Behind the Curtain: Zettlekasten, Lifestyle Centric Planning, and Deep Training

00:00:00.000 | [MUSIC]

00:00:04.700 | All right.

00:00:05.960 | So new segment, we want to try something new.

00:00:07.800 | So back in the early days of this podcast, back when it was just me all by myself,

00:00:12.000 | I used to do a segment where I would give updates about what was going

00:00:15.760 | on in the life of Cal Newport.

00:00:19.140 | So I'm a very private person, but I would, on things I was comfortable

00:00:24.080 | talking about, give a little bit of insight into what was going on into my life.

00:00:27.340 | A little bit weird doing these segments because it's myself basically

00:00:30.960 | just talking about myself.

00:00:32.400 | But now it occurred to me, now that we have Jesse here, we could rejuvenate

00:00:39.200 | this segment, which I call behind the curtain since, well, we are in a

00:00:42.700 | room surrounded by curtains.

00:00:43.920 | So it's like what happens outside of this room?

00:00:45.900 | A segment called behind a curtain where Jesse will be the proxy for you, my

00:00:51.480 | audience, and Jesse will ask me some questions about what's going on in my

00:00:56.560 | life. I have not seen these questions ahead of time, so these are new to me.

00:01:00.960 | And Jesse, let me make it clear, if I don't like them, you're fired.

00:01:04.560 | So let's just put that on the table.

00:01:06.320 | Take that $250,000 a month and go buy a new truck.

00:01:10.560 | I am going to spend that on YouTube subscriptions.

00:01:14.280 | Is that how that works?

00:01:15.760 | Can I spend money on YouTube subscriptions?

00:01:17.960 | One thing you can do on YouTube is you can subscribe to YouTube premium and you

00:01:22.320 | don't get the ads and you get the music.

00:01:23.680 | It's actually only like $9 a month.

00:01:25.120 | I do it.

00:01:25.520 | It's unbelievable.

00:01:26.320 | I should probably do that too.

00:01:27.120 | You save so much time when you have to watch ads and yeah, just goes right to

00:01:32.080 | the video.

00:01:32.320 | So do YouTube premium.

00:01:33.240 | All right.

00:01:33.520 | Do YouTube premium, subscribe, leave reviews.

00:01:38.080 | I don't know.

00:01:39.000 | Smoke signals.

00:01:40.000 | Send me encouraging telegrams so I know what's going on.

00:01:43.520 | Write to your congressman and say, I like what Cal Newport is doing.

00:01:47.080 | Send cards to your network executives.

00:01:50.240 | I don't know.

00:01:50.640 | I don't know, guys.

00:01:52.000 | I'm terrible at that.

00:01:52.560 | All right, Jesse, behind the curtain, you have some questions for me about

00:01:56.160 | what's going on in my life.

00:01:57.160 | All right.

00:01:58.240 | I think I'm ready for it.

00:01:59.000 | All right.

00:01:59.720 | So I got a bunch of questions here, so I'm just going to fire a couple off and

00:02:04.600 | we'll see how it goes.

00:02:05.400 | All right.

00:02:06.160 | Can you give any updates on your Ziddle casting experiment?

00:02:10.680 | All right.

00:02:12.400 | You're fired.

00:02:12.840 | Next, let's move on.

00:02:14.840 | Um, the reason why I ask is because I remember you had the interview with the,

00:02:21.800 | um, the fellow like back over the summertime.

00:02:24.320 | And I was actually, I was in a cool place.

00:02:27.120 | I was on a jog in Scotland on like a golf trip and I was doing that jog like in the

00:02:32.640 | morning and I heard this and I was like, this is, this sounds cool.

00:02:35.760 | And then I was in a cool place too, like near the beach, like in this, like, you

00:02:39.360 | know, nature area.

00:02:40.480 | But anyway, so I remember that.

00:02:42.280 | And then you've talked about a few times, so like wanting to know.

00:02:44.680 | Well, it's a good, it's a timely question because I was talking to Shreeny recently.

00:02:48.640 | So one of the ideas I was talking to Shreeny, I was like, man, I should just

00:02:52.080 | have you, uh, call into the show and we could do like a Ziddle cast in back and

00:02:57.520 | forth, like just like a 10 minute, 15 minute thing.

00:02:59.680 | So I think we could technically do that, right?

00:03:02.240 | Like we could have him call in on zoom or something.

00:03:04.360 | Cause he, he, he lives in Colorado, so he's not, not be able to get here easily,

00:03:07.840 | but we could have him call in on zoom and like, we could just do a Ziddle casting.

00:03:12.000 | Cause he has a lot of thoughts.

00:03:13.040 | Yeah.

00:03:13.760 | He has a lot of thoughts on what I've been saying.

00:03:15.240 | And he thinks like I'm missing out on some of the value.

00:03:17.840 | So I think that'd be cool.

00:03:18.640 | We got it back and forth.

00:03:20.000 | In my own life, I haven't made any big steps forward.

00:03:23.280 | I mean, I'm still in the place where, uh, I want Roam, the tool Roam to be

00:03:29.280 | the primary place in which I'm capturing most notes that are, with the exception

00:03:34.280 | of CS research, which requires math notation, it's a whole separate thing.

00:03:37.320 | Or writing ideas and book ideas and article ideas and all that.

00:03:40.600 | I want that all to be in Roam, roughly indexed in a Ziddle cast in style where

00:03:44.680 | there's a, there's a central index, but then also bidirectional links.

00:03:48.560 | And I haven't really upgraded that yet because I've been slammed, which is

00:03:53.640 | his own issue I'm having in my life right now.

00:03:56.160 | It's self enforced, uh, self-imposed, but pretty brutal these, these past

00:03:59.840 | months with my workload and that, to me, that's something you do when you have

00:04:03.520 | some time, so I'm thinking as the spring gives way towards summer, my schedule

00:04:08.920 | opens up, I want Ziddle cast in style system, basically capturing the place

00:04:15.640 | where I capture most of my ideas, because I have a lot of ideas and so we'll see.

00:04:19.360 | And so we'll have Srinian, he could help me out and fill in.

00:04:22.480 | You also just read that book, you know, back in January, right?

00:04:25.120 | Yeah.

00:04:25.840 | I mean, that book, how to take smart notes is what really

00:04:28.000 | introduced me to Ziddle cast.

00:04:29.120 | And, and, and it was a cool book and I, I, I liked it and I recommend it actually.

00:04:34.000 | And, and, and the listener sent it to me just out of the blue.

00:04:36.160 | Uh, so I'll report back, but maybe what I'll do, here's what I'll do is like,

00:04:39.200 | when I have time, I'll have Srinian and have him be my guru, like let's just

00:04:43.160 | 15 minutes, walk me through, let me ask you my, my highly technical questions

00:04:47.760 | about how to get this right, and then I'll, then I'll go try it out.

00:04:50.360 | So I remain intrigued by Ziddle cast.

00:04:52.040 | And I have heard from a lot of people, however, that agree with my central

00:04:55.120 | complaint that Ziddle cast and can't do thinking for you, it can't write

00:04:59.160 | articles for you, it's not in almost any position, this idea that you're just

00:05:04.680 | going to wander through your Ziddle cast and system and come out on the other

00:05:08.520 | side with an article or a book or an academic paper is just not how that,

00:05:12.800 | not how that works, but it's a really cool way to probably organize a lot of

00:05:16.320 | thoughts that aren't easily put into some sort of hierarchical categories.

00:05:19.960 | Okay.

00:05:21.600 | Moving on, kind of related and talking about lifestyle centric planning,

00:05:27.080 | which you discuss quite a bit for your own life.

00:05:30.720 | Do you think you're close?

00:05:31.840 | I think changes are looming.

00:05:36.240 | I think changes are looming that would get me closer.

00:05:40.040 | So I've done extreme lifestyle centric career planning.

00:05:44.640 | I mean, it's why I'm a professor and not in tech startups or venture

00:05:49.520 | capital or something like this.

00:05:50.760 | It's, it's why I write books.

00:05:52.800 | Very autonomous and interesting income stream and very interesting to me.

00:05:59.840 | It's why we live in Tacoma park.

00:06:01.840 | That was very much a lifestyle centric career planning, very explicit

00:06:07.400 | planning process of where do we want to live and why, why we want to live there.

00:06:11.240 | Right now, I would say the, the main obstacle between where I am right now

00:06:18.480 | and the very clear lifestyle, and I got to say, I have this written out very

00:06:21.720 | clearly in my strategic plans documents.

00:06:23.400 | I mean, I know the bullet points of what goes into the lifestyle that I'm

00:06:29.320 | working backwards to try to get in place.

00:06:31.360 | Right now I still have too much on my plate.

00:06:35.400 | And so the old joke on the podcast is I have 17 jobs, but like I need seven instead of 17.

00:06:40.840 | So that that's, I think the, the, the, the next evolution to come is it's to be a

00:06:48.720 | full-time this and a full-time that, and a full-time that like three or four multiple

00:06:52.880 | things, it's just the volume of work is too much.

00:06:55.280 | My ideal lifestyle is slower and way more autonomous, less things, high

00:07:02.000 | stakes, like, Hey, deliver a book, deliver like a really good New Yorker piece.

00:07:07.000 | So high stakes, but you have nothing on your calendar tomorrow.

00:07:11.560 | You know, it's up to you.

00:07:13.040 | You got to figure this out.

00:07:13.840 | You need to make this work done.

00:07:14.800 | So, so I'm working on that.

00:07:16.400 | There's some early stage visions we're working on right now too, about

00:07:21.480 | community investment, getting a little bit more involved in Tacoma park.

00:07:26.760 | Maybe we need having some more.

00:07:31.000 | You know, I don't want to get too much into it, but some sort of

00:07:33.040 | commercial presence here.

00:07:34.160 | Do we want to be, so there's a lot of thoughts we have about being more

00:07:36.640 | integrated into what's going on in our town, which I think is interesting too.

00:07:41.560 | So it's a, it's ongoing process.

00:07:44.000 | Right now I have too much in the moment.

00:07:45.920 | I have way too much, but strategic.

00:07:47.320 | So I took on a lot of extra work because it's going to help.

00:07:51.560 | I think it's important when I'm, the thing I'm doing a short live and I think

00:07:54.800 | it's important, and I think it's also going to maybe be important for my, the

00:07:57.640 | lifestyle I want down the line, but right now I'm just being crushed by it.

00:08:00.400 | So I'm definitely in a mode right now where I'm thinking through what I

00:08:06.320 | want to want to want to get there.

00:08:07.280 | Cause right now I'm just being crushed with overload.

00:08:10.160 | Yeah.

00:08:11.480 | You've seen it.

00:08:12.080 | You've seen it.

00:08:12.520 | You know, I'm kind of in and out right now.

00:08:14.240 | Like I, it is there's too much going on.

00:08:17.680 | Having too much.

00:08:18.200 | It's just not good.

00:08:19.840 | Now I'm doing it on purpose and for a temporary amount of time.

00:08:24.440 | It's an initiative at Georgetown.

00:08:26.840 | I think it's very important, but it brings with it a lot of work.

00:08:29.480 | And I probably should have aggressively slowed down other things to compensate,

00:08:34.600 | but I didn't, I added it on top of the stuff that was working just fine.

00:08:37.360 | And now it doesn't add up and work just fine.

00:08:39.000 | And it's too much stuff and it's organized because I'm very organized.

00:08:42.000 | So it's not like I'm disorganized and I have the, technically

00:08:44.680 | I have the time for it.

00:08:45.880 | The issue is, and this is a core idea of slow productivity.

00:08:48.840 | When there's too much on your plate, no matter, even if you do have the time

00:08:52.440 | to get it done, you're super organized, it's still short circuits, everything

00:08:54.880 | is stresses you out and it's not healthy.

00:08:57.240 | So it's, it's a good kind of kick in the butt right now to be like, okay,

00:09:00.680 | once I finished this, I really got to get pretty aggressive again at, um, pursuing

00:09:06.280 | the, the lifestyle I have in mind.

00:09:07.600 | Makes sense.

00:09:10.120 | Um, kind of going with a broader question here.

00:09:13.440 | You've discussed the book 4,000 weeks that you read recently.

00:09:17.320 | You told Tim Ferriss about, I haven't read it yet, but I will.

00:09:20.200 | In generally, do you find that time goes by very fast?

00:09:27.120 | Um, yes.

00:09:28.360 | Yeah.

00:09:29.320 | I mean, it, it depends on, it depends on what's going on.

00:09:33.960 | These types of seasons, like winter, where it's, there's a lot going on.

00:09:39.360 | It's this, then this, then this, then this, like this day's basketball

00:09:42.560 | and this day I teach, and so you have this sort of very regular schedule.

00:09:45.760 | That's, uh, each day is different than the one before, but it's regular each time.

00:09:49.840 | I always feel like time moves very fast during those seasons.

00:09:52.400 | And then when you're in like the summer and there's not a schedule like that,

00:09:57.640 | and it's much more autonomous, I feel like time moves much slower.

00:10:01.040 | So summer feels like a long time to me.

00:10:03.160 | Usually winter feels very fast.

00:10:07.360 | Like, are we in February already?

00:10:08.920 | We're in mid-February already.

00:10:09.680 | I mean, I don't mind it because like winter's not the best time anyways,

00:10:12.200 | but, um, yeah, winter's fast.

00:10:15.520 | And then, so does that lead to like broader thoughts about, you know,

00:10:21.040 | getting older and stuff like that and not being able to do certain

00:10:23.520 | things or not really for you?

00:10:24.600 | Like that's the 4,000, 4,000 weeks things.

00:10:27.240 | I'll tell you, I definitely started thinking about that with, uh, 40 looming.

00:10:33.560 | Right.

00:10:34.640 | Um, because there, there's a lot of things, especially if you're looking

00:10:39.800 | at bigger types of achievements, there's a lot of things where you say, uh, if

00:10:45.640 | that's not happened by 40, that's not on your list, this is like a key Oliver

00:10:50.000 | Berkman thing, like, I think about this with writing, like I've been a successful

00:10:53.600 | writer, there's writers that are a lot more successful, you would think, yeah,

00:10:58.920 | you're where you're going to be.

00:11:00.000 | Like you've taken your swings.

00:11:01.920 | You've been doing this since you were 20 years old.

00:11:04.720 | You've written seven books, like you've taken your swings and it's gone well.

00:11:09.320 | But if you were going to be a absolute top of the market writer, you'd be an

00:11:14.320 | absolute top of the market writer.

00:11:16.120 | Like same thing with computer science, like you've done good computer science.

00:11:18.520 | But if you're going to be like a breakout brain in that world, you would

00:11:21.040 | have been a breakout brain in that world.

00:11:22.160 | You've been doing this for a long time.

00:11:23.400 | You know, and I never really, in the thirties, you still feel like

00:11:26.400 | you're working on things.

00:11:27.360 | 40 feels like, yeah, this is, this is like the, this is where these are my levels.

00:11:33.160 | So how do we build a life around it?

00:11:34.520 | And that might be overly pessimistic, but that's kind of an Oliver

00:11:37.600 | Berkman point, which I like.

00:11:38.880 | Uh, as big as there is one key exception to that though.

00:11:42.840 | So I've gone down a Taylor Sheridan rabbit hole.

00:11:45.800 | You know this guy?

00:11:47.040 | No.

00:11:48.240 | Okay.

00:11:48.680 | So, um, he was an actor and he, so he was an actor probably best known for

00:11:56.120 | being on sons of anarchy on FX.

00:11:59.000 | The main character?

00:12:00.160 | I don't know the show.

00:12:01.840 | I've seen the show.

00:12:02.680 | I've seen the whole show.

00:12:03.920 | Yeah.

00:12:04.480 | He's like a lantern Jod.

00:12:06.200 | Oh yeah.

00:12:07.040 | Yeah.

00:12:07.280 | Yeah.

00:12:07.480 | Yeah.

00:12:07.680 | Yeah.

00:12:07.920 | Yeah.

00:12:08.080 | Yeah.

00:12:08.320 | He's yeah.

00:12:08.880 | I know.

00:12:09.280 | Okay.

00:12:09.760 | So he's like a big character in that anyways.

00:12:11.520 | Um, but he grew up on a ranch, right?

00:12:13.320 | Like he, he came out of, uh, and he owns, owns a ranch coming up, come up out of a

00:12:17.560 | ranch in his, so after the age of 40, he said, I'm going to screenwrite.

00:12:22.440 | And he was going to do a neo Westerns, which is like the, the new type of Western.

00:12:28.120 | I think the Coen brothers kind of helped usher this in with no country for old men.

00:12:32.880 | So it, it, neo Westerns, they take place in.

00:12:35.160 | Ma in our modern world.

00:12:37.120 | And some of the, the issues are not, uh, there's like a abandoned coming to town.

00:12:42.160 | It's like the economic hardships of whatever.

00:12:45.040 | And so he's like, great.

00:12:46.200 | I'm just going to like, start writing these types of things.

00:12:47.760 | And he wrote, uh, Sicario, hell and high water, and then wind river, just

00:12:54.160 | like rattled off these like great movies started writing in his forties.

00:12:58.080 | His second movie was Oscar nominated for best screenplay.

00:13:02.160 | Um, wind river, he directed like, just kind of came out of nowhere.

00:13:06.680 | He just had such a clear vision.

00:13:09.040 | Uh, and then he did the show Yellowstone, which has become a huge, a huge phenomenon.

00:13:14.560 | So then he did the show Yellowstone and then there's a spinoff and

00:13:17.120 | they're doing another spinoff.

00:13:18.320 | And, and he, he's part of, uh, I don't know if we talked about this on the show,

00:13:21.240 | but in Yellowstone, there's this huge ranch in Texas, a real ranch called

00:13:25.960 | the 66, 66, four sixes, and it's huge.

00:13:29.240 | I think it's a over a hundred thousand acres.

00:13:32.840 | It's like six times the size of Chicago.

00:13:34.720 | And he's part of a group that just bought it.

00:13:37.240 | And they're going to, then they have a spinoff of the show that

00:13:40.560 | like takes place on that ranch.

00:13:42.320 | And he's like a horse Wrangler.

00:13:44.160 | So like often in this show, Yellowstone, he's a character in the show and he's

00:13:48.760 | always just doing crazy things on horses and all the horses in the show are his

00:13:52.240 | horses.

00:13:52.800 | Anyways, he started all that after 40 and just sort of redefined,

00:13:56.440 | redefined the genre.

00:13:57.240 | So you never know.

00:13:57.840 | What I'm saying is I think, I think we need a ranch.

00:14:00.760 | We should, we should broadcast.

00:14:04.120 | We should broadcast from a ranch.

00:14:05.680 | Yeah.

00:14:07.880 | It would be episode one, but guys are reporting from my ranch.

00:14:10.560 | Episode two, you'd be like, it would be you.

00:14:12.760 | He'd be like, I have sad news.

00:14:14.240 | Cal's 40 miles in the other direction on a horse and his cabin writing some poetry.

00:14:19.400 | No, I was going to say more.

00:14:20.680 | Cal has been killed.

00:14:21.960 | Uh, he has been trampled by, trampled by his snake bitten body was trampled by

00:14:28.000 | horses and then dragged by cattle through barbed wire because he has no idea what

00:14:31.640 | he's doing.

00:14:32.000 | And also the ranch is on fire.

00:14:33.200 | That's what would happen.

00:14:35.480 | Um, yes, I worry about that.

00:14:38.240 | I don't know if I worry about it.

00:14:39.240 | I think about it.

00:14:40.160 | And I never thought about that before until I realized I was going to turn 40 this year.

00:14:43.480 | Interesting.

00:14:44.720 | Yeah.

00:14:45.000 | And then I was like, Oh my God, I guess this is like, I'm no longer like the hungry

00:14:49.840 | upstart thinking like, what am I going to, what's the thing I'm going to do?

00:14:52.240 | Where am I going to break out?

00:14:53.280 | But also I'm pretty happy with where I am.

00:14:55.320 | Uh, so it's not bad, but it's definitely, definitely an adjustment.

00:15:00.040 | You want another question?

00:15:02.840 | I'll just do one more.

00:15:03.600 | All right.

00:15:04.760 | Final question.

00:15:05.680 | You talk a lot about training, like an athlete.

00:15:08.760 | Are there any athletes that you closely follow that you like that, you know,

00:15:13.360 | resonate with you based on like their training resume and like what they do,

00:15:18.320 | what they're all about?

00:15:19.080 | Well, our man Scherzer.

00:15:20.320 | Yeah.

00:15:21.560 | Yeah.

00:15:21.840 | You know, a little bit of something about his training regime, right?

00:15:24.560 | But he's, yeah, yeah.

00:15:25.480 | He's a beast, right?

00:15:26.560 | Yeah, absolutely.

00:15:27.840 | I mean, obsessed.

00:15:28.720 | Yeah.

00:15:29.240 | He was able to, he was obsessed and, uh, was able to keep his career going.

00:15:35.000 | I mean, the deal he just signed with the Mets.

00:15:36.960 | He's old, man.

00:15:38.520 | I know.

00:15:38.840 | Younger than us, but he's old.

00:15:40.120 | That's a big deal.

00:15:41.520 | That's a lot of money.

00:15:42.320 | Um, yeah, that's all training and competitive.

00:15:45.120 | That's competitive fire right there.

00:15:47.480 | Just that like lasers.

00:15:49.800 | Yeah.

00:15:50.680 | Um, so I like that.

00:15:52.960 | I follow him.

00:15:53.480 | I like to think I'm like the, the Max Scherzer of, I have to go incredibly narrow

00:15:59.840 | here.

00:16:00.120 | I'm like the Max Scherzer of podcasts that are in a Q and a format and that deal

00:16:06.120 | mainly with questions about like work and productivity and our, uh,

00:16:10.360 | [inaudible]

00:16:15.360 | [music]

Behind the Curtain: Zettlekasten, Lifestyle Centric Planning, and Deep Training

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