Can You Elaborate On the Autopilot Schedule?

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00:00:05.200 | Hi, Cal.

00:00:06.160 | This is Suzanne.

00:00:07.840 | I'm interested in your ideas about the autopilot schedule.

00:00:12.840 | I've used an autopilot because I think

00:00:15.000 | it's important or maybe foundational to an ordered day

00:00:19.840 | and week.

00:00:21.880 | But I'm more like Persephone, caught

00:00:24.500 | in the underworld of chaotic routines

00:00:27.880 | that sometimes are fit in and sometimes aren't.

00:00:31.960 | Please tell me how you hack out time for regularly occurring

00:00:36.280 | obligations and how you fit them into a set part of your day.

00:00:41.480 | Maybe it'll create a way for me to find Demeter,

00:00:45.120 | the archetypal grounded mother, and get back

00:00:49.360 | into the late summer light of sanity.

00:00:54.960 | Well, I will say, like Orpheus, I

00:00:57.840 | will venture down into Hades underworld

00:01:01.080 | in search of my own productivity uridities.

00:01:05.360 | There we go.

00:01:06.120 | Good Greek references.

00:01:07.600 | I actually just recently went to see Hades Town

00:01:09.960 | at the Kennedy Center.

00:01:10.880 | So I particularly appreciate those specific references.

00:01:15.800 | So way to go.

00:01:17.360 | For those who are uninitiated, autopilot schedule

00:01:19.640 | is actually an idea from pretty early study hacks days,

00:01:23.840 | back from when my newsletter was just a blog.

00:01:26.760 | By the way, PSA, calnewport.com, you

00:01:29.680 | should sign up for my newsletter.

00:01:31.040 | If you don't, you'll get my weekly essay

00:01:33.400 | that I've been writing there on topics like autopilot schedule

00:01:36.520 | since 2007.

00:01:38.760 | The basic idea on the autopilot schedule

00:01:40.560 | is you find things that are regularly occurring,

00:01:45.080 | and you find set times and days to do them.

00:01:47.840 | And so it's on your calendar, just repeated,

00:01:50.180 | and you don't even have to think about it.

00:01:51.980 | When you get to those times, you just do it.

00:01:53.920 | The more regularly occurring work that you can autopilot,

00:01:57.880 | the less mental energy you have to generate,

00:02:00.520 | and the lower the chances that you fall into a scheduling

00:02:04.800 | roadblock where you spent too much time or this or that,

00:02:07.320 | and you get to the end of the week

00:02:08.800 | and realize you never got that done, or this is important,

00:02:10.960 | and you don't have any more time to do it.

00:02:12.120 | So you're much more consistently going

00:02:13.700 | to make progress on the things that matter

00:02:16.400 | if you're autopiloting them.

00:02:18.120 | And you're just going to use a lot less energy

00:02:20.080 | because you're not trying to answer the question again

00:02:21.880 | and again, what should I do next?

00:02:24.540 | What should I do next?

00:02:25.380 | That is a draining thing to do,

00:02:27.300 | and you're not going to have optimal answers

00:02:29.560 | to that question a lot of the time

00:02:31.940 | if you have to keep asking it.

00:02:33.940 | So the balancing act you're talking about is a key one.

00:02:37.020 | If you over autopilot, so you make too many things

00:02:41.100 | recurring always at this time, always at this place,

00:02:43.380 | you have no give, you have no give

00:02:45.540 | for the unexpected that pops up,

00:02:47.380 | and then you're going to be frustrated.

00:02:48.760 | You're going to be frustrated

00:02:49.600 | as you violate the autopilot schedule

00:02:51.140 | and now have to scramble to find time for it.

00:02:52.620 | This is just a balancing act.

00:02:54.400 | There is no set answer.

00:02:56.660 | It depends on the type of things we're talking about

00:02:58.500 | and what your schedule is like.

00:03:00.740 | I introduced this idea originally in the context,

00:03:03.380 | for example, of college students.

00:03:06.820 | College students can autopilot the hell out of their work.

00:03:09.660 | I mean, here's your classes, these are the assignments,

00:03:12.100 | you have this club or this sport that practices

00:03:14.360 | at this time or meets at this time,

00:03:15.620 | you know what your day is like, that's it.

00:03:18.060 | You don't have a kid who's going to come home

00:03:19.280 | sick from school.

00:03:20.980 | You're not going to have to go to the proctologist office

00:03:25.140 | to deal with whatever, I don't know what they deal with,

00:03:29.900 | I was going to say kidney stones,

00:03:31.220 | but that'd be a nephrologist or what have you, right?

00:03:33.260 | The type of stuff adults have to care about.

00:03:35.740 | You can autopilot the hell out of it.

00:03:36.940 | And I tell students to do that.

00:03:38.140 | I'm like, every single class, what are the assignments?

00:03:40.700 | When are you going to do them?

00:03:41.580 | Do it the same time, same days, every week.

00:03:44.180 | And I used to call this also the student workday.

00:03:46.260 | You don't even have to basically think about productivity

00:03:48.460 | if you're a college student, if you do it right.

00:03:50.180 | It's Tuesday at 12, I go to this library, do my lab report.

00:03:53.460 | You don't even have to think about it.

00:03:55.220 | For an adult with all sorts of adult things going on,

00:03:58.060 | with a job that's way less predictable than being a student

00:04:00.900 | where you just have to go to these classes

00:04:02.100 | and do these assignments, okay, you're not as flexible.

00:04:04.880 | So it's a balancing act.

00:04:06.120 | I like to autopilot, I don't know, 25% of my time.

00:04:12.040 | Maybe that's a win.

00:04:13.180 | I mean, right now I'm really reflecting

00:04:14.660 | on my own schedule right now, if that's useful.

00:04:17.100 | I autopilot a lot of the things

00:04:18.660 | if I'm really being reflective about it

00:04:21.340 | surrounding my classes, 'cause that's very regular.

00:04:24.840 | When are problem sets going to get written?

00:04:26.640 | When are course lectures going to be prepped?

00:04:28.580 | When am I going to meet with my TAs about grading?

00:04:31.100 | When am I going to meet with students who have questions?

00:04:33.140 | I autopilot all of that because that's very predictable

00:04:35.700 | in a way that other things

00:04:38.220 | I might not be able to autopilot as easily,

00:04:39.940 | like work on a committee

00:04:41.020 | where it could be very unpredictable what's going to come up

00:04:43.060 | or when we're going to need to do a lot of effort.

00:04:44.660 | I also autopilot my writing.

00:04:47.620 | In particular, this fall,

00:04:49.540 | when I'm doing this twice a month column for the New Yorker,

00:04:52.460 | I'm pretty structured about these are the days and times

00:04:55.020 | in which I do that writing.

00:04:56.540 | It doesn't always work because sometimes I get stuck

00:04:59.020 | or something's harder than I think,

00:05:00.560 | but it's a backbone to when the writing gets done

00:05:02.700 | so I don't have to think about it

00:05:03.700 | and it's really reduced the stress on it.

00:05:05.320 | So good question.

00:05:06.340 | There's no set answer.

00:05:08.780 | It's a balancing act.

00:05:10.440 | Autopilot the things that seem amenable to it,

00:05:12.300 | but give yourself a lot of leeway

00:05:14.980 | because if you're a grownup with a grownup job,

00:05:17.740 | there's only so much that's going to be predictable.

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Can You Elaborate On the Autopilot Schedule?

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