Full Length Episode | #170 | February 3, 2022

00:00:00.000 | I'm Cal Newport, and this is Deep Questions, Episode 170.

00:00:10.800 | Here in the Deep Work HQ, joined as always by Jesse, we're going to be doing a listener

00:00:20.000 | calls episode where we take your calls to answer.

00:00:25.440 | As always, go to calnewport.com/podcast to get the instructions on how you too can record

00:00:30.920 | a call for one of these listener calls episodes.

00:00:34.640 | We are, as we talked about in the last episode, releasing all of these calls on YouTube, you

00:00:40.840 | go to our YouTube channel.

00:00:42.960 | Within a couple days after this episode airing, if all goes well, you should see individual

00:00:48.440 | videos uploaded for every call we capture today.

00:00:51.080 | You will also see a video of the entire episode we do these live from beginning to end one

00:00:56.240 | take.

00:00:57.240 | So if you prefer to watch instead of listen, there will also be within a couple days, the

00:01:01.720 | whole episode will be available live online.

00:01:06.640 | So for now, we'll just put the the link for the YouTube channel will be in the show notes.

00:01:13.560 | Soon we will have a personalized YouTube URL.

00:01:19.920 | Jesse can probably fill us in here.

00:01:21.040 | Jesse, there's some rules, right?

00:01:22.240 | Like before YouTube will give you youtube.com/somethingsimple, there's some hurdles we have to do, right?

00:01:29.880 | Yeah, so we just need 100 subscribers, which we already have, it needs to be up for 30

00:01:34.120 | days.

00:01:35.120 | And I was confused whether that was like unlisted videos or published videos, but I think it's

00:01:39.720 | published videos.

00:01:40.720 | So yeah, just once we hit those things, then we can get a simple name and it'll be rocking

00:01:45.960 | and rolling.

00:01:46.960 | So I at some point in February, we'll have a simpler URL.

00:01:50.480 | Yeah.

00:01:51.480 | All right, excellent.

00:01:52.480 | But anyway, it's exciting.

00:01:54.080 | We're glad to have, you know, everything we talked about available in itself, so that

00:01:59.720 | you can save the things you like, you can share the things you like, etc.

00:02:03.920 | Alright, so we have some good listener calls to get into today.

00:02:08.080 | First, I want to do a deep dive, I want to do a particular type of deep dive that I introduced

00:02:14.220 | on Monday's episode, which is the core idea, deep dive.

00:02:19.200 | This is where I am trying over the next few weeks to capture many of the big ideas we

00:02:25.080 | come back to all the time on this show.

00:02:27.840 | And in my writing, capture each of them with its own dedicated deep dive, which Jesse is

00:02:33.060 | going to put in its own playlist on YouTube.

00:02:36.240 | So now you can go back and reference it.

00:02:37.800 | So when you hear a big idea come up that we talked about a lot, there will then be a deep

00:02:42.640 | dive on just that idea you can go back to and reference.

00:02:46.280 | So I'm going to continue with that.

00:02:47.920 | On Monday, we did time management.

00:02:50.960 | Today I want to turn our attention towards the world of careers and do a core idea deep

00:02:57.640 | dive on the idea that you should not follow your passion.

00:03:03.920 | Here's a core idea.

00:03:06.960 | Don't follow your passion.

00:03:10.720 | Let me give some background here.

00:03:12.840 | What do I mean by don't follow your passion?

00:03:15.120 | Well, this all goes back to a book I published in 2012 that was called So Good They Can't

00:03:21.920 | Ignore You.

00:03:24.280 | The whole premise of this book was to take a look from scratch at the core question of

00:03:30.280 | how do you end up loving what you do for a living?

00:03:33.680 | I wrote this book as a postdoc at MIT before I took my first professorship at Georgetown.

00:03:41.320 | Because professorships, if done right, is a job you have for life.

00:03:44.960 | My thinking was if there was any time in which I would get a lot of leverage out of understanding

00:03:50.560 | what makes people end up loving what they do for a living, this was the time that I

00:03:53.480 | would get the most leverage out of it.

00:03:54.760 | This was the time I needed an answer to that question.

00:03:57.940 | This was a time in which I was cementing what my professional life was going to look like.

00:04:02.280 | And I said, I better understand how people end up loving their work before I start setting

00:04:05.720 | into stone career trajectories that are hard to otherwise later change.

00:04:10.720 | And so I went and I researched and wrote this book as a postdoc at MIT, trying to answer

00:04:16.120 | the question, how do people end up loving what they do?

00:04:19.680 | At the time, and continuing until today, the common answer to that question was follow

00:04:26.600 | your passion.

00:04:27.600 | That's by far the most common answer, especially in the American context.

00:04:32.760 | There are definitely some regional differences here, but definitely in the American context.

00:04:37.680 | It didn't take much pushing to realize that there are problems with this advice.

00:04:44.760 | Number one, a lot of people, and by a lot I mean most, don't have clearly defined preexisting

00:04:50.080 | passions that they can identify to then follow.

00:04:53.560 | Real issue if you talk to a bunch of, let's say, 22 year olds just coming out of school,

00:04:57.760 | and say, look, you got to follow your passion or you're going to be, you know, a miserable

00:05:00.800 | sad sack.

00:05:01.800 | And they say, well, what's my passion?

00:05:02.800 | I don't know.

00:05:03.800 | That's a problem.

00:05:05.440 | Second, there is not a lot of good evidence that matching the content of your work to

00:05:13.840 | a preexisting interest is a major driver of satisfaction in that job.

00:05:20.080 | We just assume that's true.

00:05:21.360 | That advice just assumes that true.

00:05:22.760 | Oh, I like this thing.

00:05:23.960 | So if I do that for my job, I'll like my job.

00:05:25.640 | But we actually don't have a lot of evidence that's true.

00:05:28.060 | We have a ton of evidence that other factors are much more important.

00:05:31.600 | Things like autonomy, things like mastery, things like impact, things like connection.

00:05:35.880 | A lot of other things that are really important for job satisfaction have nothing to do with

00:05:39.740 | is the content of my work matching a preexisting interest.

00:05:43.840 | And we of course have plenty of counter examples of people who build jobs out of hobbies and

00:05:52.480 | are miserable.

00:05:53.480 | I mean, these are cliches.

00:05:56.080 | The baker, the amateur baker who's miserable as a professional baker, the amateur photographer

00:06:01.720 | who's miserable doing six wedding photography gigs per week.

00:06:06.920 | This is so common, it's a cliche that when you take what you love and say, let me make

00:06:09.960 | a job about it, you no longer love that thing.

00:06:12.120 | That's because the things that makes you really love a job is not me really like this topic.

00:06:17.520 | Me job now has this topic in it.

00:06:19.880 | Me now really like my job.

00:06:22.960 | Way more complicated than that.

00:06:25.360 | The final issue I'll throw in a third here that I noticed when I was researching So Good

00:06:28.760 | They Can't Ignore You is that if you just go out there and grab a bunch of people who

00:06:33.460 | love what they do for a living and look at their actual stories, nine times out of 10,

00:06:40.160 | they were not following a clear preexisting passion.

00:06:42.160 | So I mean, if this is the universal advice we give, you would expect that it's what most

00:06:46.800 | people who love their job did.

00:06:48.560 | That's why we give this advice.

00:06:50.160 | Most people don't.

00:06:51.920 | And the reality is when you just ask someone casually who loves their work, what's your

00:06:58.440 | advice?

00:06:59.440 | And they say, follow your passion.

00:07:01.080 | What they really mean is follow the goal of ending up passionate about your work.

00:07:08.580 | They don't mean identify in advance what you're passionate about, match that to your job,

00:07:12.040 | and then you will love your work.

00:07:13.040 | That's not really what they mean.

00:07:14.040 | It's not really what they did.

00:07:15.040 | It's just a shorthand.

00:07:16.640 | But we interpret it as meaning we're wired to do one thing, match our work to that one

00:07:22.200 | thing, then we will love our work.

00:07:24.720 | That's not actually the way it works.

00:07:26.040 | And you know what, we can't blame people for falling back on that shorthand because the

00:07:29.360 | reality of what really matters for building a career you love is complicated.

00:07:33.160 | We're about to get into it.

00:07:34.160 | It took me a year of research to really untangle this storyline.

00:07:38.080 | So we should not expect it when we grab some entrepreneur in a magazine interview and say,

00:07:42.520 | what's your advice that they'll have this all figured out.

00:07:44.240 | They just say follow your passion, but they don't really mean it because it's not really

00:07:47.200 | what they did.

00:07:49.040 | They followed the goal about being passionate about their work and how they got there was

00:07:51.800 | complicated.

00:07:52.800 | All right, let's get into it.

00:07:54.680 | How do you get there?

00:07:56.640 | What I uncovered in my work is that the skill, the what we want to call attributes of a job

00:08:03.800 | that makes it great, the properties of a career that makes it something that you love are

00:08:10.000 | almost always in demand.

00:08:13.640 | They're rare and valuable.

00:08:14.640 | Most jobs don't have them.

00:08:15.960 | And so if you want those, if you want those in your job, you have to have something rare

00:08:22.560 | and valuable to offer in return.

00:08:26.080 | The world doesn't care that you want to be happy in your job and you think those things

00:08:29.680 | would be good for you and you just want them in your job.

00:08:31.360 | It doesn't care.

00:08:32.360 | You have to have something to offer in return.

00:08:34.160 | And almost always the things you have to offer in return is rare and valuable skills.

00:08:37.520 | So if you want the rare and valuable traits that makes great jobs great in your job, you

00:08:41.800 | have to have rare and valuable skills to offer in exchange.

00:08:46.920 | And therefore the whole game in building a career you love is skill acquisition.

00:08:51.940 | Step one, get really good at things.

00:08:54.040 | Step two, use those skills as leverage to shape your career towards the elements that

00:08:59.200 | resonate in a way from the elements that don't.

00:09:01.440 | Get good uses leverage.

00:09:02.500 | Get better uses even bigger leverage.

00:09:04.280 | You cultivate over time a career that then is a real source of meaning and satisfaction

00:09:08.040 | for you.

00:09:09.040 | This has nothing to do for nine out of 10 people with leaving college at 22 and saying,

00:09:15.040 | I am wired and I just know this.

00:09:17.120 | I've done this my whole life.

00:09:18.200 | I am wired to be a social media brand manager for a major hotel chain.

00:09:22.160 | If I could just go get that job, I'm going to be passionate.

00:09:25.560 | And if I don't, I'm going to be miserable.

00:09:26.880 | It's not how it works.

00:09:28.280 | Get good uses leverage, get good use as leverage.

00:09:31.480 | I ended up calling this career capital theory.

00:09:33.920 | As my metaphor is, as you get good at things that are rare and valuable, you are acquiring

00:09:39.240 | more career capital.

00:09:41.000 | You then must invest that capital to get returns in your job that are positive.

00:09:45.480 | So I use that metaphor of career capital.

00:09:49.040 | Two quick follow up.

00:09:50.880 | One, how do you do that?

00:09:54.080 | How do you get good at things?

00:09:55.080 | How do you build rare and valuable skills?

00:09:56.840 | The short answer is deliberate practice.

00:09:59.540 | You need to very carefully figure out what's valuable in your current career or job area

00:10:06.720 | and then train to get better at that deliberately, like an athlete adding a new jump shot to

00:10:11.800 | their repertoire or a chess player mastering a new in-game strategy.

00:10:17.240 | Specific activities designed to stretch you past where you're comfortable on things you

00:10:22.040 | know are valuable.

00:10:23.040 | You got to be training yourself to get better.

00:10:25.580 | That's how you get career capital fast.

00:10:26.880 | So you move towards passion very quickly.

00:10:29.680 | Two, how do you know what to do with that career capital?

00:10:34.940 | How do you know, like, what do I want to invest that career capital to get in exchange?

00:10:39.840 | When I say you want to invest that capital to move your work towards things that resonate

00:10:43.760 | and away from things that don't, you might be suspicious that I'm just being circular

00:10:48.200 | here and somehow it all comes back to some preexisting passion.

00:10:51.620 | But no, it's much more complicated here.

00:10:53.160 | What do I mean by moving your work towards things that resonate away from things that

00:10:55.840 | don't?

00:10:57.160 | What you need to do here is what we call on this show, lifestyle-centric career planning.

00:11:04.240 | You have to, through reflection and experimentation, fix in your mind a very clear image of what

00:11:10.960 | you want your life to be like.

00:11:12.920 | All the elements of your life.

00:11:13.920 | You're really like imagining typical days in a way that just you feel this intimations

00:11:17.800 | of that's right.

00:11:18.800 | That's what I want my life to be like.

00:11:20.520 | Where do you live?

00:11:21.520 | What type of place do you live?

00:11:23.080 | Where are you working?

00:11:24.080 | How much work are you doing?

00:11:25.080 | What else are you doing with your time?

00:11:26.280 | What's happening with your family or your community?

00:11:28.320 | Are you in the woods all day?

00:11:29.320 | Are you in a high rise?

00:11:30.320 | Are you in this vision?

00:11:31.600 | Are you a master of the universe type that's making deals and moving things?

00:11:35.680 | Or are you a Bill McKibben type cross-country skiing in the snow for three weeks before

00:11:41.220 | writing one article the next week?

00:11:42.720 | You really just want to have this feel of what type of lifestyle resonates with me as

00:11:47.240 | deep.

00:11:49.600 | What I want.

00:11:50.600 | And then you work backwards from that.

00:11:53.240 | Okay, what I'm trying to do now is build up rare and valuable skills in my job so that

00:11:57.360 | I have leverage and then use that leverage to shape the way my work unfolds.

00:12:00.720 | What I work on, when I work on the arrangement for my work, all of that.

00:12:04.020 | So it is pushing me more towards this image of the optimal lifestyle for me and away from

00:12:09.680 | things that are contrary to that to that lifestyle.

00:12:12.040 | So you're working backwards from a clear image of the lifestyle.

00:12:15.640 | And the way you get there is not by saying at 22 to your boss, I want to live in the

00:12:19.360 | woods.

00:12:20.360 | I want a lot of free time.

00:12:21.720 | I'm going to cross-country ski all day.

00:12:23.440 | So I want my work to be just stuff I'm interested in.

00:12:26.360 | And I only work on on Monday and Fridays and they get paid really well.

00:12:29.680 | The boss will say in that context, that's great.

00:12:33.640 | Good luck with that.

00:12:35.240 | Can you get your stuff off the desk there?

00:12:36.840 | Because the person we just hired to replace you is here and they need to get back to work.

00:12:40.360 | That's not how you do it.

00:12:41.360 | How you do it is you become so good.

00:12:42.840 | You can't be ignored.

00:12:44.120 | They're desperate to keep you.

00:12:45.840 | And now you're able to start adjusting.

00:12:47.080 | Well, you know, I'm going to work part-time or I don't do this type of work that goes

00:12:52.200 | to the entry level.

00:12:53.200 | I'm not the entry level anymore or pay me by my performance.

00:12:56.600 | I want to shift to a pseudo consulting type contract.

00:12:58.960 | You pay me by my performance.

00:13:00.160 | All of that requires I have gotten very good and that requires that you train.

00:13:05.680 | All right, so let me pull together these pieces.

00:13:08.780 | This is not as sexy as the Disney version fairy tale of you were wired for one job.

00:13:14.000 | And if you can figure out what that is, there will be fairy dust in the air and you'll be

00:13:18.480 | happy in your career from then on out.

00:13:20.580 | And conversely, if you don't like your job, if you find it hard or there's anything that's

00:13:23.780 | hard about it, that's because you have the wrong position.

00:13:25.880 | If you just quit and try something else, you're almost there.

00:13:29.300 | Then everything will be easy when you get the right job.

00:13:32.420 | The storyline I'm going to give you is much harder than that, but it actually works.

00:13:36.780 | So the compress everything I just said here, don't obsess too much about what job you take.

00:13:42.400 | Yes, the choice matters, but you know, any job that matches your interest in some sense

00:13:47.960 | and it's going to give you good options if, and when you get better is good enough.

00:13:50.720 | Don't obsess over some dream job or having just the right job to train like an athlete.

00:13:56.000 | What matters?

00:13:57.000 | I'm going to systematically improve that skill.

00:13:59.860 | No one else in your job is going to be doing that.

00:14:02.020 | So you're going to start getting advantages opening up really soon.

00:14:05.920 | Three, use the resulting career capital to as leverage to push your career towards things

00:14:12.720 | that resonate and things and away from things that don't.

00:14:15.080 | And you, your compass for that is lifestyle centric career planning, very clear image

00:14:19.640 | of what you want your days to be like all the elements of your days.

00:14:22.640 | And so what can I do to make my life more like that and get away from the stuff that

00:14:26.560 | gets in the way.

00:14:27.560 | Do those three things, give yourself five years.

00:14:30.580 | You will probably be pretty happy in your job.

00:14:33.600 | Give yourself another five years.

00:14:34.640 | You might be downright passionate about it, but then just what you have to do for me is

00:14:37.880 | when someone fresh out of college looks up at you and says, well, how did you do it?

00:14:42.680 | How do you have this cool job where you ski all day or whatever?

00:14:46.380 | Don't just say, follow your passion.

00:14:48.520 | Say it's kind of complicated.

00:14:51.260 | Go watch this video at Cal Newport's YouTube page.

00:14:54.480 | All right.

00:14:55.880 | So there's the core idea.

00:14:58.040 | I'm glad to get that down because we talk about this, this career stuff a lot.

00:15:00.720 | So now I can point people towards point towards this idea, but I want to get on the questions.

00:15:05.880 | Jesse, let's do some calls.

00:15:08.800 | What do we have here for our first call?

00:15:10.280 | All right.

00:15:11.280 | The first call is from Vanessa.

00:15:12.280 | She has a question about time management.

00:15:14.280 | She works in AI and she has a bunch of other stuff going on.

00:15:16.680 | So we'll take a listen and see what she has to say.

00:15:20.040 | Hi, Cal.

00:15:21.040 | My question to you is that in a recent podcast, you talked about dividing your time into maximum

00:15:27.480 | two areas that you want to grow in.

00:15:31.240 | For me, those areas are space and artificial intelligence.

00:15:35.920 | And although my degree is in my under, I'm studying, I'm doing my undergrad in software

00:15:42.000 | engineering.

00:15:44.280 | I do feel like my time and attention is divided with obligations that are uncontrollable,

00:15:52.840 | like obligations at home.

00:15:54.840 | I work two part-time jobs and I'm doing school.

00:15:59.640 | So I don't feel like I have the time to do what I want to do.

00:16:08.280 | And it's almost uncontrollable.

00:16:10.000 | So I was wondering if you had any advice for that.

00:16:14.920 | So Vanessa, it's a well-timed question.

00:16:17.800 | I think the deep dive I did earlier in this episode is actually really relevant here about

00:16:24.120 | how you actually craft careers that are a real source of meaning.

00:16:28.440 | The advice I'm going to give you is actually going to be slow down.

00:16:32.440 | Let me elaborate this a little bit.

00:16:35.720 | You're in a moment now where you're training in school and you're working two part-time

00:16:39.920 | jobs to essentially support yourself while you're in school.

00:16:43.200 | I'm actually going to suggest just do school well, do your part-time jobs well, and don't

00:16:51.200 | be pushing pretty hard on anything else right now.

00:16:53.400 | That's a hard setup.

00:16:54.400 | It can be hard enough just to find time to get that schoolwork done.

00:16:58.880 | Your learning software engineering is a great foundation.

00:17:01.160 | I'm assuming the degree from your school is then going to allow you to consolidate and

00:17:05.040 | clean up your professional situation.

00:17:07.240 | The part-time jobs are going to go away.

00:17:09.280 | You're going to have one job that's going to be a skilled job, probably something in

00:17:12.940 | software given your degree.

00:17:14.240 | So that's going to be step two.

00:17:17.240 | I'm still going to advise that you start slow.

00:17:20.880 | I give this advice a lot on the podcast.

00:17:24.520 | When you're new to a job, you want to make sure that you're dependable.

00:17:27.480 | You don't let things fall through the cracks.

00:17:30.040 | Someone tells you to do something, you do it.

00:17:31.480 | You tell them when it's going to get done.

00:17:32.640 | If you can't get it done in time, you tell them in advance and deliver it where you say

00:17:35.560 | you're going to deliver it like they trust you.

00:17:37.400 | And again, the secret there is just use my time management philosophies, capture, configure,

00:17:41.360 | control.

00:17:42.360 | You'll seem like a rock star by comparison to everyone else.

00:17:44.440 | And two, deliver things at a high level of quality.

00:17:46.960 | I'm going to give myself enough time to do this.

00:17:48.720 | I'm going to start in advance.

00:17:49.880 | I'm not going to rush it.

00:17:50.880 | I'm going to ask questions.

00:17:51.880 | I can deliver good stuff.

00:17:52.880 | You just want to do that for a year just to lay a foundation.

00:17:56.680 | So you have the job now you're done with school.

00:17:58.720 | You've laid a foundation.

00:17:59.720 | You have your first inklings of career capital.

00:18:02.640 | So your first leverage, you know, in your career.

00:18:07.320 | Now I would start thinking, okay, what's the plan?

00:18:10.480 | If the plan is I want to get into AI pretty hardcore, and then I want to apply that to

00:18:15.000 | the space sector.

00:18:16.000 | Now you can start thinking through what's my plan at that point.

00:18:19.700 | And it might be, okay, what I'm going to do is I'm going to use my leverage to keep my

00:18:22.120 | workload reasonable.

00:18:23.120 | I'm going to throw a lot of Cal Newport time management at it so I can do a phantom part-time

00:18:26.480 | job.

00:18:27.520 | And I'm going to bring into my life at this point, a side project that's going to push

00:18:32.840 | my AI abilities up really good because I have a one-year plan, or I'm going to do this for

00:18:36.720 | a year and shift over to an AI type position.

00:18:38.840 | And then once I'm in the AI type position, I'm going to earn my stripes there and then

00:18:42.880 | move into their division that's working on space related things.

00:18:45.460 | Now you can start really laying out these plans.

00:18:47.360 | What do I want?

00:18:48.360 | What do I want my lifestyle to look like?

00:18:49.360 | How do I build up those skills?

00:18:50.360 | I know it's probably a sense of impatience pervades your situation right now.

00:18:54.800 | Like, can't I just be doing this now?

00:18:56.120 | But you've got a lot on your plate, Vanessa.

00:18:57.560 | I mean, you're doing multiple jobs in school.

00:19:01.200 | So crush it in your classes, learn the stuff well, give yourself a break.

00:19:06.680 | So like really cherish the free time you have right now.

00:19:10.320 | Then choose a good job after this that's going to have options if and when you get better.

00:19:15.680 | Be dependable, deliver quality for your Leta Foundation.

00:19:18.360 | And then you start putting your foot down on that gas pedal and you start really aggressively

00:19:23.840 | moving towards this really cool vision you have of what your life could be like.

00:19:27.120 | So you're going slow now, Vanessa, but you're going to be going very fast in about a year

00:19:31.400 | or two from now.

00:19:32.860 | And I think that's something you can be excited about.

00:19:34.700 | But by pacing yourself, you can also avoid burning yourself out or setting yourself objectives

00:19:41.320 | that are impossible to the frustration of having objectives that are really probably

00:19:44.480 | impossible to meet right now.

00:19:46.320 | All right.

00:19:48.240 | Good call.

00:19:49.240 | Space and AI.

00:19:50.240 | What do we got, Jesse, for call number two?

00:19:53.040 | Next question.

00:19:54.040 | We have another mom and she has a question about how to implement some of your ideas

00:19:57.580 | from a world without email.

00:19:59.600 | Hi, Cal.

00:20:01.080 | My name is Madeline.

00:20:03.600 | Prior to staying at home the last five years to raise my three young kids, I received my

00:20:08.680 | MBA and was an internal strategic consultant for a large healthcare company.

00:20:13.640 | Much of the work I did was to create quarterly plans, identify and track key project metrics,

00:20:18.640 | and develop and implement process improvement projects.

00:20:21.800 | Very in line with the recommendations you've laid out in a world without email.

00:20:25.320 | I first want to thank you for creating a language and culture around the deep life and clarifying

00:20:30.760 | why this type of structure is important.

00:20:33.520 | Looking back at my prior role, I sometimes wavered in my confidence to hold people accountable

00:20:37.560 | to the systems we developed because it felt like additional work for them.

00:20:42.220 | My question is, after being out of the workforce, I like to reenter and coach small businesses

00:20:47.280 | on the productivity tools I did in my previous job and also the theories and recommendations

00:20:51.640 | you've laid out.

00:20:52.640 | Do you have any thoughts on how someone can help small businesses implement your concepts?

00:20:58.720 | I plan to work part time, but also I would love to collaborate with other consultants

00:21:04.200 | doing this type of work.

00:21:06.080 | Any recommendations would be much appreciated.

00:21:08.560 | Thanks so much in advance.

00:21:09.560 | Well, it's a great space.

00:21:12.960 | It's a great space.

00:21:13.960 | This is my read having published a world without email is that there is an immense hunger out

00:21:19.640 | there at all levels within companies to figure out better alternatives to simply, you're

00:21:27.760 | on email, you're on Slack, let's just rock and roll and hope things get done.

00:21:33.220 | That hyperactive hive mind approach, the hyperactive hive mind approach I describe and dissect

00:21:39.600 | in detail in my book, a world without email is not working and people recognize this,

00:21:45.340 | whether we're talking about the small business entrepreneur or the CIOs of major corporations,

00:21:52.120 | which in both cases, I have had these conversations recently.

00:21:54.900 | So I think this is a great space to get into.

00:21:58.480 | I don't actually have a good process for helping companies develop these processes.

00:22:05.300 | I kind of wish I did because I get asked to do this a lot, which is why I'm glad Madeline

00:22:09.100 | that you're thinking about doing this and that I think this is going to be a big space

00:22:12.200 | in consulting for lots of people.

00:22:14.980 | There's gonna be a lot of room for this.

00:22:17.420 | Typically what I tell people is I'm an idea guy.

00:22:20.500 | I come in, I study the issue, what's going on here.

00:22:22.540 | I get really deep into the issue.

00:22:23.900 | What are the actual roots of the issue and then try to figure out philosophically what

00:22:29.740 | you would have to change to improve this problem, but I'm not in the world of business.

00:22:35.300 | So you don't want me to come into your business and start giving specific advice on how your

00:22:39.260 | business runs because I don't know how businesses run.

00:22:43.180 | So I don't have a good process for this, but I think there are good processes to be constructed.

00:22:47.580 | I think it's going to be a major sector of the sort of knowledge work, management, consulting,

00:22:53.860 | the world, that sector.

00:22:56.380 | I think helping companies develop processes to sidestep the hyperactive hive mind is going

00:23:00.700 | to be a big deal.

00:23:03.600 | So Madeline, I would say probably you should have some sort of process you follow that

00:23:08.940 | you're willing to evolve very quickly as you actually try it out there in the real world.

00:23:14.420 | I would say I've learned you need to probably learn more about a team than you think before

00:23:18.900 | you're ready to propose things.

00:23:20.140 | There's often very, you have to surface these hidden dynamics that you don't really know

00:23:24.020 | about, but they're actually driving a lot of how work actually gets done.

00:23:28.020 | And three, I would say it's important that you eat your own dog food here.

00:23:31.220 | So make sure that you run your consulting firm very much aligned with these ideas, that

00:23:36.660 | it's not just, yeah, email me whenever.

00:23:39.420 | Just hit me up on Slack and we'll figure out the contract.

00:23:41.620 | You should have very clear processes that you love, that you can communicate clearly

00:23:45.620 | and that clients will enjoy that clarity because then they will see that you're the change

00:23:50.060 | you want to see in the world.

00:23:51.060 | They will see you do it and get a sense of what it's going to look like when they do

00:23:54.540 | it as well.

00:23:56.340 | I might point you towards Jenny Blake's new book, which is a book I believe it's called

00:24:01.380 | Free Time.

00:24:02.380 | And it comes out in March, but I did an interview with her in December on the podcast.

00:24:06.820 | You can go back to that episode and learn about a lot of the ideas.

00:24:10.900 | But it's a whole book about how to do this with your small consulting style business,

00:24:14.220 | how to figure out your processes, what to focus on, what not to focus on.

00:24:18.980 | So read that book.

00:24:20.620 | It'll help you with what you're doing and it might give you ideas on how you can help

00:24:23.980 | other companies do the same thing.

00:24:27.220 | All right, but that's good to hear.

00:24:29.300 | I do, I mean, Jesse, I think this is going to be a huge sector doing this type of consulting.

00:24:35.420 | I mean, it makes my eyes bleed thinking about me doing it.

00:24:39.260 | I mean, could you imagine something worse than me, just individually me being in like

00:24:44.660 | a corporate boardroom and having these sort of jargon filled small talks about how their

00:24:50.100 | team, their Q2 quarterly metrics.

00:24:53.620 | And like, I'd be terrible at it because after like half hour, I'd be like, you guys should

00:24:58.540 | all just go write books.

00:24:59.540 | Like, this is crazy.

00:25:00.540 | What are you doing here?

00:25:01.540 | This is a terrible job.

00:25:02.540 | So I would be terrible at it.

00:25:04.140 | But other people would be great at it.

00:25:05.380 | And it's going to make a lot of people's lives better if their companies actually get rid

00:25:08.740 | of this hive mind.

00:25:09.740 | Just don't ask me to do it.

00:25:11.740 | All right.

00:25:13.500 | So what do we got?

00:25:14.980 | Next question we got from Michael.

00:25:16.820 | He's in operational technology and he's got a question about estimating time to complete

00:25:22.660 | a task.

00:25:23.660 | Hi Cal, Michael from sunny Ballarat, Australia here.

00:25:28.660 | I work in operational technology where the real things happen.

00:25:34.500 | So studies suggest we're terrible at estimating time required to complete a task and then

00:25:39.660 | getting started is half the battle.

00:25:41.340 | I feel like there is competing thoughts on how to deal with this.

00:25:44.700 | On one hand, a task will expand to the time allocated to it.

00:25:48.380 | So allocate a short time and just get what you can done as a forcing function.

00:25:52.580 | On the other hand, take your estimated time needed to complete it and double it to make

00:25:57.900 | sure you don't over commit or over schedule yourself.

00:26:00.860 | I'm always running out of time in a block or finishing early.

00:26:03.660 | How do you approach this tension?

00:26:06.140 | Well, Michael, the good news is that you are time blocking.

00:26:11.020 | So if you're time blocking, you have a hope of actually figuring out how long things actually

00:26:17.700 | take.

00:26:18.700 | It's one of the great advantages of time blocking is that you get real time feedback.

00:26:24.020 | I gave this type of work this much time on my time block plan for today and I did not

00:26:28.780 | hit that time.

00:26:29.940 | How do I know because I had to build a repaired schedule next to it because I blew past that

00:26:33.860 | time.

00:26:35.740 | Most people don't get this feedback, right?

00:26:37.220 | They're just like, what do I want to work on next?

00:26:38.780 | They kind of work on something and it takes longer than they think.

00:26:40.740 | And then they're scrambling at the end of the day.

00:26:42.900 | But they don't get that clear feedback for three weeks from now when that same thing

00:26:46.440 | is on their plate that they think, oh, wait, I actually need to start this a little bit

00:26:49.620 | earlier.

00:26:50.620 | This really takes this much time.

00:26:51.820 | If you're not giving every minute a plan and seeing how well that plan unfolds, you're

00:26:55.500 | really not internalizing this feedback.

00:26:58.860 | So this double the time you put aside rule, that is useful when you are new to time blocking,

00:27:04.220 | or at least when you're new to time blocking a particular type of activity.

00:27:07.220 | Yes, our instinct is we schedule not enough time.

00:27:10.700 | What I usually tell people if they're new to time blocking is 50% more doubling would

00:27:15.020 | be a little bit more conservative, but people really underestimate at first.

00:27:18.740 | However, and this is the real benefit.

00:27:22.140 | You won't have to keep doing that forever, because you will get better at these estimates.

00:27:29.580 | So you put down time, when you hit it, you're happy when you don't, you're don't.

00:27:34.460 | You're getting reinforcement here.

00:27:37.000 | Do this for a few weeks, you're putting down the right amount of time.

00:27:40.820 | So if you're time blocking, yes, there's a place for this heuristic of just add more

00:27:45.420 | time than you think.

00:27:47.260 | But it's only when you get started.

00:27:49.820 | If you're more or less hitting it just about right, then you say, okay, I know how much

00:27:53.800 | this takes.

00:27:55.140 | And then you can then you can stick with that time.

00:27:56.500 | So that's what I would suggest is, if you're blowing past your blocks, use a 50% rule.

00:28:01.200 | If that's working, then stick with it, you're probably right about where you need to be.

00:28:05.700 | So you'll get better at this as you keep practicing with your blocks.

00:28:09.500 | All right, we're pretty technical today, Jesse, I think we had a call about process consulting,

00:28:15.780 | we got an operation technologist talking about time blocking.

00:28:19.340 | So we're sort of in the sort of in the business weeds today.

00:28:22.660 | Yeah, are we keeping that up with the next one?

00:28:24.460 | What's the next one?

00:28:25.460 | Next one's a little different.

00:28:26.820 | It's a question about designing household space for better productivity.

00:28:30.500 | Nice.

00:28:31.500 | Hey, Cal, big fan of the show.

00:28:34.260 | Coming in today with a question about household space and productivity.

00:28:38.060 | My fiance and I just moved into a two bedroom apartment.

00:28:42.980 | There's plenty of space, but what we're finding our trouble is, is how we set up what areas

00:28:49.380 | are for what we're trying to keep the bedroom is certainly no technology.

00:28:53.940 | Our living room, we're trying to keep that the same way.

00:28:57.660 | And our other bedroom we're using as an office space as well as a workout space with a stationary

00:29:02.980 | bike and some other equipment.

00:29:05.340 | What we're finding troubling is how do I determine how to separate my work time from my workout

00:29:11.980 | time if I'm at the desk doing work for my career versus having to do some paying bills

00:29:19.140 | and all that.

00:29:20.260 | We really don't want to bring the laptops out into the kitchen or the living room area,

00:29:25.260 | but are also having trouble not when sitting at the desk thinking about work.

00:29:30.300 | Any clues or tips you might have on that would be appreciated.

00:29:32.580 | Thanks, Cal.

00:29:33.580 | Okay, good question.

00:29:34.580 | So first of all, I think this is obvious.

00:29:38.300 | You need to take one of those bedrooms and that needs to be dedicated to Cal Newport

00:29:43.180 | related material is where you want to have a whole wall for my books.

00:29:47.000 | You want to have a whole wall for my planners, a really good stereo system for playing the

00:29:51.620 | podcast with a chair that's just aimed at it.

00:29:54.300 | Like that should be priority one and then everything else can fit into your main bedroom.

00:29:59.500 | Now assuming you don't want to do that, which would be my suggestion, I have a couple things

00:30:04.500 | I'll say here.

00:30:06.100 | All right.

00:30:07.740 | So you're basically putting everything work and exercise related in the one room.

00:30:12.900 | That's not a bad idea.

00:30:16.040 | Maybe you could think about exercise as something that you also interleave throughout the workday.

00:30:20.740 | You know, if you're working from home anyways with your equipment there, 20 minute rides,

00:30:25.860 | some push-ups, like going back and forth between exercising and work is actually a pretty good

00:30:30.740 | rhythm for work.

00:30:31.740 | So you might not actually want to separate those as much as you think.

00:30:34.940 | When it comes to breaking up household work from other type of work, small, I think it's

00:30:42.420 | the right way to say this, small changes to the environment.

00:30:47.020 | So small contextual changes can go a long way when it comes to trying to change your

00:30:53.220 | mindset.

00:30:54.220 | And what I mean about this is that you can have a slightly different setup for bills

00:31:01.380 | or what have you, then what you do in the same room for your normal work.

00:31:07.500 | And that little change in context can make a big difference where you can do the bills

00:31:11.020 | or what have you without falling back into that mindset of regular work.

00:31:15.860 | So like one thing you could do is have a very small desk or table that is separate from

00:31:20.340 | your main desk, right?

00:31:21.460 | So you could imagine a setup where against one wall, you've built a long desk that both

00:31:25.060 | you and your fiance can both sit and you bring your computers there and you have all your

00:31:28.740 | files there.

00:31:30.020 | And then over in another corner is a very small desk, kind of like they used to use

00:31:34.500 | if you look at the Victorian age where they'd have those stationary desks, where it's like

00:31:37.500 | very tall with a very narrow desk in front of it, you'd go and you would write your correspondence

00:31:43.380 | on or something.

00:31:44.380 | So these are shallow desks.

00:31:46.120 | You have something like that in a different corner of the room.

00:31:49.140 | Right next to it is the filing cabinet for your household stuff.

00:31:53.780 | It seems like it's the same room, but that context makes a difference.

00:31:56.740 | I'm at this desk on my laptop doing email.

00:31:59.220 | Now it's Sunday afternoon.

00:32:01.420 | I want to pay some bills and take care of some of that type of work.

00:32:05.020 | I don't want to think about email and I don't want to think about my job.

00:32:07.620 | You go in that same room, but you're going over to that other little desk.

00:32:10.280 | It makes all the difference in the world.

00:32:11.840 | That's the bill desk.

00:32:12.840 | That's different than the work desk.

00:32:15.100 | So I think you do that.

00:32:17.180 | You can get a lot out of the same space.

00:32:19.920 | The other contextual cues you can do is with lighting and music.

00:32:23.220 | Okay, when I'm doing deep work in this desk, I have the lights low except for one bright

00:32:27.720 | spot on my desk.

00:32:28.980 | When I'm doing email, I have the lights higher.

00:32:31.320 | When I'm doing exercising, we do something different, right?

00:32:34.080 | Those type of cues can matter as well.

00:32:35.320 | So small cues, give your mind what they need to know that this is a different context than

00:32:39.260 | this, even if you're in the same physical space.

00:32:41.700 | So I think that's a good idea.

00:32:43.060 | The final thing I would suggest is be in the habit of using that office is where your phones

00:32:48.140 | go.

00:32:49.580 | So I'm a big proponent of what I call the phone for your method, which says when you're

00:32:53.840 | at home, you do not keep your phone with you in your pocket.

00:32:58.960 | Just like 25 years ago, you didn't just pick up your old fashioned telephone with a very

00:33:03.820 | wide long wire, just walk with you wherever you went in the house, carrying this phone

00:33:08.220 | with you.

00:33:09.220 | That'd be eccentric, but we do that with our portable phones.

00:33:10.940 | And so it's always there for distraction.

00:33:12.340 | So I say, when you come home, your phone's going to a set place, you plug them in and

00:33:15.900 | you charge them.

00:33:17.860 | If you need to make a call, you go there.

00:33:19.580 | If you need to text someone, you go there.

00:33:20.820 | If someone's calling you, you go there.

00:33:22.220 | If you want to see if someone texted there, you go there.

00:33:23.740 | If you want to look something up, you go there.

00:33:25.540 | And that's where your phone is.

00:33:26.540 | It's not with you as a default distraction.

00:33:29.180 | I call it the phone for your method, because if you're in a house, you might have a foyer

00:33:33.380 | by your front door.

00:33:34.380 | It's a good place for it.

00:33:35.380 | You have a two bedroom apartment, use that one apartment, that one room for it.

00:33:39.260 | Go in there, we plug in our phones, we can put the ringer on high.

00:33:41.820 | So we'll hear it if someone's calling or something.

00:33:44.460 | And that's where we go to use our phone.

00:33:46.140 | That is, I think, a great setup.

00:33:48.660 | We have a living room and a bedroom that you don't look at your phone in, you don't do

00:33:53.340 | email in, you don't do work in.

00:33:54.820 | And then you have this multi-purpose room where you have exercising in there, you have

00:33:59.700 | your main work in there, you have your phone interaction in there, you have your household

00:34:05.300 | admin like Bill Payne in there, you have your Cal Newport shrine in there that takes up

00:34:09.660 | most of the room, and the context is just slightly different between all of those different

00:34:14.940 | things.

00:34:15.940 | And so when you're switching from one thing to the other, your mind knows it's different

00:34:18.380 | and it doesn't invade it all into the other parts of your life.

00:34:20.980 | I think you do that, you're going to have a great setup for your house and you really

00:34:25.860 | would be taking advantage of the way your brain actually works.

00:34:29.660 | All right.

00:34:31.580 | We should have a shrine.

00:34:34.380 | We don't have a shrine in here, Jesse, but we do have some various things that fans have

00:34:38.680 | sent us that maybe to the outside eye is a little bit shriney.

00:34:42.860 | Do you have your bookshelf?

00:34:44.900 | I have the bookshelf, but I don't have all my books up there yet because I ran out of

00:34:48.540 | shelves and I got too lazy to buy more.

00:34:51.660 | But someone sent us a comic book artist did an illustration of me as a superhero, heavily

00:35:00.300 | muscled.

00:35:01.300 | You've seen that out by the refrigerator.

00:35:02.820 | And then a class I gave a talk to, they did a lot of original illustrations about me and

00:35:07.260 | my life, like hand drawn illustrations.

00:35:09.440 | The ones I have on the wall in the main room.

00:35:13.140 | Both of those are a little out of context, maybe oddly shrine-like.

00:35:18.740 | I think out of context, that might be weird.

00:35:21.820 | But the idea was here in the HQ, we're going to put it up in a way.

00:35:25.420 | Brings up another issue.

00:35:27.720 | People are asking for a look inside the HQ video.

00:35:32.500 | So here's what we should do, and we're going to do.

00:35:35.580 | I want to decorate the HQ better.

00:35:38.660 | You know this, right?

00:35:39.660 | I'm just bad about this.

00:35:41.140 | When you came, I had to buy some chairs.

00:35:42.820 | So when you started working for me, I only had one chair.

00:35:46.180 | So that's what I did.

00:35:48.380 | But we still are missing a lot, right?

00:35:49.960 | Because I'm just weird with decorations and I'm lazy.

00:35:52.900 | And so I think we got to figure that out.

00:35:56.580 | We got to have a plan for it.

00:35:57.820 | And then I think the video should be before after.

00:36:00.180 | Like, okay, let's tour the HQ as it stands now.

00:36:05.220 | That's a good idea.

00:36:06.220 | And then we do some work or hire some people to help us do some work.

00:36:09.340 | And then here's how it looks after we're done.

00:36:14.100 | So then it would be a forcing function.

00:36:15.100 | Because we got to get stuff on the walls.

00:36:17.100 | We got to get-- we probably have to get rid of those old desks and do something cooler.

00:36:21.940 | We should have better seating.

00:36:23.140 | We should get a good TV in there.

00:36:24.580 | There's so much we probably-- People will want to see your board.

00:36:28.080 | People want to see the board.

00:36:29.080 | Oh, yeah, we have the whiteboard in there.

00:36:33.860 | I asked my listeners once to send me suggestions for the HQ.

00:36:37.700 | But I don't know.

00:36:39.140 | I used to call it the cave back then.

00:36:41.820 | And some of the suggestions were a little on the nose.

00:36:43.820 | Like someone wanted me to actually build a cave with plaster of Paris, stalagmites, and

00:36:49.580 | stalactites or whatever.

00:36:50.580 | I was like, okay, maybe we should not outsource this one.

00:36:56.660 | But anyways, we're committing now.

00:36:58.580 | We're committing now on air.

00:36:59.660 | Jesse and I are going to-- Yeah, we'll put out some videos.

00:37:01.380 | We'll put out some videos of what it looks like in here.

00:37:03.660 | And then we're going to make it look nicer.

00:37:05.700 | And then we'll put out another video.

00:37:06.700 | And you'll be like, ah, now it looks nicer.

00:37:08.540 | And it'll be a huge shrine.

00:37:10.740 | It'll be like really embarrassing.

00:37:12.940 | All right.

00:37:13.940 | Do we have one more question?

00:37:15.740 | Yeah, we have one more question.

00:37:17.660 | It's from a student.

00:37:18.660 | And he has a question about starting for a highly competitive exam.

00:37:23.500 | All right, let's do it.

00:37:26.540 | Hello, Carl.

00:37:27.540 | Shubham here from India.

00:37:28.540 | Firstly, thank you so much for your podcast and books.

00:37:33.540 | Your books have profoundly influenced my academic career and life in general.

00:37:38.180 | As a student preparing for civil services examination, one of the highly competitive

00:37:43.380 | examination held in India, the only way I think to stand out is to putting extra number

00:37:48.940 | of deep work hours in the preparation.

00:37:52.980 | Any tips for that and in general about cracking and highly competitive examinations?

00:37:58.820 | Thank you.

00:37:59.820 | Yeah, I used to deal with these questions a lot when I was doing primarily student-focused

00:38:04.700 | advice back in my early days.

00:38:07.500 | The big high-level point that applies to any high-stakes examination and really sort of

00:38:14.820 | any high-stakes grading situation is to make sure that your approach to preparing is what

00:38:22.280 | actually matters and not what you want to matter.

00:38:26.540 | That's the most common trap that happens here is that people write a story in their head

00:38:30.740 | of what they want preparation for this exam to be.

00:38:35.780 | And it matches something that's typically it's some sort of activity that it's hard

00:38:39.380 | enough to feel fulfilling, but not so hard that it's really going to cramp their life

00:38:43.700 | or be too hard.

00:38:45.060 | Or they just like the idea of it and they just throw hours at it and they just want

00:38:48.580 | that to be what matters.

00:38:49.780 | And often what really matters for doing well for the exam might be completely different

00:38:53.580 | and actually require a lot less time once you know what it is.

00:38:56.100 | So you got to figure out what really matters for passing the India Civil Service Entrance

00:39:01.460 | Exam.

00:39:02.460 | And the way you figure that out is you talk to people who have done it and know about

00:39:06.940 | it from direct experience.

00:39:08.980 | And you say, what mattered?

00:39:11.980 | What was the prep you did that really was useful and what was the waste of time?

00:39:14.820 | And you talk to five people like this.

00:39:17.500 | And if it's a big enough exam, there might be books on it, you read the books too.

00:39:20.060 | You figure out what really matters.

00:39:21.620 | And then you get a realistic picture of this is what I, the activities I actually need

00:39:26.140 | to do, the activities I actually need to do to prepare for this exam.

00:39:30.220 | And then you find the time for it.

00:39:31.460 | Okay, well, how much is that going to take?

00:39:32.900 | And so how early do I have to start?

00:39:34.380 | Then where do I want to put that on my calendar?

00:39:35.780 | And you should autopilot schedule it.

00:39:37.540 | Let me get that all in my calendar in advance, the same times on the same days.

00:39:40.340 | And then you just execute and you're executing the stuff that matters.

00:39:44.080 | If you're really working backwards from focusing on what people know from experience makes

00:39:47.580 | the difference is probably less time than you think for God's sakes, it's much less

00:39:51.980 | time.

00:39:52.980 | If you come at this with the mindset of just, this is a morality set up, like the more sacrifice

00:39:57.500 | I do, the more I'll be rewarded.

00:39:59.500 | So let me just make sure I'm miserable and doing lots of hours.

00:40:02.220 | Your hours are only interesting to me as a secondary side effect of you figuring out

00:40:07.580 | what prep matters and you scheduling it.

00:40:10.380 | And then that'll take whatever it takes.

00:40:13.060 | Hours are not a planning tool.

00:40:14.060 | Trying to hit another hours is not a planning tool.

00:40:16.420 | Trying to hit a certain level of misery or so you feel like you're at least trying hard

00:40:20.300 | means nothing.

00:40:21.300 | All I care about is, are you doing the actual concrete activities you have evidence work?

00:40:25.140 | Did you give yourself enough time to get those all done?

00:40:27.100 | Do those things when you've done them, you're done.

00:40:28.580 | If you don't, you're not, that's it.

00:40:31.780 | The real differentiating factor when it comes to high stake test, the people who figure

00:40:34.660 | that out and the people who want it to be some sort of more morality play about sacrifice

00:40:39.060 | and sweat, that's not the way it works.

00:40:44.180 | Here's an example from my own days in college.

00:40:47.140 | So I went to an Ivy League school here in the US and had a lot of friends go to Harvard

00:40:53.100 | Law School after college.

00:40:56.700 | Which by the way, side note, naive public school kid I was going to this Ivy League

00:41:02.180 | school was completely surprised that most of the people I know went to Harvard Law School.

00:41:09.340 | Because in my mind, I didn't have this mindset of like, these are the professional tracks

00:41:15.020 | that are allowed.

00:41:16.020 | Of course, this is why you went to the school so that you can then go to Harvard and then

00:41:18.460 | get a law firm job.

00:41:19.460 | I just thought everyone was going to be professors and journalists and start nonprofits and cool

00:41:24.300 | companies.

00:41:25.300 | No, they all went to Harvard Law School.

00:41:26.300 | Because I was from a naive public school background.

00:41:30.020 | So I didn't realize like, oh, these are all pathways.

00:41:32.100 | You become a doctor or a lawyer or a management consultant or finance and you go through

00:41:36.300 | these schools and whatever.

00:41:37.300 | So you look at that from the outside, you're like, man, how did all these kids get into

00:41:42.380 | Harvard Law School?

00:41:43.380 | And depending on your orientation on the optimist, pessimist scale about human nature, you think

00:41:49.540 | it's one of two things.

00:41:51.620 | Either they must all just be brilliant.

00:41:54.100 | Man, I'll never be like that.

00:41:55.860 | Look at these smart kids.

00:41:56.860 | They all can just go into Harvard Law School.

00:41:58.220 | Or you say, yeah, it's all just like what school you went to.

00:42:03.660 | And look at that pipeline.

00:42:04.660 | You just for free get to go to Harvard Law if you go to an Ivy League school.

00:42:06.940 | And so it's just perpetuating sort of entrenched privilege.

00:42:10.820 | But there's a third element here that I noticed up front, which was they systematically figured

00:42:17.780 | out what is needed to accomplish this goal.

00:42:24.420 | And they looked up-- there's these matrices you could look up, first of all, that shows

00:42:27.660 | you with your current GPA, what LSAT score would you need to have a high percentage of

00:42:35.100 | being accepted into Harvard Law School?

00:42:36.420 | And they all looked at this, and they all looked at their current GPAs and said, great,

00:42:39.140 | I have to get this LSAT score.

00:42:40.540 | So they're specific.

00:42:42.180 | And they figured out by talking to people who had gone before and gotten good scores

00:42:47.780 | on the LSAT, what really matters.

00:42:50.180 | And it was practice.

00:42:51.180 | A lot of it was practice, real tests under real conditions.

00:42:54.660 | You would learn some techniques and do real tests under real conditions.

00:42:57.060 | And so they organized a club internally where they would just do these tests, real LSATs

00:43:03.300 | under real conditions, again and again and again, until their scores hit exactly this

00:43:08.940 | number that the statistics told them would give them a good chance of being accepted.

00:43:12.340 | And then they were done.

00:43:13.340 | And they went and took the LSAT.

00:43:14.340 | And they got that score.

00:43:15.340 | And they got into Harvard.

00:43:17.680 | The reason why I tell the story is to show what they were doing there is what often happens

00:43:21.760 | when you see people who do very well in high-stakes testing is they figured out, what do I really

00:43:26.620 | need to do?

00:43:27.620 | And how do you actually do it?

00:43:28.620 | And they put aside the time.

00:43:29.620 | And these students, my memory is they spent a whole quarter working on this.

00:43:33.540 | They're like, OK, we're probably going to end up having to dedicate-- I'm trying to

00:43:38.820 | add this up in my head-- 100 hours of work on this to get our LSAT scores to where they

00:43:43.140 | are.

00:43:44.140 | So we got started early.

00:43:45.380 | And we do this every Friday or whatever, every Thursday morning.

00:43:47.980 | And let's just go.

00:43:50.580 | So I just use it as an example of this is the key to anything high-stakes is get the

00:43:55.380 | ground truth evidence, what really matters here, and confront that for better or for

00:44:02.060 | worse.

00:44:03.060 | This is what I would actually have to do to prepare for this.

00:44:06.660 | And then try to find time to do it.

00:44:08.140 | Build your schedule.

00:44:09.140 | Start early to fit it in.

00:44:10.140 | And then either do the work or you don't.

00:44:12.780 | But do not invent your own story for what you think should matter.

00:44:18.200 | Do not just retreat to storylines about there's nothing I can do because I'm not brilliant.

00:44:23.380 | So I'll just never get a good score.

00:44:25.420 | No.

00:44:26.420 | It's work.

00:44:27.420 | Like, how do I get to where I need to get?

00:44:29.680 | So figure out the real solution.

00:44:30.820 | Do the real work.

00:44:32.300 | It's not very exciting.

00:44:33.460 | But honestly, that's how the world turns with most of these types of high-stakes exams anyways.

00:44:39.060 | All right.

00:44:40.060 | So I'm looking at the time here.

00:44:43.020 | We should probably wrap this up.

00:44:44.140 | So thank you, everyone, who called in.

00:44:46.380 | Go to calnewport.com/podcast to learn how to submit your calls.

00:44:50.220 | If you like what you heard, you will like what you read on my weekly newsletter.

00:44:53.940 | You can sign up at calnewport.com for that as well.

00:44:57.820 | We'll be back on Monday with some new episodes.

00:44:59.700 | You can see videos of every question talked about today and a video of the full episode

00:45:03.900 | at our YouTube channel.

00:45:05.980 | That link is in the show notes.

00:45:08.140 | Until next time, as always, stay deep.

00:45:10.820 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

Full Length Episode | #170 | February 3, 2022

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