How To Organize Your Life Before 2024 Ends - Time Management For Busy People

00:00:00.000 | So today I want to talk about all of the non-urgent, but important stuff that you have to do in your life outside of work, right?

00:00:12.000 | This is a topic I've been struggling with recently myself.

00:00:16.000 | I've been thinking a lot about it, so I want to bring my thoughts, what I've come up with, to you right now.

00:00:21.000 | I'll start by explaining why these non-professional tasks can be particularly tricky to deal with,

00:00:28.000 | and then I'll describe an approach for dealing with them.

00:00:32.000 | I have four different strategies that I want to recommend, all of which I'm currently experimenting with in my own life.

00:00:38.000 | The spoiler alert is how you deal with non-professional tasks can look quite different than how you deal with the obligations in your own job.

00:00:46.000 | All right, let's start by trying to better establish what the problem is here that we're trying to solve.

00:00:51.000 | When it comes to work, I'm very locked in, right? I'm ambitious, I'm a professor, I'm a writer, and I'm a podcaster.

00:01:00.000 | I do all three of those things at a pretty high level, and I have a rule that all of that work has to happen within normal work hours.

00:01:09.000 | This requires me to be really on the ball.

00:01:12.000 | So I use, for example, multi-scale planning. I have a plan for the whole semester.

00:01:17.000 | Here's what I'm working on, here's the big initiatives. Then each week I do a weekly plan,

00:01:21.000 | where I look at that semester plan and say, "Which of these big initiatives am I making progress on?

00:01:26.000 | When am I going to make progress on them?" I get things into the calendar, I clean up my calendar, I move things around, I cancel things.

00:01:32.000 | I see my weekly schedule like a chessboard on which I'm moving pieces.

00:01:35.000 | And then I have slow productivity principles that act as back pressure. I'm always adjusting my workload, my ratio of execution to overhead.

00:01:43.000 | I try to keep this all pretty much in a line. I'm trying to make a differentiation between what I'm actively working on and non-actively working on.

00:01:50.000 | I'm taking things off my plate, adding things. I want to make sure that my work is sustainable and I'm not overloading myself.

00:01:57.000 | Now here's the thing. That's a well-planned, busy workday.

00:02:01.000 | So what happens once the workday ends?

00:02:04.000 | Well, first of all, I'm pretty exhausted because I've just executed the sort of productivity equivalent of the D-Day landing.

00:02:13.000 | It feels like that sometimes, trying to make all these things work.

00:02:16.000 | And my time after the workday is over is often already heavily spoken for with family stuff and personal stuff.

00:02:23.000 | I like to exercise most days, that eats up time. I'm schlepping kids all over the place, that eats up time.

00:02:28.000 | We have all sorts of non-professional obligations and events that are on the calendar.

00:02:34.000 | There's not a lot of time, so I'm tired and there's not a lot of time.

00:02:37.000 | Somehow, all of the various non-professional things needs to fit into these leftover slivers of time.

00:02:44.000 | This is difficult.

00:02:47.000 | So today I want to discuss some strategies for how to deal with this.

00:02:51.000 | All right, strategy one, resist the urge to time block your time outside of work.

00:03:00.000 | During my workday, I give every minute a job.

00:03:04.000 | I survey the time I have available and I want to make the most out of it.

00:03:07.000 | Here's what I'm doing for this hour. Here's what I'm doing for these 30 minutes.

00:03:11.000 | In this gap between these two meetings is what I'm going to handle these small tasks.

00:03:14.000 | This time is all going to be focused on this big project.

00:03:18.000 | I'm a big believer in professional time blocking.

00:03:20.000 | I think it roughly doubles the amount of stuff you're able to get done with the same fixed amount of time.

00:03:25.000 | If you have an ambitious professional schedule, it's pretty much necessary,

00:03:31.000 | or you're going to fall behind and get stressed out.

00:03:34.000 | It's also really hard. It's taxing, because you have to keep forcing your mind to say,

00:03:38.000 | "Here's what we're doing now. Here's the time block we're in. Now let's just focus on execution.

00:03:44.000 | Now here's the time block we're in. Let's focus on that."

00:03:46.000 | You should constantly be on the ball. You're focused. You give your brain very little breaks.

00:03:50.000 | If you try to do this in your time outside of work, it's too much.

00:03:54.000 | Your brain needs a break from completely structured approaches to time.

00:03:58.000 | When you time block evenings, when you time block weekends, eventually your brain's going to cry, "Uncle."

00:04:03.000 | It needs flexibility. It needs a time to actually relax.

00:04:08.000 | So resist the urge to time block whatever little time remains outside of your work

00:04:12.000 | and outside of what's already spoken for.

00:04:15.000 | Strategy two, on the other hand, weekly plan.

00:04:21.000 | So time blocking each of your evenings and weekends is too much.

00:04:24.000 | But you should consider your non-professional tasks when you're working on your weekly plan.

00:04:31.000 | So a couple things matter here.

00:04:33.000 | One, just reviewing the non-professional things on your calendar each week is useful.

00:04:41.000 | You know what's coming. Oh, on Wednesday, I'm taking the kid to baseball practice,

00:04:47.000 | and then I have like a dinner after that.

00:04:50.000 | That's literally actually what I'm doing today, and I'm recording this on a Wednesday.

00:04:54.000 | It also allows you to coordinate.

00:04:56.000 | Maybe you and your partner have a relatively intricate dance of who's going to take who

00:05:00.000 | and how things are going to get dropped off on a particular day.

00:05:03.000 | It gives you a chance to make those plans, to figure out in advance how that's all going to work.

00:05:06.000 | It also gives you time to make changes.

00:05:08.000 | You say, you know what, I agreed to have drinks with a friend on Thursday.

00:05:14.000 | This is going to blow up that whole day. It makes everything difficult.

00:05:16.000 | Let's move that to another week. You see the whole picture.

00:05:19.000 | So weekly planning matters.

00:05:21.000 | The other thing to do when weekly planning non-professional events

00:05:25.000 | is to get the time-sensitive stuff onto the calendar.

00:05:29.000 | All right, so this is a chance for you to look at your task list.

00:05:33.000 | Look at the task list you have for your non-professional obligations.

00:05:35.000 | If you follow my system, you have boards, and you have boards for your non-professional roles,

00:05:40.000 | divided by status, if there's stuff that's time-sensitive.

00:05:43.000 | These forms have to get submitted by the end of the week.

00:05:48.000 | The kids have to get their flu shots this week because the deadline's coming up next week.

00:05:53.000 | We have to go pick up the title and tags for our new car this week

00:05:57.000 | because the temporary license plate is going to expire at the end of the week or something.

00:06:02.000 | All of these, by the way, are things I'm dealing with right now.

00:06:05.000 | You can get the time-sensitive stuff on your calendar.

00:06:07.000 | So when are we going to do this?

00:06:09.000 | You schedule out time, and now you'll treat it like any other event or appointment.

00:06:13.000 | Crucially, you can take time away from your workday as needed.

00:06:18.000 | Maybe you have to go out to the car dealership to get your title and tags.

00:06:24.000 | You can look at your calendar and say,

00:06:26.000 | "You know what? The way I need to do this is take a lunch break on Thursday to go do that."

00:06:29.000 | It allows you to make sure the time-sensitive stuff gets done.

00:06:33.000 | You know about it. It's on the calendar. It won't be forgotten.

00:06:36.000 | You can take time away from work where needed.

00:06:40.000 | So far, so good.

00:06:42.000 | But strategy three is what you should do with the non-urgent

00:06:47.000 | but important non-professional tasks that remain.

00:06:50.000 | This is the thing I've been struggling with recently,

00:06:53.000 | especially if you own a house or if you've got a family or own cars.

00:06:58.000 | You can build up a really big list of things that do not have deadlines,

00:07:04.000 | and there's no one looking over your shoulder saying, "This has to be done."

00:07:08.000 | But they all eventually need to get done.

00:07:10.000 | If you don't do it in the future, it's going to cause problems,

00:07:13.000 | or until it is done, it is an increasing source of stress in your life.

00:07:18.000 | This is where things get difficult with your non-professional work.

00:07:22.000 | So what I actually did here is I just copied—I want to be concrete—

00:07:26.000 | I copied a bunch of stuff from my actual list

00:07:30.000 | that fall under this category of non-urgent but important non-professional work.

00:07:34.000 | I'm going to read some of these.

00:07:38.000 | We need to repaint the siding on our house.

00:07:41.000 | We have wooden siding that needs to be repainted.

00:07:43.000 | I don't even know where to start on that.

00:07:45.000 | There's a section of one of our backyard fences that's broken that needs to be fixed.

00:07:49.000 | Our patio ceiling needs to be washed.

00:07:53.000 | It's, like, dirty.

00:07:55.000 | We have a street-facing fence that's white that needs to be washed.

00:07:59.000 | I don't even really know how to do that. It needs to be done.

00:08:01.000 | I have four or five different bathroom-related repairs.

00:08:07.000 | There's re-grouting that needs to be done.

00:08:09.000 | There's multiple towel racks that have been ripped off the wall.

00:08:13.000 | Somehow the drywall has to be replaced,

00:08:16.000 | and something has to be mounted on studs.

00:08:19.000 | There's a faucet somewhere that needs to be tightened.

00:08:23.000 | Like, it just flops back and forth when you touch it.

00:08:27.000 | There's a shower in which the thing that you use to turn the water off and on--

00:08:32.000 | you can tell Jesse I'm, like, an expert plumber.

00:08:34.000 | The water turn thing is, like, coming very loose.

00:08:38.000 | So I have, like, four or five bathroom-related things.

00:08:40.000 | The gutters need cleaning after the fall leaves fall.

00:08:44.000 | My filing cabinets need to be empty. They're too full.

00:08:47.000 | We've got to pick up the tags for the new car.

00:08:49.000 | That's more time-sensitive, I guess.

00:08:51.000 | There's three major rooms in our house that need a serious decluttering,

00:08:56.000 | including my library, which has built up probably about 500 books in piles

00:09:01.000 | that have to be severely sorted through.

00:09:04.000 | The kids' art station has to be severely sorted through.

00:09:06.000 | The home office's storing boxes needs to be completely cleaned out.

00:09:11.000 | There's a whole list of renovations we want to do here in the Deep Work HQ.

00:09:15.000 | All queued up. Needs to be done.

00:09:18.000 | I'm working on my home gym, trying to bring in a barbell and squat bench.

00:09:21.000 | There's a lot of complexities around that.

00:09:23.000 | The garage itself, where that goes, needs to be cleaned out.

00:09:25.000 | There's two different unfinished basement spaces

00:09:27.000 | that need to be completely decluttered and reorganized.

00:09:30.000 | I need a new primary care doctor. The list goes on.

00:09:34.000 | None of these things have a deadline.

00:09:36.000 | All of them need to get done.

00:09:39.000 | All right, so now we're in kind of a tough situation, right,

00:09:41.000 | because we have this big list.

00:09:44.000 | We're not time-blocking our days, our days outside of work.

00:09:48.000 | We're just putting time-sensitive stuff on the calendar and weekly planning.

00:09:51.000 | How do we get our arms around these crazy lists

00:09:54.000 | of non-urgent but important household items that need to be done?

00:09:58.000 | Now, again, the temptation is to go back and try to time-block them,

00:10:01.000 | and I've tried this before, where I say,

00:10:03.000 | "I am going to look at my free time, whatever it is,

00:10:06.000 | and I'm going to specifically start scheduling evening time,

00:10:08.000 | this hour here, this half hour here, this 45 minutes here,

00:10:10.000 | for specific things on this list."

00:10:12.000 | It doesn't work. You're too tired.

00:10:14.000 | Your schedule is too much in flux. Things change.

00:10:16.000 | Kids are sick. Things take longer.

00:10:18.000 | Evenings are unpredictable,

00:10:20.000 | and your mind eventually says, "Enough scheduling."

00:10:22.000 | Hey, it's Cal. I wanted to interrupt briefly

00:10:24.000 | to say that if you're enjoying this video,

00:10:26.000 | then you need to check out my new book,

00:10:29.000 | "Slow Productivity, the Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout."

00:10:34.000 | This is like the Bible for most of the ideas

00:10:37.000 | we talk about here in these videos.

00:10:40.000 | You can get a free excerpt at calnewport.com/slow.

00:10:45.000 | I know you're going to like it.

00:10:47.000 | Check it out. Now let's get back to the video.

00:10:50.000 | So what can you do instead?

00:10:53.000 | Well, I want to introduce here the notion

00:10:55.000 | of what I call the generic household task.

00:10:58.000 | This is like a single task,

00:11:01.000 | which you can define as like work on household stuff.

00:11:06.000 | And the goal is most days to spend some time,

00:11:11.000 | put aside some time as you're able to,

00:11:13.000 | on the generic household task.

00:11:15.000 | Some days you only have 20 minutes.

00:11:17.000 | You fit it in like right after dinner.

00:11:19.000 | Other days you have like an hour free.

00:11:20.000 | You spend an hour on it.

00:11:22.000 | But you simplify this huge list.

00:11:24.000 | Like most days I want to do some work

00:11:26.000 | on the sort of like household stuff.

00:11:28.000 | And you can keep this tracked in your daily metrics if you want to.

00:11:32.000 | Did I spend any time on the generic household task today or not?

00:11:35.000 | So you can try to most days you want to do work on it.

00:11:38.000 | Now, what do you actually do

00:11:40.000 | during the time you put aside each day on the fly?

00:11:42.000 | Like, let me go spend some time on the household task.

00:11:44.000 | Well, at the beginning of your week,

00:11:46.000 | you can make a sort of mini prioritized list of like,

00:11:49.000 | well, I want to start with this

00:11:51.000 | at any time I have put aside for the generic household task.

00:11:53.000 | And if I finish that, move on to this.

00:11:55.000 | And if I finish that, move on to this.

00:11:56.000 | It's like sort of a mini list of some priorities, right?

00:11:58.000 | So maybe it's like I want to find a fence repair person

00:12:02.000 | and see if I can set up an appointment.

00:12:04.000 | I want to then work on my file cabinets.

00:12:06.000 | I'm going to order the desk for my office renovation

00:12:08.000 | and see if I can get the gutter cleaners called.

00:12:11.000 | This is an ordered list.

00:12:13.000 | So when you first have some time,

00:12:15.000 | you say I'm just going to work on my generic household task,

00:12:17.000 | you're working on the first thing in that list.

00:12:19.000 | If you get done with that,

00:12:21.000 | next time you're working on the generic household task,

00:12:23.000 | you move on to the next thing.

00:12:24.000 | You just, you know, some weeks you'll get farther than others.

00:12:27.000 | But you've reduced this massive list to a simple heuristic.

00:12:31.000 | I try to spend at least a little bit of time every day

00:12:34.000 | on these sort of like non-urgent but important household stuff.

00:12:38.000 | And that's it.

00:12:40.000 | And that's the heuristic.

00:12:41.000 | And that's all the planning that happens.

00:12:43.000 | You're not exhausting yourself.

00:12:45.000 | You're not over-structuring.

00:12:46.000 | Some days you have no time.

00:12:47.000 | Some days you have a lot of time.

00:12:48.000 | Some days you have a little time,

00:12:49.000 | but you do like the pressure.

00:12:50.000 | If I want to do at least a little bit most days,

00:12:52.000 | you check it off on a list to see.

00:12:54.000 | Here's what I've observed about the generic household task.

00:12:57.000 | We call it heuristic.

00:12:59.000 | A lot gets done over time.

00:13:02.000 | When you're just used to like most days,

00:13:04.000 | I put in some time on these type of things,

00:13:06.000 | and it's clear like what to do if I have time.

00:13:09.000 | Stuff adds up.

00:13:11.000 | A particular Tuesday might not be that exciting.

00:13:14.000 | You're like, I only spent 20 minutes on something.

00:13:16.000 | But if you go Tuesday, then Wednesday, then Thursday,

00:13:18.000 | then Friday, then Saturday, then Sunday,

00:13:20.000 | and you wrap it around another week,

00:13:21.000 | stuff begins to pile up.

00:13:23.000 | Progress is made on this big list.

00:13:25.000 | And the list will keep growing as you come up with new things.

00:13:27.000 | The point is the amount of accomplished work gets big.

00:13:33.000 | Now eventually those gutters do get clean,

00:13:35.000 | and the fences do get repaired,

00:13:37.000 | and there's a day where finally someone comes in

00:13:40.000 | and fixes all those things in the bathroom.

00:13:42.000 | And it's like over time progress happens.

00:13:45.000 | It changes your mindset from I have this list I want to finish

00:13:49.000 | to I have a process where I always want to be making progress

00:13:53.000 | on those type of things.

00:13:55.000 | We were discussing this.

00:13:56.000 | It came to mind the other day when I was talking

00:14:00.000 | to some board members from the school where my kids go,

00:14:05.000 | and they were talking about how with facilities,

00:14:07.000 | when you run a facility, you just have this ongoing budget.

00:14:11.000 | You assume stuff breaks on like a regular schedule.

00:14:15.000 | You budget for that in advance.

00:14:17.000 | You just assume like every year there's like a certain number

00:14:19.000 | of things that break in the facilities that you repair.

00:14:22.000 | It's not seen as we have a steady state,

00:14:25.000 | and then something breaks when we go and fix it.

00:14:27.000 | It's like this is just how you run a facility.

00:14:29.000 | You have a budget for the AC will break every 10 years,

00:14:33.000 | like the AV will break on average like every three years.

00:14:38.000 | So the goal is just to have the process you're constantly

00:14:40.000 | like fixing and repairing, not you have some list you want

00:14:43.000 | to finish, and then you're done.

00:14:45.000 | So that has been useful to me,

00:14:47.000 | the generic household task heuristic,

00:14:50.000 | very little pressure, very little fatigue,

00:14:54.000 | very little over-structuring or burnout,

00:14:57.000 | but you keep on top of things.

00:15:00.000 | All right, final strategy I want to mention here, automation.

00:15:05.000 | As you go through these generic household task items,

00:15:09.000 | anything you get to that happens on a regular basis,

00:15:13.000 | like you clean the gutters, and you're like, you know what?

00:15:15.000 | This has to happen twice a year.

00:15:17.000 | It happens predictably, automate it.

00:15:20.000 | And that might mean the easiest sense that you just add

00:15:23.000 | a recurring event on your calendar,

00:15:26.000 | and in that event you have all the information you need.

00:15:29.000 | So when you get the gutter cleaning time again

00:15:31.000 | in the next season, this event pops up,

00:15:34.000 | call this number, set it up, here's how much it costs,

00:15:37.000 | and it just goes on your, it's like a timed thing

00:15:40.000 | on your calendar.

00:15:41.000 | It's not something that you have to have on a task list

00:15:43.000 | and get to.

00:15:45.000 | Car washes can go on there.

00:15:48.000 | Cleaning, oh, I have to power wash the patio or whatever.

00:15:51.000 | Wait a second, just when does that happen?

00:15:53.000 | Let me put this on the calendar now,

00:15:55.000 | so when in the future I don't have to wait for it on a list,

00:15:57.000 | it's always there.

00:15:58.000 | It takes things off of list and just make them happen

00:16:02.000 | when things happen.

00:16:03.000 | So the automation also reduces the pressure here over time.

00:16:06.000 | More and more things just happen when they need to happen

00:16:09.000 | without you having to remember to do them

00:16:11.000 | or have them on an intimidating-looking list.

00:16:15.000 | All right, so that's my advice for non-work tasks.

00:16:20.000 | I'll summarize again.

00:16:22.000 | Resist the urge to time-block everything,

00:16:25.000 | but do integrate non-work tasks into your weekly planning.

00:16:30.000 | For the non-urgent but important tasks,

00:16:33.000 | just have the generic household task heuristic,

00:16:35.000 | so progress is constantly being made

00:16:37.000 | without you having to do a lot of planning

00:16:39.000 | and finally automate everything that can be automated

00:16:42.000 | as you get to it.

00:16:43.000 | And that, again, is going to relieve your stress

00:16:46.000 | and get things done with even less consideration.

00:16:50.000 | And so that's what I'm working on now.

00:16:52.000 | My lists are endless,

00:16:53.000 | but these type of strategies help me keep on top of them

00:16:57.000 | without having to make every moment of my life

00:16:59.000 | be overscheduled.

00:17:02.000 | The household task heuristic.

00:17:03.000 | That list is getting long, by the way.

00:17:06.000 | Stuff gets done over time is a common theme

00:17:08.000 | with a lot of your stuff, work-related and non-work.

00:17:11.000 | Yeah, I mean, I think that's the key to a lot of things.

00:17:13.000 | Stuff gets done over time.

00:17:17.000 | We had the 10-year rule episode a month or two ago.

00:17:20.000 | Like, important projects in your professional life

00:17:22.000 | happen over many years.

00:17:24.000 | That's when the cool stuff happens.

00:17:27.000 | Household stuff, it's just like

00:17:28.000 | you have this background thing going on.

00:17:30.000 | It's not something that you ever want to be done.

00:17:31.000 | You just want a process that keeps you on top of it.

00:17:33.000 | Yeah, it's a different way of thinking about it

00:17:35.000 | as opposed to, like, I have a list of things I'm going to do,

00:17:37.000 | and then when I'm done with those things,

00:17:38.000 | I've accomplished something.

00:17:40.000 | Your list is only going to get longer

00:17:41.000 | when you buy your farm to write with your writing shed.

00:17:45.000 | Oh, man, I'm reading a book about a farmer right now.

00:17:48.000 | That's a lot of work farmers do.

00:17:51.000 | A lot of equipment repair.

00:17:53.000 | I would be a terrible farmer.

00:17:56.000 | I would be--they repair a lot of stuff.

00:17:58.000 | Anyways, yeah, when I buy my farm with my writer's shed,

00:18:01.000 | I'm going to have, like, a staff of 30.

00:18:05.000 | You know how, like, rich people buy these, like, horse farms,

00:18:08.000 | these, like, show farms where they just--

00:18:10.000 | Yeah, in Middleburg, Virginia.

00:18:11.000 | Yeah, in Middleburg, Virginia,

00:18:12.000 | and they have, like, these huge staffs.

00:18:13.000 | They don't actually have to do anything.

00:18:14.000 | Yeah, I'm going to have a writing farm like that.

00:18:16.000 | There's going to be this huge staff

00:18:17.000 | just to make sure that, like,

00:18:18.000 | I have a good view from my writing cabin.

00:18:20.000 | Enough ink.

00:18:21.000 | Enough ink.

00:18:23.000 | Probably people riding by on horses.

00:18:25.000 | I feel like that would be inspiring.

00:18:27.000 | When I look out the window,

00:18:28.000 | I just want people riding by on horses.

00:18:30.000 | In Colonial Garb because--

00:18:32.000 | Yeah, like a mini Westworld.

00:18:35.000 | I want to build a Westworld

00:18:36.000 | to help my concentration for writing,

00:18:38.000 | and I think this is only reasonable

00:18:40.000 | to build an entire fake world

00:18:43.000 | full of artificially intelligent cyborgs

00:18:45.000 | just to put you into the right mindset for deep work.

00:18:48.000 | I think this is reasonable.

00:18:50.000 | All right, well, anyways,

00:18:51.000 | we got some good questions coming up,

00:18:53.000 | but first, why don't we hear from a sponsor?

00:18:58.000 | All right, let's hear from our longtime sponsors

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00:22:32.000 | All right, Jesse, let's do some questions.

00:22:35.000 | Who do we got first?

00:22:36.000 | - First question is from Jill.

00:22:38.000 | In your organization system

00:22:39.000 | with quarterly goals, weekly plans,

00:22:41.000 | and task boards where you would place

00:22:43.000 | projects that arise,

00:22:44.000 | where do you place projects

00:22:45.000 | that arise unexpectedly but are necessary

00:22:48.000 | and take longer than a week

00:22:49.000 | but aren't part of your quarterly goals?

00:22:51.000 | For example, being tax audited

00:22:53.000 | or buying a house.

00:22:55.000 | - First things first,

00:22:56.000 | you're mixing up a few things here.

00:22:59.000 | So you said quarterly goals,

00:23:01.000 | weekly plans, and task boards.

00:23:05.000 | So there's a couple different things

00:23:06.000 | going on here that are getting mixed together.

00:23:07.000 | There's multi-scale planning,

00:23:10.000 | which is quarterly or semester plans,

00:23:15.000 | then weekly plans,

00:23:17.000 | then daily time block plans.

00:23:19.000 | That's multi-scale planning.

00:23:21.000 | Then you have task boards.

00:23:22.000 | That's just a tool

00:23:24.000 | for keeping track of obligations.

00:23:26.000 | You would review your task boards,

00:23:27.000 | for example, when doing your weekly plan.

00:23:30.000 | All right, so what you're talking about here,

00:23:32.000 | projects with some time sensitivity,

00:23:35.000 | like a tax audit or buying a house,

00:23:36.000 | like you're working on them

00:23:37.000 | during a certain time frame,

00:23:39.000 | those would probably go on my quarterly plan.

00:23:43.000 | Like, hey, one of the things

00:23:44.000 | I'm working on this November

00:23:47.000 | is house buying.

00:23:49.000 | We really want to try to hone in

00:23:51.000 | on a neighborhood

00:23:52.000 | and see if we can make an offer.

00:23:53.000 | Or I have a tax audit going on,

00:23:55.000 | so for the next two months,

00:23:56.000 | I need to be, here's what that means,

00:23:58.000 | and here's what needs to get done,

00:23:59.000 | and here's some milestones.

00:24:00.000 | That's perfectly fine to be in a quarterly plan

00:24:01.000 | or a semester plan, however you do it.

00:24:03.000 | Because then you'll see that each week

00:24:05.000 | when you're making your weekly plan

00:24:06.000 | to make sure, if important,

00:24:07.000 | that there's time, if possible,

00:24:09.000 | put aside to make progress on those goals.

00:24:10.000 | So that's where I would put it.

00:24:12.000 | I would put it in the quarterly plan.

00:24:15.000 | They could also show up on your task board, right?

00:24:17.000 | You could have the next step.

00:24:20.000 | If it's, you know, another way to deal with it

00:24:22.000 | is you could have, like, the next step,

00:24:23.000 | I need to get loan approval

00:24:26.000 | or I need to, like, ask the accountant

00:24:29.000 | these questions about the information

00:24:30.000 | I'm gathering.

00:24:32.000 | You could have those in your task board.

00:24:33.000 | Give them their own status list, you know,

00:24:36.000 | house project, tax project,

00:24:37.000 | where you can start building up the task.

00:24:38.000 | If you have a lot of tasks you want to keep track of

00:24:40.000 | with accompanying information,

00:24:42.000 | when you're doing your weekly plan,

00:24:44.000 | you'll see those columns

00:24:45.000 | and sort of make sure time is put aside.

00:24:47.000 | So that's what I would say for time-sensitive

00:24:51.000 | but on kind of large projects.

00:24:53.000 | Mention them in your quarterly or semester plans,

00:24:55.000 | and if they have a lot of non-trivial tasks

00:24:58.000 | involved with them, give them special columns

00:24:59.000 | in the relevant task board.

00:25:01.000 | That will help you make progress.

00:25:03.000 | Oh, this name's interesting.

00:25:04.000 | All right.

00:25:06.000 | Yeah, we got an interesting...

00:25:08.000 | Argya.

00:25:09.000 | Argya, A-R-G-H-Y-A.

00:25:11.000 | Yeah, Argya, Argya.

00:25:12.000 | Yeah.

00:25:13.000 | All right, it's not so bad.

00:25:14.000 | All right, what's the question here?

00:25:15.000 | I'm about to go into my final year of college.

00:25:18.000 | I've been building my career capital

00:25:19.000 | by studying programming.

00:25:21.000 | I'll probably work as a software developer.

00:25:23.000 | How can I implement lifestyle-centric planning

00:25:26.000 | if my life has been laid down

00:25:27.000 | by my parents, teachers, and professors?

00:25:30.000 | Well, we got to be careful about terminology here.

00:25:33.000 | What is being laid down by our parents,

00:25:36.000 | teachers, and professors?

00:25:38.000 | If it's a particular skill development path, right,

00:25:42.000 | learning computer programming,

00:25:44.000 | I'm not so worried about that, right?

00:25:47.000 | Lifestyle-centric planning,

00:25:48.000 | you establish your vision of the ideal lifestyle,

00:25:51.000 | and then you work backwards and move closer to that,

00:25:54.000 | taking advantage of your skills and opportunities

00:25:56.000 | and looking for ways around obstacles.

00:25:58.000 | Having learned something like computer programming,

00:26:01.000 | whether it was your ideas or your parents,

00:26:04.000 | is just another skill you have in your basket

00:26:06.000 | when you're trying to figure out this plan.

00:26:08.000 | It's another orienteering tool in your backpack

00:26:11.000 | as you make this journey across the landscape

00:26:13.000 | of possible lifestyles.

00:26:14.000 | It's great.

00:26:15.000 | It's something that has some value.

00:26:16.000 | You can figure out how to use it.

00:26:18.000 | On the other hand,

00:26:19.000 | if you're getting pressure from your parents

00:26:21.000 | about what your lifestyle should look like,

00:26:24.000 | you need to live in this type of neighborhood.

00:26:26.000 | You need to have this type of working life.

00:26:29.000 | You need to be sending your kids to these schools.

00:26:32.000 | We get a lot of this pressure

00:26:33.000 | if you maybe have a parent

00:26:35.000 | that comes from a very specific upper-middle-class lifestyle.

00:26:39.000 | This is our expectation,

00:26:40.000 | is that you should follow this very specific,

00:26:43.000 | same upper-middle-class lifestyle,

00:26:44.000 | which might require pretty narrow paths

00:26:46.000 | you have to go through.

00:26:47.000 | That's where you could get a class

00:26:48.000 | with lifestyle-centric planning.

00:26:49.000 | But when it's like,

00:26:50.000 | "Hey, my parents kind of pressured me

00:26:51.000 | "to study this in school,"

00:26:53.000 | just see that as a skill you have to work with

00:26:55.000 | as you construct your own lifestyle-centric plan.

00:26:59.000 | With programming,

00:27:01.000 | God, there's any number of ways

00:27:02.000 | you can build interesting lifestyles with that.

00:27:05.000 | In slow productivity, for example,

00:27:07.000 | I do a nice profile of a web developer designer

00:27:12.000 | who was on a track

00:27:16.000 | of building a pretty big business around his skill.

00:27:19.000 | He was living in Vancouver.

00:27:20.000 | It was very expensive to live there.

00:27:22.000 | He said, "You know what?

00:27:23.000 | "I'm going to use this skill

00:27:24.000 | "to pursue a different lifestyle vision,

00:27:27.000 | "one that is slower, has more nature,

00:27:30.000 | "tons more autonomy."

00:27:32.000 | So he moved with his wife

00:27:34.000 | outside of the small town of Tolfino

00:27:36.000 | on Vancouver Island,

00:27:37.000 | which is sort of a rural place out there in the Bay.

00:27:40.000 | Tolfino has a surf break.

00:27:41.000 | His wife was a surfer.

00:27:43.000 | He did not grow out a big development business,

00:27:46.000 | but just sort of kept his hourly rate high

00:27:49.000 | and his expenses low.

00:27:51.000 | So now he could live in this cool place

00:27:54.000 | with a very reasonable amount of work

00:27:57.000 | because their expenses were very low.

00:27:59.000 | As he said, there's not a lot of opportunities

00:28:01.000 | where they live to spend money,

00:28:03.000 | and he used that skill

00:28:04.000 | in a really original, innovative way

00:28:06.000 | that was specific to the lifestyle plan that he devised.

00:28:09.000 | His name was Paul Jarvis.

00:28:11.000 | Anyways, that's what I want to say here.

00:28:14.000 | It's not a big deal because,

00:28:15.000 | look, if a parent's like,

00:28:16.000 | "I'm going to help you figure out what to study,"

00:28:18.000 | you might have not known what to study,

00:28:19.000 | and it's good to have valuable skills,

00:28:20.000 | but where you need to have autonomy

00:28:22.000 | is in figuring out what the lifestyle is

00:28:24.000 | you're moving backwards from,

00:28:26.000 | and so focus on that.

00:28:28.000 | You know, this is more of a problem, Jesse,

00:28:29.000 | this, like, parental pressure.

00:28:32.000 | It's actually more of a problem

00:28:34.000 | not for lifestyle-centric planners

00:28:36.000 | but for people who subscribe to the passion hypothesis.

00:28:39.000 | Mm-hmm.

00:28:40.000 | Right, so if you--

00:28:41.000 | and this comes from my book, "So Good They Can't Ignore You."

00:28:43.000 | If you subscribe to the idea

00:28:45.000 | that you're meant to do one thing,

00:28:47.000 | and if you don't find your true passion,

00:28:48.000 | you're going to be miserable,

00:28:49.000 | that's where the parental influence

00:28:52.000 | psychologically becomes a real issue

00:28:54.000 | because you really worry,

00:28:56.000 | "What if the things they're encouraging me to learn,

00:28:58.000 | what if the classes of jobs

00:29:00.000 | they're encouraging me to pursue

00:29:02.000 | are not my one true passion?

00:29:04.000 | I'll be miserable."

00:29:05.000 | So the passion hypothesis believers

00:29:07.000 | are much more sensitive to pressure

00:29:10.000 | than lifestyle-centric planners

00:29:12.000 | who just see skills as tools.

00:29:15.000 | Great, these are more tools in my toolbox

00:29:17.000 | for building the life I want.

00:29:19.000 | So I've used three different metaphors here, by the way.

00:29:21.000 | You put them in your basket,

00:29:23.000 | use them as orienteering tools

00:29:25.000 | that are in your backpack,

00:29:27.000 | and now it's tool in your toolbox

00:29:28.000 | for assembling your ideal life, lifestyle.

00:29:31.000 | So there you go, guys.

00:29:32.000 | Metaphor, that's how you know I'm a writer.

00:29:35.000 | All right, what do we got next?

00:29:36.000 | Next question's from Ben.

00:29:38.000 | "I want to start building career capital,

00:29:40.000 | but I'm not sure what rare and valuable skills to pursue.

00:29:43.000 | I'm worried about investing years developing a skill

00:29:45.000 | and having it turn out to be not as lucrative

00:29:48.000 | or align with my lifestyle vision as I hoped."

00:29:51.000 | Yeah, this is partially a hard question

00:29:54.000 | and partially an easy question.

00:29:56.000 | So the hard thing about finding skills

00:29:59.000 | is it can sometimes be difficult

00:30:01.000 | to even identify what's valuable.

00:30:04.000 | In some fields, this is obvious.

00:30:06.000 | In other fields, it really takes work, right?

00:30:09.000 | Like, let's say you get involved in political campaigns.

00:30:13.000 | You get started as, like, an intern in college.

00:30:16.000 | You get a position on a campaign.

00:30:17.000 | You're trying to figure out this world of politics.

00:30:19.000 | It might not be obvious at first.

00:30:21.000 | What are the things I could master

00:30:23.000 | that would make me invaluable

00:30:24.000 | in this world of political campaigning?

00:30:26.000 | And to figure that out,

00:30:27.000 | you actually have to talk to people and observe, right?

00:30:30.000 | Who's getting ahead?

00:30:31.000 | Who's in demand?

00:30:32.000 | Who's influential?

00:30:34.000 | Why?

00:30:35.000 | What are the particular skills

00:30:36.000 | that they have that's in demand?

00:30:38.000 | So, right, so it can be tricky sometimes

00:30:40.000 | to figure out what actually matters.

00:30:42.000 | On the other hand, it's not too difficult

00:30:46.000 | to sidestep the trap of a dead-end skill.

00:30:49.000 | Just bias towards skills that, in a general sense,

00:30:53.000 | have a long track record

00:30:55.000 | and, in a specific sense, are very adaptable.

00:30:58.000 | Right, so computer programming.

00:31:01.000 | In a general sense, computer programming has been

00:31:03.000 | and will continue to be valuable

00:31:05.000 | because we program computers

00:31:08.000 | to do lots of things in our lives.

00:31:10.000 | In the specific or small-scale sense,

00:31:12.000 | you might have to adapt along the way

00:31:14.000 | what language you're using.

00:31:16.000 | But that's okay.

00:31:17.000 | If you're good at computer programming,

00:31:19.000 | you can change to a different language

00:31:21.000 | when it emerges pretty quickly,

00:31:22.000 | so that's a pretty safe skill.

00:31:24.000 | Dead-end skills are skills that are tied

00:31:27.000 | to a particular cultural trend,

00:31:31.000 | business moment, or technological device.

00:31:34.000 | They're tied to that,

00:31:36.000 | and if that goes away,

00:31:38.000 | they have no other value.

00:31:41.000 | For example, I would be very wary right now

00:31:44.000 | if you said what I'm going to specialize in

00:31:46.000 | is TikTok videos

00:31:49.000 | for certain types of marketing.

00:31:51.000 | You're going to get really good at what works

00:31:53.000 | and doesn't work on TikTok

00:31:54.000 | and how to build videos

00:31:56.000 | for my political candidates or for brands

00:31:58.000 | that are going to do well on TikTok.

00:32:01.000 | What happens if TikTok's banned in the U.S.?

00:32:03.000 | Or, more likely, just another tool rises

00:32:06.000 | and there's like, "Guys, that one goes away."

00:32:08.000 | That skill is hyper-specific.

00:32:11.000 | And now, you know, you tied your horse

00:32:15.000 | to a wagon that looked attractive in the moment,

00:32:19.000 | but the wheels are going to come off pretty soon.

00:32:21.000 | So you do want to be careful.

00:32:23.000 | I mean, think about it.

00:32:24.000 | There's probably a lot of people out there

00:32:25.000 | that, like, specialized in Vines

00:32:27.000 | or, you know, hey, Instagram Stories is my thing.

00:32:30.000 | I know exactly what works on Instagram Stories.

00:32:33.000 | The problem is once people stop using that,

00:32:35.000 | you have to start from scratch from skills.

00:32:37.000 | So look for the summarize here.

00:32:40.000 | Do the work to figure out

00:32:41.000 | what actually matters in your field.

00:32:42.000 | It might not be what you think.

00:32:43.000 | It might be non-obvious.

00:32:45.000 | Two, bias towards skills that are,

00:32:47.000 | in a general sense, have a long track record,

00:32:49.000 | are going to be around for a while,

00:32:51.000 | even if it requires that you adapt

00:32:54.000 | exactly how you're applying that skill in the short term.

00:32:57.000 | And three, be wary of more fattest skills,

00:33:00.000 | skills that are tied to a trend or technology

00:33:02.000 | that if that goes away, the skill itself is dead.

00:33:05.000 | You do those things, I think you'll be okay.

00:33:08.000 | All right, who we got?

00:33:09.000 | Next question is from Margaret.

00:33:11.000 | "I'm a mother of three and a writer.

00:33:13.000 | "I had success with my first book

00:33:14.000 | "but needed to quit social media to write my second.

00:33:17.000 | "It's set to be published next year.

00:33:19.000 | "Should I go back on social media for promotion

00:33:21.000 | "now that it's finished?

00:33:22.000 | "I don't think my presence on social media

00:33:24.000 | "moves the needle at all in terms of sales,

00:33:26.000 | "but it can be important for connections

00:33:29.000 | "and driving attendance at events

00:33:31.000 | "that occur with publication."

00:33:33.000 | Well, look, you're right.

00:33:34.000 | In the long term, it doesn't matter.

00:33:35.000 | It doesn't move the needle on sales

00:33:38.000 | in any sort of meaningful way.

00:33:40.000 | It's not going to be what stands between you

00:33:42.000 | having a successful career as a writer or not,

00:33:46.000 | and I'm completely fine with you not using social media.

00:33:50.000 | If you feel like for the relationship

00:33:52.000 | with your publisher,

00:33:53.000 | you need to be doing something new media,

00:33:55.000 | I think that's completely fine.

00:33:56.000 | If you don't really care about it,

00:33:58.000 | you can set these things up in a way

00:33:59.000 | that has very limited impact on your life.

00:34:02.000 | So what I've seen fiction writers do,

00:34:04.000 | and I think this is a perfectly fine template,

00:34:07.000 | their ultimate goal is to get people onto an email list,

00:34:10.000 | an email list where they can send updates

00:34:12.000 | about events, what's going on with their books.

00:34:15.000 | Email lists convert very highly

00:34:17.000 | when it comes to book sales,

00:34:18.000 | much more so than almost any other type

00:34:20.000 | of metric of online following that you can have.

00:34:23.000 | So they have an emailing list.

00:34:24.000 | Now, how do you get people onto that mailing list?

00:34:27.000 | Have some sort of regular content

00:34:29.000 | that's low lift but interesting,

00:34:31.000 | and it really could be like updates

00:34:34.000 | on your writing or your writing progress.

00:34:37.000 | It could be here's the books I read this month.

00:34:41.000 | This is a good one.

00:34:42.000 | I'm just going to go through what I read this month.

00:34:44.000 | You only have to write this once a month,

00:34:45.000 | and here's the books I read and a quick summary of them.

00:34:49.000 | People love book recommendations,

00:34:51.000 | especially if you're in the fiction world.

00:34:52.000 | So you have some value on there,

00:34:53.000 | but it's a very low lift.

00:34:55.000 | Then you can have some sort of algorithmic presence

00:34:58.000 | to try to drive people to it.

00:35:00.000 | So by algorithmic presence,

00:35:02.000 | I mean somewhere where you are out there

00:35:04.000 | in the world of new media

00:35:05.000 | and recommendation algorithms

00:35:07.000 | could drive audiences to you

00:35:09.000 | that you otherwise wouldn't have direct access to.

00:35:12.000 | The key here is whatever you pick to automate it

00:35:14.000 | and not spend much time on it.

00:35:16.000 | So maybe it's an Instagram thing.

00:35:19.000 | If it's an Instagram thing, though,

00:35:20.000 | again, I don't want you on Instagram.

00:35:21.000 | I don't want you looking at Instagram posts.

00:35:23.000 | I don't want you reading comments on Instagram.

00:35:25.000 | It's I post a quote.

00:35:27.000 | I post a book I like.

00:35:28.000 | I post a writing update.

00:35:30.000 | Maybe I even have someone do it for me.

00:35:32.000 | It's not on my phone.

00:35:33.000 | It's done from my desktop.

00:35:34.000 | It's a schedule,

00:35:35.000 | as much of a schedule as watering my plants,

00:35:37.000 | and I think about it

00:35:38.000 | when I'm not outside of those moments.

00:35:40.000 | I think about it just about as much

00:35:41.000 | as I think about watering my plants

00:35:42.000 | when I'm not watering it.

00:35:43.000 | It's just not a big part of my life,

00:35:44.000 | but I do it, and the plants stay alive.

00:35:46.000 | So maybe you're doing Instagram.

00:35:48.000 | Maybe you're doing TikTok,

00:35:50.000 | though that can be pretty difficult.

00:35:53.000 | Maybe you're doing YouTube.

00:35:55.000 | Brandon Sanderson,

00:35:58.000 | if you're not familiar with Brandon Sanderson,

00:36:01.000 | he wrote "Name of the Wind,"

00:36:03.000 | and if you have any comments about that,

00:36:05.000 | you can send them to jesse@calnewport.com.

00:36:07.000 | He loves to see them.

00:36:08.000 | I should clarify.

00:36:09.000 | Every time I make this joke,

00:36:10.000 | a new listener gets really upset.

00:36:12.000 | We know Brandon Sanderson

00:36:13.000 | did not write "Name of the Wind."

00:36:14.000 | This is an insider joke on the show, okay?

00:36:17.000 | The Patrick Rufius fans can--

00:36:19.000 | it's okay.

00:36:20.000 | We can chill.

00:36:21.000 | Brandon has really,

00:36:23.000 | really leaned into YouTube,

00:36:25.000 | and one of the things he does

00:36:27.000 | is have these writer's updates on YouTube

00:36:30.000 | where he's like,

00:36:31.000 | "Here's how many pages I wrote this week.

00:36:33.000 | "Here's what's going on with this project.

00:36:34.000 | "Here's what's going on with that project."

00:36:35.000 | People love that,

00:36:37.000 | and that's a way for audiences

00:36:39.000 | to potentially find them.

00:36:41.000 | So sure, have an algorithmic presence

00:36:43.000 | if you care about this.

00:36:44.000 | Again, I don't think it--

00:36:45.000 | it doesn't make a matter of--

00:36:46.000 | long-term, it doesn't matter.

00:36:47.000 | What matters is the book rate,

00:36:48.000 | but I get it.

00:36:49.000 | In the short term,

00:36:50.000 | you want your publisher happy.

00:36:51.000 | It's anxiety-reducing,

00:36:52.000 | and you want people

00:36:53.000 | to show up to your book signings.

00:36:54.000 | I get it.

00:36:55.000 | So have something

00:36:57.000 | that is in the algorithmic media world

00:37:00.000 | that you post to intentionally

00:37:02.000 | and on a regular basis,

00:37:03.000 | but otherwise completely ignore the technology,

00:37:06.000 | and always be driving towards a mailing list

00:37:08.000 | where you have some sort of value on it.

00:37:10.000 | I think that's probably

00:37:11.000 | the sweet spot right now for writers.

00:37:13.000 | So you're taking your intentional swing

00:37:15.000 | in algorithmic space

00:37:16.000 | but not letting it be a part of your life,

00:37:18.000 | and then you have a mailing list.

00:37:20.000 | It'll probably do nothing,

00:37:22.000 | but that setup's not going to hurt you.

00:37:24.000 | If something catches on, though,

00:37:26.000 | it does give you the chance

00:37:28.000 | of riding that wave

00:37:29.000 | or taking advantage of it.

00:37:30.000 | But again, with books,

00:37:31.000 | what matters is the book being great.

00:37:33.000 | Ultimately, that matters.

00:37:35.000 | Most of the writers

00:37:37.000 | who are killing it right now,

00:37:39.000 | no one cares about their online presence.

00:37:42.000 | No one cares about

00:37:44.000 | Kristen Hanna's Twitter account.

00:37:46.000 | Her books sell because they get passed around.

00:37:49.000 | "Hey, I love the women.

00:37:51.000 | You should read this novel."

00:37:53.000 | "Lessons in Chemistry"

00:37:54.000 | sold all the copies in the world,

00:37:55.000 | not because of TikTok,

00:37:57.000 | but because people started passing it around.

00:37:59.000 | "You've got to read this book at book groups."

00:38:02.000 | "Deep Work" sold a ton of copies,

00:38:04.000 | not because of my blog.

00:38:07.000 | People just, "Hey, I like this book.

00:38:08.000 | You should read this book."

00:38:09.000 | So ultimately, it doesn't matter,

00:38:11.000 | but that's what I would recommend

00:38:13.000 | if you're an author

00:38:14.000 | and you want to be doing something.

00:38:16.000 | That's probably, right now,

00:38:17.000 | I think, the sweet spot.

00:38:19.000 | Don't podcast, by the way,

00:38:21.000 | unless you really want to do podcasting

00:38:23.000 | as a business.

00:38:24.000 | Podcasting is very hard.

00:38:26.000 | It takes up time and money,

00:38:28.000 | and it's not worth it

00:38:29.000 | unless you're making a real run

00:38:30.000 | and having a real business.

00:38:31.000 | So don't do that

00:38:32.000 | unless it's actually a part

00:38:33.000 | of your business plan.

00:38:34.000 | That's not casual.

00:38:36.000 | Sound quality is big, too.

00:38:38.000 | Sound quality is big.

00:38:40.000 | YouTube, you have to be careful about.

00:38:41.000 | YouTube is hard.

00:38:43.000 | Justin and I have learned this.

00:38:45.000 | You can't just record yourself

00:38:46.000 | and put it up there

00:38:47.000 | and say people will find it.

00:38:48.000 | It's pretty difficult.

00:38:50.000 | Mm-hmm.

00:38:52.000 | Thumbnails, titles,

00:38:54.000 | exactly how you cut into these videos.

00:38:57.000 | So you have to be super specific

00:38:59.000 | and intentional,

00:39:00.000 | and the stuff you think

00:39:01.000 | that will do well probably won't.

00:39:03.000 | But it's not a bad idea

00:39:05.000 | if you find something that clicks,

00:39:07.000 | a format that works,

00:39:08.000 | like Brandon Sanderson's

00:39:09.000 | Here's How Much I Wrote This Week.

00:39:10.000 | Like if you find a format that works,

00:39:11.000 | it could be good.

00:39:13.000 | So that's my recommendation.

00:39:14.000 | So Brandon does it from the layer?

00:39:16.000 | He does it from the layer, yeah.

00:39:19.000 | So he does.

00:39:20.000 | We should bring it up.

00:39:21.000 | Can I bring it up on here?

00:39:22.000 | Yeah.

00:39:23.000 | I'm actually curious.

00:39:24.000 | Let's look.

00:39:26.000 | I still want to get out there

00:39:27.000 | and see the layer.

00:39:29.000 | Justin and I got an invite,

00:39:30.000 | but we just have not been able

00:39:32.000 | to make that work.

00:39:34.000 | All right, so what I'm going to do,

00:39:35.000 | should I go to the YouTube app

00:39:37.000 | or the web?

00:39:39.000 | Go to the web.

00:39:40.000 | All right.

00:39:41.000 | So I'm loading up here.

00:39:44.000 | YouTube.

00:39:47.000 | Let me--

00:39:48.000 | don't switch to it yet.

00:39:50.000 | All of Jesse's video recommendations

00:39:52.000 | are about popery arrangements.

00:39:54.000 | Interesting.

00:39:55.000 | I didn't realize.

00:39:56.000 | Let me type in Brandon Sanderson.

00:40:01.000 | All right.

00:40:04.000 | Yeah, all right.

00:40:05.000 | So here's his channel.

00:40:06.000 | I have it on the screen now.

00:40:08.000 | It's not huge.

00:40:10.000 | 600,000 subscribers.

00:40:12.000 | It's like double our channel.

00:40:13.000 | Yeah.

00:40:14.000 | But he's sold a lot of books.

00:40:16.000 | Let me look at his videos chronologically.

00:40:18.000 | All right, so what's he up to?

00:40:20.000 | Weekly update, 50,000 views.

00:40:23.000 | Last week's 58,000 views.

00:40:25.000 | Weeks before, 65,000 views.

00:40:27.000 | So that's like his very consistent thing.

00:40:29.000 | He has a base of like 50,000 to 60,000 people

00:40:32.000 | who watch the weekly updates.

00:40:34.000 | Let me put one up here.

00:40:36.000 | This is in his layer.

00:40:38.000 | So I'm sure it's filmed.

00:40:40.000 | Yeah, so he has a very nice setup with a bookshelf

00:40:42.000 | and professional writing.

00:40:45.000 | I don't know why YouTube--

00:40:47.000 | I guess it defaults to closed captions now

00:40:49.000 | for international audiences.

00:40:50.000 | All right, so here we go.

00:40:51.000 | See that?

00:40:52.000 | See on the screen, that graphic?

00:40:54.000 | Yeah.

00:40:55.000 | That's like what percent of the book he's done with.

00:40:57.000 | So this is his most popular thing he does.

00:41:00.000 | He's tried other things.

00:41:01.000 | So he has this podcast, "Intentionally Blank."

00:41:05.000 | These do half the traffic.

00:41:07.000 | So this is like him talking with a co-host.

00:41:09.000 | They do like half the traffic.

00:41:11.000 | And then-- so that's more for him.

00:41:14.000 | I think the weekly updates keeps his fans engaged.

00:41:17.000 | I don't know that the video podcast--

00:41:20.000 | this is more-- it's just him with someone else.

00:41:23.000 | And they chat about things, but it's not nearly as popular.

00:41:26.000 | And then he does one-off things on here as well,

00:41:29.000 | like a fan event.

00:41:31.000 | Like, let me put up a video of me doing a fan event, et cetera.

00:41:35.000 | And those don't do as well either.

00:41:37.000 | So anyways, I think it's kind of cool, right?

00:41:39.000 | Like, he has a very specific strategy.

00:41:41.000 | He does these weekly updates.

00:41:42.000 | That's his relationship with his fans.

00:41:44.000 | That's what-- you know, he got this set up once.

00:41:47.000 | But notice, these aren't huge views.

00:41:49.000 | For someone that famous with 600,000 subscribers,

00:41:53.000 | you know, all of that work,

00:41:54.000 | it's still going to be like a core group of people.

00:41:57.000 | So there's an example.

00:42:00.000 | All right.

00:42:02.000 | Let's-- what do we got next?

00:42:04.000 | We have our slow productivity corner.

00:42:06.000 | Oh, excellent.

00:42:07.000 | Let's hear some theme music.

00:42:08.000 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:42:11.000 | For those who are new, we like to have

00:42:18.000 | one question each week that relates

00:42:20.000 | to my most recent book, "Slow Productivity--

00:42:23.000 | The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout."

00:42:25.000 | If you have not read or listened to this book yet,

00:42:28.000 | you should.

00:42:29.000 | I estimate about half of what we talk about on the show

00:42:31.000 | actually references ideas from that book.

00:42:33.000 | So it's sort of like the source guide

00:42:35.000 | to the "Deep Questions" podcast.

00:42:37.000 | All right, Jesse, what's today's slow productivity question?

00:42:40.000 | It's from Rachel.

00:42:41.000 | How can I do fewer things if I'm expected to bill

00:42:44.000 | 40 client hours every week?

00:42:46.000 | Well, I think this is one of the more common questions

00:42:48.000 | I hear about the philosophy of slow productivity.

00:42:51.000 | There's three principles to this philosophy

00:42:53.000 | that I outline in the book--

00:42:55.000 | do fewer things, see what the question's about,

00:42:58.000 | work at a natural pace, and obsess over quality.

00:43:01.000 | The concern people have about do fewer things

00:43:04.000 | tends to be based on a misunderstanding

00:43:06.000 | of what's being proposed.

00:43:08.000 | They read do fewer things as work fewer hours

00:43:13.000 | or accomplish fewer things.

00:43:16.000 | That's not actually what it means.

00:43:18.000 | I think we've become used to, over the last five years,

00:43:22.000 | we've become used to a sort of anti-work rhetoric

00:43:26.000 | that really focuses on an antagonistic relationship

00:43:29.000 | with work and, therefore, to repair our existing issues

00:43:33.000 | with burnout, we need to reduce the amount of work we're doing.

00:43:37.000 | So there's a--it homogenizes all work as work,

00:43:41.000 | and what it measures is how much you're doing.

00:43:43.000 | And it says, look, there's these pressures,

00:43:45.000 | be them capitalistic or cultural,

00:43:47.000 | that's pushing you to do too much,

00:43:48.000 | and you need to do less.

00:43:50.000 | This would be at the core of books

00:43:52.000 | with do nothing in the title

00:43:54.000 | or the quiet quitting movement, et cetera.

00:43:56.000 | Slow productivity is coming at this from another angle.

00:43:59.000 | When it says do fewer things,

00:44:00.000 | what it really means is do fewer things at once.

00:44:03.000 | And it's actually a very practical argument.

00:44:05.000 | Everything you agree to do has two components with it.

00:44:08.000 | There's the actual execution of the work itself,

00:44:10.000 | and there's the administrative overhead

00:44:12.000 | that comes along with collaborating with other people

00:44:14.000 | and gathering the information you need to do the work.

00:44:17.000 | The amount of administrative overhead per task is fixed.

00:44:20.000 | So as you say yes to more and more things,

00:44:23.000 | the total amount of administrative overhead

00:44:25.000 | in your calendar goes up.

00:44:27.000 | But administrative overhead is highly distractive

00:44:29.000 | and highly inflexible,

00:44:31.000 | because it's not just you deciding to do it.

00:44:33.000 | You've got to send a message.

00:44:34.000 | You've got to wait for a response.

00:44:35.000 | You've got to get on a call.

00:44:36.000 | You've got to go into a meeting.

00:44:37.000 | So as you have more and more administrative overhead,

00:44:39.000 | more and more of your day is spent

00:44:41.000 | servicing the administrative overhead.

00:44:43.000 | It leaves you less time to actually execute the work.

00:44:46.000 | Quality of your life goes down, exhaustion goes up,

00:44:48.000 | and the rate at which you finish things goes down as well.

00:44:51.000 | So do fewer things means do fewer things at once.

00:44:53.000 | It has nothing to do with the total hours of work that you do.

00:44:57.000 | And if anything, it'll increase what you accomplish.

00:45:00.000 | So in the context of billing hours, it would mean, look,

00:45:02.000 | work on less clients at a time,

00:45:06.000 | but you'll be able to give each of those clients

00:45:08.000 | more consecutive time.

00:45:10.000 | And we'll probably finish or get the major milestones

00:45:12.000 | with these clients faster and a higher level of quality.

00:45:15.000 | I would build this against the same backdrop

00:45:17.000 | if I bill 40 hours.

00:45:18.000 | It's like, what are you doing with your 40 hours?

00:45:20.000 | What's the ratio of deep work execution

00:45:22.000 | versus administrative overhead in those 40 hours?

00:45:25.000 | As you make the former larger, your work

00:45:27.000 | will be of a higher quality, and it will also

00:45:29.000 | become more sustainable.

00:45:32.000 | All right, so that is our Slow Productivity Corner

00:45:34.000 | question of the week.

00:45:35.000 | Let's hear that theme music one more time.

00:45:37.000 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:45:45.000 | All right, do we have a call this week, Jessie?

00:45:47.000 | We do.

00:45:48.000 | All right, let's hear it.

00:45:49.000 | Hi, Cal.

00:45:50.000 | My name is Anna, and I work in campus ministry

00:45:52.000 | at a college campus.

00:45:54.000 | My deep work ministry is definitely

00:45:56.000 | focusing on the relationships and events that we have.

00:46:00.000 | So I love your idea of simulating my own support staff

00:46:03.000 | to sort of get the administrative tasks done

00:46:05.000 | so I can focus on what's most important.

00:46:08.000 | I have a student worker that I use

00:46:12.000 | to take care of some of the administrative recurring tasks

00:46:16.000 | and one-off tasks, but I actually

00:46:18.000 | do get to hire a new administrative assistant.

00:46:21.000 | So I'm wondering if you have any advice on how

00:46:24.000 | to integrate them into a Newportian kind of system

00:46:28.000 | without having to spend a ton of time creating tasks for them.

00:46:32.000 | Cool.

00:46:33.000 | Thank you.

00:46:35.000 | Well, that's great.

00:46:36.000 | The fact that you get a hired administrative assistant,

00:46:39.000 | I think is great.

00:46:40.000 | The fact that you have autonomy over what this assistant's

00:46:42.000 | going to do is also great.

00:46:44.000 | So how do we get a Newportian set up here?

00:46:47.000 | Well, I have a couple of notes here.

00:46:49.000 | First, I want to just start by underscoring something

00:46:52.000 | you mentioned in passing, this idea of treating admin work

00:46:56.000 | like a different job.

00:46:57.000 | Let me just briefly elaborate that for listeners

00:46:59.000 | who are unfamiliar.

00:47:01.000 | I'm a big believer if you have a sort of autonomous role

00:47:03.000 | like this that has some major deep work requirements,

00:47:06.000 | but also some major administrative requirements,

00:47:08.000 | is to treat those two roles as two part-time jobs.

00:47:12.000 | I have my admin job, where I am in charge

00:47:15.000 | of the logistics and budget of running a particular campus

00:47:19.000 | ministry, and I have my minister job,

00:47:22.000 | where I'm forming connections, I'm thinking big thoughts,

00:47:25.000 | I'm writing, I'm on stage or in the room with other students

00:47:30.000 | and helping them feel secure in their spiritual community.

00:47:34.000 | Treat it as different part-time jobs that

00:47:37.000 | have different schedules.

00:47:38.000 | This is when my administrative job, this is when I do it.

00:47:43.000 | My deep work pastoral job, this is when I do that.

00:47:46.000 | And so you're not mixing the two together.

00:47:49.000 | You're still giving the same amount of time to each

00:47:51.000 | that you would if you were doing them in a more haphazard style,

00:47:54.000 | but you're not mixing them together.

00:47:56.000 | So when you're doing admin work, and maybe that's

00:47:58.000 | what the afternoons are like, or the first hour of the day

00:48:00.000 | and from 3 to 5 is like, that's all you're doing.

00:48:03.000 | And in the other hours, all you're doing

00:48:05.000 | is your office is open, students are coming in,

00:48:07.000 | you're writing, you're thinking, you're inspiring.

00:48:09.000 | You're not context-shifting constantly back and forth

00:48:11.000 | between these two worlds.

00:48:12.000 | It's a good way of handling what's increasingly

00:48:15.000 | common in non-entry-level positions in the knowledge

00:48:18.000 | economy, which are these multi-role jobs.

00:48:20.000 | Treat the role separately.

00:48:21.000 | All right.

00:48:22.000 | Your administrative assistant, it

00:48:25.000 | will be helpful if you keep this in mind, right?

00:48:28.000 | What you want to avoid is the administrative assistant

00:48:32.000 | having a hive mind style collaboration relationship

00:48:36.000 | with you, where you're just constantly going back and forth

00:48:40.000 | about things.

00:48:41.000 | Hey, what about this?

00:48:42.000 | I'm working on this.

00:48:43.000 | What about this?

00:48:44.000 | You do not want to sort of meld your minds into a hive mind,

00:48:47.000 | because that assistant then is not

00:48:49.000 | going to save you from context shifts and distraction,

00:48:51.000 | but will actually amplify them.

00:48:53.000 | Because when it's just you, at least you

00:48:55.000 | have some control over, I'm writing now,

00:48:58.000 | so I'm not going to work on getting the catering order

00:49:02.000 | right for this event staff.

00:49:03.000 | But when there's someone else involved, they don't know that.

00:49:06.000 | They're working on the catering order.

00:49:08.000 | They're going to come interrupt you right then.

00:49:10.000 | So it can actually be worse if you don't do this right.

00:49:12.000 | So what does work is processes.

00:49:16.000 | You have to do the hard work of figuring out,

00:49:19.000 | what are the regular things that we do?

00:49:21.000 | What are our systems and processes for dealing with them?

00:49:24.000 | And then the admin can be plugged

00:49:27.000 | into that existing system.

00:49:28.000 | The admins can't come up with the systems and processes,

00:49:31.000 | because you know the role, and you know what's important.

00:49:35.000 | So for example, let's be specific.

00:49:37.000 | I'm guessing here, but maybe one of the things you have to do

00:49:40.000 | is meet with students.

00:49:41.000 | Students will come to you and say, whatever,

00:49:44.000 | I just want to talk to someone on campus

00:49:47.000 | from my spiritual background.

00:49:48.000 | And these are-- you don't know when students

00:49:50.000 | are going to make these requests, and it's

00:49:52.000 | a big, important part of your job.

00:49:54.000 | Have a scheduling process that you can then plug

00:49:57.000 | an admin assistant into.

00:49:59.000 | Oh, you want to set up a chat with me?

00:50:03.000 | Send a note to the admin, right?

00:50:05.000 | The admin then knows.

00:50:06.000 | We've set aside specific times for student meetings,

00:50:10.000 | maybe, that he or she can schedule them directly into.

00:50:13.000 | Or maybe we have, on Mondays, you sit down with the admin,

00:50:19.000 | you have a list of students who want to meet with you,

00:50:22.000 | and you figure out where you want

00:50:24.000 | to put those meetings in the week,

00:50:25.000 | and then they go back and tell the students, right?

00:50:27.000 | Maybe when the student writes in, the rule is the admin says,

00:50:30.000 | OK, what is your class schedule next week?

00:50:33.000 | What are generally the times you're available?

00:50:35.000 | We'll get back to you with meeting times

00:50:37.000 | on Monday morning, right?

00:50:38.000 | Whatever it is, have a system that you're then

00:50:42.000 | plugging the admin into.

00:50:43.000 | The other thing you want to do, in addition

00:50:45.000 | to processing systems, is have a communication protocol.

00:50:48.000 | All of these ideas, by the way, are in my book,

00:50:50.000 | A World Without Email, if you want to look deeper into this.

00:50:53.000 | But have a communication protocol,

00:50:55.000 | so that the default does not become,

00:50:57.000 | as the admin thinks of something or needs feedback,

00:51:00.000 | they just ping you and need an answer quickly,

00:51:03.000 | so they don't have to keep track of it.

00:51:05.000 | Real-time but regular is the right way

00:51:07.000 | to do it with an admin.

00:51:08.000 | At some point in the morning, you should check in on the day,

00:51:11.000 | see what's going on, what's open.

00:51:13.000 | Sometime in the afternoon, you should do the same.

00:51:16.000 | In between those times, they can consolidate everything

00:51:18.000 | that they need to talk to with you.

00:51:20.000 | So I think frequent but pre-scheduled real-time

00:51:23.000 | conversation is the right way to actually communicate

00:51:27.000 | with an admin.

00:51:28.000 | It's very nuanced.

00:51:29.000 | Things get done, but it involves--

00:51:31.000 | it prevents, rather, unscheduled distractions

00:51:34.000 | and interruptions.

00:51:35.000 | And make sure that everything you have the admin doing,

00:51:37.000 | that you have some sort of well-defined processing

00:51:39.000 | system that surrounds it.

00:51:40.000 | Write these things down.

00:51:42.000 | Right?

00:51:43.000 | You do those things, and admin can be very effective.

00:51:47.000 | If you don't, it can actually make things worse.

00:51:49.000 | If it's just, I'm just going to be-- we'll just

00:51:51.000 | be talking throughout the day.

00:51:52.000 | I'll give you work.

00:51:53.000 | You'll check in with me with what questions

00:51:54.000 | you have about that.

00:51:55.000 | You're going to find the admin is actually adding more work

00:51:58.000 | than they're saving.

00:51:59.000 | So it's a good question.

00:52:00.000 | You're in a good situation if you handle it carefully.

00:52:04.000 | And I think, based on your call, I think you probably will.

00:52:08.000 | Yeah, admins are interesting, Jesse.

00:52:10.000 | I always think of Joe Rogan's advice,

00:52:12.000 | which we talk about on the show a lot,

00:52:14.000 | which was, at least in Hollywood entertainment,

00:52:17.000 | if you need an assistant, do less things.

00:52:20.000 | So that's where I start.

00:52:22.000 | If you need an assistant, you're doing too much.

00:52:24.000 | But in some roles--

00:52:25.000 | no, no, the role is really well-defined,

00:52:27.000 | like being in campus ministry.

00:52:29.000 | There, a well-deployed assistant can really

00:52:31.000 | make your life easier.

00:52:32.000 | Yeah.

00:52:33.000 | There should be more support staff in general, I think.

00:52:37.000 | And like most jobs.

00:52:39.000 | It's crazy the way we do this.

00:52:41.000 | They have so many roles on individuals.

00:52:43.000 | We think that this is somehow more economically efficient,

00:52:45.000 | but it's not.

00:52:46.000 | Mm-hmm.

00:52:48.000 | A campus minister that also has to be the administrator

00:52:52.000 | of a complex campus ministry is very bad.

00:52:55.000 | It doesn't do as much ministering.

00:52:57.000 | An executive that has to spend all this time emailing

00:53:00.000 | back and forth with HR and booking flights

00:53:02.000 | or this or that, it's just way worse at being an executive.

00:53:05.000 | We don't always think about that.

00:53:08.000 | All right.

00:53:09.000 | It looks like we have a case study.

00:53:13.000 | So what we try to do is people send in

00:53:15.000 | to jesse@calnewport.com.

00:53:18.000 | There are stories of using the type of advice

00:53:20.000 | we talk about on this show in their own life.

00:53:23.000 | So we can see what it looks like in practice.

00:53:26.000 | Today, we have a case study from Hannah.

00:53:30.000 | Hannah says, I'm a software developer.

00:53:32.000 | In software development, we have this process

00:53:34.000 | called pull request review.

00:53:37.000 | When your work is put in a pull request,

00:53:40.000 | and it must be approved by one of your peers

00:53:42.000 | before it can be considered done and merged into the code base.

00:53:46.000 | All right.

00:53:47.000 | This is a technical thing, but programmers know about it.

00:53:50.000 | This is me talking now.

00:53:51.000 | Just think about pull requests as you basically saying,

00:53:54.000 | I changed some code from this complicated system

00:53:57.000 | that I want to now add back to the system.

00:54:01.000 | And a pull request says someone is going to check it

00:54:04.000 | before it gets added back in.

00:54:05.000 | So it ensures that someone doesn't mess up

00:54:08.000 | something about the system.

00:54:10.000 | All right.

00:54:11.000 | I joined the team as a more junior developer.

00:54:13.000 | And I used to feel like a big part of my job

00:54:15.000 | is to immediately check the pull request from the senior

00:54:17.000 | developers.

00:54:18.000 | And if there's no serious bug, I should

00:54:19.000 | give a quick stamp of approval so their work

00:54:21.000 | can move on and be merged.

00:54:22.000 | I was partly too nice and scared of blocking the process

00:54:25.000 | and partly chose to be visibly busy.

00:54:27.000 | By participating in the pull request review

00:54:29.000 | as soon as the notification came in,

00:54:31.000 | I felt like people can see me working,

00:54:35.000 | stepping away again.

00:54:36.000 | This is a classic example of what I call in my book

00:54:38.000 | slow productivity, pseudo productivity,

00:54:41.000 | which is the use of visible activity

00:54:43.000 | as a proxy for useful effort.

00:54:45.000 | All right.

00:54:46.000 | Back to the case study.

00:54:47.000 | This approach, however, requires constant context switching

00:54:51.000 | and turns me into a zombie, checking Slack and emails

00:54:54.000 | all the time, hunting for visible work.

00:54:56.000 | After reading Deep Work, I decided this has to change.

00:55:00.000 | I started with time block recording

00:55:03.000 | just to have an account of how my time was spent

00:55:06.000 | and was appalled to find out how much went into checking

00:55:08.000 | Slack and getting distracted.

00:55:10.000 | After seeing this pattern for one week,

00:55:12.000 | I started to actually do daily time block planning.

00:55:16.000 | In addition, I also plan for the coming week

00:55:18.000 | and retrospectively review the previous week

00:55:20.000 | to understand myself better.

00:55:22.000 | I now try to start the day with at least an hour

00:55:24.000 | block of coding work without opening Slack or emails,

00:55:27.000 | which is a game changer when it comes to setting

00:55:29.000 | the mood for the day.

00:55:31.000 | Then I schedule all pull request reviews for 10 a.m.

00:55:34.000 | after the team's daily meeting and again at 3 p.m.

00:55:36.000 | after my afternoon walk.

00:55:38.000 | Each review time block lasts at most one hour,

00:55:41.000 | usually less than I move on with my own tasks.

00:55:43.000 | I thought my coworkers would notice and be mad,

00:55:46.000 | but it seems like waiting a few hours for review

00:55:48.000 | doesn't bother them at all in most cases.

00:55:53.000 | With this new system,

00:55:55.000 | I've become more effective and happier with my own work.

00:55:58.000 | My deep to shallow work ratio went from 20% to 40%.

00:56:05.000 | I was able to complete a complicated project

00:56:07.000 | and got a lot of positive feedback from the team.

00:56:09.000 | When the project is done,

00:56:11.000 | I feel I've earned more trust from others

00:56:13.000 | and a lot more confidence in myself to keep optimizing

00:56:15.000 | my schedule to fit my vision,

00:56:17.000 | like skipping irrelevant meetings to get more deep work done.

00:56:20.000 | As a classic example of the type of principles

00:56:24.000 | we talk about here on the show in action,

00:56:26.000 | pseudoproductivity convinces us.

00:56:30.000 | We talk about this all the time on the show.

00:56:32.000 | It convinces us that there's these committee meetings

00:56:35.000 | where our peers and bosses are studying our every response.

00:56:40.000 | They have bar charts of the average latency

00:56:43.000 | between pull requests and completions

00:56:45.000 | and they're looking for anything different

00:56:47.000 | and as soon as they see a change,

00:56:49.000 | hmm, I've noticed that,

00:56:51.000 | see this was from Hannah.

00:56:54.000 | Hannah seems to be waiting until 10 a.m.

00:56:56.000 | to handle their pull request.

00:56:58.000 | This won't stand at all

00:56:59.000 | and they're getting really upset about this.

00:57:01.000 | People don't care, they're busy.

00:57:03.000 | They finish something, they move on to something else.

00:57:05.000 | What they notice is if you're negligent,

00:57:07.000 | if you skipped a pull request,

00:57:09.000 | if you would often have a day or two go by,

00:57:13.000 | that would flag negatively and people would notice,

00:57:15.000 | but the fact that you've batched these at 10 and 3,

00:57:17.000 | no one cares, they get done, right?

00:57:20.000 | But you've made your life more easier.

00:57:22.000 | The other thing that happens as we see in this case study

00:57:25.000 | is that as you move away from pseudo productivity,

00:57:28.000 | you begin to obsess over quality,

00:57:30.000 | one of the principles of slow productivity.

00:57:32.000 | I like doing deep work.

00:57:33.000 | I like producing stuff that matters.

00:57:35.000 | I get good feedback when I do stuff that matters.

00:57:37.000 | Suddenly, pseudo productivity

00:57:41.000 | and all the performance of busyness seems less appealing.

00:57:44.000 | The more you care about quality,

00:57:46.000 | the more likely, as we see in this case study,

00:57:48.000 | you are to say, "I'm not going to that meeting,"

00:57:50.000 | or, "I'm not going to even look at my Slack until 10 a.m."

00:57:53.000 | because you get addicted to the rewards

00:57:57.000 | and positive feeling of doing good work.

00:58:00.000 | That's why obsess over quality, I say,

00:58:02.000 | is the glue for the slow productivity philosophy.

00:58:04.000 | If you don't do that part,

00:58:07.000 | everything else becomes just like

00:58:09.000 | an antagonistic relationship with your work.

00:58:11.000 | If you don't obsess over quality,

00:58:13.000 | but you're still trying to reduce the number of things

00:58:15.000 | you work on concurrently and work at a more natural pace,

00:58:17.000 | it's just like, "I don't like work.

00:58:18.000 | I want to do less of it.

00:58:19.000 | I want to be less hard."

00:58:20.000 | When you obsess over quality, you start doing those things

00:58:22.000 | because it lets you do better work.

00:58:24.000 | When you obsess over quality,

00:58:26.000 | you gain more freedom to do those things

00:58:29.000 | because you're doing better work.

00:58:31.000 | I see this as a great case study

00:58:33.000 | of what happens when you leave pseudo productivity

00:58:35.000 | and you embrace the type of ideas I talk about

00:58:37.000 | in slow productivity.

00:58:40.000 | All right, we have a final segment coming up,

00:58:44.000 | a tech corner.

00:58:46.000 | Talk about a trend in the world of technology

00:58:48.000 | that is critical,

00:58:50.000 | but you are not paying enough attention to.

00:58:53.000 | First, however, let's hear from a sponsor.

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00:59:35.000 | We used to have, for example, an ad tracking system

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01:00:50.000 | Hey, when was the last time we did

01:00:54.000 | an ad read for Notion or something?

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01:00:58.000 | What are the main points from the script

01:01:01.000 | for this ad read that we did?

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01:01:59.000 | I also want to talk about our friends at Z Biotics.

01:02:04.000 | Jesse and I are old men.

01:02:06.000 | Let's be honest.

01:02:07.000 | We're in our 40s now.

01:02:09.000 | It's not like we were when we were in college.

01:02:12.000 | What that means is, like, if we're going out with some friends,

01:02:14.000 | like, tonight I'm having dinner with three friends.

01:02:17.000 | We'll probably have, like, a drink or two,

01:02:19.000 | because it's a nice dinner.

01:02:20.000 | That could be enough for us old men.

01:02:23.000 | They'll, like, knock us out the next day.

01:02:25.000 | They get us off to a more sluggish start.

01:02:27.000 | This is not the way it was in college.

01:02:29.000 | My memory of Dartmouth -- and maybe I have this little wrong, Jesse.

01:02:32.000 | My memory of Dartmouth is that Natty Light came out of the water fountains.

01:02:38.000 | I think it was just, like, part of our student fees went to --

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01:04:07.000 | All right, Jesse, let's do our final segment.

01:04:10.000 | I want to do something, and maybe we should get—

01:04:13.000 | eventually I think we need theme music for this, Jesse,

01:04:16.000 | but I want to add something I call "tech corner" occasionally to the end of the episode.

01:04:22.000 | Look, I'm a technologist. I'm a computer scientist.

01:04:24.000 | I'm a founding faculty member of Georgetown Center for Digital Ethics.

01:04:28.000 | I'm the director of the Computer Science, Ethics, and Society academic program at Georgetown.

01:04:31.000 | I think a lot about technology and its impact.

01:04:35.000 | Everything on the show is vaguely about that, right?

01:04:37.000 | The deep life is something that we're often establishing as a bulwark against a distracted life,

01:04:43.000 | where those distractions come from the electronic world,

01:04:45.000 | but sometimes I want to get geeky about specific technologies.

01:04:49.000 | Today I want to briefly talk about advances in a trend

01:04:53.000 | that I think is one of the most important trends in technology that most people are ignoring,

01:04:57.000 | and it has nothing to do with AI.

01:05:00.000 | All right, I'm putting a video on the screen here for people who are watching instead of just listening.

01:05:05.000 | What you're going to see here is a video from a company called Immersed.

01:05:09.000 | You see a man holding up what looks like a smaller version of Apple Vision Pro.

01:05:14.000 | It kind of looks like ski goggles. These are important.

01:05:17.000 | All right, here's someone wearing them.

01:05:22.000 | All right, so Jesse, what do you think about these goggles?

01:05:24.000 | These still aren't casual. You would notice if someone was wearing these.

01:05:28.000 | Right.

01:05:29.000 | But they're like small ski goggles with a cable coming off of them.

01:05:33.000 | All right, so what do these do?

01:05:35.000 | I'm going to zoom ahead here to them in progress.

01:05:39.000 | All right, we see on the screen what the person wearing the visor sees,

01:05:43.000 | which is their computer screens, but floating in space against a sort of scenic background.

01:05:50.000 | You can also use these with pass-through, pass-through to that,

01:05:54.000 | where you see your actual space around you, but with these computer screens floating.

01:06:01.000 | Here's what's important about this particular product.

01:06:05.000 | It's called Visor. It's from a company called Immersed,

01:06:08.000 | a company that I actually profiled in The New Yorker back in 2021.

01:06:11.000 | It's about a third the price of Apple Vision Pro, right?

01:06:17.000 | Why is it about a third the price?

01:06:19.000 | They have specialized in one particular use case,

01:06:25.000 | which is when I put on these augmented reality goggles,

01:06:29.000 | the only thing I want to do is have virtual computer monitors.

01:06:34.000 | I want to take the screens from my computer I'm using right here,

01:06:39.000 | make them bigger, and put them in virtual space.

01:06:41.000 | If that's all you're doing,

01:06:44.000 | it simplifies a lot of the hard problems about augmented reality.

01:06:48.000 | When you don't need the whale to come out of the floor of the gymnasium

01:06:52.000 | like we see in the famous Magic Leap demo,

01:06:55.000 | when you don't need the ability to be walking through a building

01:06:58.000 | and have a Jar Jar Binks character walking alongside of you,

01:07:01.000 | when you don't need the ability to walk 360

01:07:05.000 | around a carefully rendered 3D Minecraft map

01:07:08.000 | that's getting the lighting right from all directions,

01:07:10.000 | when you don't need any of that,

01:07:12.000 | all you need is I want screens floating in space,

01:07:15.000 | and they stay fixed in one space.

01:07:17.000 | In fact, my laptop will be there in the scene,

01:07:19.000 | so I can anchor them to where my laptop is.

01:07:21.000 | The challenge of augmented reality gets much easier,

01:07:24.000 | so the price can go way down.

01:07:26.000 | The reason why I think this is important

01:07:28.000 | is because the particular use case that Immerse is focusing on with the Visor

01:07:33.000 | is the killer app.

01:07:36.000 | It is the thing we should be paying attention to, virtual monitors.

01:07:41.000 | This is the big change. I've talked about this before,

01:07:44.000 | but now we're making progress for it.

01:07:46.000 | This is the big change that is coming.

01:07:49.000 | I do not need a TV. I do not need to buy a desktop.

01:07:52.000 | I don't need to have multiple laptop computers.

01:07:55.000 | The screens will be virtual.

01:07:57.000 | When you think about this, it makes a lot of sense.

01:08:01.000 | What I bring with me is a pair of glasses.

01:08:06.000 | When I put on those glasses, I get a big monitor computer screen,

01:08:11.000 | or I get four computer screens, or I get a TV on my wall,

01:08:14.000 | whatever wall I happen to be in, and I can watch a movie there.

01:08:18.000 | I can watch a TV show there.

01:08:20.000 | This makes so much more sense when we think about it

01:08:24.000 | than having to have all of these pieces of glass

01:08:27.000 | on top of OLED light-emitting diodes

01:08:32.000 | that we hang and put on hinges and put in all of our spaces

01:08:36.000 | and that we use to sort of see things.

01:08:39.000 | Why not just make all these screens virtual?

01:08:42.000 | Then I don't have to buy all these different things.

01:08:45.000 | I need one powerful computing device and this pair of glasses.

01:08:48.000 | This is the future for everyone who is making fun of the Apple Vision Pro.

01:08:52.000 | This is what Apple has in mind.

01:08:54.000 | Yeah, the demos are weird, and people do all sorts of crazy stuff with them.

01:08:57.000 | What they have in mind is their whole hardware business is going to go away

01:09:01.000 | when this technology advances, and they want to be at the forefront.

01:09:05.000 | So why I think this announcement is important

01:09:07.000 | is because the price is coming down.

01:09:10.000 | When you acknowledge this is what we're trying to do,

01:09:12.000 | you begin to get competition in the space.

01:09:14.000 | When you get the form factor for these glasses

01:09:17.000 | to be more or less normal glasses form factor,

01:09:21.000 | and you get the price sub $1,000, the race is on.

01:09:26.000 | Now you're in a killer app space.

01:09:28.000 | We're going to start to begin to see widespread adoption.

01:09:33.000 | So is there going to be a future in which everyone has on,

01:09:38.000 | just walking down the street, on the subway,

01:09:41.000 | at their chairs at Starbucks, at their offices,

01:09:44.000 | where everyone has on basically what looks like thick Ray-Ban glasses?

01:09:49.000 | Is that going to be the future where everyone has on glasses?

01:09:52.000 | I say the answer is yes.

01:09:54.000 | But I think that feels weird to us right now.

01:09:57.000 | Could you imagine just everyone you see has these glasses on

01:10:00.000 | that can just put screens in front of them when they need it?

01:10:03.000 | But is it really any weirder to someone in the 1980s

01:10:07.000 | if you talked about a world in which everyone was going to be

01:10:10.000 | carrying around a small rectangle with a piece of glass

01:10:12.000 | and just looking at it everywhere,

01:10:14.000 | like holding this thing up in front of their head?

01:10:16.000 | Like this looks pretty weird.

01:10:18.000 | And yet now we're completely used to that.

01:10:20.000 | That you walk into almost any public space

01:10:23.000 | and everyone is looking at this thing in their hand.

01:10:26.000 | If you, in 1982 when I was born,

01:10:29.000 | if you told people that's what we're going to see

01:10:31.000 | 40 years from now in the future,

01:10:33.000 | they'd be like, you mean like Star Trek?

01:10:36.000 | Like the thing Commander Kirk looks at

01:10:39.000 | when they beam them down to the surface of the planet?

01:10:42.000 | Come on, you're crazy.

01:10:43.000 | And now we're completely used to it.

01:10:45.000 | I think 10 years from now,

01:10:47.000 | everyone's going to have on glasses.

01:10:49.000 | Everyone's going to have on glasses.

01:10:50.000 | It just makes too much sense.

01:10:52.000 | There'll be some computing device as well.

01:10:55.000 | It'll be like a phone, maybe a little bit thicker.

01:10:57.000 | It's going to have like most of your computation.

01:10:59.000 | Your data is going to be in the cloud.

01:11:02.000 | This is going to make, we're going to see this,

01:11:04.000 | there'll be first adopters,

01:11:05.000 | but companies are going to be quick to this once the price is right.

01:11:08.000 | Because you can just look at a budget,

01:11:10.000 | an IT budget for a company, right?

01:11:13.000 | Man, we have to buy all of these computers.

01:11:15.000 | We have to replace them every three years.

01:11:17.000 | We have all these projectors in the conference rooms

01:11:20.000 | and these TV projectors and those break

01:11:22.000 | and we have to replace them.

01:11:24.000 | We have like the phones people use

01:11:26.000 | and those have to be updated

01:11:28.000 | and we have to keep the software updated

01:11:29.000 | and we have to force people to update the software

01:11:31.000 | and all these different devices.

01:11:33.000 | And to say, what if we just bought everyone

01:11:34.000 | a $500 pair of glasses, right?

01:11:38.000 | And now every conference room, every desk,

01:11:41.000 | like we just have all the screens they need.

01:11:43.000 | It's all there virtual.

01:11:44.000 | Everything is software based.

01:11:45.000 | We can update it in the backend as needed.

01:11:47.000 | It just makes a lot of sense.

01:11:49.000 | For individuals, like yes, I want five monitors

01:11:52.000 | or three monitors or I want my email over here

01:11:56.000 | and the thing I'm writing over here

01:11:58.000 | and the chat, Slack chat over here.

01:12:00.000 | Yes, I want multiple monitors.

01:12:01.000 | People are going to get used to that.

01:12:03.000 | And if putting on the glasses gives that to you at home,

01:12:05.000 | at the office, when you're hot swapping desks,

01:12:08.000 | on the seat in front of you on the Delta flight,

01:12:11.000 | people will want that.

01:12:13.000 | The ability to shut off the world

01:12:15.000 | and replace it with a virtual reality world,

01:12:17.000 | I think that will be useful as well

01:12:19.000 | when people want to focus.

01:12:21.000 | Hey, I want to focus.

01:12:22.000 | I want just one screen where I'm writing

01:12:24.000 | and I want to be in Mordor or whatever.

01:12:27.000 | Like that's going to be important as well.

01:12:30.000 | So anyways, I have been pitching this future,

01:12:33.000 | this end of reality in which screens become virtual.

01:12:36.000 | I've been pitching this for a long time.

01:12:37.000 | This is a key milestone.

01:12:40.000 | Other OEMs figuring out,

01:12:43.000 | oh, if all we need to do is screens,

01:12:47.000 | we can make these things cheaper.

01:12:49.000 | This is the beginning of the end for screens.

01:12:52.000 | Now that it's no longer the super high-end products,

01:12:55.000 | it's not Meta's Quest doing some of this

01:12:57.000 | but also doing games.

01:12:58.000 | It's not Apple Vision Pro trying to do

01:13:00.000 | all possible augmented reality things for $3,000.

01:13:04.000 | It's a smaller pair of glasses

01:13:05.000 | that just does screens for $1,000.

01:13:06.000 | That's going to lead to a smaller pair of glasses

01:13:08.000 | that just does screens for $500.

01:13:09.000 | That's then going to lead to smaller glasses

01:13:11.000 | that does the same thing,

01:13:13.000 | and then we're going to have a real change.

01:13:15.000 | So anyways, that's my tech corner for this week.

01:13:19.000 | Keep an eye on augmented reality.

01:13:22.000 | Forget the crazy stuff.

01:13:23.000 | This is all about having three screens

01:13:25.000 | at your desk at Starbucks.

01:13:27.000 | We're getting closer to that future.

01:13:30.000 | I heard, however, their event didn't go well.

01:13:32.000 | Oh, really?

01:13:33.000 | Yeah, they had a big event this summer.

01:13:34.000 | They invited me, but I think the demos weren't ready yet.

01:13:37.000 | So a lot of people came,

01:13:39.000 | and they didn't have the visor ready.

01:13:40.000 | But anyways, I think this direction--

01:13:43.000 | I mean, Immerse is going to do well.

01:13:44.000 | Apple is going to have a lower-end product.

01:13:46.000 | Everyone else--Meta is working on the frames.

01:13:49.000 | So Meta has the right-size frames

01:13:51.000 | with limited functionality,

01:13:53.000 | and they're working backwards

01:13:54.000 | from the frames to the technology.

01:13:56.000 | People are working on this,

01:13:57.000 | and again, I think we're so distracted

01:14:00.000 | by generative AI.

01:14:02.000 | We don't realize that this is a technology

01:14:04.000 | that's going to have a bigger day-to-day footprint

01:14:06.000 | probably on our life.

01:14:07.000 | So there you go.

01:14:08.000 | My Tech Corner obligation of the day

01:14:10.000 | is spreading the word about that.

01:14:12.000 | All right, but for now,

01:14:14.000 | we will shut down our old-fashioned screens

01:14:16.000 | because that's all we have to talk about

01:14:18.000 | in today's episode.

01:14:20.000 | Thank you, everyone, for listening.

01:14:21.000 | We'll be back next week

01:14:22.000 | with another episode of the podcast.

01:14:24.000 | And until then, as always, stay deep.

01:14:27.000 | Hey, if you liked today's discussion

01:14:29.000 | about working on urgent

01:14:31.000 | but non-important household tasks,

01:14:33.000 | I think you'll also like episode 317,

01:14:38.000 | which is about the 10-year rule,

01:14:40.000 | about how you make progress

01:14:41.000 | on very long-term

01:14:43.000 | but important non-urgent projects.

01:14:45.000 | Check it out. I think you'll like it.

01:14:47.000 | So today I want to talk about

01:14:48.000 | a common feature that comes up

01:14:50.000 | when you study the lives of people

01:14:52.000 | who have embraced depth.

How To Organize Your Life Before 2024 Ends - Time Management For Busy People | Cal Newport

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