Advice for Working Deeper | Deep Questions Podcast with Cal Newport

00:00:00.000 | Moving on here, we have a question from Orpheus.

00:00:04.880 | Appreciate the Greek mythology reference there.

00:00:10.600 | How can you increase the intensity of your deep work

00:00:13.560 | sessions if you're already focused

00:00:16.760 | and free of distractions?

00:00:19.800 | Orpheus goes on to say, I'm a music composer.

00:00:23.440 | Can I say, by the way, as an aside, I love--

00:00:25.280 | maybe this is why you chose the name,

00:00:26.400 | but obviously the character of Orpheus in Greek mythology

00:00:29.360 | is-- has this beautiful singing voice

00:00:31.240 | and can write this beautiful music with which he

00:00:36.480 | woos Persephone.

00:00:37.440 | So I like the fact that the person describing himself

00:00:39.760 | as Orpheus is a music composer.

00:00:41.400 | So well done, sir.

00:00:43.760 | So anyways, Orpheus says, I'm a music composer

00:00:45.760 | who finds it takes me far too long to write music.

00:00:49.400 | Following your book, Deep Work, I have time blocked,

00:00:52.240 | gotten away from distractions, set timers, and am focused.

00:00:55.000 | Is there a way to continually increase intensity

00:00:57.080 | work produced in a certain time frame

00:00:58.580 | once all tenets of deep work are in place?

00:01:01.440 | Or should I just accept that this

00:01:02.780 | is a process that will always take a long time?

00:01:06.880 | So Orpheus, I have three things to tell you,

00:01:09.920 | three additional things I want you to introduce.

00:01:13.120 | One is ritual.

00:01:16.000 | Where you do the work, what you do before the work

00:01:18.840 | occurs, especially for highly creative endeavors

00:01:22.160 | that require spontaneous creative production

00:01:24.880 | like music writing, music composing.

00:01:28.240 | This type of stuff matters.

00:01:30.640 | And it's probably worth investing money in.

00:01:34.560 | Let me build out a space just for my composing,

00:01:38.040 | a special office I just go to, an outbuilding,

00:01:40.480 | or a really nice looking building.

00:01:44.200 | I remember at some point seeing the composing room

00:01:46.800 | that the movie composer, I believe it was James Horner,

00:01:51.120 | used.

00:01:51.620 | And it was this over-the-top decorated, really interesting

00:01:54.200 | room.

00:01:55.280 | It matters for this type of thing.

00:01:56.760 | What's your ritual before you write?

00:01:58.220 | What's the thing that turns you right?

00:01:59.800 | It's you walk through the forest,

00:02:01.560 | you have a certain type of herbamata tea

00:02:04.680 | just before you sit down.

00:02:06.360 | There's a certain type of music playing on a vintage record

00:02:10.280 | player through really high-end speakers.

00:02:12.280 | You want to lean on ritual for doing something

00:02:15.480 | that is as demanding as spontaneous creative

00:02:17.360 | production.

00:02:18.840 | Don't think about this as wasting money.

00:02:20.520 | Think about this as necessary investments

00:02:22.600 | to actually make creative work at this level,

00:02:25.400 | have a maximum chance of succeeding.

00:02:27.520 | That's my suggestion.

00:02:29.440 | My second is peers, by which I mean the people you spend time

00:02:34.560 | with.

00:02:36.000 | Spend more time with people who do high-level creative work

00:02:38.920 | for their job.

00:02:39.960 | Just being around people, artists, and writers,

00:02:44.280 | other composers, other musicians that really take their work

00:02:47.480 | seriously and do it at a really high level, preferably

00:02:50.120 | at a level where you want to get.

00:02:52.560 | It just affects the way that you approach it.

00:02:54.440 | You're more likely to be locked in and focused

00:02:56.320 | on the work that you're doing.

00:02:57.600 | Your mind adjusts to the norms and habits of those around you.

00:03:02.400 | And when the norms and habits of those around you

00:03:04.400 | is very much focused and valuing of creative production,

00:03:07.280 | your mind's going to be more on board when you sit down

00:03:10.120 | at that piano and say, let's go for it.

00:03:12.520 | So that could also help, too.

00:03:13.720 | So those are two things you might not have thought about.

00:03:16.360 | The third is acceptance.

00:03:20.040 | So after you've done those things and the other things,

00:03:22.360 | the time blocking, and the timers, and the training,

00:03:24.480 | then just accept.

00:03:26.080 | I'm doing creative work.

00:03:28.560 | I've set the conditions to be as good as possible.

00:03:32.040 | Where I end up at this point, this

00:03:33.720 | might just be what it feels like to do this creative work.

00:03:37.040 | We sometimes create storylines about how it should feel.

00:03:40.960 | We think it should be the scene from Amadeus, where Salieri

00:03:45.760 | has the entrance march, and Mozart comes in,

00:03:49.240 | and it's like, oh, I like that, and can I try it?

00:03:51.880 | And Salieri's like, do you want to see the music?

00:03:53.920 | And Mozart says, no, I think I got it.

00:03:55.640 | And he starts playing it from memory completely.

00:03:57.640 | He's like, yeah, that's just it, right?

00:03:58.840 | And then he stops for a second and says,

00:04:00.480 | wouldn't it be better if--

00:04:01.560 | and he makes some changes, and it

00:04:03.280 | becomes a beautiful, famous piece of Mozart music.

00:04:06.880 | And Salieri's cursing the gods, like, how can he

00:04:08.880 | just do this in his head?

00:04:10.080 | Sometimes we think this is what creative work should feel like.

00:04:13.000 | We have these storylines about we should sit at the piano,

00:04:16.000 | and beautiful music just comes out,

00:04:18.720 | and everyone's really impressed.

00:04:20.680 | And the Salieris in our life are really jealous.

00:04:23.240 | But that's often not what it's like.

00:04:26.000 | Creative production is often painful.

00:04:28.640 | So much of it happens in revision.

00:04:31.560 | I talked about last week Brandon Sanderson

00:04:33.960 | and his process of writing super productively like he does.

00:04:38.240 | But one of things I picked up from the speech

00:04:41.320 | I watched of Brandon Sanderson talking about his writing

00:04:43.520 | process is how many revision processes

00:04:46.360 | go into actually getting one of his novels right.

00:04:49.640 | So that means there's a whole part of his production

00:04:51.680 | where he's writing, and it's painful,

00:04:53.760 | and it's not very good.

00:04:55.560 | But it's laying the foundation that's

00:04:57.240 | eventually on which he's going to build

00:04:58.440 | a book that he is proud of.

00:04:59.560 | So that's like my final point is acceptance.

00:05:01.440 | If you're doing the stuff you're already doing,

00:05:03.320 | and you add in the things I suggested

00:05:04.840 | you might be missing-- ritual, peer group, alterations--

00:05:08.600 | doing the whole thing.

00:05:10.760 | So now whatever it feels like, that's

00:05:12.280 | how it's supposed to feel.

00:05:14.240 | And don't tell yourself stories that it should feel different.

00:05:16.760 | That's probably what it's supposed to feel like.

00:05:18.800 | Keep producing, keep being deep.

00:05:22.560 | (upbeat music)

Advice for Working Deeper | Deep Questions Podcast with Cal Newport

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