I read a book.

00:39:45.040 | I just took in the news of the day from one source, a newspaper, a news podcast.

00:39:51.920 | Instead of reading 10 articles, I listened to one 90-minute podcast.

00:39:56.280 | So slower but better.

00:39:58.240 | Slow media consumption is what we did until essentially a minute ago as consumers of media.

00:40:05.920 | So you'll be completely fine returning to it.

00:40:07.320 | So do this experiment, John.

00:40:08.320 | And I think you'll find, "Oh, I don't need to be looking at all this internet information

00:40:11.720 | anyways."

00:40:12.720 | And you are going to be more relaxed.

00:40:14.000 | You're going to feel less cataclysmic.

00:40:17.300 | You're going to feel less as if everything's falling apart.

00:40:19.880 | You're going to feel just your heart rate start to settle.

00:40:22.880 | And your brain's going to wake up to, "Oh, I really like devouring information carefully

00:40:27.920 | and slowly.

00:40:28.920 | This is a little bit more comfortable for my neural apparatus."

00:40:31.400 | So try this experiment.

00:40:33.960 | I think you're going to find a slower, better approach to media consumption to be something

00:40:37.560 | that is much better, a much better experience for you.

00:40:42.440 | What about New Yorker articles?

00:40:45.000 | New Yorker articles are good.

00:40:46.320 | I like that.

00:40:47.320 | You follow my rule of at least one article from each week's magazine.

00:40:54.440 | Hard copy or internet, doesn't matter.

00:40:56.000 | You can read it online, right?

00:40:57.560 | Yeah, you can do it either way.

00:41:00.960 | Subscribe to the hard copy if you can.

00:41:02.920 | Otherwise, if you're a subscriber, so now I'm in promotion mode, Jesse, because I just

00:41:09.120 | upped my contract for another year to be a contributor at the New Yorker.

00:41:12.000 | So now I'm sales mode.

00:41:14.440 | If you're a subscriber, you can sign up for an email that says, "This week in the magazine."

00:41:19.520 | And it shows you, "Here's the articles in the magazine," and you can, all linked.

00:41:22.760 | So you can read them online.

00:41:24.240 | And the other thing you need to follow is anytime I publish an article.

00:41:28.720 | And when I publish an article, you should read that and share it.

00:41:32.040 | And I don't want to put too much of a burden on you, but share it with like 700 or 800

00:41:36.080 | of your closest friends.

00:41:38.300 | And demand that they read it a couple times from different browsers so that it registers

00:41:42.540 | as unique reads.

00:41:44.880 | I'm joking about that.

00:41:45.880 | Actually, I have no idea how many times each of my articles get read.

00:41:49.880 | It's one of the great things about the New Yorker is it's just write the best article

00:41:52.680 | you can that you're interested in.

00:41:54.400 | And we're happy that you did that.

00:41:55.640 | You don't even, there's no discussion of what was your readership number.

00:42:00.040 | But anyways, slow media, better, slower.

00:42:04.320 | It really is.

00:42:05.320 | It's just a nicer way.

00:42:06.320 | I mean, could you imagine Jesse, four hours a week of just constant short articles?

00:42:10.800 | I mean, that must be 500 articles.

00:42:14.680 | I don't know.

00:42:15.680 | Could you imagine?

00:42:16.680 | Because online stuff is so short and the skim is so massive.

00:42:20.560 | Well, I think it, when I first read that, I love that question, by the way.

00:42:25.200 | When I first read it, I was thinking, oh, I read some of the New Yorker articles online

00:42:31.760 | and that can take an hour or whatever, depending on how long it is.

00:42:35.420 | Like that Gagosian one was like 20 pages.

00:42:37.240 | I read that hard copy, but whatever.

00:42:39.440 | So I didn't know he was necessarily talking about short articles because you could read

00:42:44.800 | a lot of long form stuff too.

00:42:47.120 | But it's right.

00:42:48.120 | I mean, it could go up.

00:42:50.200 | I think a good long form strategy, I think the mindset that John has, which is common

00:42:54.720 | right now, is this breadth mindset.

00:42:57.320 | I need to read everything that's interesting to me.

00:43:01.080 | And I like the depth mindset.

00:43:02.080 | So if you just choose a, let's say you choose a magazine, I choose the New Yorker.

00:43:07.600 | You're like, I want to read one really good article a week.

00:43:11.200 | This is not a strategy of, I want to make sure I've read everything good and interesting

00:43:14.320 | that came out this week.

00:43:15.320 | It's a strategy of, I want to have the experience of reading a really good article each week.

00:43:18.940 | It's not focused on breadth, it's focused on depth.

00:43:21.120 | So you could pick another magazine.

00:43:22.960 | Maybe you're a Harper's person or maybe you're more into fiction and so it's like McSweeney's

00:43:30.460 | or something or whatever it is.

00:43:33.320 | But maybe you pick a publication.

00:43:34.800 | I want to just take one article, I'm going to print it and sit outside and spend 30 minutes

00:43:41.080 | and read it once a week.

00:43:42.960 | That's a depth strategy.

00:43:43.960 | You're like, I want to make sure I encounter multiple great things each week.

00:43:48.840 | And it's a very different mindset than, I want to make sure that I read everything that

00:43:51.480 | could potentially be interesting.

00:43:52.800 | And again, social media, I think, changed our culture to create that media landscape

00:43:58.280 | in part because the form of social media is many things coming at you.

00:44:02.280 | But also in part is that the way that it subtly monetizes information.

00:44:08.840 | So even if you were not a professional social media influencer, it changes your relationship

00:44:14.920 | to information of, I want to stockpile as many interesting ideas and articles and takes

00:44:19.900 | as I can because that's valuable because I could be posting that and I could be getting

00:44:23.120 | likes for that.

00:44:24.420 | And it gives us this idea of, you want to accumulate interesting ideas and links as

00:44:29.820 | you would gold as a prospector.

00:44:31.820 | And the slow media consumption model is very different.

00:44:34.280 | This is what you're prioritizing is not stockpiling as many interesting takes as possible.

00:44:39.260 | It's having as many experiences of deep encounters with ideas as possible.

00:44:44.480 | And a deep encounter with an idea might be you're reading a 7,000 word New Yorker piece

00:44:50.620 | and it takes you an hour.

00:44:51.620 | And it's one article you read, but it's not the amount of content that matters.

00:44:56.140 | It's the duration of this experience of having a deep encounter with something.

00:45:01.300 | Yep.

00:45:02.300 | All right, what do we got next?

00:45:07.140 | Next question is from Nate.

00:45:08.700 | I'm trying to implement time block planning.

00:45:11.380 | It works to some degree, but I often find myself struggling to really stick to my plan.

00:45:16.380 | The reality is I have no short time deadlines or people checking on my progress.

00:45:20.700 | So it's hard to mentally give my plan binding force when there are no consequences for not

00:45:25.660 | sticking to it.

00:45:27.140 | Well, this is one of the other advantages of time block planning that I actually didn't

00:45:32.020 | list this in the opening segment, but I think it's really critical.

00:45:36.700 | It consolidates where you need discipline.

00:45:41.420 | So if you're not using time block planning, if you just have a to-do list and, "Hey, what

00:45:45.180 | should I work on and try to make progress on things?"

00:45:47.700 | You have a independent disciplined relationship with all the different type of work you do.

00:45:54.460 | So maybe you're pretty successful at answering questions from your boss.

00:45:59.620 | Okay, so when you're telling yourself, "I want to go answer questions from my boss,"

00:46:02.740 | because you don't want to disappoint her, you're thinking, "Okay, I'm pretty disciplined

00:46:06.260 | in doing that."

00:46:07.260 | But when it comes to working on a long-term optional project that over time might really

00:46:12.460 | help your career, but no one's forcing you to do it, you may find that your disciplined

00:46:17.460 | relationship with that type of work is much worse because you keep saying, "Look, it doesn't

00:46:20.820 | matter if I don't do it today," and it sort of feels good to procrastinate on it.

00:46:25.500 | Time block planning consolidates all of that discipline to a single decision.

00:46:30.540 | Do I follow my time block plan or not?

00:46:33.960 | That's the single decision you have to make.

00:46:36.420 | Am I someone who follows my time block plan or do I not?

00:46:40.740 | And once you have trained yourself, and we'll get to that in a second how to do that, but

00:46:44.220 | once you have trained yourself to reliably follow your time block plan to the best of

00:46:50.040 | your abilities, you now get to apply that developed discipline on all the different

00:46:55.980 | type of work you do because blocks are agnostic.

00:46:59.460 | So this block might be answering emails from your boss, this block might be working on

00:47:02.540 | this really big project, this block might be exercising.

00:47:05.620 | You just execute your blocks.

00:47:06.860 | You do not have to have a separate conversation with yourself, a separate negotiation with

00:47:11.940 | yourself for each of these different activities.

00:47:13.980 | The only negotiation you had is I'm a time blocker or I'm not.

00:47:18.200 | So it focuses your disciplined efforts.

00:47:19.860 | Now when you're focusing your discipline on one thing, following a time block plan or

00:47:23.540 | not, it's much easier to train and develop.

00:47:27.180 | There's just this one habit that you're trying to actually develop.

00:47:30.020 | And how do you actually train it?

00:47:31.640 | Get a physical time block plan.

00:47:33.220 | You can use my planner, use whatever, your own notebook.

00:47:36.360 | Have a physical artifact for your time block plans.

00:47:39.200 | Have a simple metric that you track every day right there on top of your plan.

00:47:44.140 | So if you're using my time block planner, here I'll show this on the screen, every day

00:47:49.580 | has a metric tracking space at the top.

00:47:53.140 | Just have a simple metric like TB checkmark or something like this or TBX.

00:47:58.460 | We put TB checkmark if you more or less followed your time block plan and TBX if you didn't.

00:48:03.940 | Or a checkmark in a circle if you followed your time block plan and X in a circle if

00:48:07.320 | you didn't.

00:48:08.380 | And just have this simple bit of clear feedback.

00:48:13.260 | So you have a, here's where I do the time blocking.

00:48:14.960 | This is with me every day.

00:48:15.960 | It's by my desk.

00:48:16.960 | And every day I put an X or a checkmark.

00:48:19.920 | That's a real quick way.

00:48:20.920 | That feedback, that sensory feedback will probably be enough for you to pretty quickly

00:48:25.940 | develop the habit of I want to put down the checkmark each day.

00:48:28.780 | It's not that hard to do.

00:48:29.780 | Okay, let me just follow this stupid plan.

00:48:31.380 | You do that for a couple of weeks, you'll probably be good at this.

00:48:33.500 | This is no, this technique I'm telling you here is nothing special.

00:48:36.060 | This is just pure James Clear atomic habits.

00:48:39.100 | You make it easier, right?

00:48:41.420 | Here's my planner.

00:48:42.420 | This is just for time block planning.

00:48:43.780 | It's always next to me.

00:48:45.660 | And you find a little bit of feedback.

00:48:46.980 | So you have some sort of tactile feedback, drawing an X or drawing a checkmark.

00:48:50.780 | So you get that bit of feedback and then you just let our brains habit apparatus go loose

00:48:55.140 | and you'll develop that discipline.

00:48:57.100 | But because you're only focusing on one thing, you're really getting a huge bang for your

00:49:01.300 | buck.

00:49:02.300 | This one talk about atomic habits, this one habit I time block.

00:49:05.500 | If at all possible, I follow my time block plan is going to explode into so many other

00:49:10.380 | things.

00:49:11.380 | It's going to unlock everything else you want to do because you can put these different

00:49:15.380 | initiatives into your time block plan and know they'll get executed.

00:49:19.780 | So I'm going to reject the premise, Nate, that you know, you're just bad at sticking

00:49:24.540 | with plans.

00:49:25.620 | Train that, train that carefully.

00:49:28.880 | It is worth the effort because everything else good, or at least I should say so many

00:49:33.900 | other good things are going to follow if you become someone who actually sticks with their

00:49:37.560 | time block plan.

00:49:38.560 | We call this sometimes meta productivity habits, a single habit that leads to many other habits

00:49:43.180 | that are very useful.

00:49:44.740 | So train that targeted discipline and a lot of good will come from it.

00:49:49.140 | All right, I think we have time for one more question.

00:49:55.780 | >> Sounds good.

00:49:56.780 | We have a question from Matt.

00:49:58.460 | As a software engineer utilizing dozens of tools at my fingertips all day and every day,

00:50:03.420 | I need clarification about the strange dichotomy displayed in your podcast.

00:50:07.780 | How can you be a computer science professor yet not so savvy with the technologies used

00:50:12.580 | for your podcast?

00:50:13.980 | Not to mention the fact that you use a paper planner for time blocking?

00:50:17.740 | >> Well, I included this question so that I could compare myself again to Robert Oppenheimer.

00:50:23.500 | So okay, let's go back, go back in and watch Oppenheimer or read American Prometheus, the

00:50:30.020 | biography.

00:50:31.020 | And what are you going to see?

00:50:32.020 | In physics, there was two big groups, right?

00:50:36.780 | So there was the theorist, this was Oppenheimer, he was the leader of theoretical quantum physics.

00:50:42.820 | And then you had the experimentalist as personified in the movie with Josh Hartnett's portrayal

00:50:48.540 | of Lawrence at Berkeley, who built the first cyclotron and actually builds things.

00:50:52.940 | Well, computer science has that same split.

00:50:55.960 | There's the theorist who sit there with pencil and paper and whiteboards and do theory on

00:51:00.780 | what's possible or not possible with computers that do theory on the expected performance

00:51:05.780 | of a particular algorithm.

00:51:07.900 | We don't use computers, we do math.

00:51:10.220 | We do applied mathematics.

00:51:12.220 | So I am the Oppenheimer side in computer science.

00:51:16.340 | I'm on the Oppenheimer side, not the Lawrence side.

00:51:19.060 | So this is why I'm bad at technologies is I'm essentially a glorified math person.

00:51:23.380 | And when you train in the theory group at MIT, you use your computers to write up your

00:51:27.900 | papers and that's it.

00:51:28.900 | We don't touch compilers, we don't write code.

00:51:32.100 | To a computer scientist, even a systems computer scientist, and this is something people often

00:51:35.700 | get wrong, computer programming, for example, is to a computer science what microscopes

00:51:41.180 | are to a biologist.

00:51:42.180 | Oh, it's a useful tool.

00:51:45.460 | But to say, oh, computer science is about being a computer programmers, like going up

00:51:49.380 | to a biologist, like, oh, so you're like a microscope technician, you're really good

00:51:52.540 | at focusing and using microscopes, like, no, I understand how organisms work.

00:51:57.180 | So this is why I'm not great at technology, because I'm a Oppenheimer style, theoretical

00:52:01.100 | computer scientist.

00:52:02.100 | You know, again, between me and Oppenheimer, we have had a big impact on the world if you

00:52:07.820 | sort of average out all of her contributions.

00:52:11.500 | But why do I, I want to separate out why do I use a paper planner for my time block planning?

00:52:18.260 | It simply works better.

00:52:20.960 | So as we just talked about in the last question, so moving away from computer science, just

00:52:25.020 | talking about time block planning.

00:52:27.620 | The atomic habit of productivity that's going to unlock so many others is I am a time blocking

00:52:33.140 | person I follow my plan I make for the day.

00:52:35.300 | And if you're going to do this, it is very, very helpful to have a dedicated artifact

00:52:40.260 | that is only for planning.

00:52:42.180 | So that you can just have this artifact with you wherever you go, you can open it at your

00:52:46.780 | desk, it's not an app or something on your computer that you might or might turn off

00:52:50.300 | like any other app or thing you might turn or might or might not turn off is a dedicated

00:52:54.940 | special purpose artifact and it fits right there in front of you, you're signaling to

00:52:58.780 | yourself this is something I do.

00:53:00.540 | If you're instead saying, well, you know, I have some tool on my computer, you're like,

00:53:03.820 | I have a ton of tools on my computer.

00:53:06.380 | And yes, I'm not using this one right now, just like I'm not using this one right now,

00:53:09.420 | it doesn't get to your core identity.

00:53:10.780 | But if you own this thing, here's a specialized notebook I use for time blocking, it signals

00:53:16.900 | to yourself, I'm someone who time blocks.

00:53:19.820 | And these little psychological differences matter, and it makes you more likely to develop

00:53:25.180 | that atomic habit of sticking to your time block plan, whatever it is.

00:53:28.940 | So there's two parts of my answer.

00:53:30.100 | Part number one, yeah, I'm bad at technology because I'm a theoretician.

00:53:33.060 | I'm Oppenheimer, more or less.

00:53:37.020 | The second part of it is why time block plan with a planner.

00:53:39.620 | And I would say even if I was a Lawrence character, even if I was a hacker, even if I wrote compilers

00:53:44.300 | and wrote code all day, I would still use a paper planner for time block planning, because

00:53:47.860 | I want to signal to myself, I take this seriously.

00:53:50.260 | And it's very, very important that my mind thinks of myself as a disciplined time block

00:53:55.260 | planner because so much else is made available by that single decision.

00:54:00.660 | All right, so that's questions.

00:54:04.980 | I want to move on to a final segment here.

00:54:07.980 | Before I do, let me briefly mention another longtime sponsor of the show.

00:54:12.060 | And that is our friends at ExpressVPN.

00:54:16.060 | So here's the thing, when you access the internet, the site or service you're using to access

00:54:22.020 | the internet sees who you're talking to.

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00:54:29.180 | the right software can read the packets you're sending to that access point out of the air

00:54:33.260 | and see exactly what websites you're talking to.

00:54:37.220 | If you're at home connected through a cable modem, the cable company sees exactly what

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00:55:06.380 | And you tell that VPN server in an encrypted body of your packet, here's who I really want

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00:55:12.220 | And that VPN server talks to that site or service on your behalf, encrypts the response,

00:55:17.100 | and then passes it back to you.

00:55:18.960 | So what is the people sniffing your packet see?

00:55:20.980 | What is the cable company looking at your packet see?

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00:55:36.980 | And I'm telling you, they really do sell this.

00:55:39.540 | The information came out recently that some of these companies are selling this information

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00:55:49.740 | So if you use a VPN, you're saying no one gets to know this.

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00:58:41.700 | All right, so I have one final segment here where I want to react to something that a

00:58:47.700 | reader sent me to our interesting@calnewport.com email address.

00:58:52.980 | So I'm going to bring up this article.

00:58:53.980 | I'm going to share it on the screen.

00:58:56.500 | So again, if you're listening, you can see the video for this episode at thedeeplife.com.

00:59:04.640 | Go to watch and go to episode 261, or you can find this, the full episode at youtube.com/calnewportmedia.

00:59:10.460 | All right, so the article I want to talk about comes from the Washington Post.

00:59:17.720 | It's written by Sophia Andrade and J'Nai Kingsbury.

00:59:23.020 | Here is the headline, "Bad Behavior at Barbenheimer Reflects a Worrying Trend."

00:59:32.800 | So Barbenheimer, of course, is the media term for the last few weeks where we've had Barbie

00:59:38.940 | and Oppenheimer opening at the same time, bringing in record business.

00:59:43.200 | So it's the box office size, the cumulative box office size of the last month or so has

00:59:49.660 | been some of the biggest we've seen, I think the last time the box office was this big

00:59:54.060 | was when Avengers Endgame came out, or Infinity War, one of the big Avengers movies.

01:00:00.020 | So a lot of people are returning to the movies.

01:00:03.240 | Many more people are seeing movies in recent weeks than they have been in years, which

01:00:07.620 | is good.

01:00:09.280 | But as this article says, there have been a lot of reports of bad behavior in movie

01:00:16.860 | theaters as if people have forgotten how to actually see movies.

01:00:23.780 | Now a lot of the examples in this article are clearly anecdotal and strange.

01:00:28.260 | Like the example I have up here right now on the screen is of a showing of Barbie in

01:00:33.700 | which someone was just sitting in the crowd fully naked.

01:00:36.980 | And there's this whole thing about how the security guards were saying, "Dude, you cannot

01:00:41.220 | be naked in here."

01:00:42.220 | And the guy was all confused and upset that he couldn't be naked in the theater.

01:00:45.420 | He was getting all worked up.

01:00:46.580 | Look, that's a crazy example.

01:00:48.340 | I don't think that's representing a trend that people forgot you're not supposed to

01:00:51.820 | be naked in the movie theater.

01:00:55.100 | But I think more general here is people being on their phones all the time.

01:01:01.180 | That's actually the piece I want to focus.

01:01:02.740 | I'm going to scroll down here to a quote about this, but I think this is the thing I want

01:01:07.780 | to focus on here.

01:01:08.780 | All right, so here we go.

01:01:11.060 | The bad behavior wasn't limited to energized Barbie audiences either.

01:01:16.660 | Saw Oppenheimer last night in one of the worst behaved crowds I've ever been in.

01:01:20.500 | Multiple camera flashes throughout.

01:01:22.620 | People in front of us scrolling TikTok halfway through the film.

01:01:26.900 | User Silvergelpin wrote this weekend on Twitter.

01:01:31.060 | If you don't have the attention span for a three-hour movie, don't leave the house to

01:01:34.220 | attend one.

01:01:37.580 | Others chimed in with their own experiences.

01:01:39.340 | Let me find one more quote from here that I liked.

01:01:43.620 | All right, so here is Roxanne Cohen-Silver, a professor of psychology at the University

01:01:50.100 | of California at Irvine, who's an expert on stress, who was saying, "It's clear that the

01:01:58.500 | past three years have been challenging for many people in our country.

01:02:03.540 | The combination of pandemic, inflation, mass shooting, climate-related disasters, political

01:02:06.940 | polarization, and so on has taxed our capacity to cope.

01:02:09.940 | It is important to recognize this reality as we examine behavior this summer."

01:02:14.460 | All right, here's another quote here.

01:02:17.860 | Others are calling out cell phone culture and a constant self-centered need for stimulation.

01:02:21.380 | "For the entire history of theaters, people were able to pay attention.

01:02:24.660 | The only difference now is the phones," tweeted NBC News tech and culture reporter Kat Tinbarge.

01:02:29.820 | All right, so what's going on here is a lot of people came back to the theaters.

01:02:35.940 | There's a lot of bad behavior.

01:02:37.660 | I think a lot of this we can just chalk up to the fact that it was a cultural event to

01:02:42.660 | go see these movies, especially the Barbie movie, and it became a scene.

01:02:46.860 | The movie itself was a party, and you would dress up, and people were drinking and bringing

01:02:50.740 | wine into the theaters.

01:02:52.900 | That's so specific to this particular cultural event.

01:02:55.300 | I'm not so worried about that representing some big change.

01:02:58.780 | I don't think every movie going forward we're going to be like this, but I think these reports

01:03:02.180 | of people on their phones all the time, people taking pictures of what's happening on the

01:03:07.380 | movie screen, people doing TikTok videos in the screenings, the fact that reports of this

01:03:12.340 | are up I think is interesting.

01:03:14.940 | We have two competing, those quotes I read, we have two competing explanations for this.

01:03:18.780 | We have the one quote that says, "Well, everyone's traumatized, and they just don't know how

01:03:21.660 | to cope, and that's why we're seeing this weird behavior."

01:03:24.580 | The other is saying, "Our attention span is down because of phones.

01:03:29.940 | We're more narcissistic because of phones.

01:03:32.260 | We don't want to be away from phone information, and we find documenting ourselves and getting

01:03:36.580 | attention online is more important than anyone else's experience."

01:03:40.540 | This latter one, this won't surprise you, this latter explanation is the one that I

01:03:44.140 | think probably makes the most sense.

01:03:48.160 | So what I think has happened is in general, addictive, highly salient, and attractive

01:03:56.920 | content delivered to us on phones has in general lowered people's attention spans, has in

01:04:02.460 | general made it hard for people to consume long-form content because they're so used

01:04:07.240 | to being able to TikTok switch at the slightest hint of boredom.

01:04:12.580 | Now this hadn't affected movies as much because especially in the last couple of years, movie

01:04:17.060 | viewership has been more self-selected.

01:04:19.460 | There's nerds like me who love movies, who I was as early as I could in the pandemic,

01:04:25.060 | I was back in the theaters wearing my mask at the time, like I want to see movies.

01:04:29.040 | But a lot of people just stopped going to the movies.

01:04:30.940 | The people who did were really interested in movies.

01:04:33.260 | Well now that we have widely attractive movies coming back again, we have Barbie, we have

01:04:39.140 | Oppenheimer, a lot of people are coming to the theater who aren't just movie geeks and

01:04:43.860 | their broken attention span comes through.

01:04:48.060 | Now you might say, "Wait a second, there have been hit movies since the pandemic."

01:04:51.780 | Yes, but a lot of those have been superhero movies.

01:04:54.500 | And this is a point that was made in that Washington Post article.

01:04:57.740 | Superhero movies are actually made for shorter attention spans.

01:05:00.260 | It's boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

01:05:01.820 | It moves through.

01:05:02.820 | There's a lot of IP references.

01:05:04.940 | It really holds onto your attention in a way that the people who are interested in superhero

01:05:09.700 | movies, even with lowered attention spans, you can probably make it through without periods

01:05:14.460 | of boredom.

01:05:16.060 | But Barbie is written by Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach.

01:05:19.460 | It's not all, there's periods of discussion and interesting stuff and subtle commentary.

01:05:24.020 | Oppenheimer's three hours long.

01:05:25.460 | These are not superhero movies.

01:05:28.100 | Then we're really seeing, we bring broad audiences back to lack of attention span.

01:05:31.620 | So I just want to use this to go back and emphasize a key point I made in my book, Deep

01:05:36.380 | Work, which is that it's really important to embrace boredom.

01:05:43.620 | And the argument I made in that book is not that boredom is in itself valuable.

01:05:50.220 | Instead, the thing that is dangerous is teaching your brain that at the slightest hint of a

01:05:58.100 | boredom, it immediately gets a stimuli.

01:06:01.420 | If your brain always has that experience, you are going to build up a Pavlovian response

01:06:05.640 | to boredom that says, as soon as I feel bored, where's my shiny digital treat.

01:06:10.220 | I need to see something on my phone to make that feeling go away.

01:06:13.400 | And if your brain has that connection, it can't sit through Barbie.

01:06:17.240 | It can't sit through Oppenheimer.

01:06:19.740 | It has to look at the phone.

01:06:21.500 | So the reason why I suggest embrace boredom is because what you're doing is breaking that

01:06:24.940 | cycle.

01:06:25.940 | So if on a regular basis, you expose yourself to some sort of long form concentrated experience

01:06:30.800 | where you maybe feel some boredom, but you don't give in, you're teaching your brain.

01:06:35.140 | That's okay.

01:06:36.140 | So the goal is not to be bored all the time.

01:06:39.600 | The goal is to be bored enough that it's familiar.

01:06:44.660 | And so if you've done this, then when you go to see a three hour movie, you can make

01:06:48.380 | it through without looking at your phone.

01:06:49.540 | You're like, I do this a couple of times a week.

01:06:51.340 | I'm used to this.

01:06:52.340 | That's okay.

01:06:53.340 | So I want to flip this around though and say, actually, movies themselves might be one of

01:06:59.380 | the more palatable, fun ways to train boredom.

01:07:04.180 | Go to the movie theater without your phone.

01:07:07.980 | Leave your phone in the car, in the parking lot, you know, hidden in your glove compartment

01:07:12.100 | or turn it to airplane mode or turn it completely off and give it to your friend who's sitting

01:07:17.240 | with you and just sit and watch a movie.

01:07:20.060 | Now you will feel boredom if you haven't been practicing, but you don't have a phone accessible

01:07:24.100 | to actually check and you'll be able to power through that boredom because you're watching

01:07:28.100 | a movie and it's brilliantly constructed and it's really interesting and there's a 50 foot

01:07:32.000 | screen in front of you, right?

01:07:33.000 | It's not that hard.

01:07:34.000 | So I actually think movies are a great tool to practice this technique of embracing boredom.

01:07:40.660 | If you can sit through a movie at home or at a movie theater once a week and not look

01:07:45.740 | at your phone, you will see benefits in all of the sorts of things you do in your life.

01:07:50.380 | So I'm flipping this around.

01:07:51.380 | I think the fact that we're seeing people behaving poorly at movies, we say, well, movies

01:07:57.020 | can actually be the savior of this bad behavior we're seeing at movies.

01:08:01.620 | Return to your theaters and use movies.

01:08:03.900 | See things that, you know, it's not your absolute favorite movie.

01:08:07.100 | See it without your phone, without your phone easily accessible.

01:08:09.740 | Let this be a really natural way to re-engage with the ability to sustain concentration

01:08:15.240 | without needing a shiny treat.

01:08:17.580 | You know, Jesse, Julie and I used to do this all the time before we had kids because we're

01:08:21.140 | big cinephiles.

01:08:22.660 | We would see everything.

01:08:23.660 | I kind of missed that period.

01:08:26.020 | We lived walkable to the movie theater, the big AMC on Boston Common.

01:08:30.380 | We would just see everything and some movies were better than others.

01:08:33.060 | If there's any reasonable movie out, you know, we go twice a week to see every movie.

01:08:37.820 | I'm suggesting people return to a little bit of that rhythm if they can.

01:08:40.660 | I just see lots of movies as a way of practicing focus without it being just complete white

01:08:45.220 | knuckle boredom.

01:08:47.240 | Also, I want movies to do well.

01:08:51.040 | So there we go.

01:08:52.040 | By the way, I didn't see any behavior like this when I saw Oppenheimer, but I did see

01:08:55.820 | it at noon on a weekday in Hanover, New Hampshire.

01:08:59.380 | So I think the average age of the theater was 65.

01:09:01.580 | I'm not sure if the people in the theater even knew how to use phones.

01:09:04.780 | Maybe it's not the right sample.

01:09:06.420 | It was an older crowd.

01:09:07.420 | Let's just say that.

01:09:08.420 | So maybe that's not the right sample.

01:09:12.900 | Quick tidbit, I heard that the strike might go on for like another six months because

01:09:16.580 | NFL season is starting and it's all the conglomerates and they'll have plenty of content and money

01:09:21.740 | with like the NFL and stuff.

01:09:24.260 | So this is time for you and I, you and I Jesse, have to write our strike busting screenplay

01:09:30.420 | or create our strike busting television show about intrepid podcasters that solve crimes.

01:09:38.020 | And the other thing I heard too was that next year around the same time, like 11 months

01:09:41.420 | from now, the union contract for all the construction and the costume and all those folks who do

01:09:51.220 | the movies, that's coming up too.

01:09:52.980 | So there'll probably be another strike back next summer as well.

01:09:55.580 | Oh, that's interesting.

01:09:57.340 | I wonder how contentious their negotiations are.

01:10:00.460 | Like so the director's guild, when their contract came up previously, they actually were pretty

01:10:05.900 | successful.

01:10:06.900 | They had a successful negotiation and didn't end up with a strike or anything.

01:10:09.860 | So it's sort of trade by trade within the entertainment industry, how it's going to

01:10:14.020 | go, I suppose.

01:10:15.220 | So the director's got some good concessions and didn't strike.

01:10:20.700 | What the writer's not writing for so long, there's going to be definitely a big drop

01:10:25.420 | in content available.

01:10:27.540 | I know it's interesting.

01:10:28.620 | And what it's going to really affect, I think the tonight shows, right?

01:10:33.460 | Whatever, whatever you call this, the late night shows, right?

01:10:36.540 | Those are all in strike.

01:10:38.260 | You lose people, they're already holding on the people with their fingertips, those audiences,

01:10:42.380 | because people don't watch the late night shows as much.

01:10:44.500 | You're going to lose the rest of that audience.

01:10:46.940 | And the other thing, so speaking of all this, is so Jess and I were both talking to our

01:10:52.060 | new YouTube guru, Jeremy, and he was telling us for people doing long form podcast style

01:10:58.820 | content on YouTube, for a lot of these people, the number two, it's not usually number one,

01:11:06.740 | number one is phone, but the number two most common device on which their videos are being

01:11:11.020 | viewed as televisions.

01:11:13.900 | So people are viewing Lex Fridman or breaking points or Andrew Huberman.

01:11:19.620 | They're viewing these on their giant TVs.

01:11:22.740 | They're just using the YouTube app on their fire stick or Apple TV.

01:11:26.100 | And they're putting on this independent long form podcast style content.

01:11:31.700 | They're putting it on their TV and watching it while they're eating meals or like they

01:11:35.020 | would any other television show.

01:11:37.420 | So I think that's an interesting trend.

01:11:38.940 | And again, this is something that the entertainment industry in general should be worried about

01:11:43.220 | is that, you know, as television shows are on strike, as there's less original content

01:11:48.300 | coming over the television shows, people are consuming that they're clicking on apps to

01:11:52.940 | watch television shows through streaming services.

01:11:56.180 | If they instead click over on, let's say breaking points, right?

01:12:00.740 | I toured their studio as part of a New Yorker article and saga showed me their $60,000 camera

01:12:06.860 | system they bought.

01:12:07.860 | And he said, we bought this because it's a 4k and it looks great on big TVs.

01:12:14.420 | So you click over and watch breaking points.

01:12:17.780 | Is it any different from a user experience than instead clicking on Disney plus and,

01:12:22.060 | you know, clicking on a Nat Geo show, it's high resolution, interesting stuff.

01:12:27.540 | So I would be worried if I was entertainment industries, right?

01:12:30.180 | Because it's not like it used to be where we have a television shows around these big

01:12:33.100 | TVs and independent social media and YouTube contents on phones.

01:12:37.100 | And it's just a different experience.

01:12:38.820 | That gap is closing.

01:12:40.340 | And you might find more and more people saying, well, what is new right now is, you know,

01:12:45.540 | I want to watch Fred Min interview Zuckerberg.

01:12:48.860 | I'm going to watch, you know, Cal and Jesse talk about Oppenheimer for 20 minutes or whatever,

01:12:52.860 | you know, and I'm going to have it up on my big screen.

01:12:55.540 | And it's very specific to what I'm interested in.

01:13:00.300 | Some interesting shifts going on.

01:13:01.460 | I think that is why I've always said video is going to be the huge disruptor force of

01:13:08.900 | independent media, the ability for independent producers to produce high quality video.

01:13:15.100 | Audio podcasting was just the warning sign to the big entertainment industry.

01:13:21.340 | The way that that encroached on radio, there's just a warning sign of independent media is

01:13:26.700 | about the close of big gap between non-independent media in a way that you might not be ready

01:13:32.300 | for.

01:13:33.300 | And that's why I said video is going to be at the core of this because ultimately the

01:13:36.260 | thing that's always been most powerful in all forms of media, once television and movies

01:13:40.040 | came along is ultimately we like to see people's faces.

01:13:42.920 | We like to see things were very visual.

01:13:46.340 | And so I think this is happening and I think the strike might accelerate it.

01:13:50.320 | So for all of us independent content producers out here, keep an eye on this because it'll

01:13:53.020 | be interesting to see what happens.

01:13:56.720 | Also Jesse, you know I'm just trying to set things up so we can justify buying a $60,000

01:14:00.820 | camera system.

01:14:03.660 | You know that's what I secretly want.

01:14:05.460 | I don't want a giant studio, a giant like sound CNN cell soundstage with $60,000 cameras.

01:14:12.860 | All right, enough of this nonsense.

01:14:14.500 | Thank you everyone for listening.

01:14:16.340 | We'll be back next week.

01:14:17.820 | Actually, I'm solo casting next week.

01:14:19.260 | So get me all by my lonesome and then I will be back after that in the studio, the old

01:14:24.980 | fashioned original Deep Work HQ back in Takoma Park.

01:14:29.260 | So I am excited to get back to my beloved equipment, but thank you for listening.

01:14:33.740 | And until next time, as always, stay deep.

01:14:36.200 | So if you liked our discussion today of time block planning, then I think you'll really

01:14:39.700 | like this video, which is episode two 11 of this podcast in which I get into detail about

01:14:45.620 | how I organize my life, which is that the planning system that I have been perfecting

01:14:52.140 | over a decade, I've been using this for a decade is what works for me.

The Simple Rule To Double Your Productivity Everyday | Cal Newport

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