Ep. 203: Taming Meetings, YouTube’s Potential, Kids and Smartphones

00:46:09.020 | Figure we get a quick one in here Patrick says what are your suggestions to widen the vocabulary of a non-native English speaker for scientific?

00:46:17.580 | writing

00:46:19.680 | Well reading is probably the best way to do this. You want to read as much science related writing as you can

00:46:26.760 | I would probably focus more on science journalism

00:46:30.320 | So books written by good science journalists than I would actually scientific papers

00:46:36.000 | A lot of scientific papers are written pretty poorly, you know scientists have other things on their mind. You're actually going to pick up probably better

00:46:42.080 | Writing habits from science adjacent writings of reading a good science journalist

00:46:47.640 | I'd read as much of that as possible and then write as much as possible

00:46:50.960 | specifically trying to deploy

00:46:53.520 | rhythms turns of phrases techniques that you're seeing again and again in these

00:46:57.640 | Award caliber science journals and books trying to deploy some of that in your own writing that stretches where you're going to get better

00:47:02.880 | But it's all an exposure game read read read read read right right right right right back and forth back and forth

00:47:08.180 | That's the feedback loop that's going to make you better

00:47:10.680 | All right, let's do a call I

00:47:15.200 | Think we have a call here Jesse that

00:47:17.200 | It's gonna set up an even bigger topic I want to discuss okay, it sounds good

00:47:22.440 | Hi Cal, my name is Vito. I'm an engineering manager at the tech company as an engineering manager

00:47:32.140 | I have a lot of meetings and my calendar is always full. I'm having a hard time

00:47:37.280 | Controlling this spiraling calendar and I would like to ask you. What do you think I could do?

00:47:42.660 | I will have a lot of meetings. It is a part of my job. I cannot avoid right now

00:47:47.540 | I'm having full days with back-to-back meetings and it is often the case that

00:47:52.320 | Meetings will be scheduled right after one another

00:47:55.880 | I do have a good a good scenario here that I control a lot of these meetings and when they happen and I can

00:48:02.200 | Reschedule them a lot of them not all of them, of course

00:48:04.620 | But a lot of them I can't so I do have some control over the duration of these calls

00:48:09.320 | When do they happen if they meet up against each other or not?

00:48:13.240 | So I would like to ask you what what is your suggestion on controlling this calendar? Should I have a little bit of time?

00:48:20.740 | Between every every meeting should I schedule a lot of them together so that I have

00:48:25.820 | Bigger blocks on other parts of my day or maybe other parts of my week and then I have some days full and others not

00:48:34.180 | How would you handle a situation where your calendar is full and you need to have a lot of meetings?

00:48:39.240 | But you can move them around a little bit. What what you're taking this? Well, I mean Victor meeting overload is a perennial problem

00:48:46.940 | I think it's a problem that is worse

00:48:49.160 | These days than it's ever been before. So it's a good excuse to talk about meetings now

00:48:54.220 | probably the best advice here is to

00:48:57.520 | Be really weird in

00:49:01.060 | an unsettling way

00:49:03.580 | But not a way that you know directly is going to get you fired

00:49:07.620 | And then people just aren't going to want you in the meetings

00:49:09.480 | This is what I'm going to suggest and I think this is this is going to be the solution to your problem Victor

00:49:12.740 | I want you to come into each of those meetings

00:49:14.740 | with a squid a

00:49:17.460 | Squid on your head

00:49:20.580 | Don't really mention it just you come in you're in the meeting

00:49:24.980 | Maybe it smells a little bit weird and then just throughout the meeting keep breaking in the volunteer to say can I tell you what?

00:49:32.140 | I really

00:49:33.260 | really hate

00:49:35.260 | Squids and just kind of keep bringing that up and then you know, someone else be talking and then and you just say, you know

00:49:41.020 | beady eyes

00:49:43.900 | that devilish beak

00:49:45.900 | Satan spawn they are

00:49:48.460 | Yeah

00:49:49.540 | Squids we could do without I'm telling you do this enough the squids on your head

00:49:54.280 | Maybe sometimes you come in with a fishing rod, but like you don't talk about it do this long enough and people like no Victor

00:49:59.840 | We're cool. We'll

00:50:01.700 | We'll email you the notes like you don't worry about it

00:50:04.960 | Like it's it's really gonna it's nothing because it's not it's unsettling, but it's not like an HR violation, right?

00:50:10.680 | Like you're not you're not coming in there and being like, let me tell you what I hate about people with red hair

00:50:15.680 | It's squids, you know

00:50:17.680 | This doesn't work. If your boss is a squid actually, okay. Let's let's let's be more serious here

00:50:22.920 | I want to use this as an excuse to go through

00:50:25.260 | my standard toolbox

00:50:29.140 | For taming meetings

00:50:30.660 | There's multiple different tools that can be deployed to tame meetings in exactly Victor situation a situation where you can't just not go to meetings

00:50:37.960 | And Victor is really clear about this here. I can't not do these. I can't not do these

00:50:42.040 | Don't tell me to stop do these I can't not do these great

00:50:44.420 | A lot of people are in that situation be it in their office or over zoom, but it's lots of meetings

00:50:49.000 | I have a toolbox. I'm gonna give you this toolbox

00:50:51.200 | And you can pick and choose

00:50:53.880 | Which of these things might work best?

00:50:55.880 | So these are all things I've written about before but I'm gonna bring them all together. I

00:50:59.520 | Have four ideas to share

00:51:02.480 | All right idea number one

00:51:05.280 | meeting

00:51:07.160 | Buffers, so the meeting buffer method is all about working with your calendar in a slightly smarter way

00:51:14.440 | and here's how it works if you have to set up a meeting and

00:51:18.520 | You know how long that meeting is going to be so often meetings have hard stop for it's a it's one hour

00:51:24.160 | That's the hard stop. Don't just block out that hour on your calendar add

00:51:29.040 | 15 to 20 minutes to that block

00:51:31.720 | So it's not just if the meeting is supposed to be from 1 to 2 you have 1 to 2 15 or 1 to 2 20

00:51:38.120 | actually blocked off on your calendar and

00:51:41.160 | If your calendar is public everyone sees that as what's blocked off if it's not public you just treat it like any other meeting

00:51:48.840 | I'm next available at 2 15

00:51:51.440 | I'm next available at 2 20 what you then do with this 15 to 20 minute buffer period is that is where you process?

00:51:57.800 | Everything that came up in that meeting to get it out of your mind

00:52:01.560 | To take the small steps through the small tasks that could be done right away

00:52:05.120 | The capture in whatever systems you use the longer term tasks. It is how you clear out the mental buffer before the next meeting

00:52:12.320 | this is important because this is a

00:52:15.200 | Its absence can create one of the real killer issues of a heavy meeting schedule

00:52:19.120 | Which is you get into a meeting it generates new obligations and plans and things that's all up

00:52:24.080 | There's open loops and you go straight into the next meeting

00:52:26.240 | You haven't dealt with those open loops yet, and now new ones are being generated is very stressful

00:52:30.640 | Our minds hates it. We want to shut the door on one thing before we move to the other meeting buffers is going to

00:52:37.080 | make you feel

00:52:39.640 | 50% less anxious about a meeting filled day small hack goes a long way

00:52:43.960 | All right

00:52:45.400 | So what I'm going to do here is I go through these these tools each one is going to get a little bit more aggressive

00:52:50.480 | Be a little bit more radical

00:52:52.800 | Than the one that follows so meeting buffers is number one. Let's now ratchet up the stakes here with tool number two

00:53:00.720 | Which is the one for you one for me approach to meeting scheduling?

00:53:06.920 | Here's how it works. If I'm putting a meeting on my calendar, I

00:53:11.900 | Need to then within one week of that date. So let's say five workdays

00:53:17.080 | Schedule an equal amount of time that is protected time for me to just work without distraction

00:53:23.300 | You want to put an hour-long meeting on my calendar for Monday?

00:53:26.280 | I'm gonna find some time on Tuesday where I'm gonna break schedule an hour-long

00:53:29.500 | Work block deep work block for me and I don't say deep work block. It could be whatever

00:53:35.340 | It could be a just get my act together go through my inbox

00:53:38.300 | Just take a breather and try to organize everything that's going on

00:53:40.820 | I don't care what you do in it, but it's a non meeting block

00:53:42.820 | One-to-one ratio is the default application of this tool to our meeting here

00:53:47.300 | I have to find two hours later in the week that I protect and when it's on my calendar

00:53:50.780 | I treat it as a meeting with myself

00:53:52.500 | That time is no longer available for other people to come and take it now as other meetings fill into your calendar

00:53:58.020 | You might have to try to fit these in elsewhere. But what you'll end up with is

00:54:01.980 | enforcing a

00:54:04.900 | Predetermined ratio of meeting the non meeting time and so I like the one-to-one ratio

00:54:09.580 | One to one every minute in a meeting gets a minute of protected time. I like that ratio

00:54:13.560 | You might use different ratios depending on what you do for a living

00:54:17.460 | If you're an executive that is almost always in meetings. That's where most of your work happens

00:54:22.660 | Maybe it's a two to one ratio. So for every meeting you you schedule half that length in

00:54:28.620 | Undistracted time for yourself somewhere else in your calendar on the other hand, maybe if you're in a more

00:54:36.500 | Concentration forward position. It's a one to two ratio for every hour of meeting here. I'm gonna find two hours somewhere else

00:54:42.520 | But anyways, the key here is you're being intentional about what ratio you want your time to be

00:54:47.060 | collaborative versus individual concentration and you're taking advantage of the calendar and

00:54:53.660 | The social and professional convention around this time is blocked. So it's not available to actually enforce

00:54:59.380 | that ratio

00:55:02.180 | All right idea number three

00:55:05.940 | Again, let's ratchet up a little bit

00:55:07.940 | wage war on quote-unquote

00:55:10.980 | standing meetings

00:55:13.940 | Now in academia, this is a killer. I think this is killer in a lot of other places as well

00:55:18.580 | It is people who are who have been assigned. Okay, we're working on this obligation

00:55:24.260 | Here is a project that you know me and Jesse and this other person have been assigned to work on

00:55:29.740 | This is an open obligation. I'm stressed. Like how am I gonna make progress on this? I

00:55:35.320 | Don't listen to Cal Newport, so I don't do multi-scale planning

00:55:38.280 | What is the easiest thing you can do in that moment to assuage your anxiety about making progress on a project?

00:55:44.040 | You say I know what we'll do. All right, Jesse. All right other guy

00:55:46.600 | standing meeting

00:55:48.940 | Let's just get a meeting on repeat

00:55:50.980 | So we know at the very least every week Tuesday at 2:30 that we get together on zoom and we talk about this thing

00:55:56.460 | And now I can be like who this will be, you know, not forgotten because I trust meetings on my calendar

00:56:02.680 | This can completely take over your calendar with all of these different standing meetings one for everything

00:56:07.920 | You're working on where the actual amount of useful collaboration that happens is often very little

00:56:12.740 | Like sometimes the meetings a forcing function for you to do something but it clogs up your calendar. It's a big source of calendar

00:56:19.400 | congestion

00:56:22.000 | So wage war on them

00:56:24.000 | replace standing meetings

00:56:26.080 | with much more

00:56:28.000 | Concrete processes for how you're gonna make progress on this specific project

00:56:32.640 | So you don't say let's just meet Tuesdays at 2:30. You say well, okay

00:56:36.400 | What is the next thing that needs to happen here? We need a draft of this client report with some commentary great

00:56:42.020 | Jesse you have the ball here write that report you write that draft once you have a good draft

00:56:48.840 | Put it into this Google Doc in this folder like a shared doc where we can see it

00:56:56.040 | Send us a note to say it's ready. That will start a

00:56:59.120 | 24 hour timer for us to look at it get it done this week and

00:57:04.000 | Look, I have a standing office hours on Fridays

00:57:08.000 | That will be the time like if I have any big questions, you have any big questions come meet me there

00:57:13.100 | I don't know. I'm thinking about this out loud. But my point is it's specific and it's concrete

00:57:17.160 | What is the next thing that has to happen for this project? Okay, who's doing it? How do they signal they're done?

00:57:21.520 | What happens after they're done? How do we get to the next step? So it's not just let's meet again next Tuesday

00:57:26.000 | It's let's do this specific work. And here's how it's going to unfold so replacing standing meetings with concrete

00:57:31.960 | project specific processes for how you're going to get to the next step is way more effective than let's just get on zoom every week and

00:57:39.040 | Small talk for a while and then kind of make excuses for why we didn't get things done

00:57:43.400 | All right. So the the last thing I want to

00:57:47.160 | recommend for waging or tackling meetings ratcheting up again is

00:57:52.040 | office hours plus reverse meetings

00:57:56.480 | Office hours are great

00:57:58.480 | Regular times that you are available this time on these days. I'm always available. You can come into my office

00:58:04.440 | My phone is on I have a zoom window open if you're in a hybrid environment

00:58:07.440 | No appointment necessary. Come grab me. That is great on its own

00:58:12.040 | It allows for example small issues to be taken care of without having to have a synchronous back-and-forth

00:58:18.120 | Conversations or hold dedicated meetings just stop by my office hours and we'll chat about it, right? That's great

00:58:24.360 | But it can be used to implement this more aggressive notion that I call the reverse meetings concept

00:58:31.320 | Subscribers to my newsletter have heard me talk about this a

00:58:34.760 | Little chance for a plug by the way, if you don't subscribe to my newsletter, you should Cal Newport comm I've been writing that since

00:58:41.260 | 2007 roughly one article per week about all the types of stuff I talked about here plug ended

00:58:47.400 | So the reverse meeting concept

00:58:50.040 | Leverages office hours in a way that I think is quite powerful. Here's how it works

00:58:53.320 | The standard way meetings unfold is I need your help this three or four people's help on something. I'm trying to work on

00:59:00.120 | I need some input. I need to assign them some tasks. The standard thing to do is I'm gonna organize an hour-long meeting

00:59:06.500 | So now six of us have to give up an hour of our time

00:59:11.360 | To come to this meeting so that I can make progress on this thing that I'm trying to work on

00:59:16.400 | So that's six total man hours of time obligation generated by a meeting

00:59:20.400 | Reverse meetings leverages office hours to significantly reduce that footprint

00:59:25.000 | It says okay if I need help feedback or assignments from each of you five or six people to make progress on this meeting

00:59:30.840 | I am going to go to each of your office hours one by one. I will come to you

00:59:36.120 | I'm not gonna force you all to come to me and take this time on your schedule. I'll come to you in

00:59:40.960 | Time you've already put aside for types of quick discussions and with each of you all

00:59:44.640 | Hey, what do you think about this? Could you take this on?

00:59:47.000 | Now let's say on average I talk to each of you for 10 minutes

00:59:51.320 | Now it's less convenient for me because your office hours might be spread out

00:59:54.480 | So I have to take three days and remember to go to talk to each of you. The onus is on me

00:59:59.520 | I have to do more work

01:00:01.400 | But let's look at the total man hour footprint of what just happened

01:00:05.240 | before we had six people spending an hour six total hours of time being taken away from other types of pursuits in

01:00:11.120 | This stand in this setup

01:00:13.840 | It is significantly less. There's me doing 10 minutes with five other people

01:00:20.000 | So if we want to add that up

01:00:22.480 | We do 50 minutes times two because it's the time I'm spending the time you're spending so now we're less than two hours

01:00:29.520 | We're closer to an hour and a half total footprint. So we've reduced this footprint by a significant amount

01:00:34.920 | We have also made the life easier for these other five people

01:00:38.120 | Me coming to your office hours

01:00:40.520 | We are already there taking calls and having people coming in and chatting with you for 10 minutes is a no op

01:00:46.400 | In terms of an impact on your schedule. It was time. You'd already set a time for that

01:00:50.240 | that's such a less of a

01:00:52.240 | injury to

01:00:54.200 | Your schedule than you having to actually put aside a full hour that you've now lost

01:00:58.240 | Outside of your office hours to doing this discussion

01:01:00.400 | the only person who maybe has to do slightly more work in this is me because I have to

01:01:04.800 | Coordinate and go to each of you and spread out my meeting over multiple days, but you know what good

01:01:09.040 | It should be harder to call a meeting than it is

01:01:11.640 | You know the person generating the meeting should do more work than the people who have to attend

01:01:15.520 | So use office hours as the foundation for doing reverse meetings

01:01:20.600 | There's so much that can get organized without having to actually put aside extra bespoke

01:01:25.200 | periods of conversation for each individual project that some conversation

01:01:29.280 | requires

01:01:31.800 | So that's my tool that's my toolkit meeting buffers one-to-one ratio one for you one to me on your scheduling

01:01:38.360 | Replace standing meetings with concrete

01:01:40.360 | Progress and process and use office hours to switch from standard meetings to reverse meetings all of those things

01:01:47.840 | Will really help

01:01:50.520 | There you go. It's a great thing about summer for professors Jesse is meetings go away. No more meetings. They no more meetings

01:01:57.640 | And no more meetings for you this fall either right? Well, no meetings. So much not teaching. I saw meetings. Yes a summertime summertime

01:02:06.440 | I'm off the clock

01:02:08.440 | To go to the meetings. Well, but like summertime, I'm not a professor. Oh, sorry. Yeah. Yeah. So like in summertime, I pay my own way

01:02:13.760 | I'm on a 10-month salary at Georgetown. Yeah, so I can do whatever this fall. I'm on teaching leave

01:02:19.240 | So I don't have to teach what does save a lot of time, but it's not

01:02:22.000 | It's also just normal

01:02:25.040 | Academic life still happens meetings and this and that and I don't think they're gonna put up with and rightly so

01:02:30.600 | I think we're probably past that period where it's like

01:02:34.080 | I'm just gonna have to zoom into this faculty meeting

01:02:36.960 | Because uh, you know the virus or this or that I think we're probably past those point now everyone's had cope at three times

01:02:43.200 | I think like we're probably going to be back to

01:02:45.640 | You got to come in, you know, the Dean wants to meet with you. You're coming to meet with the Dean

01:02:51.200 | We're having a faculty meeting

01:02:52.920 | You're coming in for the faculty meeting. I mean, maybe not. I don't know academia slow about that stuff

01:02:57.600 | I think a lot of the other professors were probably pushed back to so you wouldn't be alone. Yeah. Well if anyone asks

01:03:03.120 | I'm incredibly worried about

01:03:05.120 | It's a promise for fat I could say I'm incredibly worried about picking up

01:03:09.040 | Kovats I can't come to the meetings, but we've been teaching in full classrooms for for a long time at this point

01:03:15.440 | So it's it's kind of hard to argue that like the thing I'm really worried about is the 20 minutes

01:03:19.760 | That's mean you in an office not the 50 kids that I'm lecturing to

01:03:23.400 | But I'll be good I've missed the campus is nice. It'll be nice because I build days around it

01:03:28.720 | Yeah, you can be a camp gym - yeah, I can use a bro. I am I can work in their libraries

01:03:33.360 | It's like a nice. Yeah, it's change of environment. It's a sweet campus. It really is nice. Yeah

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01:05:18.800 | Read here my doc Tom Knox on Zoc doc comm

01:05:23.200 | That's it on a dot matrix that's like a bill Burr I had right there. Yeah. No, I think bill Burr would then yeah

01:05:32.400 | Hair the company. Yeah, we really go after the company. I heard him on Tim Ferriss's

01:05:37.640 | Television show Tim Ferriss has a television show

01:05:41.000 | It's like on

01:05:43.520 | Direct TV. I did not know that. Yeah, I saw that he's recently on an episode again

01:05:48.240 | He's been on before so that bill Burr episode of Tim Ferriss is the audio from Tim's television show fearless and you can watch it

01:05:56.000 | Oh tube. Okay, like a huge studio with like an audience. Yeah, and it looks like he did that show like several years ago

01:06:03.120 | So maybe been reposting a lot of those so you think this is a repost?

01:06:06.320 | It's gotta be because I think because he's been I mean, I've listened to a bunch of those first ones

01:06:10.680 | I think the fearless he did like three or four years ago. Yeah, but so what we're trying to say here is that

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01:08:06.040 | All right, what do we got here

01:08:09.920 | Do a couple more questions

01:08:13.000 | Now let's check out our time. Let's do a couple more questions here

01:08:16.240 | This one comes from Maria

01:08:19.000 | Maria says my goal is to read more. I

01:08:21.800 | Replace checking my phone with reading books. However with more technical books. It's hard to jump in and out

01:08:28.700 | So I find I struggle to make progress

01:08:30.700 | If I only have five to ten minutes such as waiting in a line

01:08:33.900 | It takes some time to remember where I left off conceptually and I have to reread a couple paragraphs before I know

01:08:38.900 | What specific point is discussed and by the time I have caught up I need to put the book down

01:08:44.660 | well Maria, I like that you are using a

01:08:48.660 | Higher quality cognitive alternative to just looking at your phone when you're bored in line

01:08:55.100 | Reading is a great option. The solution to your particular issue with this strategy is don't read highly technical books in this context

01:09:02.980 | Different activities are better suited for different situations

01:09:07.800 | So if you're reading in line

01:09:10.620 | Novels as well as episodic or biographical nonfiction. This is really good for jumping in and out

01:09:16.960 | I usually have some sort of biographical or episodic nonfiction

01:09:21.020 | I'm listening to on audible so I can turn that on when I need to go

01:09:25.180 | Whatever put my laundry in one of these quick five to ten minute things. I mean I find

01:09:30.260 | Business biographies for example where it's you know, the story of whatever

01:09:34.900 | Universals rise or the CBS's moment of success during the early 2000s

01:09:44.260 | Those are really well suited to jumping in and out because when I say episodic, I mean they're talking about this show

01:09:49.460 | They're talking about this thing that happened. They're talking about that thing that happened. It's sort of individual stories

01:09:53.460 | You can come in and out you don't have to keep up with highly technical things

01:09:56.420 | Novels can be the same way is jump back in into the action is interesting. Tell you you jump back out

01:10:02.220 | If you're reading in line, you might also consider our good friends over at mouse books

01:10:08.500 | This is a product that I like quite a bit. I've known Brian and Dave in particular for a long time now mouse books

01:10:18.020 | Produce these pocket size condensed or abridged versions of famous books or short stories. They are

01:10:24.220 | Look like a field notes notebook

01:10:27.380 | If that's useful, I think they might use the same printer who does the field notes notebooks

01:10:31.180 | So anyways, it's a little bit smaller than a standard smartphone

01:10:34.700 | The idea is you can have that in your pocket whenever wherever you have your phone

01:10:37.520 | So in any instance when you would pull out your phone you pull out a mouse book

01:10:41.220 | Instead so I think that's a cool way to have some more

01:10:45.700 | erudite exposure to the world of literature and philosophy while you're waiting in line

01:10:50.860 | Anyways good for you good for you

01:10:53.060 | And the reason why I don't want you to look at your phone in that situation is not that there's bad

01:10:56.040 | It's just by default bad. It's not the phone that is bad. It is these

01:11:00.300 | attention economy companies that dwell on your phone and

01:11:03.980 | Can play your brain stem like a harpsichord the tick tocks of the world the instagrams of the world the Twitters of the world

01:11:11.100 | That just gets its hooks into your brain. That's what I want you to get away from being the default

01:11:15.940 | So, you know if you're if you're taking out your phone to work on a wordle, I don't think that's so bad

01:11:20.060 | but if you're slack job the drool coming down the side as your

01:11:25.020 | TikTok videos not good for you

01:11:28.180 | Alright, let's do one more thing. Let's end here with a call Jesse. There's one I thought was

01:11:32.580 | Potentially kind of interesting. All right, sounds good

01:11:38.500 | Hi Cal, it's Hattie from Toronto Canada. Thank you for all your hard work. I really appreciate it

01:11:45.180 | the question I wanted to ask today is

01:11:47.540 | given

01:11:50.620 | most people's inability to

01:11:52.620 | Change the way they think and do things and take on high quality leisure and focus time

01:11:58.900 | I've realized more recently after doing the Clifton strength test

01:12:04.100 | That not everybody possesses the skills to focus think big picture

01:12:09.220 | Consume high quality content really think about everything that you talk about. So I'm starting to think that there are

01:12:16.380 | characteristics that make people

01:12:19.620 | More able to adjust to your way of thinking to really get an edge on everybody else

01:12:26.340 | and so I was just wondering do you have any advice for

01:12:30.860 | Helping people who don't naturally gravitate towards focused work to do more of it to consume better

01:12:37.900 | Media to get less distracted because I think it comes easier to some than it does to others. Thank you so much Cal. Bye-bye

01:12:45.460 | Well, howdy, it's a good question. I agree with parts of your premise and I vehemently disagree with other parts your premise

01:12:51.500 | So I think this will be productive to discuss a quick aside

01:12:55.460 | The Clifton strength finders is interesting. It's an interesting backstory

01:13:00.740 | Interesting backstory there. So it was Don Clifton

01:13:03.340 | This would have been much earlier in the 20th century was really an innovator in using

01:13:08.220 | Quantitative data

01:13:11.740 | To make predictions or assessment. So the his strengths finders was a good example

01:13:17.380 | You take this test and the numbers are crunched. They can tell you what your strengths were

01:13:22.180 | They were also really ahead of the game on employee satisfaction

01:13:25.380 | We we run this survey by your employees and it crunches down to a number we can figure out

01:13:29.660 | You know who is unhappy who is they could do this with customer satisfaction really well

01:13:34.140 | Let's give this standard survey

01:13:37.140 | We crunched the numbers and get a score that tells us are your customers happy?

01:13:40.740 | Did this latest change make them more happy or not? So Don Clifton was really ahead on that

01:13:44.460 | Our families had lots of interesting intersections with that the Clifton family really quick aside

01:13:50.580 | All right, so Don Clifton starts this company survey research international sri based out of Nebraska

01:13:57.380 | in the late 1980s they buy

01:14:00.900 | market research company in Houston, Texas

01:14:04.860 | where my dad was one of the partners and then soon after sri bought

01:14:10.820 | Gallup and

01:14:13.060 | they they took my dad from the market research forum in Houston and put him in charge of the Gallup poll and

01:14:21.020 | so I grew up kind of surrounded by the

01:14:25.300 | the Clifton legacy

01:14:27.300 | Don son Jim Clifton until recently was the the CEO of the company

01:14:32.460 | They took the name Gallup, but it used to be sri

01:14:34.220 | And so I've run into the Clifton's quite a bit and grew up hearing about all these Clifton products

01:14:37.820 | They're very interesting. Don Clifton was really ahead of the game. All right, that's an aside

01:14:41.420 | I want to push back on your premise that well, you know, some people just aren't suited

01:14:46.780 | to focusing or consuming

01:14:49.740 | high quality

01:14:52.420 | Information or doing high quality leisure. I don't agree with that. I

01:14:56.620 | Think that's like saying look some people just aren't suited for

01:15:00.420 | Eating good food and exercising like they just need to eat junk food and they can't really exercise

01:15:06.380 | That's not a fundamental attribute of a person

01:15:09.460 | You can move your diet towards better food. You can start exercising. You can get in better shape. You can eat better food

01:15:16.060 | Anyone has access to that so I I don't think that there is a fundamental

01:15:22.220 | Necessary

01:15:24.060 | Precondition aptitude to be able to do focus or to consume higher quality information or to do more higher quality leisure

01:15:30.660 | You do however have to get in cognitive shape to do so

01:15:35.300 | So if I look at you and you mainly eat terrible food and you never exercise

01:15:40.300 | if you went out and said here's what I did Cal I tried to go for a jog and

01:15:46.260 | It was terrible. I barely got very far before I was completely winded and I felt really bad and and I I tried to eat some

01:15:53.780 | You know

01:15:55.100 | Broccoli Robin and it just is like I don't know I had a hard time preparing

01:15:58.460 | I'm just not meant to be in shape or eat good food. I'm like nonsense

01:16:00.980 | He just started you have to start training

01:16:03.180 | you know, you're gonna have to start with walking and then go from walking to jogging and give it six months of

01:16:08.540 | Regular work and you'll be much better shape for running again

01:16:13.460 | If as we'd like this come back to again and again if Alexander Sarsgaard can get into Viking shape in six months

01:16:20.340 | You can get into the ability to run a mile

01:16:23.300 | In six months as our touchstone for a lot of things same thing with food

01:16:27.580 | You got to start eating a little bit better making more things at home getting more used to it. It just takes some work

01:16:32.860 | We're used to that in the world of fitness. We're used to that in the world of health. Well, we should

01:16:36.780 | Translate that comfort that idea that we're comfortable with to the world of cognitive pursuits as well

01:16:43.020 | Yes, if you're slack jawed with the drool looking at tick-tock most of the time

01:16:46.820 | You're not going to do well when you pick up a book if you're captain email and slack

01:16:53.700 | When you say now it's time for me to go do deep work and figure out a big new philosophical concept

01:16:58.820 | It's not going to go well

01:16:59.940 | But you know what if you do the cognitive equivalent of Sarsgaard's Viking training you will get better at that

01:17:06.420 | We've talked about what that could be, but you need to embrace boredom

01:17:10.660 | So on a semi regular basis have brief exposures to boredom your weight in line

01:17:16.020 | You do nothing once a week do a longer exposure like a walk with nothing in your ears that gets you more comfortable

01:17:20.900 | With the idea that sometimes you don't get stimuli when you're bored

01:17:25.580 | Then you can begin doing direct stretch training on your concentration ability do intervals. Here's my watch ten minutes

01:17:32.560 | No distraction or I have to reset the watch

01:17:34.560 | Once you're comfortable working hard for ten make it fifteen

01:17:37.100 | You can slowly start pushing that up do productive meditation sections one problem in my head

01:17:42.020 | Work on it while walking when my attention wanders notice and bring it back

01:17:46.220 | Notice and bring it back the walks can start small the problems you're working on your head can start easy

01:17:51.380 | Expand and increase as you get more comfortable. You can do these things. You know, what's going to happen over time

01:17:57.460 | You're gonna be more comfortable

01:17:59.780 | reading books

01:18:01.980 | Watching a harder movie and not having to look at a tablet thinking about a hard business problem

01:18:06.740 | Writing something for 90 minutes at a time without having to jump to the cognitive crutch of looking at email looking at slack

01:18:12.500 | You will get in better shape

01:18:14.500 | and I think

01:18:16.500 | Everyone should get in that shape just like no one should just be eating junk food and never move

01:18:20.620 | You should not be in a cognitive situation in which you rarely challenge your mind or have any freedom from constant

01:18:27.700 | highly optimized

01:18:29.900 | distraction

01:18:31.460 | Now what about the types of aptitudes that are pointed out in things like the Clifton strength finders test?

01:18:37.260 | I think we're talking about something

01:18:39.820 | Different there you do a strength finders test. You might find I'm really well suited to

01:18:45.580 | Coordinating teams is maybe more my strength than it is trying to come up with original strategy

01:18:53.700 | Well, that's useful for shaping which direction you go in your career

01:18:57.940 | But it doesn't mean you can't have a floor of cognitive comfort if I can concentrate when I need to I can consume higher quality

01:19:05.380 | Leisure everyone could have that floor the strengths might tell you what general direction you might want to go in your career

01:19:10.900 | The other thing people talk about is, you know, hey, look, maybe I'm not

01:19:14.020 | Super brainiac. I'm not one of those MIT theory group professors that can and this is a true story move things with their mind

01:19:22.980 | Just stare at something and make it move. That's how smart they are. That might be true. But those type of fundamental

01:19:28.760 | Abilities less sort of raw horsepower. You might be born with that's only relevant in terms of the ceiling you can hit

01:19:35.520 | Right and again, we're comfortable with this when it comes to fitness

01:19:40.140 | You're not going to tell me don't get in better shape and start jogging because you know what you're never going to be on the Olympic

01:19:45.880 | Team like your genes aren't going to allow you to actually run a fast enough mile to be on the Olympics

01:19:49.940 | I say that's fine. I don't need to compete with Olympic athletes

01:19:52.580 | I need to be able to run a mile without throwing up that's different

01:19:56.100 | So same thing you don't need to be able to move things with your mind like some MacArthur award-winning

01:20:00.700 | MIT professor in order to be able to focus on a business problem for an hour and to be able to go on a long

01:20:07.360 | Walk without any distraction

01:20:09.220 | You can be in good shape without having to be elite

01:20:12.300 | So that's what I'm gonna come down on here

01:20:15.460 | Adi is yes

01:20:16.400 | Maybe we have different

01:20:17.420 | aptitudes that we should keep in mind when we do our lifestyle such a career planning and try to think what we want our life

01:20:22.020 | To be like what type of things we want to work on but everyone should have a base level and everyone can accomplish a base

01:20:28.900 | Level of cognitive fitness just like you should with your physical health your mind

01:20:33.580 | needs to have a

01:20:36.100 | declaration of freedom from the slack jaw distraction and the easy diversion of email and slack the slack jaw

01:20:43.660 | Distraction of a tick tock or of an Instagram. You should be comfortable being alone with your own thoughts

01:20:49.300 | You should be comfortable concentrate on something kind of difficult should be caught and comfortable with self-reflection boredom

01:20:54.620 | Shouldn't scare you

01:20:55.740 | Everyone should be able to get there just like everyone should be able to go on a light jog

01:20:58.980 | Without dry heaving when it's over. So how do you I get the spirit of your question?

01:21:03.400 | But I'm gonna push back on some of the specifics

01:21:06.140 | Embracing boring really works

01:21:08.780 | Yeah, like I heard you say that I don't know several years ago before I even knew you and I started doing it

01:21:14.400 | It was did you know you noticed a difference huge? Yeah now I do it and I see people they can't do it

01:21:20.260 | They don't even know what that means. Yeah. Well for you, it must be really useful

01:21:23.140 | You might must notice it when you're doing even just casual athletic pursuits, right? Yeah, like what about golf?

01:21:29.300 | If you're comfortable, just let me just stay with what's going on in this game. Yeah, I'll let my attention wander

01:21:37.100 | Really? I'm assuming the players who look at their phone all the time in between holes. I don't even bring my phone

01:21:41.440 | I get yeah

01:21:42.340 | They get distracted all the time

01:21:43.780 | Like it's got the number of bad shots you make your bad shot rate has to go up quite a bit, right?

01:21:49.180 | If you're constantly got on because I mean

01:21:51.180 | Say somebody hits a bad shot

01:21:53.980 | Then their reaction would be to look at their phone so they get bad news and that's like hitting two bad shots

01:21:58.500 | Yeah, or so they get you know, and then they're not there for the next shot and a spiral. Yeah

01:22:02.980 | Yeah, sometimes like you could have somebody like say you're like in a partner event or whatever and they're on their phone the whole time

01:22:08.060 | It's like they're not in the game. They're not there. Yeah. Yeah, also it feels bad

01:22:13.200 | It's this weird trade-off like the the state of constant distraction. It's

01:22:16.580 | It's appealing in the moment in the sense of it's a I

01:22:20.220 | Don't know numbing

01:22:22.900 | but it's not the same type of satisfaction of man is beautiful out here and

01:22:29.500 | Just enjoying it and I'm walking, you know across the course and the Sun is starting to go down and and

01:22:35.540 | Your mind is kind of clear and present like that's way more satisfying

01:22:39.740 | well, it's like you said like way back in the day how you know, the

01:22:43.400 | The financials for these people is like 20x like what oil exploration is. Yeah, I mean, it's designed to do that and it's working

01:22:51.940 | Yeah. Yeah, they're really good. I've been going deep. I'm right really good at it

01:22:56.220 | Like as you know, I was writing right before this

01:22:58.660 | Episode I have to run now to keep writing have a deadline and and I don't like to give details articles before they're out

01:23:03.700 | But I'm working on an article right now

01:23:05.700 | And I have to go kind of deep into tick-tock their algorithm and and its rise the fame. Let me just say this

01:23:12.900 | Here's my summary. They're good at it

01:23:14.900 | Like they're good at it. Just like

01:23:17.420 | you know

01:23:21.500 | What's that chicken everyone likes or whatever the I don't know the brands very well what a flight chick-fil-a like they're really good at cooking things

01:23:29.220 | We're like man. Yeah, this is really good. I really like eating this right like they're good at it

01:23:34.780 | There's a reason why there's always a line there. Yeah, you know, they're good at it McDonald's fries

01:23:39.940 | Like they're really good at it. You know, like I'm just going to keep eating these

01:23:42.540 | Mm-hmm. I could I could eat a bucket of these things that tick-tock is really good at just next thing next thing next thing

01:23:50.180 | You know, but it's just a different

01:23:52.180 | Feel it's like eating the McDonald's flies you eat the bucket like in the moment

01:23:56.100 | You're like I kind of am glad I'm doing this then when you're done. You're not happy with the world

01:24:00.860 | I think it's the same thing you come off of like all the scrolling like I kind of numb myself. I'm unhappy

01:24:04.660 | It's just it doesn't it doesn't it's distraction snacking. It doesn't serve what you really need

01:24:10.380 | It doesn't serve the real meal that the brain the brain actually desires

01:24:13.060 | So there you go. I don't care what the StrengthsFinder says stop looking at your phone so much

01:24:18.820 | Alright, well speaking of stopping and working on deeper things. I got to go right so let's wrap up this episode

01:24:23.940 | Thank you

01:24:25.180 | Everyone who listened if you like what you saw you will like I said backwards if you like what you heard you will like what?

01:24:31.660 | you see

01:24:32.980 | at our YouTube channel youtube.com slash Cal Newport media full videos of full episodes as well as

01:24:38.220 | Highlighted clips are available there

01:24:40.780 | We'll be back next week with a new episode until then as always stay deep

01:24:46.060 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:24:49.400 | (bright upbeat music)

Ep. 203: Taming Meetings, YouTube’s Potential, Kids and Smartphones | Deep Questions Podcast

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