How Do I Find a New Structure to Live a Deep Student Life?

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | All right.

00:00:07.620 | Let's move on now.

00:00:10.020 | We have time for two more questions.

00:00:11.980 | Okay, let's get another question.

00:00:13.020 | I think we have time.

00:00:13.860 | Who do we have here?

00:00:14.680 | - All right, next question we have,

00:00:18.120 | it's basically about the deep life during the pandemic

00:00:21.920 | and he's a student.

00:00:23.180 | So he's got some good questions.

00:00:24.140 | He's got a good question for you.

00:00:25.220 | - There's a pandemic?

00:00:26.260 | That's the first I'm hearing of this.

00:00:28.660 | - I'm local.

00:00:29.680 | I'm a long time listener of your podcast.

00:00:32.240 | I'm a college student.

00:00:33.480 | Last year when the pandemic hits, I moved back to my home.

00:00:37.560 | Throughout the pandemic, my life become way more structured.

00:00:41.000 | I took your 30 day social media challenge,

00:00:43.880 | removed social media completely

00:00:45.940 | from my life after that challenge.

00:00:48.040 | I really started to enjoy deep life,

00:00:50.600 | but now colleges are opening back again

00:00:54.040 | and I moved back to the university.

00:00:55.720 | The structure which I implemented in my life

00:00:57.880 | during the pandemic is completely stressed away.

00:01:01.320 | I tried time blocking to add the structure again,

00:01:04.520 | but my classes are not properly scheduled

00:01:07.320 | and most of the time they are random.

00:01:09.920 | This left me small chunks of time,

00:01:11.880 | but I cannot figure out a way to use those small chunks

00:01:15.480 | and mostly waste that time on YouTube.

00:01:19.040 | This led to me a burnout feeling throughout the day.

00:01:23.800 | These days I'm mostly stressed out

00:01:25.600 | and just looking forward to the weekend.

00:01:28.760 | I really want to add the structure in my life again

00:01:32.000 | and enjoy this deep life.

00:01:34.100 | Any suggestions how can I implement

00:01:37.040 | the structure back again to my life?

00:01:39.720 | - Well, your old structure is not gonna work,

00:01:44.640 | but you're gonna build a new structure that does.

00:01:47.120 | So yes, whatever deep life structure that was working

00:01:51.120 | when you were at home, it's not gonna work at school,

00:01:53.660 | but there is plenty of options for deep life structures

00:01:56.720 | at school that will work.

00:01:59.400 | So I have a few pieces of advice for you.

00:02:01.720 | Number one, I want you to autopilot schedule

00:02:03.840 | the hell out of your schedule.

00:02:05.600 | So autopilot scheduling was invented originally

00:02:08.960 | for college students and the idea is you look at each one

00:02:12.160 | of your classes and you identify what is work

00:02:14.920 | that has to get done every single week

00:02:17.040 | or every single month, what sort of work happens regularly

00:02:19.160 | for these classes, problem sets that have to be solved,

00:02:21.760 | reading assignments that have to happen,

00:02:23.700 | essay prompts that have to be written,

00:02:25.380 | and you say, when and where do I do that work every week?

00:02:28.300 | And that goes on your calendar like a dentist appointment

00:02:30.620 | or another class, it's in time that you are not

00:02:33.060 | gonna violate, this is just when I do that work.

00:02:36.020 | And you do that for all of your classes

00:02:37.620 | and now you can move these around like a puzzle piece

00:02:39.720 | and figure out what's a pretty good sustainable schedule

00:02:41.980 | for my work and more importantly, you're not asking

00:02:44.180 | every day what should I do and when,

00:02:45.940 | that's all figured out.

00:02:47.580 | All right, so you're gonna autopilot schedule

00:02:49.020 | and then you are gonna upgrade your study skills

00:02:51.540 | so that you're not wasting time by spinning your wheels

00:02:54.240 | with inefficient study habits, I don't want you

00:02:56.280 | spending more time than you need to.

00:02:58.120 | So go back and read How to Become a Straight A Student,

00:03:02.720 | walk through that advice to completely overhaul

00:03:05.840 | your study habits, the other thing you can do

00:03:07.520 | is go to my blog, calnewport.com/blog

00:03:11.200 | and read the first two years worth of posts, 2007, 2008,

00:03:15.160 | it's all advanced study advice for college students.

00:03:19.440 | I want you to reduce the wasted time doing your schoolwork.

00:03:22.900 | So that's step one, now let's say you've done that

00:03:26.320 | and you still have no time, you say I figured out

00:03:31.600 | autopilot schedule, prom sets, reading assignments, prompts

00:03:35.240 | and my whole calendar is filled up and I still,

00:03:38.240 | and I have no time left except for the weekends,

00:03:40.400 | all right, step two, under schedule,

00:03:43.800 | drop stuff off your schedule, drop some classes,

00:03:48.520 | simplify your load, even if you're going under the load

00:03:52.120 | you need probably to graduate, do it for a semester or two

00:03:54.920 | as you're trying to get back on your feet

00:03:56.200 | after the pandemic, whatever you do, do not try

00:03:58.920 | to super overload your schedule, you need to step away

00:04:02.080 | from the mindset that the job market

00:04:04.440 | or the graduate school market a couple of years

00:04:06.200 | down the line is gonna say, look at how hard

00:04:09.520 | Mookle's semester was in the spring of 2022,

00:04:13.580 | that's a really hard semester, we really like them,

00:04:15.360 | they don't look at that, no one cares,

00:04:16.560 | they're like, what's your major, what are your grades?

00:04:17.920 | So simplify your schedule, under schedule,

00:04:20.600 | cut things out of your schedule

00:04:22.120 | until your autopilot schedule fits with plenty of room,

00:04:25.120 | that means dropping classes, dropping activities,

00:04:27.240 | swapping classes for easier classes,

00:04:29.220 | you need breathing room, so if you're autopiloting

00:04:33.960 | with smart schedules and you're properly under scheduled,

00:04:36.780 | you're gonna find yourself now with some breathing room

00:04:38.640 | which is what you absolutely need,

00:04:40.620 | now I want you to reinvent your leisure time

00:04:45.320 | and get involved in some sort of high quality

00:04:47.240 | leisure activity, preferably involving other human beings,

00:04:50.200 | they're also on the college campus,

00:04:51.520 | something that you can really get into,

00:04:53.080 | it could be exercise related, it could be writing related

00:04:55.640 | or theatrical, artistic related,

00:04:57.080 | but something you can really get into

00:04:58.480 | for no other reason than you like it,

00:05:00.240 | that other people are involved in

00:05:01.520 | and that can really start to funnel your energy

00:05:03.480 | away from YouTube, the only YouTube I want in your life

00:05:08.200 | is looking at my channel so you can watch my videos

00:05:10.960 | and I don't mean to be strict about this,

00:05:12.800 | but I only want you doing that for,

00:05:14.520 | let's say three hours a day,

00:05:16.720 | no more than that, three hours a day watching my videos,

00:05:20.520 | maybe another two hours trying to convince people

00:05:22.640 | you know to subscribe, but that five hours

00:05:25.040 | is the only five hours I want you spending on YouTube.

00:05:27.760 | The final thing I'm gonna recommend, thing number four,

00:05:31.140 | I want you to Google, I don't have the link

00:05:34.480 | off the top of my head, but there's a series I did

00:05:36.940 | on my blog back when I was aimed at students

00:05:39.480 | called the Romantic Scholar, and so you can just Google

00:05:43.160 | calnewport.com romantic scholar,

00:05:45.960 | and it was a series about how do you reconstruct

00:05:49.440 | your college lifestyle so that you have

00:05:51.400 | an intrinsically motivated deep interest

00:05:54.880 | in the work you're doing as a student.

00:05:57.400 | How can you rewire your relationship to your schoolwork

00:05:59.840 | so it's not this thing that's intrinsically being imposed

00:06:03.240 | upon you that's causing stress and burnout,

00:06:04.960 | but instead something that's a deep part

00:06:06.520 | of your self-definition and a real source

00:06:09.800 | of interest and motivation, and it has a lot of advice

00:06:12.380 | about how you do that, and I want you to read that series

00:06:14.400 | and put that into action.

00:06:17.960 | This is a hard transition for a lot of students.

00:06:20.480 | The pandemic was incredibly disruptive.

00:06:22.240 | Coming back to school after the pandemic

00:06:24.040 | is really disruptive.

00:06:24.920 | It's not just let's load up our schedule

00:06:27.360 | and get after it and do 17 majors and just grind it,

00:06:32.360 | and something good will happen.

00:06:34.440 | We have to take this transition with care.

00:06:36.880 | I like that you're thinking about using this transition

00:06:39.280 | as a way to preserve depth in your life.

00:06:42.080 | That's my advice to do it.

00:06:43.240 | So here's a quick summary.

00:06:45.320 | Autopilot schedule plus smarter study habits.

00:06:48.720 | If you're still overloaded, underschedule.

00:06:51.120 | Quit, reduce course load, switch to easier courses.

00:06:54.880 | Once you've done that, get involved

00:06:56.160 | in a deep leisure activity that involves other human beings,

00:06:58.760 | and four, read my Romantic Scholar series on my blog

00:07:02.120 | and take those ideas to heart.

00:07:05.200 | You do that plus five quick hours

00:07:08.120 | of working on my YouTube channel every day,

00:07:09.480 | those two things I think we're all gonna be

00:07:12.560 | much better off.

00:07:13.960 | (upbeat music)

00:07:16.540 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

How Do I Find a New Structure to Live a Deep Student Life?

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