Dr. Cal Newport: How to Enhance Focus and Improve Productivity

00:00:00.000 | - Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast,

00:00:02.240 | where we discuss science

00:00:03.720 | and science-based tools for everyday life.

00:00:05.920 | I'm Andrew Huberman,

00:00:10.160 | and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology

00:00:13.200 | at Stanford School of Medicine.

00:00:15.200 | My guest today is Dr. Cal Newport.

00:00:17.840 | Dr. Cal Newport is a professor of computer science

00:00:20.720 | at Georgetown University.

00:00:22.520 | He did his training at MIT,

00:00:24.600 | and he is currently both a professor

00:00:26.600 | and the author of many best-selling books

00:00:28.680 | focused on productivity, focus,

00:00:31.320 | and how to access the specific states of mind

00:00:34.000 | to bring out your best in terms of cognitive performance

00:00:37.080 | and indeed in terms of performance in all endeavors.

00:00:40.680 | One of his more notable books is entitled "Deep Work,

00:00:43.640 | "Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World."

00:00:46.640 | "Deep Work" is a book that has had

00:00:48.240 | tremendous positive influence on my work life

00:00:51.400 | and indeed my life in general,

00:00:53.440 | because it spells out how exactly

00:00:55.960 | to go about doing one's best possible work.

00:00:59.040 | For me, that's in the context of science and podcasting,

00:01:02.080 | but it includes tools that I and many others have extended

00:01:05.120 | to other aspects of their life as well,

00:01:07.000 | and it's a book that I highly,

00:01:08.440 | highly recommend everybody read.

00:01:10.400 | Cal also has a new book out now,

00:01:12.260 | it's one that I'm currently reading,

00:01:13.960 | entitled "Slow Productivity,

00:01:16.000 | "The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout."

00:01:18.840 | And as the title suggests,

00:01:19.920 | it gets into specific protocols to avoid burnout

00:01:23.320 | and to bring about one's highest quality work

00:01:25.800 | over the greatest amount of time.

00:01:27.760 | Today's discussion starts off with extremely practical steps

00:01:31.440 | that any and all of us can use

00:01:33.200 | in order to enhance our level of focus,

00:01:35.780 | productivity, and creativity.

00:01:38.040 | Cal shares much of his specific practices

00:01:40.680 | and also offers some alternative practices

00:01:43.480 | for those of you that perhaps do not want to disengage

00:01:46.320 | with social media or with smartphones or with email

00:01:49.480 | to the extent that he does.

00:01:50.800 | I found the conversation to be extremely useful

00:01:52.840 | in the sense that I indeed am on social media,

00:01:55.560 | I use email, I use my phone and texting quite often,

00:01:58.400 | so I'm not somebody who's willing

00:01:59.880 | to completely disengage from those tools,

00:02:01.960 | but I share in the sentiment that those tools

00:02:04.280 | can often be an impediment to doing one's best work.

00:02:07.600 | So today's discussion gets into not hard and fast rules

00:02:10.800 | for enhancing focus and productivity,

00:02:12.760 | but a variety of different tools that you can select from

00:02:15.600 | in sort of a buffet to suit your particular needs.

00:02:18.800 | We also, of course, discuss the specific research studies

00:02:21.640 | around focus and distraction,

00:02:23.280 | task switching and context switching,

00:02:25.760 | all of which support the specific protocols that Cal offers.

00:02:29.200 | So whether you're somebody who has issues

00:02:30.600 | with attention and focus,

00:02:32.240 | or whether you're somebody that's just feeling

00:02:33.760 | overly distracted by the number of things

00:02:35.960 | in your email inbox or the number of texts

00:02:38.040 | or what's happening out in the world,

00:02:40.120 | by the end of today's episode,

00:02:41.620 | I'm confident that you will be armed

00:02:43.320 | with the best science supported tools, that is protocols,

00:02:46.920 | in order to access the states of mind

00:02:49.120 | that will enable you to do your best possible work.

00:02:52.480 | Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast

00:02:55.140 | is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.

00:02:58.000 | It is however, part of my desire and effort

00:03:00.120 | to bring zero cost to consumer information about science

00:03:02.740 | and science related tools to the general public.

00:03:05.560 | In keeping with that theme,

00:03:06.680 | I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast.

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00:06:57.240 | And now for my discussion with Dr. Cal Newport.

00:07:00.840 | Dr. Cal Newport, welcome.

00:07:02.800 | - Dr. Huberman, it's good to see you.

00:07:04.720 | - I'm a huge fan.

00:07:06.960 | I've been a huge fan ever since I read "Deep Work."

00:07:09.920 | I can't say that I've adopted all the principles,

00:07:12.040 | but that's on me, not you.

00:07:13.540 | You provide incredible incentive

00:07:14.960 | for why one ought to pursue deep work

00:07:18.480 | and slow productivity in service to high quality,

00:07:23.100 | true productivity, et cetera.

00:07:25.580 | Some of the protocols, as we'll call them,

00:07:28.080 | are incredibly easy to implement.

00:07:29.840 | Others take some discipline.

00:07:31.040 | So I'd like to talk about both sets today.

00:07:34.120 | But the first question I have is, do you own a smartphone?

00:07:38.160 | - I do have a smartphone.

00:07:39.400 | - Yeah, well, here's the thing.

00:07:40.480 | I don't use social media.

00:07:42.280 | So it turns out smartphones aren't that interesting

00:07:44.840 | if you don't have any social media apps on it.

00:07:46.640 | - Yeah, what's that like?

00:07:48.000 | - So there's nothing, if you have nothing that is engineered

00:07:51.440 | that try to grab your attention,

00:07:53.200 | the smartphone actually goes back

00:07:54.680 | to 2007 Steve Jobs keynote address smartphone,

00:07:58.200 | which is, this is a really nice phone.

00:08:00.760 | And your music, you can listen to things on it.

00:08:03.040 | And the phone interface is really good.

00:08:04.880 | And look, there's a Maps app

00:08:06.200 | and you can like look at Maps on it.

00:08:08.000 | Like it's actually a useful piece of technology

00:08:11.760 | that you're happy to have, but you don't use it that much.

00:08:14.760 | - What about text messaging?

00:08:17.000 | Do you text message?

00:08:17.920 | And if so, do you get into conversations by text

00:08:20.360 | or is it more of a plan and meet type tool?

00:08:23.360 | - I try, right?

00:08:25.160 | So I try, I do use text messaging.

00:08:27.360 | I mean, this is how like my wife gets in touch with me.

00:08:30.240 | But I'm notorious somewhat among my friends

00:08:32.960 | of the ability to capture my attention

00:08:35.320 | with text message is really hit or miss

00:08:36.840 | because I'll go hours without looking at my phone.

00:08:40.160 | So it's not this default appendage.

00:08:41.920 | I think for a lot of people, if you know someone,

00:08:44.200 | you can basically assume like, look, if I text them,

00:08:46.480 | they're gonna get right back to me.

00:08:48.080 | My problem is I'll go two, three, four hours

00:08:50.560 | without looking at my phone.

00:08:51.840 | And then there'll be text messages on there

00:08:53.920 | from conversations that people were trying to start.

00:08:56.040 | And I typically just have to declare text bankruptcy

00:08:58.120 | a few times a day.

00:08:59.240 | Like if they really needed me,

00:09:00.400 | I guess they would have called.

00:09:01.560 | So I do text, but I'm not considered to be very good at it.

00:09:05.920 | - A few other questions about your phone practices.

00:09:08.160 | - This makes me nervous.

00:09:09.440 | - Is your phone in a drawer or on the desktop

00:09:12.600 | while you're working?

00:09:14.720 | Is it face down, face up?

00:09:15.960 | Is the ringer on?

00:09:16.800 | Is it off?

00:09:17.880 | - Oh, you mean if I'm writing or, it's nowhere near me.

00:09:20.640 | Yeah.

00:09:21.480 | I mean, it could be anywhere.

00:09:22.320 | It's just not gonna be anywhere near me.

00:09:23.600 | So I have in my house two different offices basically.

00:09:26.840 | Right, so there's a home office.

00:09:28.880 | The printer's there.

00:09:29.840 | The filing cabinets are there.

00:09:31.080 | Like the nice big monitors there.

00:09:33.240 | You can pay taxes, that type of thing.

00:09:35.080 | Then I have a library.

00:09:36.640 | And there's no permanent technology in the library.

00:09:39.360 | No computer in there, no monitor, no printers,

00:09:42.120 | nothing like this.

00:09:42.960 | I have this sort of custom built desk I had made

00:09:45.840 | by a company from Maine

00:09:47.840 | that makes desks for college libraries.

00:09:50.160 | Like that's what they do.

00:09:51.200 | So I have this like custom fit desk to fit into,

00:09:54.040 | it's not that big of a space.

00:09:55.720 | That's where I go to write.

00:09:57.000 | I'm surrounded by books

00:09:58.040 | that I've really carefully curated what's where,

00:10:01.240 | each shelf, like what type of book it has on it.

00:10:03.360 | So I can look different ways for different inspirations.

00:10:06.160 | I got a fireplace.

00:10:07.640 | So I can just turn on a fire if I need it.

00:10:09.120 | I'll bring my laptop in there to write

00:10:10.920 | if I'm gonna write on a computer.

00:10:12.640 | And my phone doesn't come in there.

00:10:14.480 | Yeah, you don't look at a phone in that room.

00:10:16.760 | And it just helps you.

00:10:17.600 | It's a ritual, right?

00:10:18.640 | If I'm in there, I'm thinking.

00:10:21.400 | I'm creating with the sort of same patterns of cogitation

00:10:25.080 | that we would have been using for hundreds of years

00:10:27.120 | when people have been thinking professionally.

00:10:28.840 | If I wanna be near a printer

00:10:30.480 | and I wanna go onto a web browser

00:10:32.560 | and pay my taxes or whatever,

00:10:35.400 | I have a different place for that.

00:10:37.720 | - I'm curious about the fireplace.

00:10:39.360 | I have this theory

00:10:40.800 | based on my understanding of visual neuroscience

00:10:42.880 | and the fact that when we're looking at visual scenes

00:10:46.400 | that have some degree of predictability to them,

00:10:48.800 | we get into a mode of anticipation.

00:10:53.080 | Our thinking is at least somewhat linear and so forth.

00:10:57.360 | When we are looking at say ocean waves

00:11:00.440 | or in a skyscraper,

00:11:05.320 | we're staring down at the street of say New York City

00:11:08.440 | and the cars are moving in obviously not random fashion,

00:11:12.360 | but at least to our visual perception, pseudo random,

00:11:15.200 | you're not tracking any one thing.

00:11:16.760 | The mind goes into this sort of state

00:11:20.320 | where our thoughts become non-linear.

00:11:22.620 | They're not anchored to any kind of if then

00:11:24.840 | kind of what I call DPO,

00:11:26.160 | duration path outcome kind of trajectory.

00:11:28.880 | There's not a lot of neuroscience on this,

00:11:30.260 | but there's a little bit.

00:11:31.100 | Same thing happens when you're looking in an aquarium,

00:11:32.960 | by the way.

00:11:33.800 | So I wonder whether or not staring at the fire,

00:11:37.360 | which is something that humans have been doing

00:11:39.200 | for many, many, many thousands of years,

00:11:41.620 | because it has that random aspect to it,

00:11:45.620 | does it tend to spark creativity, linear thinking?

00:11:48.840 | At what point in your writing do you turn to the fire

00:11:51.200 | and stare at it?

00:11:52.680 | - That's interesting actually

00:11:53.960 | that there's a neurological explanation.

00:11:56.120 | When I use the fire is actually when I read, right?

00:11:58.760 | So I have chairs by the fire,

00:12:00.260 | but I think for exactly this reason, right?

00:12:02.620 | Because when I'm reading, I'm looking to spark ideas, right?

00:12:05.740 | Like, okay, what's my takeaway from this?

00:12:07.900 | What's the connection you're making

00:12:09.100 | between this thing you're reading here

00:12:10.660 | and this idea over there?

00:12:11.860 | That type of connection making is a lot of my brainstorming.

00:12:14.420 | I read by the fire when the weather allows it.

00:12:17.380 | I also walk a lot.

00:12:18.960 | So I wonder if there's something similar going on.

00:12:20.660 | Like when I'm trying to work through an idea

00:12:23.340 | for an article or a math proof or something like this,

00:12:25.760 | almost always I'm gonna do that on foot.

00:12:28.100 | And there might be something similar going on there

00:12:30.480 | where you're encountering,

00:12:32.160 | it's not entirely exotic stimuli, right?

00:12:34.400 | So it's not, oh my God, my attention's being drawn,

00:12:37.120 | but it's you don't quite know what you're gonna see.

00:12:39.400 | And you also have that circuit quieting effect

00:12:42.040 | of the walk-ins, your motor neurons are going.

00:12:44.180 | You can tell me if I'm getting this right or not.

00:12:45.560 | - You are, yeah, absolutely.

00:12:46.400 | - The motor neurons are going

00:12:47.360 | and you get some inhibition going on

00:12:48.640 | in some of these key networks,

00:12:50.000 | which allows you to actually maintain the internal focus

00:12:54.140 | on a concept a little bit better.

00:12:55.840 | So I do a lot of my original focused ideating on foot,

00:13:00.260 | but a lot of my serendipitous ideating

00:13:02.300 | will be with the fire going, right?

00:13:04.060 | It's the way I read by the fire.

00:13:05.460 | It's when I read that I get a lot of my original ideas.

00:13:08.340 | - I have this theory that the two opposite states of mind

00:13:13.060 | that both facilitate creativity and productivity

00:13:15.860 | look something like this.

00:13:17.940 | And you can tell me whether or not this maps

00:13:19.540 | to anything that you know.

00:13:21.420 | One is just as you described, our body is in motion.

00:13:25.620 | It could be running, walking,

00:13:27.700 | might even be in the shower or something of that sort.

00:13:31.960 | But we aren't trying to direct our mind

00:13:34.040 | toward a specific linear trajectory or outcome.

00:13:36.740 | It's not like working out an equation or a theorem

00:13:40.320 | the same way we would if we were at a piece of paper

00:13:42.800 | or writing out a sentence, a structured paragraph.

00:13:45.540 | So it's body in motion, mind not channeled

00:13:50.040 | toward one specific target.

00:13:52.460 | The opposite extreme to me is body still, mind very active,

00:13:57.460 | which resembles rapid eye movement,

00:13:59.540 | sleep when we learn a lot

00:14:01.420 | and neural rewiring occurs and dreaming,

00:14:04.220 | but for which there's also a lot of examples

00:14:06.300 | of very accomplished creatives using that sort of thing

00:14:09.860 | of meditative like approaches,

00:14:13.500 | forcing oneself to be still and thinking.

00:14:16.500 | So it sounds like you incorporate both.

00:14:18.500 | And I'm curious as a computer scientist

00:14:21.660 | who writes code, does theorems, does a lot of math

00:14:25.260 | where you can't just kind of wing it,

00:14:27.180 | there's a right and wrong answer involved.

00:14:31.860 | What is your mode for sitting down

00:14:33.260 | and working through something that's linear and hard?

00:14:36.500 | - Yeah, it's interesting the way you talk about it, right?

00:14:38.740 | Because when I'm walking,

00:14:40.300 | and this is actually something you can train,

00:14:42.660 | and I talked about this in one of my books once,

00:14:44.420 | that you can actually train yourself

00:14:46.500 | to maintain your internal eye of focus

00:14:50.100 | more stably while you're walking, right?

00:14:52.660 | So I call this productive meditation

00:14:54.540 | and deep work actually.

00:14:55.880 | And I practiced this in grad school, right?

00:14:58.820 | Okay, so I'm going to work on a particular problem

00:15:01.580 | while I walk, and then you actually practice

00:15:04.340 | bringing your attention back to the central problem.

00:15:07.620 | And I don't know exactly what's happening,

00:15:09.340 | but you get a little bit more facility

00:15:11.580 | working with your working memory,

00:15:12.900 | a little bit more efficiency with bringing stuff

00:15:15.180 | in and out of the working memory.

00:15:16.620 | And so I trained myself that I could actually

00:15:18.940 | write a couple paragraphs in my head,

00:15:20.940 | maybe not word for, but basically word for word,

00:15:23.100 | like figure out how I'm going to do it,

00:15:24.360 | or figure out enough steps of a math proof

00:15:27.420 | to capture like a key insight.

00:15:29.740 | Like, okay, now I'm going to get around this.

00:15:31.420 | Then you have to sit down

00:15:32.380 | and actually formally capture that.

00:15:34.500 | And yeah, for me, that's still working with notebooks.

00:15:37.300 | Though when I was coming up in grad school,

00:15:38.780 | and I was just excavating these thoughts recently,

00:15:40.700 | we were talking for the, we recorded that, you know,

00:15:42.820 | I just wrote this essay about what I learned

00:15:44.900 | as a grad student that impacted all my writing.

00:15:48.020 | As a grad student in the theory group at MIT,

00:15:50.340 | which was just purified concentration,

00:15:52.980 | this is where all the deep work ideas come from, right?

00:15:54.980 | I mean, it was just world-class concentrators.

00:15:57.900 | There, the method was very still,

00:16:01.180 | more than one person, whiteboard.

00:16:04.220 | So if you have two or three people

00:16:06.500 | staring at the same whiteboard,

00:16:08.180 | you're actually going to up the level

00:16:09.380 | of concentration you achieve,

00:16:10.840 | because if you let your attention wander,

00:16:12.700 | you disengage that attention,

00:16:14.420 | there's a social capital cost.

00:16:16.020 | 'Cause now I've fallen out

00:16:17.460 | of the whiteboard effect discussion,

00:16:20.580 | that's going to be a problem.

00:16:21.780 | So you actually maintain your focus at a higher level.

00:16:24.180 | And then when someone else is making their move,

00:16:26.500 | okay, you know, what about this?

00:16:28.220 | And they're working math, it's all math on the board.

00:16:30.740 | You're giving that the highest attention you're capable of

00:16:32.900 | because you want to keep up, right?

00:16:34.540 | You don't want to fall behind.

00:16:35.660 | So it was like this hack that was figured out

00:16:37.340 | in the theory group, that if you put two or three people

00:16:40.020 | at the same whiteboard to try to alchemize these insights

00:16:43.540 | into actual mathematically precise proofs,

00:16:46.020 | you get a 20, 30% boost in your concentration level.

00:16:50.020 | And that could make all the difference, right?

00:16:51.380 | If you're working on a very hard proof,

00:16:52.860 | 20, 30% boost could be the difference

00:16:54.540 | between solving it or not.

00:16:56.100 | - In one of these situations

00:16:57.340 | where you're at the whiteboard or chalkboard

00:16:59.580 | and there are two other individuals facing it,

00:17:01.460 | are they interrupting you?

00:17:02.540 | Or is the etiquette in that scenario

00:17:06.060 | to just let the person go until their natural inclination

00:17:09.820 | to raise a hand and scream help?

00:17:12.060 | - Whoever has the marker on the board,

00:17:14.300 | they're the ones talking.

00:17:15.540 | So you go, "Okay, what about this?" you say.

00:17:18.020 | And now you're working, you're writing down equations

00:17:20.460 | or drawing your diagram and everyone is just watching.

00:17:23.260 | And then when they're done,

00:17:24.260 | then everyone steps back and looks at it.

00:17:26.100 | Then you can step forward.

00:17:26.940 | "Okay, but what if we did this?"

00:17:28.980 | And then you still work on it.

00:17:30.140 | So when I got built some offices

00:17:32.900 | or worked out some offices near my house,

00:17:34.660 | like one of the first things we put in there

00:17:36.380 | was a whiteboard.

00:17:37.460 | So they could have computer science collaborators come

00:17:39.620 | because we can't work on theory otherwise.

00:17:41.340 | Like it is the thing we need is a whiteboard, right?

00:17:43.860 | When I started grad school,

00:17:45.680 | they had just built this new $300 million

00:17:49.540 | Frank Gehry design building for the computer science,

00:17:52.620 | artificial intelligence laboratory and the linguistics.

00:17:55.820 | Half of it was computer science.

00:17:57.620 | - I know those buildings 'cause the P. Cower

00:17:59.820 | and the McGovern Neuroscience Center.

00:18:01.900 | And those buildings are very interesting.

00:18:03.340 | People should check them out if they're ever in Cambridge.

00:18:05.100 | - Yeah, the-- - Kendall Square Stop.

00:18:06.420 | - The Stata Center, yeah.

00:18:07.480 | Right down the street from the Kendall Square Stop, yeah.

00:18:09.500 | So the sixth floor was where the theoreticians were.

00:18:11.340 | This is where I was.

00:18:12.700 | So I, you know, they opened that building

00:18:14.940 | the year I started the doctoral program.

00:18:17.460 | And what did they wanna show me

00:18:18.740 | when they brought me to this $300 million building?

00:18:21.100 | Look at our whiteboards.

00:18:22.500 | And that's what they were proud of.

00:18:23.460 | They had filled the common space on the sixth floor,

00:18:25.580 | the theory floor with these freestanding,

00:18:28.300 | double-sided whiteboards.

00:18:29.700 | It was like a maze of whiteboards.

00:18:31.140 | And this is what everyone was so excited about

00:18:33.500 | was, yeah, look at our whiteboard coverage.

00:18:35.800 | Surrounded by a $300 million building.

00:18:37.780 | I was trying to explain this to someone recently.

00:18:40.140 | Having good whiteboards to us is like an astronomer

00:18:42.460 | saying, look, we got this great radio telescope.

00:18:44.500 | Like, this is gonna allow us to get data to work on

00:18:46.980 | that we wouldn't otherwise have access to.

00:18:48.620 | I think to a theoretician,

00:18:50.500 | that's why you see a whiteboard.

00:18:51.860 | Because, you know, if you wanna think

00:18:53.420 | at the very highest level,

00:18:55.220 | you need two or three people staring at the same thing,

00:18:57.580 | taking turns with the marker,

00:18:59.040 | pushing each other past where they're comfortable.

00:19:01.620 | - I love this 'cause I often think about visual maps

00:19:04.140 | that represent our internal memory stores and plans,

00:19:06.800 | et cetera, for productivity.

00:19:08.580 | I've always relied heavily on the whiteboard.

00:19:11.720 | Getting one for home, I have one here in the podcast studio.

00:19:13.900 | All of my podcast notes for my solo episodes

00:19:17.000 | are distilled down to four eight and a half by 11 notes,

00:19:21.420 | which are photographs of the whiteboard.

00:19:24.220 | And I don't use a teleprompter.

00:19:27.220 | That's why I've been accused of using one before.

00:19:28.940 | I don't even know how that would work.

00:19:31.620 | But it's extremely useful to use the whiteboard.

00:19:34.980 | And I think because ideas are so easily put up there

00:19:39.340 | and removed, there's something about writing on things

00:19:44.340 | that are vertical as opposed to on a flat surface.

00:19:47.360 | Because that's actually the way

00:19:48.280 | our visual perception casts things.

00:19:49.960 | We don't cast visual perception onto the ground.

00:19:52.400 | We experience the visual world mostly in front of us.

00:19:55.840 | I think the cognitive map and the visual map

00:19:58.120 | are inextricably linked, at least for sighted folks.

00:20:01.000 | So I think there's really something there.

00:20:04.200 | - So in the absence of colleagues to sit there

00:20:07.660 | and boost our attention by 25 to 30%, what could one do?

00:20:12.660 | Do you have a, you said you have a whiteboard at home.

00:20:17.140 | I certainly use the whiteboard.

00:20:18.160 | Do you work on it the same way you would

00:20:20.960 | in those early days,

00:20:22.080 | just with in the absence of colleagues looking on?

00:20:25.040 | - Yeah, yeah.

00:20:25.880 | So you work on it just like someone's there.

00:20:27.940 | The other hack is using really good notebooks.

00:20:31.360 | That's always made a big difference for me.

00:20:33.420 | - Paper notebooks. - Paper notebooks, yeah.

00:20:35.480 | Though recently I've been messing around with a Remarkable,

00:20:38.320 | which is one of these digital notebooks

00:20:40.960 | where it's e-ink technology.

00:20:42.640 | So it's like a Kindle, but you can write on it,

00:20:44.640 | but you have endless pages on it.

00:20:45.920 | So I've been messing around with that recently.

00:20:48.100 | But I remembered when I was a postdoc, for example,

00:20:50.820 | I found it recently.

00:20:52.080 | I went and bought a lab notebook

00:20:54.240 | because those are expensive, at least for a postdoc, right?

00:20:56.280 | They're like $70 because a lab notebook

00:20:58.560 | has to have archival quality paper.

00:21:00.240 | - It's bound. - It's bound.

00:21:01.600 | - Yeah, people might not realize this.

00:21:02.640 | Lab notebooks need to be kept for many years.

00:21:04.800 | - Yes.

00:21:05.640 | - So you're not supposed to tear pages out of them.

00:21:08.040 | And so they tend to be bound.

00:21:09.520 | So if you have terrible handwriting like I do,

00:21:11.480 | you just have to deal with it.

00:21:12.600 | - Yes, you can't rip it out.

00:21:13.800 | And it's thick paper, acid-free archival paper,

00:21:16.880 | big, sturdy covers.

00:21:18.720 | But I bought this because I thought,

00:21:19.720 | "Okay, look, I'm gonna take it more seriously."

00:21:21.560 | Because I think that's also part of what goes on

00:21:23.280 | with the whiteboard is your mind thinks about writing

00:21:26.480 | on the big vertical space

00:21:28.200 | as a public crystallization of thoughts.

00:21:30.720 | I'm putting this up for people to see,

00:21:33.480 | even if there's no one actually there to see it.

00:21:35.200 | And so you take it more seriously, right?

00:21:37.120 | If I'm writing on a whiteboard in class,

00:21:39.440 | I'm not just gonna put up nonsense.

00:21:40.640 | Like I'm gonna be very careful about what I'm writing

00:21:42.480 | because you imagine there's an audience.

00:21:44.280 | This is something for other people to see.

00:21:46.120 | And so you get a little bit of a similar effect

00:21:48.040 | if you have a very nice notebook.

00:21:49.280 | You think, "Look, I don't wanna waste pages."

00:21:51.440 | And somehow that helps with the thinking.

00:21:52.880 | So then I found this notebook

00:21:54.360 | because I store my old notebooks in my closet.

00:21:56.480 | So I found it when I was working on a recent book.

00:21:59.520 | I found it, I went through it, right?

00:22:01.640 | And then I started ticking off,

00:22:03.960 | this turned into a paper, this turned into a grant.

00:22:07.760 | This notebook, I used it for maybe two years,

00:22:09.800 | only used maybe about half the pages.

00:22:11.240 | It's all very careful, neat script and diagrams.

00:22:14.840 | I think I found seven different peer-reviewed papers

00:22:17.600 | or funded grants where the core ideas were in this notebook.

00:22:21.560 | So it's like that $70 was an incredible investment

00:22:25.360 | because when I got to work in that notebook,

00:22:27.240 | it must have been pushing my thinking to a new level

00:22:30.000 | because it was an incredible concentration

00:22:31.760 | of actual publishable results

00:22:33.960 | were coming out of his pages.

00:22:35.880 | - Yeah, it seems like we would all do well,

00:22:38.320 | regardless of our field,

00:22:40.480 | to have some very low bar method of capture,

00:22:43.360 | where if we just have an idea

00:22:44.360 | that spontaneously comes to mind,

00:22:45.720 | that we can capture that in a voice memo

00:22:47.560 | or dare I say, in a phone notes segment.

00:22:52.080 | But then something, as you're suggesting,

00:22:54.080 | like a whiteboard, like a bound notebook,

00:22:58.640 | where the moment we look at it,

00:23:00.840 | it brings about a level of seriousness

00:23:03.400 | to our thinking and to our actions.

00:23:06.080 | Sort of like this is different than just texting.

00:23:08.960 | I mean, what we're really talking about

00:23:10.560 | are kind of layers of sophistication,

00:23:13.880 | but not in a snobby way,

00:23:15.200 | in terms of highest productivity and quality

00:23:18.880 | to kind of, I don't know, bubble gum wrapper

00:23:22.480 | on the floor type levels of quote unquote productivity.

00:23:26.280 | - Well, I mean, I've become a fan of this idea

00:23:28.120 | of having specialized capture for specific type of work.

00:23:32.480 | So for example, I'm a big believer

00:23:34.200 | in pretty quickly you wanna capture ideas

00:23:36.760 | in the tool you use to do that work.

00:23:39.160 | So when I have ideas for an article or a book,

00:23:42.320 | I'm gonna go write the Scrivener,

00:23:43.760 | which is a specialty,

00:23:45.920 | this is a specialty software writers use to write, right?

00:23:47.880 | I'm gonna go write to a Scrivener project

00:23:49.920 | and start putting these in the research section

00:23:52.400 | of that Scrivener project.

00:23:53.800 | When I'm working on a math or computer science thing,

00:23:55.920 | I might work out proof ideas on paper,

00:23:59.080 | but I pretty quickly wanna get that into a LaTeX document.

00:24:02.480 | So the markup language that you use

00:24:04.680 | for doing sort of like applied math papers, right?

00:24:06.440 | The tool we use to actually write papers.

00:24:08.680 | I'm gonna move an idea into there as soon as I can.

00:24:12.000 | I'm gonna move proofs out of a notebook

00:24:15.360 | and into formally marked up like you would for a paper,

00:24:18.440 | you know, as soon as I would.

00:24:20.200 | So this idea, this is something I've been leaning to more

00:24:22.520 | is capture the notes in the tool you're gonna use,

00:24:25.720 | take out the middleman in some sense, right?

00:24:27.400 | So it's reducing friction,

00:24:29.560 | but also puts you in the right mind space.

00:24:31.240 | Like, okay, this idea, I'm gonna put it

00:24:33.240 | where I'm gonna need it later,

00:24:34.880 | as opposed to a more elaborate third-party system

00:24:37.360 | that you construct

00:24:38.200 | that you then later pull everything out of as needed.

00:24:40.920 | This is what I've been doing more recently.

00:24:42.080 | Let's just get straight to the tool

00:24:44.280 | I'm eventually gonna use

00:24:45.440 | with maybe a high quality notebook intermediary

00:24:48.080 | if I'm actually literally working out thoughts.

00:24:50.600 | So math, you have to work out thoughts,

00:24:52.600 | but I'll get that into an actual paper format

00:24:55.600 | pretty quickly.

00:24:56.440 | - Tell me what you think of this,

00:24:59.560 | what I always call protocol.

00:25:01.680 | If I wanna learn something from a manuscript I read

00:25:04.680 | or a book chapter, I used to highlight things.

00:25:07.720 | And I had a very elaborate,

00:25:09.400 | extracted from my university days,

00:25:11.200 | system of stars and exclamation marks and underline

00:25:13.720 | that mean a lot to me that can, yes,

00:25:15.680 | bring me back to a given segment within the chapter.

00:25:18.560 | But a few years ago, I was teaching a course

00:25:20.740 | in the biology department at Stanford.

00:25:22.740 | And for some reason, we had them read a study

00:25:25.920 | about information retention.

00:25:28.840 | And I learned from that study

00:25:31.880 | that one of the best things we can do is read information

00:25:35.520 | in whatever form, a magazine, research article, et cetera,

00:25:38.440 | book, and then to take some time away from that material,

00:25:42.720 | maybe walk, maybe close one's eyes,

00:25:45.200 | maybe leave them open, doesn't matter.

00:25:46.600 | And just try and remember specific elements.

00:25:48.760 | How much does one remember?

00:25:50.120 | Then go back to the material and look at it.

00:25:51.880 | And I've just been positively astonished

00:25:55.200 | at how much more information I can learn

00:25:58.120 | when I'm not simply going through motor commands

00:26:00.200 | of just underlining things and highlighting them,

00:26:01.800 | but stepping away and thinking, okay,

00:26:03.700 | yeah, I don't remember how many subjects there were.

00:26:06.240 | I'll go back and check that, maybe make a note.

00:26:07.960 | And okay, they did this, then they did that.

00:26:10.240 | And then it's crystallized.

00:26:11.480 | And when, as I say this,

00:26:13.000 | I realize of course this should work.

00:26:14.840 | This is the way that the brain learns,

00:26:16.800 | but somehow that's not the way we are taught to learn.

00:26:22.000 | - Yeah, well, I'm smiling because when I was 22,

00:26:25.480 | I wrote this book called "How to Become a Straight A Student."

00:26:29.280 | And the whole premise of the book was

00:26:31.240 | I'm gonna talk to actual college students

00:26:33.760 | who have straight A's and who don't seem

00:26:36.640 | completely ground out, like not burnt out.

00:26:39.360 | And I'm just gonna interview them.

00:26:40.800 | And the protocol was how did you study

00:26:42.880 | for the last test did you study for?

00:26:44.100 | How did you take notes for the last?

00:26:45.200 | So I was just asking them to walk through their methodology.

00:26:48.760 | The core idea of that book was active recall.

00:26:52.880 | That was the core idea, that replicating ideas,

00:26:56.320 | ways to say is replicating the information from scratch

00:26:58.480 | as if teaching a class without looking at your notes.

00:27:01.000 | That is the only way to learn.

00:27:02.920 | And the thing about it was it's a trade-off.

00:27:05.400 | It doesn't take, it's efficient, doesn't take much time,

00:27:07.600 | but it's incredibly mentally taxing, right?

00:27:09.720 | This is why students often avoid it.

00:27:11.000 | It is difficult to sit there and try to replicate

00:27:14.460 | and pull forth, okay, what did I read here?

00:27:16.900 | How did that work?

00:27:17.740 | It's mentally very taxing, but it's very time-efficient.

00:27:21.180 | If you're willing to essentially put up with that pain,

00:27:24.560 | you learn very quickly.

00:27:25.460 | And not only do you learn very quickly, you don't forget.

00:27:27.700 | It's almost like you have a pseudo-photographic memory

00:27:29.940 | when you study this way.

00:27:30.780 | You sit down to do a test and you're replicating

00:27:33.740 | whole lines from what you studied.

00:27:36.940 | The ideas sort of come out fully formed

00:27:39.500 | 'cause it's such a fantastic way to actually learn.

00:27:42.720 | It was my key.

00:27:43.720 | Like the whole premise that got me writing that book

00:27:47.240 | is I went through this period as a college student

00:27:50.680 | where I came in freshman year, was like a fine student.

00:27:53.840 | Not a great student, but a fine student.

00:27:55.540 | And I was rowing crew and I was sort of like

00:27:57.960 | excited to do that.

00:27:59.280 | And then I developed a heart condition

00:28:01.440 | and had to stop congenital wiring in the heart,

00:28:04.800 | atrial flutter thing.

00:28:05.840 | It meant I couldn't row crew anymore.

00:28:07.040 | - Is that prolapse of some sort?

00:28:08.520 | - It was a circuitry issue that would lead

00:28:12.840 | to an extremely rapid heartbeat.

00:28:14.720 | It's like a really rapid, like tachardia, right?

00:28:17.240 | You get 250 beats a minute just,

00:28:19.260 | and it could be exercise induced, right?

00:28:21.180 | Which is not optimal.

00:28:22.560 | You could take beta blockers,

00:28:24.400 | which would moderate the electrical timing,

00:28:27.160 | but beta blockers reduce your max heart rate.

00:28:29.000 | And if you're an athlete where the entire thing

00:28:31.860 | that matters is your max heart rate,

00:28:33.400 | so you're doing something like 2,000 meter rows,

00:28:36.000 | your performance on beta blockers just goes down.

00:28:38.600 | It makes no sense.

00:28:39.440 | It's like being a basketball player

00:28:40.280 | that wears weighted shoes.

00:28:41.340 | It's too frustrating.

00:28:42.180 | - Right, it also makes you super mellow.

00:28:44.060 | - I was pretty mellow, but I was a worse rower.

00:28:47.500 | So I stopped that.

00:28:49.100 | I was like, okay, I want to get serious about my studies.

00:28:51.120 | I started to get serious about my studies in writing, right?

00:28:53.380 | That's when I actually made the decisions

00:28:56.060 | that I'd been stuck with for the next 25 years after that.

00:28:59.620 | But one of the things I did to get serious about my studies

00:29:02.040 | is I said, I'm going to systematically experiment

00:29:05.340 | with how to study for tests and how to write papers.

00:29:09.100 | And I would try this.

00:29:10.580 | How did it go?

00:29:11.420 | Deconstruct experiment.

00:29:12.340 | Try this.

00:29:13.180 | How did it go?

00:29:14.000 | Deconstruct experiment.

00:29:14.840 | And active recall was the thing to turn me all around.

00:29:17.580 | And so I went from a pretty good student

00:29:20.160 | to 4.0 every single quarter,

00:29:22.580 | sophomore year, junior year, senior year.

00:29:23.900 | I got one A minus between my sophomore year

00:29:26.620 | through my senior year.

00:29:27.580 | It was like this miraculous transformation.

00:29:29.260 | It was active recall.

00:29:30.420 | I rebuilt all of my studies.

00:29:31.900 | So if it was for a humanities class,

00:29:33.880 | I had a whole way of taking notes.

00:29:35.220 | It was all built around doing active recall.

00:29:37.980 | For math classes, my main study tool

00:29:40.340 | was a stack of white paper.

00:29:42.260 | All right, do this proof, white piece of paper.

00:29:44.700 | And just, can I do it from scratch?

00:29:46.680 | If I could, I know that technique.

00:29:48.180 | If I don't, all right, I'm going to come back

00:29:49.700 | and try it again later.

00:29:50.540 | Completely transformed.

00:29:52.060 | I did so well academically,

00:29:53.220 | that's why I ended up writing that book

00:29:55.100 | that basically spread that message to other people.

00:29:56.900 | So I'm a huge advocate for active recall.

00:29:59.380 | It's really hard, but it is the way to learn new things.

00:30:02.940 | - I'd like to take a brief moment

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00:30:12.140 | I started taking AG1 way back in 2012.

00:30:15.260 | The reason I started taking it

00:30:16.500 | and the reason I still take it every day

00:30:18.300 | is that it ensures that I meet all of my quotas

00:30:20.680 | for vitamins and minerals.

00:30:22.460 | And it ensures that I get enough prebiotic and probiotic

00:30:25.320 | to support gut health.

00:30:26.840 | Now, gut health is something that over the last 10 years,

00:30:29.300 | we realized is not just important

00:30:31.280 | for the health of our gut,

00:30:32.940 | but also for our immune system

00:30:35.100 | and for the production of neurotransmitters

00:30:37.260 | and neuromodulators, things like dopamine and serotonin.

00:30:39.820 | In other words, gut health is critical

00:30:41.780 | for proper brain functioning.

00:30:43.660 | Now, of course I strive to consume healthy whole foods

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00:31:26.180 | Again, that's drinkag1.com/huberman.

00:31:30.140 | - And as you pointed out, it is very time efficient.

00:31:33.180 | - Oh yeah.

00:31:34.300 | I mean, it was a problem.

00:31:35.700 | It was a social problem for me

00:31:37.780 | that I would have to pretend during finals period

00:31:40.780 | that I was going to the library to study

00:31:42.860 | because I would be done studying.

00:31:44.380 | This active recall, it's brutal,

00:31:45.940 | but it's incredibly efficient.

00:31:47.100 | You sit down there, I would have my cards.

00:31:49.020 | I would mark it.

00:31:49.860 | Okay, I struggled with this.

00:31:51.300 | I'd put it in this pile.

00:31:52.700 | I got it done, I'd put it in this pile.

00:31:54.660 | And so then you would just go back

00:31:56.120 | to the I struggled with it pile and work on that

00:31:58.900 | and then make a new I struggled with a pile.

00:32:00.380 | And these would exponentially decay.

00:32:02.460 | And so in like a few hours, you could really master,

00:32:05.300 | you know, with a few other tricks that worked,

00:32:06.860 | you could really master the material pretty quickly.

00:32:08.660 | And then what am I supposed to do?

00:32:09.620 | I didn't do all-nighters.

00:32:11.060 | You don't want to make any sense.

00:32:11.900 | Like active recall is how you prepare.

00:32:13.460 | It's going to take four hours and it's going to be tough.

00:32:15.580 | So do it in the morning when you have energy

00:32:17.060 | and then you're done.

00:32:18.700 | - I love it.

00:32:19.540 | I learned essentially all of neuroanatomy

00:32:22.460 | looking down the microscope at tissue samples.

00:32:26.260 | And then I would try and take photographs with my eyes.

00:32:29.020 | I do not have a photographic memory,

00:32:30.460 | but then I would get home in the evening,

00:32:32.300 | look through the neuroanatomy textbook,

00:32:34.480 | lie down and try and fly through

00:32:36.580 | the different circuits in my mind.

00:32:38.260 | And then if I arrived at a structure in the brain

00:32:40.440 | that I couldn't identify,

00:32:42.140 | I would then go check my notes and go back.

00:32:43.660 | So basically I learned neuroanatomy, which I, you know,

00:32:46.700 | I'm poor at a great many things in life,

00:32:49.180 | but neuroanatomy I'm solid at.

00:32:51.600 | And then some, if I may say so.

00:32:54.700 | And it's because there's a mental map.

00:32:56.660 | You can't move through it, you know,

00:32:58.020 | fly through it dynamically and that it's the same process.

00:33:02.260 | Not all things lend themselves to that approach.

00:33:05.160 | I'm guessing maybe we could think of a few that don't.

00:33:07.860 | I guess if people were learning music,

00:33:11.820 | that might be tricky.

00:33:13.060 | Maybe they need the sheet music in front of them.

00:33:14.660 | I don't know, I'm not a musician.

00:33:16.100 | - Yeah.

00:33:16.940 | I mean, I studied a professional guitar player at one point.

00:33:19.900 | - You were a professional guitar player?

00:33:20.740 | - No, I studied one.

00:33:22.060 | - Oh.

00:33:22.900 | - So for a book, everything's from some book.

00:33:24.620 | I've written a lot of books.

00:33:25.460 | So I wrote a book 10 years ago

00:33:27.540 | where I was trying to figure out as part of it,

00:33:29.100 | how do people get better at things?

00:33:30.460 | And so I spent time with a professional guitar player

00:33:33.460 | that said, I just wanted to see how he practiced.

00:33:35.120 | Like, what does this actually look like?

00:33:36.540 | And what I learned from them is like,

00:33:37.860 | what they do is, yeah,

00:33:39.100 | they have the music in front of them,

00:33:40.340 | but for them it's all speed.

00:33:42.260 | So they take a piece, he was working on licks for,

00:33:44.780 | he was a new acoustic style player

00:33:46.580 | and they had these kind of bluegrassy type licks.

00:33:48.980 | And he probably had it memorized

00:33:50.940 | and he knew how fast he could comfortably play it.

00:33:52.820 | For them, it's all about adding 20%

00:33:55.500 | to what they're comfortably doing.

00:33:57.100 | And then that push passed where they're comfortable.

00:34:00.500 | And the thing I remember writing about him

00:34:02.500 | was he was concentrating so hard

00:34:04.380 | to try to hit this lick 20% faster than he was used to it,

00:34:07.660 | is that he'd forget to breathe.

00:34:09.100 | So he'd be like going, going, going,

00:34:10.420 | and then just gasp, you know?

00:34:11.820 | Like, 'cause his body would, you know,

00:34:12.980 | force him to breathe.

00:34:14.660 | So yeah, there it seemed to be all about deliberate practice.

00:34:17.620 | So like, how do you,

00:34:18.500 | they don't waste any time, professional musicians

00:34:20.860 | waste no time doing things they're comfortable doing.

00:34:23.500 | Every time they spend practicing,

00:34:25.060 | and this is also incredibly difficult,

00:34:27.620 | but every time they spend practicing

00:34:28.940 | is almost entirely in a state of,

00:34:31.380 | I'm not comfortable with this.

00:34:32.660 | But if I focus as hard as I can,

00:34:35.500 | maybe I'm gonna pull this off.

00:34:37.180 | Like I'll pull off the sonata

00:34:38.940 | at this new speed I'm trying to do.

00:34:40.320 | Maybe I'll pull it off.

00:34:41.920 | It's like the maximal growth stimulating state.

00:34:45.620 | And so I wrote in this chapter,

00:34:48.660 | why was he so much better at guitar

00:34:51.380 | than I was at the same age?

00:34:52.500 | 'Cause I played a lot of guitar when I was younger

00:34:54.020 | and was in rock bands, right?

00:34:55.820 | And this kid was young, right?

00:34:57.100 | But really, really good.

00:34:58.700 | And I said, okay, now I realize it.

00:35:00.180 | I can recognize me when I look back at my time

00:35:02.740 | playing guitar at his age.

00:35:03.780 | I played stuff I knew how to play.

00:35:05.580 | Like, that's what was fun.

00:35:06.620 | Like, yeah, I wanna like jam along with the songs I knew,

00:35:09.180 | or, you know, rip some pentatonic scales, you know,

00:35:11.420 | to like a Jimi Hendrix album.

00:35:13.480 | It was fun.

00:35:14.860 | And he spent almost no time,

00:35:15.980 | the pro spent no time having fun.

00:35:17.740 | Practicing was your brain had to be, you know, uncomfortable.

00:35:21.740 | So I learned a lot from that, you know.

00:35:24.060 | This actually led to a bit of a battle

00:35:26.820 | because of my readers,

00:35:28.220 | there was this battle that emerged

00:35:31.660 | where people were trying to combine Anders Ericsson

00:35:34.900 | and deliberate practice

00:35:36.420 | with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and flow.

00:35:39.820 | And really they were trying to make flow apply everywhere.

00:35:42.980 | Like it's all about flow, deliberate practices, flow,

00:35:45.660 | everything is flow.

00:35:46.480 | The whole thing is to get into a state of flow.

00:35:48.180 | And I remember Anders talking about this at some point

00:35:50.780 | and saying like, no, no, no.

00:35:51.620 | Like the state of practice that makes you better.

00:35:54.040 | It's the opposite of flow, right?

00:35:56.100 | In flow, you lose track of time.

00:35:58.020 | When you're practicing like that professional guitar player,

00:36:00.660 | you know, every second it passes by

00:36:02.900 | because it's like incredibly difficult.

00:36:04.720 | Like what you're doing, your mind is rebelling.

00:36:07.060 | It's not natural.

00:36:08.260 | You know, it's not fun.

00:36:09.540 | It's not the skier going down the hill

00:36:11.740 | and it's all instinct.

00:36:12.780 | It's all you thinking about exactly

00:36:15.120 | what you're trying to do.

00:36:16.140 | And so, you know, I began to push this point out here.

00:36:18.980 | It's like, it's not all about flow.

00:36:20.380 | Like actually getting better at things

00:36:21.820 | is really painful sometimes.

00:36:23.040 | Deliberate practice is not the same as flow.

00:36:25.340 | And there was a lot of fights about this for a while.

00:36:27.700 | I think there was a lot of flow advocates

00:36:29.400 | that just wanted life to be flow all the time.

00:36:31.660 | But I think Anders was right

00:36:33.140 | because I watched these professionals practice.

00:36:35.380 | Like that's what it is.

00:36:36.860 | It's not fun.

00:36:37.780 | - Well, everything we know about neuroplasticity,

00:36:39.820 | which of course is the nervous system's ability

00:36:41.620 | to change in response to experience,

00:36:43.900 | says that there needs to be some neurochemical

00:36:47.980 | or electrical condition that changes in the nervous system

00:36:52.540 | in order to cue up plasticity.

00:36:54.380 | And to my knowledge, one of the most robust of those

00:36:59.100 | is the release of the so-called catecholamines,

00:37:01.380 | dopamine, epinephrine, norepinephrine.

00:37:03.660 | Dopamine, because it's involved in so many things,

00:37:06.740 | can be a little bit of a distractor.

00:37:08.020 | So let's just say epinephrine, norepinephrine,

00:37:10.060 | adrenaline, noradrenaline, create in the body

00:37:12.780 | and mind to some extent, a state of alertness

00:37:14.920 | and often a state of agitation.

00:37:16.900 | But if you think about it,

00:37:18.200 | in the absence of some neuromodulators like those

00:37:21.580 | that change the conditions for wiring of neurons,

00:37:25.420 | you know, everyone loves fire together, wire together.

00:37:27.980 | A beautiful statement by Carla Schatz, not Donald Hebb.

00:37:30.500 | Dr. Carla Schatz said that, not Donald Hebb.

00:37:32.700 | But why would neurons need to change

00:37:36.780 | their patterns of connectivity

00:37:39.000 | if you can complete the operation?

00:37:40.820 | The nervous system needs to, it doesn't feel discomfort,

00:37:44.900 | it creates discomfort, but the nervous system needs a cue

00:37:48.300 | to like, okay, this is different, I'm failing.

00:37:50.860 | And it's the failures that actually trigger the plasticity.

00:37:53.520 | It's the discomfort that cues

00:37:55.260 | that conditions are different now.

00:37:57.480 | Otherwise there's simply no reason

00:37:59.060 | to devote energetic resources to rewiring neurons.

00:38:02.100 | And I feel like we don't learn this when we're kids.

00:38:04.580 | We, and I think as kids, we can learn so much

00:38:07.480 | without that feeling of agitation.

00:38:09.300 | We get into these modes of looking for flow

00:38:12.220 | and I have respect for the research on flow

00:38:15.820 | and the people who are involved in it,

00:38:16.820 | but I'd like to talk about flow a little bit.

00:38:18.220 | The only thing I really know about flow for sure

00:38:19.980 | is that backwards it spells wolf.

00:38:21.900 | So what of flow?

00:38:24.020 | It's such an attractive idea, right?

00:38:25.540 | It's like Star Wars.

00:38:26.500 | It's like you have the force and you're kind of,

00:38:29.060 | you're doing things without thinking and awesome,

00:38:32.940 | but I can't flow myself through a paper

00:38:36.340 | and extract the critical data.

00:38:37.520 | I can't create a podcast in flow,

00:38:39.900 | but when it's done, it feels great,

00:38:43.420 | especially if you nail the key metrics.

00:38:45.340 | So what do you think about flow?

00:38:46.980 | I'm not trying to beat up on it.

00:38:48.100 | I just want to understand how you place it

00:38:49.740 | in the framework of learning and deep work,

00:38:53.860 | if it belongs there at all.

00:38:54.900 | - It doesn't have a big place in it,

00:38:56.900 | in the deep work framework.

00:38:58.020 | And this was what the controversy was for a while.

00:39:00.060 | And I knew Mahaley a little bit.

00:39:02.220 | Like we corresponded some and I knew Anders a little bit,

00:39:04.460 | like we corresponded some.

00:39:05.340 | So I sort of felt like I was, you know,

00:39:07.520 | and both of them actually tragically have died

00:39:10.080 | in the last three or four years, I think.

00:39:12.680 | - Oh, that's very sad.

00:39:14.300 | - Yeah, I think both recently.

00:39:16.000 | Flow doesn't play a big role

00:39:18.560 | in the deep work framework, right?

00:39:20.040 | So when I was trying to justify deep work,

00:39:22.680 | so why focusing without distraction was important,

00:39:25.960 | I was drawing a lot more for Anders' work, right?

00:39:28.320 | Because why is focusing without distraction important?

00:39:31.920 | Well, you have to quiet the neural circuitry

00:39:33.920 | so you can isolate the circuit that's actually relevant

00:39:35.980 | to the thing that you're doing, right?

00:39:37.800 | You're not gonna get better at something

00:39:39.700 | if you have noisy circuitry.

00:39:41.420 | And that requires a really intense concentration.

00:39:44.020 | So it was one of the big advantages of deep work

00:39:46.560 | was if you're used to that cognitive state,

00:39:48.560 | you're gonna learn things faster.

00:39:49.620 | And I think it was all Anders to understand why.

00:39:51.940 | So if you're not distracted,

00:39:53.100 | I'm really focusing hard on what I'm doing,

00:39:55.460 | trying to learn this new thing,

00:39:57.140 | you're giving the right mental conditions.

00:39:59.100 | But it's not a flow state.

00:39:59.940 | And I always used to say,

00:40:00.780 | okay, when your deep work is not flow,

00:40:03.540 | because of this, like a lot of deep work

00:40:05.080 | is you're trying to do something

00:40:06.560 | that is beyond your comfort zone,

00:40:08.000 | and that's gonna be difficult.

00:40:09.120 | That's a state of deliberate practice.

00:40:10.960 | And there's a famous paper about this,

00:40:13.160 | where Anders actually explicitly says,

00:40:16.220 | "Deliberate practice and flow are very different."

00:40:18.720 | And I wrote an essay years ago

00:40:21.320 | called "The Father of Deliberate Practice Disowns Flow."

00:40:24.160 | And again, people are really flow partisans out there.

00:40:26.920 | It's interesting.

00:40:27.760 | I think people just like the idea 'cause it feels good.

00:40:31.040 | But I mean, flow is the feeling of performance

00:40:33.700 | is the way I think about it.

00:40:34.540 | Like it's really hard to train for certain sports.

00:40:38.540 | But then when you're actually performing,

00:40:40.100 | you're in the game, you can fall in the flow, right?

00:40:41.980 | Because then everything is under,

00:40:43.100 | and it's really hard to train guitar,

00:40:44.620 | but like when you're performing in front of a big crowd,

00:40:46.460 | you probably, maybe you fall in the flow.

00:40:47.860 | Maybe you don't, but you could, right?

00:40:49.220 | But it's the performance state,

00:40:51.120 | not the practicing getting better state.

00:40:52.700 | So to me, flow has like very little role

00:40:56.700 | in how I think about what I do as a cognitive professional.

00:41:00.440 | It's just not something that comes up that often.

00:41:03.400 | - I agree that we learn through focused work

00:41:07.540 | and that flow does manifest itself during performance.

00:41:12.540 | And sometimes so much so that people exhibit virtuosity,

00:41:17.700 | surprising themselves even at what's in there.

00:41:21.020 | And that's kind of, I always think of it,

00:41:22.380 | it's a what is unskilled, skilled mastery virtuosity.

00:41:25.620 | Virtuosity seems to incorporate some sort of random elements

00:41:28.340 | of maybe even the performer has not done that before

00:41:31.280 | and they surprised themselves or something like that.

00:41:33.720 | Who knows?

00:41:34.560 | These are words for something

00:41:37.180 | that isn't easily quantified in the first place.

00:41:40.000 | But in terms of deep work and getting a little bit back

00:41:43.080 | to kind of practical steps towards deep work,

00:41:45.480 | I also have to ask you, 'cause I didn't earlier,

00:41:48.060 | when you are on your laptop in your library

00:41:50.400 | with your fireplace and these books,

00:41:51.960 | it's a beautiful image, actually,

00:41:53.280 | that you've drawn for us in our minds,

00:41:55.600 | is the Wi-Fi connection to your computer activated

00:41:59.040 | or are you offline?

00:42:01.060 | - It's connected because it doesn't really matter to me,

00:42:04.560 | because what's drawing my attention?

00:42:07.340 | I mean, the most important decision I think I made,

00:42:09.820 | technically speaking, to be a cognitive worker

00:42:13.340 | is the lack of social media.

00:42:15.560 | Like, I think we underestimate the degree

00:42:19.020 | to which our problem with digital distraction

00:42:21.600 | is not the internet, it's not our phones.

00:42:24.100 | It is specific products and services

00:42:25.920 | that are engineered at great expense

00:42:28.300 | to pull you back to them.

00:42:29.500 | When you take that away,

00:42:30.340 | the internet's not that interesting.

00:42:32.180 | Like, I don't have a cycle of sites to go to.

00:42:36.020 | You know, I can check my email,

00:42:37.600 | but I don't really know where else to go.

00:42:39.020 | I mean, I could go to the New York Times, I guess,

00:42:40.480 | but then you've seen the articles, right?

00:42:41.740 | They change it once a day.

00:42:43.420 | There's just not much.

00:42:44.500 | I've set things up, so there's not much

00:42:45.840 | that's that interesting to me.

00:42:47.340 | - We've all heard of FOMO, fear of missing out.

00:42:52.560 | I feel like there's the other thing,

00:42:54.640 | which is fear of missing something bad, right?

00:42:59.080 | That's sort of like an anxiety,

00:43:00.200 | a more primitive anxiety within us,

00:43:01.880 | that if we are not engaged on social media

00:43:04.240 | or looking at our phone often or texting often,

00:43:06.480 | that it's not that we'll miss the party,

00:43:09.260 | we'll miss the emergency.

00:43:10.560 | You don't seem to suffer from those kind of everyday ills.

00:43:14.920 | - Yeah, I mean, it doesn't happen that much.

00:43:16.920 | I mean, I have a phone, you know.

00:43:18.800 | - A standard.

00:43:20.000 | - No, I mean, I have my phone.

00:43:21.000 | I guess if I'm working away from it,

00:43:22.200 | yeah, I guess it's true if there was an emergency.

00:43:25.240 | But this was the case for a very long time, right?

00:43:27.520 | We didn't have smartphones till really relatively recently.

00:43:30.440 | This is, you know, 15 years ago.

00:43:32.760 | So we were just used to this until yesterday, essentially,

00:43:36.860 | that there's just periods of time where you're out of touch.

00:43:39.520 | Like you're at a restaurant with someone,

00:43:41.600 | you're out of touch until you get back to your office.

00:43:43.280 | Like we were okay.

00:43:44.200 | You know, we weren't plagued by emergencies

00:43:46.100 | that led to disastrous results

00:43:48.440 | because we couldn't hear about it, right?

00:43:49.800 | Then you go to the movies, like you're out of touch, right?

00:43:51.540 | And be a couple hours till you're in touch again.

00:43:53.560 | And so I don't, you know,

00:43:54.880 | it's not something that's affected me as much.

00:43:56.760 | So maybe I'm working without my phone nearby.

00:43:58.960 | A lot of people have this response.

00:44:00.360 | They begin sort of catastrophizing.

00:44:01.880 | Like what if this happens or this or that?

00:44:03.400 | And I'm thinking, you know, I survived before that.

00:44:05.960 | My parents survived without that.

00:44:07.320 | My grandparents survived without that.

00:44:10.320 | I don't worry about it as much, you know.

00:44:12.160 | And some of this maybe is just,

00:44:14.080 | this doesn't upset people as much as it used to.

00:44:16.320 | The fact I don't use a lot of these apps or have my phone.

00:44:19.120 | But it really does upset people, right?

00:44:21.520 | There's, well, what about this?

00:44:22.540 | What about that?

00:44:23.380 | What about this?

00:44:24.200 | And I don't know how much of this is just maybe

00:44:26.460 | I'm oblivious and how much of this

00:44:27.860 | is people back sliding explanation

00:44:29.980 | for why they do need their phone,

00:44:32.340 | why they do need to look at all the time.

00:44:33.660 | But I get a lot of it.

00:44:35.140 | - Yeah, well, maybe they're upset and you don't know

00:44:36.420 | because you're not looking at your phone.

00:44:37.660 | - That's right.

00:44:38.780 | Hey, I'll tell you what, that's a blessing.

00:44:40.500 | Not knowing how upset people are at you.

00:44:42.300 | Yeah, it's a blessing as a semi-public figure.

00:44:44.260 | I'll tell you that.

00:44:45.340 | - Yeah, I can comment on that, but I won't.

00:44:48.380 | I am on social media and I do enjoy it

00:44:52.120 | as we've got started posting on Instagram

00:44:53.840 | and then expanded to other platforms, including the podcast.

00:44:56.800 | But there's a threshold beyond which

00:44:58.760 | it becomes counterproductive for sure.

00:45:00.880 | I think there's information there.

00:45:03.540 | Like questions that people ask are often informative.

00:45:07.000 | It's sort of like ending a class

00:45:08.640 | and asking, are there any questions?

00:45:09.920 | Sometimes the comments that people bring back

00:45:11.700 | are truly informative towards both where

00:45:14.840 | they might have some misunderstanding,

00:45:16.620 | but also sometimes some really terrific ideas.

00:45:19.920 | So there's that, but I completely agree

00:45:23.240 | that this is a very precarious space.

00:45:26.540 | And I'll just relay a quick anecdote.

00:45:29.920 | Years ago, I gave a quick lecture

00:45:32.260 | down at Santa Clara University, South of Stanford.

00:45:34.200 | And I was talking about this issue.

00:45:35.240 | I recommended your book and a student came up afterwards

00:45:37.600 | and he said, "You don't get it."

00:45:40.040 | At that time I was in my early forties.

00:45:41.360 | He said, "You don't get it.

00:45:43.000 | You grew up without social media and the phone.

00:45:45.560 | And so you've adopted it into your life."

00:45:47.460 | But we grew up with it.

00:45:48.820 | And when my phone, he's speaking for himself

00:45:50.900 | and the first person, when my phone loses power,

00:45:54.440 | I feel a physical drain within my body.

00:45:56.680 | And when it comes back on, I feel a lift within my body.

00:46:00.340 | So I'd love your thoughts on whether or not

00:46:02.920 | you think the phone and perhaps social media as well

00:46:06.580 | are in some ways an extension of our brain.

00:46:08.780 | It's almost like another cortical area

00:46:10.880 | that contains all this information.

00:46:12.460 | It's a version of us.

00:46:13.740 | This gets into notions of AI that we can talk about as well.

00:46:16.180 | I know you're involved in AI and writing about AI.

00:46:18.940 | But to me, when the phone is used in that way,

00:46:22.660 | it really is almost like a piece

00:46:27.340 | of neural machinery of sorts.

00:46:29.700 | - Yeah, I mean, there's two ways of looking at it.

00:46:31.140 | Yeah, so there is the sort of cyborg image, I suppose, right?

00:46:34.860 | Like you're extending, you're plugging into this new sphere.

00:46:39.260 | Like you have this sort of digital network extension

00:46:41.380 | of information and what's going on.

00:46:43.300 | There's also the much more pessimistic view,

00:46:45.620 | which is no, no, that feeling is the feeling

00:46:48.020 | of a moderate behavioral addiction, right?

00:46:50.340 | So you'll hear the same thing from a gambler.

00:46:53.780 | I really, when I'm away from being able to play, right,

00:46:57.020 | to make my bets or do whatever, like I feel really,

00:46:59.340 | I feel not myself.

00:47:00.680 | And then when I'm around it and I can play

00:47:02.900 | and make some bets, play some poker, whatever it is--

00:47:04.460 | - The feeling of the chips.

00:47:05.300 | - I feel myself, that chips, right?

00:47:07.180 | Like they would say, so it could be,

00:47:09.060 | both of these things could be true.

00:47:10.880 | I think the moderate behavioral addiction side

00:47:12.840 | is more true than a lot of us want to admit, actually.

00:47:16.160 | Like it does feel bad because moderate behavioral addictions

00:47:19.560 | build these feedback response loops.

00:47:22.120 | And then you get the dopamine system going,

00:47:23.680 | when the anticipation.

00:47:25.520 | Because what's on there is things that have been engineered

00:47:27.920 | that you're gonna get this sort of highly engaging stimuli.

00:47:30.280 | And then you see the deliverance of that stimuli, right?

00:47:33.040 | This really nice piece of glass on a piece of metal,

00:47:36.240 | I'm gonna press this sort of carefully,

00:47:38.680 | this icon whose colors have been chosen

00:47:41.000 | because we know it's gonna hit various parts

00:47:43.680 | of our neural alert systems to be as engaging as possible.

00:47:46.840 | And I'm gonna see something in there

00:47:48.600 | that's gonna generate some sort of emotional response.

00:47:51.160 | So of course, when you see that thing sitting there,

00:47:53.480 | you wanna use it.

00:47:54.320 | And when you can't, it's a stymie dopamine response.

00:47:57.620 | You're like, this is not good, I'm uncomfortable.

00:48:00.320 | And I think that's a big part of it as well.

00:48:02.920 | Because I've had this argument with some people,

00:48:05.460 | and by the way, I see both sides of this.

00:48:07.600 | Like there are great advantages

00:48:09.680 | to what people are doing with these tools.

00:48:11.340 | It's just that it's all mixed up

00:48:12.840 | with all these disadvantages.

00:48:14.480 | And it becomes very difficult.

00:48:16.120 | It's like the alcohol in the neighborhood bar

00:48:17.920 | is too potent, you know?

00:48:19.480 | And people are going there to socialize

00:48:21.600 | and they're coming home at three in the morning,

00:48:23.360 | you know, passing out, you know?

00:48:25.160 | It's like the balance is off.

00:48:26.440 | Not that there's not something good there,

00:48:28.400 | but the balance is off.

00:48:29.300 | So it becomes pretty difficult to navigate.

00:48:30.920 | So I think some of that's what's going on,

00:48:32.560 | especially with the younger generation

00:48:33.860 | that was raised on it.

00:48:35.180 | Which is why, by the way,

00:48:36.760 | I think the cultural norms are gonna change around this.

00:48:39.320 | I think we're gonna think about unrestricted internet usage.

00:48:42.720 | Not as something that we just sort of bequeath on youth

00:48:45.880 | as they become 10 years old,

00:48:47.320 | but something that we're actually much more careful about.

00:48:49.680 | Probably something that's gonna be post-pubescent.

00:48:52.080 | It's gonna make a lot more sense

00:48:53.200 | once you've had more brain development.

00:48:54.940 | Once you've had more social entrenchment,

00:48:57.680 | you sort of understand your identity, et cetera.

00:49:00.200 | Because we recognize, you know,

00:49:01.840 | the flip side of plugging this thing into your brain is,

00:49:03.960 | yeah, you have access to more information,

00:49:05.240 | but it also pumps that into your brain.

00:49:07.880 | So I don't know.

00:49:09.400 | I lean a little bit heavier towards the pessimistic read

00:49:12.000 | because I know too many people, because of my books,

00:49:15.000 | who've really reduced the impact

00:49:16.200 | of these things in their lives.

00:49:17.480 | And they don't, on the far side of that transformation,

00:49:21.320 | they don't typically report

00:49:22.760 | a great impoverishment experience.

00:49:24.880 | They don't report, I'm less mentally agile,

00:49:28.240 | the information at my fingertips is less,

00:49:30.080 | I'm missing out on life.

00:49:32.120 | There's typically this coming out of the fog

00:49:33.880 | on the other side of it, where they're like,

00:49:35.080 | oh, this is fine.

00:49:36.560 | So, you know, I'm a little bit suspicious

00:49:38.080 | about exactly what this mechanism is.

00:49:40.200 | - Yeah, I think you're right

00:49:41.040 | about the moderate behavioral addiction piece.

00:49:44.680 | Years ago, when I was starting my lab,

00:49:46.720 | I had grants to write,

00:49:48.320 | and I found the phone to be pretty intrusive

00:49:50.640 | for that process.

00:49:51.820 | So I used to give the phone to somebody in my lab

00:49:53.640 | and announce to everyone in my lab

00:49:54.880 | that if I asked for it back prior to 5 p.m. that day,

00:49:58.240 | I would give everyone in the lab,

00:49:59.440 | I think it was a $100 bill.

00:50:00.540 | My lab was pretty big at the time.

00:50:01.840 | As a junior professor, they did not do,

00:50:04.000 | not, sorry, academic institutions, not to be named,

00:50:07.960 | pay us very much, despite what people might think.

00:50:10.040 | And it was difficult several times

00:50:13.420 | throughout the day or more.

00:50:14.260 | I was like, ah, I really want to look at that thing.

00:50:15.920 | But at the end of the day, I'll tell you,

00:50:18.840 | no one got paid.

00:50:19.660 | I got my phone back.

00:50:20.680 | But it's wonderful, the amount of work

00:50:22.280 | that you can get done when that thing is out of the room.

00:50:24.480 | - I mean, it's my superpower, right?

00:50:27.120 | I don't work that hard,

00:50:28.600 | in the sense that I don't do long hours.

00:50:30.560 | Like, I'm not constitutionally suited for long hours.

00:50:33.680 | This was never my thing.

00:50:35.600 | My brain tires, right?

00:50:37.480 | I mean, I'm good for four,

00:50:39.360 | four and a half good hours a day

00:50:41.460 | of actually producing good stuff with my brain, probably max.

00:50:45.320 | But, you know, I don't use my phone that much.

00:50:46.660 | I don't use the internet that much.

00:50:48.400 | And I prioritize it.

00:50:49.840 | And a lot just gets done.

00:50:50.760 | It just sort of piles up over time, you know?

00:50:53.040 | And there's this sense of, like,

00:50:53.860 | you must be burning the midnight oil,

00:50:55.280 | and you have all these things going on.

00:50:57.420 | But again, people, I think, underestimate.

00:50:59.160 | And it's not the underestimate, the impact of this.

00:51:01.840 | It's not just the accumulation of time

00:51:04.100 | you spend looking on your phone.

00:51:06.240 | It's also this network switching cost, right?

00:51:08.820 | Because, like, the phone is very good

00:51:10.320 | at inducing a network switch.

00:51:11.920 | And that's an expensive, time-consuming,

00:51:14.880 | energy-consuming neuronal operation.

00:51:17.880 | - Task switching. - Yeah.

00:51:18.920 | I'm gonna switch my focus of attention from this to that.

00:51:21.660 | Like, we can't do that in two seconds, right?

00:51:24.960 | That's a hard process.

00:51:25.800 | It takes a while.

00:51:26.620 | It's why when you sit down to work on something really hard,

00:51:28.760 | you have that feeling of, for the first 15 minutes,

00:51:31.600 | this is terrible, you know?

00:51:33.080 | And then after, like, 15 or 20 minutes,

00:51:34.520 | you sort of get into the groove.

00:51:36.080 | I always assumed part of what's going on

00:51:37.920 | is it takes a while for your brain

00:51:39.440 | to really start marshaling,

00:51:40.640 | okay, so what semantic networks

00:51:42.940 | do we need to start activating here?

00:51:44.480 | Oh, we don't need this.

00:51:45.320 | Let's inhibit this.

00:51:46.160 | We're not doing that anymore.

00:51:47.000 | It just takes a while.

00:51:48.340 | So what happens then when you have a lot of these quick checks

00:51:51.160 | to social media, you're jumping in on email back and forth,

00:51:54.420 | is you have this disaster, catastrophic pile-up

00:51:58.060 | of aborted task switches happening, right?

00:52:00.960 | And so it's not just the total time you're looking at,

00:52:03.840 | let's say, email or social media.

00:52:05.680 | It's the 15-minute window you have to add

00:52:08.240 | around each of those checks

00:52:09.520 | in which you have this cognitive disorder.

00:52:11.800 | That really adds up.

00:52:12.760 | And then you realize, oh, there was no time during my day

00:52:16.140 | in which I was more than 15 minutes away

00:52:18.480 | from looking at something that induced a network switch.

00:52:20.960 | The data I like to cite,

00:52:22.520 | which was looking at email and Slack checks

00:52:24.960 | and knowledge workers.

00:52:25.800 | This came from RescueTime, the software company.

00:52:27.920 | The median average interval between checks was five minutes.

00:52:32.920 | It's the median, and the mode was one minute

00:52:35.220 | in this data set.

00:52:36.060 | So it was like, we are checking all the time.

00:52:38.700 | That means you were never in a state then in your day

00:52:41.500 | where you don't have a confused cognitive space,

00:52:43.840 | where you don't have,

00:52:44.900 | partially you were switching to this task,

00:52:47.180 | but then you switch back to this task before that finished.

00:52:49.340 | But before you could fully lock in on this task,

00:52:51.020 | you look back over here.

00:52:52.460 | And so you're spending your entire day

00:52:54.340 | in this state of cognitive disorder,

00:52:56.060 | which is going to be reduced cognitive output, right?

00:52:58.560 | So you get rid of that.

00:53:00.040 | I mean, I always say like one of my advantages

00:53:02.020 | is not that I'm doing anything smarter.

00:53:03.680 | I'm just avoiding sometimes the dumb thing,

00:53:05.680 | just holding, slowing other people down.

00:53:07.940 | You get rid of that,

00:53:08.840 | and you feel like you're on the world's best neurotropic

00:53:11.480 | or something like this.

00:53:12.320 | Like, oh, I'm just doing this thing.

00:53:14.120 | I'm doing it pretty well.

00:53:14.960 | Now I'm done.

00:53:15.780 | This didn't even take that long.

00:53:17.660 | So, I mean, I think people underestimate

00:53:19.000 | what's going on here.

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00:54:43.260 | Yeah, we'd like to drill into the concept of context

00:54:46.860 | and task switching a bit more.

00:54:49.900 | I do think that the brain has something

00:54:53.800 | akin to a transmission system

00:54:55.860 | where for people that drive and have driven,

00:54:59.200 | the amount of energy that needs to be used

00:55:01.960 | in order to accelerate a vehicle

00:55:03.720 | to get up to a higher gear,

00:55:06.120 | it's very different than the equal amount

00:55:09.080 | of increase in speed at a given gear, right?

00:55:11.640 | So it's sort of the, you hear this

00:55:13.200 | if you're not familiar with transmission,

00:55:14.740 | so that it sounds like, [imitates engine revving]

00:55:17.080 | it sounds as if it's more facile at higher speeds.

00:55:20.740 | Well, how could it be that you're burning less fuel

00:55:22.340 | at a higher speed?

00:55:23.180 | It's not exactly that way,

00:55:24.020 | but I think the brain has these sort of transmission systems

00:55:27.200 | and what you're describing with people switching back

00:55:29.940 | and forth and checking email and phone, et cetera,

00:55:32.060 | and back to the work that should be at hand

00:55:35.180 | is sort of akin to going up and down

00:55:37.060 | the gear system constantly,

00:55:39.260 | trying to arrive at a given destination.

00:55:40.820 | And sure, you might arrive,

00:55:42.740 | but you're going to burn far more fuel.

00:55:44.900 | It's the least efficient way to go about it.

00:55:46.960 | You want to get into that deep groove.

00:55:48.940 | And I think when we hear about flow,

00:55:51.380 | I feel like at least for me,

00:55:52.900 | that's the sort of notion of flow that I'm looking for,

00:55:55.140 | dropping into that deep groove,

00:55:56.640 | even if there's some friction within that groove

00:55:58.460 | of the challenge of the work that I'm doing,

00:55:59.940 | it's about not thinking about anything else.

00:56:01.780 | It's really about focus, right?

00:56:03.900 | And the word flow is just a wonderfully attractive word

00:56:06.940 | that I think gives us the false impression

00:56:12.420 | that we can just drop into things

00:56:14.060 | like a square wave function.

00:56:15.080 | Sit down, pen and paper, go.

00:56:17.300 | And there's no possible way

00:56:19.260 | that neural circuits could work that way.

00:56:20.540 | - No, let's invent a term.

00:56:21.980 | And you told me the term makes sense.

00:56:23.740 | I'm inventing this on the fly,

00:56:24.660 | but neurosemantic coherence.

00:56:27.580 | This is going to be my alternative term for flow

00:56:30.860 | when you're working on something hard.

00:56:32.980 | It's not that you're in an actual flow state

00:56:34.540 | where you lose track of what you're doing.

00:56:35.500 | You're concentrating really hard,

00:56:36.780 | but why I'm saying neurosemantic coherence

00:56:39.940 | is you get to this place

00:56:41.020 | where the sort of relevant semantic neural networks

00:56:43.180 | are all those that are activated

00:56:45.360 | are all relevant to what you're doing.

00:56:47.200 | And you've over time inhibited

00:56:49.680 | most of the unrelated networks that were fired up before.

00:56:52.600 | And so you get in this sense of it's hard.

00:56:55.620 | Maybe I'm not losing track of time,

00:56:57.280 | but like I'm all focused on this.

00:56:59.560 | I'm grappling with the bear here,

00:57:02.480 | the math equation, the book chapter, whatever it is.

00:57:05.800 | And so it's something different than flow,

00:57:07.800 | but it's also different than Linda Stone

00:57:10.040 | had the term partial continuous attention,

00:57:12.360 | which is what you're that cognitive disaster

00:57:14.340 | of I'm constantly network switching back and forth.

00:57:16.500 | So we'll call it neurosemantic coherence.

00:57:18.180 | I got to coin that term

00:57:19.980 | because you have this coherence

00:57:21.700 | of the semantic neural networks on what you're doing.

00:57:24.060 | And that's the feeling of

00:57:25.860 | I'm getting after this hard problem

00:57:28.140 | and it might be really hard to do.

00:57:30.260 | I mean, I know the feeling of trying to solve a math proof

00:57:32.380 | for me, for example, it could be so difficult.

00:57:34.900 | 'Cause I mean, what does it actually feel like in your head

00:57:37.140 | when you're solving a math proof?

00:57:38.380 | It's a lot of, you hold this here

00:57:40.980 | and then you try to get to the next step by doing this

00:57:44.400 | and it doesn't work.

00:57:45.240 | But you have to keep holding this here,

00:57:46.240 | which takes a lot of concentration.

00:57:47.200 | Okay, let me try this.

00:57:48.440 | That didn't work either, but this looked promising.

00:57:50.440 | Okay, so now I need to go back

00:57:52.000 | and in my mind's eye, update the setup.

00:57:54.480 | And now let me try this.

00:57:55.400 | So it's a lot of holding things in your working memory

00:57:57.760 | and keeping them loaded while you try an extension

00:58:00.520 | and then evaluating how that worked without.

00:58:02.200 | And so it requires just internal concentration,

00:58:06.000 | which isn't pleasant, but in neurosemantic coherence,

00:58:08.880 | it's all this happening in your world.

00:58:10.720 | Is that in that proof?

00:58:11.740 | So maybe that's what we should be pitching,

00:58:13.860 | what people should be looking for is yeah, forget flow,

00:58:17.060 | but also remember like this default

00:58:19.140 | where you're like the rescue time dataset participants

00:58:21.700 | checking email once every five minutes.

00:58:23.580 | That's cognitive nonsense.

00:58:25.340 | That's crazy.

00:58:26.520 | That's like, you're trying to play football

00:58:29.240 | and you're covering over one of your eyes

00:58:30.940 | and wearing like a 50 pound rucksack on.

00:58:32.580 | You're just like handicapping your abilities here

00:58:34.940 | for no reason, right?

00:58:36.220 | So what's in between is this idea.

00:58:38.380 | And that requires focus, requires deep work.

00:58:41.120 | - Yeah, or playing football.

00:58:42.280 | And then every three downs or so running into the stands

00:58:46.000 | and having a conversation,

00:58:46.920 | trying to work out something challenging with your spouse

00:58:49.040 | or whatever, then going back

00:58:50.000 | and trying a totally different play set, right?

00:58:52.360 | At risk of throwing too many analogies and stories,

00:58:57.240 | I'll just briefly say,

00:58:58.120 | I went and saw the play in New York

00:59:00.440 | with my sister this year.

00:59:01.880 | I think it was "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child"

00:59:04.120 | or something like that.

00:59:05.440 | I didn't really enjoy the play that much,

00:59:06.740 | but the set stuff was amazing.

00:59:08.200 | And they have this magic library

00:59:09.680 | that I think is very, very relevant here

00:59:11.840 | where essentially the book that you open

00:59:14.760 | has a certain topic.

00:59:16.760 | I don't know, maybe it's spells

00:59:17.640 | or something as Harry Potter.

00:59:18.480 | Again, a fun show, but great set stuff

00:59:21.360 | didn't really resonate with me too much in any event.

00:59:24.200 | And then the books around it change their topic

00:59:27.020 | but are related to that central book.

00:59:29.080 | And then if you look at one particular thing,

00:59:30.740 | like maybe it's potions or something, I'm making this up.

00:59:32.560 | And then all of a sudden the books around it change.

00:59:35.440 | They become either more specific.

00:59:36.880 | There might be a distant but related idea

00:59:39.960 | that could lend itself to creativity.

00:59:41.160 | So that's the way the brain works in cognition

00:59:44.520 | is that we get into a frame of a certain discussion

00:59:47.580 | or a certain theme and the books on the shelf change

00:59:50.800 | according to their relatedness based on memory of past,

00:59:53.760 | what's going on now and plans for the future.

00:59:55.800 | I think anytime we look at, we change context

00:59:58.160 | and we look at a raccoon video on Instagram

01:00:00.680 | or our calendar and oh, there's that thing,

01:00:03.320 | the books become very scattered.

01:00:04.640 | So when we return to it, there's a lot more friction,

01:00:07.120 | a lot more work or neural energy required

01:00:10.720 | to get back into that, this narrow states of cognition.

01:00:15.040 | - Just that exactly explains sort of my experience

01:00:17.000 | and the way I think about it.

01:00:17.840 | Yeah, yeah, because it takes time to load up

01:00:21.000 | the sort of relevant, the secondary

01:00:22.960 | and tertiary semantic ideas.

01:00:25.520 | And now they're there.

01:00:26.360 | It's like you can pull from them.

01:00:27.400 | And then as you shift, you have to sort of shift

01:00:29.120 | this whole thing around.

01:00:30.080 | That takes a lot of concentration.

01:00:31.640 | I mean, I wrote this article once

01:00:33.760 | that got me a little bit of trouble,

01:00:36.040 | not trouble, but mild trouble,

01:00:38.360 | but it was called "The Chronicle of Higher Education."

01:00:40.920 | And the title they gave it was,

01:00:42.680 | "Is Email Making Professors Stupid?"

01:00:44.920 | Which wasn't my title.

01:00:46.240 | - You basically called every one of your colleagues stupid.

01:00:48.520 | - I got it. - 'Cause we all check email.

01:00:49.600 | - The Dean at the time did call me in for lunch,

01:00:51.280 | but actually he was, here's the thing.

01:00:52.480 | He was like, "Hey, this is real, I agree with this."

01:00:55.400 | But what I was arguing actually in that article

01:00:58.000 | essentially was, what do we do at a university?

01:01:01.360 | 'Cause partially what we're supposed to be doing

01:01:04.080 | is trying to teach what the life of the mind is

01:01:06.400 | and how that works.

01:01:07.840 | And we've kind of forgotten that.

01:01:09.160 | So we think we should maybe think about,

01:01:10.960 | like at universities, we need to be explicitly

01:01:13.160 | not just teaching how to think,

01:01:15.880 | but also modeling the life of the mind at the highest level.

01:01:19.720 | And so this idea that we just allow the professesariat

01:01:22.440 | to be drowned in emails and tasks and be as distracted,

01:01:28.560 | that's the main war that every research professor has

01:01:31.600 | is how do I fight the admin overload

01:01:34.760 | until I become famous enough to get an assistant, right?

01:01:36.720 | Like this is the big problem.

01:01:37.920 | And I was making this proposal

01:01:39.160 | of universities should be these citadels of concentration.

01:01:42.040 | I said, if you wanna get the best academics in the world

01:01:44.520 | to your university, just tell them,

01:01:46.760 | here's at the top of our contract,

01:01:48.140 | you will not be assigned an email address.

01:01:50.000 | Like you're gonna get Nobel laureates

01:01:51.240 | coming from all over the country to come to this place.

01:01:53.720 | And so I was making this argument,

01:01:55.360 | we should think a lot more about thinking.

01:01:57.480 | We should talk more about it.

01:01:58.520 | We should model it exactly the type of things

01:02:00.280 | you're talking about, but we don't,

01:02:01.920 | it's much more contents focused,

01:02:03.240 | but really this should be something more

01:02:04.640 | that we get into specifically.

01:02:06.600 | Like this is how you actually use the mind

01:02:09.620 | to produce innovative, interesting,

01:02:12.280 | high value, new cognitive artifacts.

01:02:14.240 | This is a very hard thing we're asking you to do,

01:02:16.960 | but you can apprentice here because this is what we do

01:02:19.240 | and we've mastered, we're gonna teach you how to do it,

01:02:21.600 | but we never have that sort of meta conversation,

01:02:24.280 | a sort of metacognition conversation.

01:02:25.840 | I've always thought that'd be important.

01:02:27.000 | I think you'd have much better outcomes

01:02:28.440 | if that's part of what you learned at the university

01:02:30.720 | was how to take the thing in your head

01:02:32.800 | and really put it to work,

01:02:34.640 | really extract out of it as capabilities.

01:02:37.440 | - Or even high school or even elementary school level.

01:02:40.000 | - I agree.

01:02:41.200 | - You have kids, do they have smartphones?

01:02:44.260 | - No.

01:02:45.100 | - How do they feel about that?

01:02:47.360 | - Well, I mean, they're not old enough yet

01:02:50.460 | that it's a real problem,

01:02:53.060 | but they're not gonna be happy with me probably soon.

01:02:56.840 | - Hate me now, love me later, as my mother used to say.

01:02:59.000 | - Basically, because I'm convinced

01:03:01.840 | having spent some time thinking about this,

01:03:03.880 | writing about this, doing some journalism on this,

01:03:05.880 | talking to a lot of the experts

01:03:06.980 | that like I think where we're gonna end up

01:03:09.320 | where all the arrows from the relevant social psych research

01:03:12.600 | which I've been following this research since 2017.

01:03:16.560 | This is 2017 is roughly

01:03:18.920 | when you see the first warning signs going up

01:03:20.920 | that we need to worry about

01:03:22.800 | the potential mental health impacts of these tools,

01:03:25.600 | especially social media and smartphones on young people.

01:03:28.020 | And you can track this, right?

01:03:30.200 | I have a talk I actually gave at my kids' school,

01:03:32.200 | they're not happy about this,

01:03:33.400 | where I tracked how this research evolved

01:03:35.480 | and like any literatures, it's contentious at first

01:03:38.320 | and then you begin to see a consilience

01:03:42.560 | between different lines of evidence.

01:03:44.080 | And I think where everything now

01:03:45.600 | in the last couple of years is starting to come together,

01:03:47.840 | this idea of we don't really know if this is bad or not,

01:03:50.160 | I think that's just an old take,

01:03:51.320 | the research has moved past that.

01:03:52.640 | And I think where we're landing on

01:03:55.120 | is unrestricted internet use pre-puberty is risky.

01:03:59.920 | And like the new standard is gonna be

01:04:02.320 | post-puberty is probably the right time

01:04:04.200 | to be given a device that gives you unrestricted access.

01:04:06.640 | We're talking like 16 is probably the appropriate age.

01:04:09.760 | So this does not make me popular at the middle school

01:04:13.360 | where my oldest son's about to go.

01:04:15.720 | I think in two or three years

01:04:16.800 | that's just gonna be common sense.

01:04:18.760 | This is the direction I see the research literature

01:04:21.120 | and the advocacy going.

01:04:22.440 | And I think there's a solid ground for this.

01:04:25.440 | - Because you're a computer scientist,

01:04:26.880 | I can ask this question.

01:04:27.960 | What about video games?

01:04:29.360 | I'm not a big consumer of video games.

01:04:31.200 | It's been years since I've played one, in fact.

01:04:34.240 | But video games are so very different

01:04:36.040 | than smartphones and other technologies

01:04:39.100 | because they seem to put,

01:04:41.480 | at least the kids I've observed playing them,

01:04:43.200 | and adults, into a very narrow trench of attention.

01:04:47.880 | - Yeah, I mean, there are definitely issues with it.

01:04:50.520 | I mean, look, I'm not a social psychologist.

01:04:52.320 | I just sort of play one in my articles,

01:04:54.120 | but I've looked into this literature a lot.

01:04:58.000 | There's a bit of a gendered breakdown

01:05:01.400 | that has a lot of overlaps,

01:05:02.680 | where when they're looking at potential harms

01:05:05.000 | of these technologies, young adolescents, right,

01:05:07.820 | pre-adolescent, young adolescents,

01:05:09.620 | you tend to see social media to be more a signal

01:05:12.160 | for cognitive distress for young women and girls,

01:05:16.120 | and the video games to actually be the bigger culprit

01:05:19.360 | for young men and boys, right?

01:05:22.260 | There is a bit of a difference here

01:05:23.640 | because with the social media impact,

01:05:26.120 | the content of what's happening matters in this picture,

01:05:28.920 | right, so what I'm seeing, the engagement I'm having,

01:05:32.340 | how this impacts my social life,

01:05:33.640 | this is part of the mental distress.

01:05:34.920 | With video games, it seems to be more an impact

01:05:38.180 | of just disharmonious passion and obsession,

01:05:40.560 | just the time it takes, right,

01:05:42.000 | because the games can be incredibly addictive.

01:05:44.240 | So the problem that young men are having

01:05:45.920 | are just they're playing it all the time,

01:05:47.840 | that I'm staying up late

01:05:49.160 | because I have an iPad in my room and I'm 14,

01:05:52.100 | and I'm gonna play "Fortnite" until three in the morning

01:05:54.380 | because my brain cannot handle

01:05:56.300 | like what you're giving me here, right?

01:05:58.560 | So it's less of a content concern

01:06:01.360 | than it is just a time concern, right?

01:06:03.540 | That seems more solvable to me, you know,

01:06:05.780 | like my solution with my own kids,

01:06:07.060 | I don't mind video games, I'm a computer scientist,

01:06:08.660 | but I said nothing that's online, right,

01:06:11.060 | nothing that was free, 'cause if it was free,

01:06:14.360 | that means their business model

01:06:16.380 | involves getting you to play it all the time

01:06:17.780 | so you can upcharge or whatever.

01:06:19.420 | They have Nintendo Switches.

01:06:20.580 | Like I like Nintendo, okay, Nintendo Switch,

01:06:22.860 | here's a $60 Zelda game

01:06:24.460 | that someone spent five years making or whatever.

01:06:26.840 | You can only play those games so long at a time

01:06:28.740 | before, you know, you're tired, you come back to it.

01:06:31.300 | They don't have an addictive response to it.

01:06:32.780 | If they get an iPad with a game on it,

01:06:35.220 | they'll just like play that 'til their eyes bleed

01:06:36.940 | because those are meant to be addictive.

01:06:39.380 | So I'm wary about video games,

01:06:40.980 | but there it's all just a usage game.

01:06:42.660 | So you stick away from the more addictive games.

01:06:44.660 | It's a much easier problem to solve, I think,

01:06:47.140 | than the social media issue.

01:06:50.340 | - Earlier, you talked about books.

01:06:52.080 | I still read hardcover and paperback books.

01:06:56.300 | What are your thoughts on audio books

01:06:59.100 | and learning by way of audio book

01:07:02.740 | versus paper in front of you,

01:07:04.540 | flipping a physical device or Kindles?

01:07:06.820 | I don't know if there's any real research on this.

01:07:08.840 | I've seen a little bit,

01:07:09.700 | but I'm curious what you've encountered

01:07:11.180 | and what your thoughts are as well.

01:07:12.420 | You could speculate.

01:07:13.420 | - Yeah, I mean, I'll tell you personally,

01:07:15.020 | I can only do fiction and audio books, right?

01:07:17.540 | 'Cause when I'm in a nonfiction experience,

01:07:18.940 | I'm just very used to constantly looking

01:07:21.500 | for connections and ideas.

01:07:23.340 | And so I have to be able to slow down and then speed up

01:07:26.900 | and then go back to something I just read.

01:07:29.180 | So I really have a distressing experience

01:07:31.320 | trying to listen to nonfiction audio books.

01:07:33.580 | Fiction's fine.

01:07:34.900 | That's great.

01:07:35.740 | Let me put a thriller on an Audible.

01:07:37.440 | Great, I'll listen to it.

01:07:38.980 | And I think some of this might be particular

01:07:40.620 | to my engagement with books,

01:07:42.700 | which is I'm a writer and a thinker,

01:07:44.500 | so I'm constantly looking for ideas.

01:07:45.940 | And so I might have a different engagement

01:07:48.460 | with a nonfiction book than someone

01:07:50.260 | just listening to one of my books,

01:07:51.900 | but I can only do fiction on audio.

01:07:53.940 | - That makes sense.

01:07:54.780 | Thinking about what works for me, what doesn't, I agree.

01:07:58.060 | I love stories and fiction by audio book,

01:08:01.800 | ideally consumed on a long drive or a hike,

01:08:06.780 | but nonfiction requires that I take notes

01:08:09.380 | and see things in their kind of respective spatial layout.

01:08:14.380 | And yeah.

01:08:16.260 | In your most recent book,

01:08:17.700 | you describe this concept of pseudo productivity.

01:08:22.260 | Is pseudo productivity a general term

01:08:24.420 | to refer to some of the things we've already talked about,

01:08:27.540 | this task switching, context switching,

01:08:30.140 | or is pseudo productivity something

01:08:31.660 | that includes other categories

01:08:34.180 | of limiting ourselves as well?

01:08:36.340 | - I mean, I think it's more specific than that, right?

01:08:38.300 | So to me, pseudo productivity was the answer

01:08:42.140 | that we came up with in knowledge work to a real dilemma,

01:08:46.020 | which is that's a sector using your brain

01:08:48.380 | primarily to create value.

01:08:49.300 | That's a sector that emerged as a major part of the economy

01:08:52.780 | in roughly the mid 20th century.

01:08:54.860 | When that emerged, all the definitions of productivity

01:08:58.020 | that we had were inspired from agriculture and industry.

01:09:02.100 | So in agriculture, we can have ratios,

01:09:05.140 | bushels of corn per whatever acres of land under cultivation

01:09:09.140 | and industrial manufacturing, we have ratios,

01:09:10.940 | modalities per input labor hour.

01:09:14.180 | So you could just measure these things.

01:09:16.100 | We also had clearly defined systems of production.

01:09:18.220 | So you could then say,

01:09:19.060 | if I change this about the system of production,

01:09:21.180 | what happens to this number?

01:09:22.580 | And you could do gradient descent, right?

01:09:24.020 | Okay, I do this, that number goes down.

01:09:25.980 | Let's not do that.

01:09:26.820 | If I make this change, it goes up.

01:09:27.740 | That's a better way of building it.

01:09:28.900 | Like this was the dominant way

01:09:30.500 | of thinking about productivity since basically Adam Smith.

01:09:33.380 | The knowledge work arises.

01:09:34.780 | That doesn't work, right?

01:09:36.460 | Because I'm working on whatever, five different things.

01:09:38.420 | It's different than what you were working on.

01:09:40.540 | How I'm managing my work is entirely obfuscated, right?

01:09:43.380 | In knowledge work, organizational ideas

01:09:45.980 | is entirely left up to the individual,

01:09:47.660 | how you manage your work

01:09:48.700 | and your workload and collaboration.

01:09:50.100 | That's like up to you.

01:09:50.940 | That's all obfuscated.

01:09:52.340 | So there's no number to measure.

01:09:53.940 | There's no system to improve.

01:09:55.340 | So I think it was a real quandary.

01:09:57.580 | My argument is what essentially

01:09:59.620 | the management class came up with is pseudo productivity,

01:10:02.020 | which is, okay, in the absence of being able

01:10:03.420 | to be quantitative about this,

01:10:05.100 | we will use visible activity as a proxy for useful effort.

01:10:09.460 | So that's it.

01:10:10.300 | Like we see you doing things that's better than not.

01:10:11.860 | The more we see you doing the better.

01:10:13.740 | I call that pseudo productivity.

01:10:15.180 | And I think that's implicitly how we've been organizing

01:10:18.540 | the management of knowledge, work, labor since the 1950s.

01:10:22.100 | - And when you say visibility at people doing things,

01:10:26.020 | this is the conflating of busyness with actual productivity.

01:10:29.820 | - Yes, and so the problem came

01:10:32.100 | when we had this general way of measuring,

01:10:34.460 | approximating productive effort,

01:10:36.340 | which wasn't very good, but whatever, right?

01:10:37.860 | I mean, I want to see you're at the office

01:10:39.660 | and you're doing things.

01:10:40.740 | The problem was the front office IT revolution, right?

01:10:43.900 | Because I'm essentially a technocritic.

01:10:45.660 | I see everything through the lens of technology

01:10:47.820 | in my writing.

01:10:49.180 | We got computers, we got networks, we got email.

01:10:51.940 | Pseudo productivity can't be sustainable in that context

01:10:55.180 | because now with something like email

01:10:56.620 | and then later tools like Slack,

01:10:59.420 | I can demonstrate effort at a very fine grain, right?

01:11:03.300 | Because I can send an email, respond to this,

01:11:04.980 | jump onto a Slack conversation.

01:11:06.180 | I can now do that at a very fine grain level

01:11:08.900 | and essentially everywhere and anywhere.

01:11:11.180 | All throughout my day, I can be demonstrating labor.

01:11:13.420 | At home, I can be demonstrating labor

01:11:14.780 | because we have mobile computing,

01:11:16.300 | we get the smartphone revolution.

01:11:18.620 | So there's now an ability to constantly be

01:11:22.380 | demonstrating effort at all points of our day.

01:11:25.460 | And that's where I think the wheels came off the bus, right?

01:11:28.060 | And led to this point that got worse and worse

01:11:30.620 | starting in the early 2000s

01:11:31.860 | and hit ahead in the pandemic of knowledge worker burnout,

01:11:34.940 | knowledge worker exhaustion and nihilism

01:11:36.740 | of like, what's going on with my job?

01:11:38.100 | Like, all I do is Zoom all day, what's happening?

01:11:40.260 | I think that pseudo productivity

01:11:41.500 | plus front office IT revolution,

01:11:44.340 | they did not play nice together.

01:11:45.940 | And you can see this by the way,

01:11:47.900 | if you look even at productivity books,

01:11:50.860 | you see this huge shift that happens

01:11:53.340 | early '90s versus early 2000s.

01:11:55.340 | It's like a completely shift in tone, right?

01:11:57.540 | Early '90s, it's Stephen Covey is very optimistic.

01:12:00.420 | It's like, how are we gonna self-actualize

01:12:02.180 | and like carefully choose the most meaningful activities

01:12:05.220 | to fulfill all of our dreams for all of our roles.

01:12:07.580 | Early 2000s, now we have email, you have David Allen.

01:12:10.980 | There's like, oh my God, we're so overwhelmed with tasks.

01:12:13.340 | All we can hope for is like these little moments

01:12:15.260 | of Zen in the day.

01:12:16.700 | If we can just automate

01:12:17.740 | how we're just churning through these widgets,

01:12:19.580 | at least we can find some cognitive piece.

01:12:21.940 | What happened in those 10 years

01:12:23.180 | was the front office IT revolution.

01:12:24.940 | And now we just felt like we had to constantly

01:12:27.180 | be demonstrating that visual effort.

01:12:29.980 | So, I think that's where we got into the problem,

01:12:31.860 | pseudo productivity plus technology.

01:12:33.660 | - Recently, my podcast team was in Australia

01:12:37.540 | and my producer and close friend here, Rob Moore,

01:12:42.540 | instructed all of us to get rid of social media

01:12:45.380 | on our phones, except one guy

01:12:46.940 | who would post our weekly episodes announcements.

01:12:50.120 | And it was pretty brutal at first.

01:12:53.620 | And then coming back to social media

01:12:55.420 | has actually turned out to be more challenging.

01:12:58.540 | You really experienced the friction

01:12:59.740 | coming back the other way.

01:13:01.420 | And then one experiences the lack of friction

01:13:04.260 | and that's where it gets scary.

01:13:05.300 | It's so interesting the way that the brain can adapt

01:13:08.940 | the friction, leaving something behind,

01:13:13.020 | the friction coming back to it.

01:13:14.580 | And I think for people listening to this,

01:13:17.540 | I raise this because I think,

01:13:19.900 | of course, many people listening are,

01:13:22.060 | have work that they really need to focus on.

01:13:24.580 | They may be having issues with productivity

01:13:27.020 | and burnout, et cetera.

01:13:28.420 | I think a lot of people use the phone and social media

01:13:30.780 | because it fills their life.

01:13:32.900 | It provides some enrichment

01:13:34.380 | and they aren't necessarily committed to specific projects.

01:13:37.140 | But I guess through the lens of the,

01:13:39.460 | let's just call it the Cal Newportian lens,

01:13:41.680 | one might argue that those people

01:13:44.180 | almost certainly have untapped creativity,

01:13:46.360 | untapped resources within them

01:13:48.820 | that they don't yet know about

01:13:51.720 | because they're essentially using that energy elsewhere.

01:13:55.380 | - Yeah, I mean, I think for a lot of people,

01:13:57.220 | it's papering over the void, right?

01:13:59.180 | You have this void in your life

01:14:01.180 | because there's unmet potential, unmet interest,

01:14:06.180 | living in misalignment with the things you care about,

01:14:08.820 | right?

01:14:09.660 | I mean, a lot of people,

01:14:10.480 | this is the classic sort of catastrophe of life, right?

01:14:13.220 | Social media, and there's,

01:14:14.140 | before this, it was other things, right?

01:14:15.700 | There was other intoxicants

01:14:17.700 | or other sorts of distractions.

01:14:18.760 | It's a way for some people

01:14:20.780 | of essentially putting a screen over that like gaping void.

01:14:24.580 | And it like just makes it bearable enough

01:14:27.260 | that you can kind of go on with life.

01:14:29.460 | And so it is true, if you just rip it out,

01:14:31.300 | you see the void.

01:14:32.740 | And that's really difficult, right?

01:14:33.980 | I mean, 'cause I did this experiment for one of my books.

01:14:37.180 | I ran an experiment with 1600 people

01:14:40.060 | and they all turned off all their social media for 30 days.

01:14:43.300 | - 30 days? - 30 days, right?

01:14:44.660 | - These are young people, old people?

01:14:46.060 | - A whole mix, a whole mix, right?

01:14:47.780 | - Not just university students.

01:14:48.940 | - I recruited them from my newsletter readership.

01:14:51.500 | So they weren't university students.

01:14:52.660 | And it wasn't formal research.

01:14:53.720 | It was, you know, I put out the call, right?

01:14:55.620 | So this is not randomly sampled, right?

01:14:57.140 | But I put out the call and I said,

01:14:58.100 | "Here, I'm gonna walk you through this."

01:15:00.100 | And then I got a lot of information back.

01:15:01.620 | So people reported back how it went.

01:15:03.820 | And this was like the number one thing I heard

01:15:06.360 | was it's really hard at first, right?

01:15:08.620 | And so who were the people that succeeded for 30 days

01:15:11.400 | versus those who didn't?

01:15:12.580 | The ones who didn't succeed

01:15:14.340 | tended to just try to white knuckle it.

01:15:16.460 | Just be like, "I don't like how much I'm using social media.

01:15:18.940 | "I'm just gonna stop because it's bad

01:15:20.560 | "and I don't wanna do a bad thing.

01:15:21.520 | "I'm just gonna like, you know,

01:15:22.620 | "hold on the table with white knuckles."

01:15:24.260 | They wouldn't make it 30 days.

01:15:25.820 | The people who did succeed followed my advice

01:15:28.580 | to incredibly aggressively pursue alternatives

01:15:32.100 | in those 30 days.

01:15:33.020 | So it's like, go learn new hobbies,

01:15:34.660 | join things right away,

01:15:35.660 | get like really structured about your day,

01:15:38.160 | get into exercise again, learn how to knit again.

01:15:40.540 | A lot of people said, "Oh, I learned about,

01:15:42.780 | "I forgot how fun libraries were."

01:15:44.820 | Like, you can go into this building

01:15:46.020 | and like all the books are free

01:15:47.220 | and you could just grab whatever

01:15:48.900 | and it's okay if you don't like the book

01:15:50.220 | because you didn't have to pay for it.

01:15:52.020 | I'm going out with friends again.

01:15:54.020 | Okay, every week I'm gonna have, you know,

01:15:56.180 | we're gonna have drinks with this person

01:15:57.780 | and every Thursday morning,

01:15:59.060 | I'm gonna go running with this person.

01:16:00.700 | The people who aggressively tried to put in place

01:16:03.180 | a more positive alternative

01:16:05.500 | through self-reflection experimentation,

01:16:06.780 | they lasted to 30 days and beyond, right?

01:16:09.360 | And so then I came to realize like,

01:16:10.660 | "Oh, I see what's happening here

01:16:11.900 | "is you have these unmet needs."

01:16:14.180 | These tools can give you sort of a simulacrum

01:16:17.180 | of meeting them.

01:16:18.020 | I need, I'm a social being,

01:16:19.220 | I need to be connected to people.

01:16:20.420 | Well, I'm texting and like doing comments on social media.

01:16:23.980 | It sort of touches that a little bit,

01:16:26.100 | just enough that you don't feel hopelessly lonely,

01:16:28.000 | but it's not really fulfilling that.

01:16:29.820 | I have a need to like see my intentions

01:16:31.900 | made manifest concretely in the world.

01:16:33.420 | Humans wanna do this.

01:16:34.560 | Well, I'm, you know,

01:16:35.580 | posting these things and people are responding.

01:16:37.700 | It's sort of this simulacrum of real creation.

01:16:40.540 | So it's like kind of satisfying that just enough

01:16:43.300 | that it's not just intolerable, right?

01:16:46.020 | And so what happens is if you remove that,

01:16:48.300 | you have to actually fill those things the right way.

01:16:50.500 | So now I'm not socializing on social media,

01:16:53.100 | but I'm going out of my way to sacrifice time and attention

01:16:55.540 | on behalf of other people.

01:16:56.940 | I'm feeling the social void in the right way.

01:16:59.240 | Now I don't really feel like I need to go back.

01:17:01.260 | I'm actually build, making my intentions manifest.

01:17:04.620 | I'm learning skills and building things.

01:17:06.140 | Now the sort of pseudo construction

01:17:08.580 | and the collective attention economy of social media,

01:17:10.740 | I'll post this and you'll like it, I'll like this.

01:17:13.680 | I don't need that anymore to fill that void.

01:17:15.580 | So it's like, you have to fill the void first.

01:17:18.540 | So, you know, five years ago,

01:17:19.880 | I wrote a book that was about

01:17:21.780 | reforming this part of your life.

01:17:23.660 | And a lot of the book had nothing to do with technology,

01:17:26.460 | but about how to actually just rebuild parts of your life.

01:17:30.340 | And on my podcast,

01:17:31.740 | honestly like one of the big topics we talk about,

01:17:33.660 | which is crazy that I'm a technologist

01:17:35.440 | and I write about trying to find focus

01:17:37.780 | in a distracted world,

01:17:38.980 | is this thing we call the deep life,

01:17:40.980 | which is just straight up building a meaningful life 101.

01:17:44.940 | And it's like crazy that my podcast is talking about it.

01:17:47.500 | But on the other hand, it's not

01:17:48.540 | because mine's the podcast people go to

01:17:50.160 | and they're fed up with the digital world.

01:17:51.560 | And it turns out if you don't get the analog world

01:17:54.820 | working right for you,

01:17:56.420 | you need something to avoid staring into that void.

01:17:58.820 | And the digital world will do that well enough.

01:18:00.820 | It's like just good enough to keep life tolerable.

01:18:03.320 | - There's a lot of discussion nowadays about ADHD,

01:18:07.260 | attention deficit hyperactivity disorder,

01:18:09.220 | sometimes minus the H, minus the hyperactivity.

01:18:12.560 | A lot of kids have true clinically diagnosed ADHD.

01:18:18.000 | So we want to be sensitive to that.

01:18:20.620 | It's a real issue for a lot of people.

01:18:22.100 | A lot of adults have true ADHD,

01:18:24.900 | but nowadays people talk about ADHD the same way

01:18:27.460 | terms like depression, trauma, gaslighting,

01:18:31.340 | and et cetera are discussed in non-clinical territory.

01:18:35.660 | - OCD, people use non-clinically as well.

01:18:38.060 | - Right, right.

01:18:38.900 | And I'm not disparaging that,

01:18:40.800 | it's just that we have sort of a dilution

01:18:42.700 | of deeper understanding

01:18:43.780 | of what these things really are and aren't.

01:18:47.100 | What are your thoughts?

01:18:48.440 | I realize you're not a psychiatrist,

01:18:49.680 | but what are your thoughts on the idea

01:18:51.680 | that many people that think

01:18:55.760 | they perhaps have true attention issues

01:18:58.160 | have either built those attention issues

01:19:00.840 | through neuroplasticity into their system,

01:19:04.960 | meaning their system probably worked,

01:19:07.240 | nervous system probably worked pretty well to focus,

01:19:09.120 | but they engaged in enough task switching

01:19:10.880 | that the circuits of the brain involved in cognition

01:19:13.360 | became optimized for this very distributed cognition

01:19:18.280 | as opposed to narrow focused attention.

01:19:21.220 | And what are your thoughts

01:19:22.180 | about the amount of stimulant use on college campuses

01:19:27.020 | and in adult populations to try and overcome this?

01:19:30.300 | I feel like there's a lot of attempts to use pharmacology

01:19:33.740 | to match the level of distraction,

01:19:35.780 | to try and make the distraction not seem like distraction,

01:19:39.100 | but this is an area I hear a lot about

01:19:42.820 | given the nature of the things I cover on the podcast.

01:19:44.800 | I think a lot of these issues are phone induced, right?

01:19:47.680 | And I think the problem is not solvable as much.

01:19:50.240 | You don't need pills,

01:19:51.080 | you need a different phone relationship.

01:19:53.840 | My optimistic hypothesis is again,

01:19:57.240 | this non-clinical difficulty with maintaining attention,

01:20:02.240 | like in your work or if you're a college student or whatever

01:20:05.560 | is not necessarily representing sort of knock on wood,

01:20:08.040 | like a wholesale neural rewiring.

01:20:09.620 | Like I basically rewired my circuits on my brain

01:20:12.560 | to be a sort of distributed switching processor.

01:20:15.040 | I think most of this is persisting

01:20:17.760 | in that much more malleable area

01:20:19.160 | that gets affected by moderate behavioral addictions, right?

01:20:21.640 | So we have parts of the brain

01:20:23.840 | that are part of these like feedback reward loops

01:20:25.760 | that's meant to be malleable, right?

01:20:28.500 | I mean, this is supposed to be

01:20:29.900 | so we can have really rapid learning

01:20:32.160 | about what's happening in our environment

01:20:33.760 | and how we're supposed to respond to it.

01:20:35.120 | And then this is what gets hijacked

01:20:37.000 | when you build up these behavioral addictions.

01:20:38.960 | And so it's very quick to change,

01:20:41.320 | but that malleability means you can change it back, right?

01:20:44.120 | So I think this drive to I have to keep checking my email

01:20:47.360 | or my phone is again,

01:20:48.360 | you build up a moderate behavioral addiction

01:20:50.040 | because of like standard reward cues.

01:20:53.560 | And that's a part of the brain that you can't,

01:20:55.520 | it's difficult, but it's not your whole brain

01:20:58.080 | is now a social media brain.

01:21:00.520 | And that's just the brain you have

01:21:01.720 | because you're exposed to this.

01:21:03.240 | It's a matter of getting the stimuli out of your life,

01:21:06.080 | doing the same type of training you would do,

01:21:09.160 | boredom exposure, like get used to the idea

01:21:11.880 | of feeling that drive and not actually doing it.

01:21:14.420 | You can work with blocking apps,

01:21:15.720 | like there's stuff you can do.

01:21:16.560 | This is sort of like standard, it's painful,

01:21:18.760 | it takes two months and then like you're doing better on it.

01:21:21.280 | So I do think we have a large stratum

01:21:24.080 | of subclinical attention issues

01:21:27.920 | that are not representing wholesale neural rewirings,

01:21:31.400 | but are like absolutely sort of expected outcomes

01:21:34.080 | of working with malleable reward cue circuits in the brain.

01:21:37.520 | We can fix those just like we can,

01:21:39.640 | if you're gambling too much

01:21:42.960 | or compulsively eating the junk food or something.

01:21:45.300 | We don't say your whole brain got rewired for junk food.

01:21:48.440 | It's like, no, you have this particular cue cycle

01:21:50.720 | that we have to work on.

01:21:51.560 | So maybe I'm being optimistic there.

01:21:53.120 | I mean, you know the brain better,

01:21:54.200 | but like it would be extraordinary

01:21:57.240 | if in like a 10 year period, right,

01:21:58.840 | your entire brain somehow got rewired in a way

01:22:03.000 | that it couldn't sustain focus anymore.

01:22:05.600 | - I totally agree with that statement,

01:22:07.640 | unless you're a young person

01:22:10.000 | and you grew up in a distracted world

01:22:11.900 | and your brain optimized as the young brain does

01:22:15.640 | for the conditions it's in.

01:22:17.120 | And then I think you have a real issue,

01:22:19.120 | which is not to say it can't be rescued

01:22:21.040 | through the use of discipline, tools, protocols,

01:22:24.760 | pharmacology, nutrition, great sleep,

01:22:27.160 | and if necessary, prescription drugs, right?

01:22:30.040 | Because there is a case for prescription drugs

01:22:31.760 | in certain instances for ADHD.

01:22:34.160 | And as I understand it, anytime people say,

01:22:37.720 | wait, aren't those drugs just meth?

01:22:39.740 | Isn't it just speed?

01:22:40.580 | Yep, they are amphetamines in most cases.

01:22:42.520 | And the idea is to increase the deployment

01:22:45.160 | of certain neuromodulators, the ones I mentioned before,

01:22:48.320 | as a means to induce neuroplasticity

01:22:51.800 | so that the focus state becomes more of a default state.

01:22:54.640 | So I think that young people are in trouble.

01:22:57.640 | I think that we- - I do worry about young people.

01:22:59.160 | - I think it's akin to putting them

01:23:02.320 | in a kind of a, well, we know this in the visual system.

01:23:05.460 | If you take an animal or human

01:23:07.000 | and you put them into an altered visual environment,

01:23:10.120 | the visual system changes

01:23:11.200 | and your perception of the visual world becomes inaccurate.

01:23:14.320 | And the way I think of this cognitively

01:23:16.680 | with respect to attention, the analogy would be,

01:23:19.960 | I think we've been, for the last 10 years or so,

01:23:22.800 | 10, 15 years, we've been raising kids

01:23:25.040 | in a sort of house of funhouse mirror things,

01:23:29.840 | which is anything but fun, where you look at yourself

01:23:31.760 | and your legs are shorter than your torso is long.

01:23:33.960 | And so everywhere you turn,

01:23:35.120 | you're getting a distorted perception

01:23:36.920 | and trying to navigate the world

01:23:38.840 | through that distorted perception is very, very difficult.

01:23:42.640 | You can do it, but it's a lot of extra work.

01:23:45.360 | That's what I feel we've done to young people.

01:23:47.400 | - I'm very concerned about that as well.

01:23:49.120 | Yeah, yeah.

01:23:49.960 | And I think, I don't know what your take on this,

01:23:51.600 | but like, do you think at the undergraduate level

01:23:55.280 | that we have just been, not explicitly,

01:23:58.080 | but just sort of implicitly, professors in general,

01:24:01.700 | we have been just sort of slowly adapting

01:24:05.360 | the difficulty of what we're teaching, et cetera,

01:24:08.360 | because maybe there's a reduced cognitive focus capacity,

01:24:11.720 | which is like the key skill

01:24:13.080 | for this sort of very artificial thing of learning,

01:24:15.560 | complicated college level work.

01:24:17.240 | I think this would be an interesting experiment to find out

01:24:19.600 | is have we been implicitly having to sort of simplify things

01:24:23.000 | to keep, roughly speaking, grade distributions

01:24:25.380 | where normatively we feel comfortable?

01:24:27.520 | I mean, do we see the signal yet?

01:24:28.980 | That's my interest.

01:24:29.820 | Do we see the signal yet?

01:24:30.800 | If we look back a generation 20 years ago versus now.

01:24:34.320 | - I don't know.

01:24:35.160 | For courses of the sort that I teach

01:24:37.940 | or taught until very recently, I still teach,

01:24:40.180 | but I was directing the neuroanatomy course

01:24:41.800 | and there's a laboratory module.

01:24:43.480 | So the students dissect brains,

01:24:45.040 | they're holding actual human brains.

01:24:46.840 | That's a real physical contact

01:24:50.180 | that cannot be recapitulated digitally.

01:24:53.200 | You just can't do it.

01:24:54.560 | You can try, use VR, but it ain't the same.

01:24:58.080 | I mean, how would you like it

01:24:59.080 | if you're a neurosurgeon learned on a virtual brain

01:25:01.920 | and then does surgery on a real brain?

01:25:03.680 | No, no such thing should happen.

01:25:07.540 | I think that my experience with this

01:25:10.320 | is perhaps most relevant with respect to social media

01:25:15.320 | where I teach neuroscience.

01:25:18.200 | And I use a variety of duration of clips,

01:25:21.040 | the 90 second reel, the seven minute thing,

01:25:25.080 | the two and a half hour podcast.

01:25:27.640 | We have podcast, solo podcast at a four and a half hours.

01:25:30.560 | I don't know how many people listen start to finish,

01:25:32.520 | but I think having a variety of different durations

01:25:35.040 | really helps.

01:25:35.880 | And I'm told by my team, I have a TikTok account,

01:25:39.280 | although I've never logged on there.

01:25:41.720 | You know, I think TikTok represents the extreme

01:25:44.560 | of kind of bubble gum level information/entertainment.

01:25:49.560 | And they really nailed some circuit

01:25:53.500 | that can handle information of about 30 to 60 seconds

01:25:57.480 | in a format that tickles the brain just right

01:26:00.480 | to keep swiping, liking, commenting, and sharing.

01:26:03.780 | And I don't think that's anything

01:26:06.920 | like a real understanding or education.

01:26:09.280 | Yeah, I mean, it's nothing like a real understanding

01:26:11.640 | or education.

01:26:12.480 | - Yeah, I mean, TikTok in particular,

01:26:14.760 | like I think something what people get wrong about TikTok

01:26:17.120 | is they think that there was a real algorithmic innovation,

01:26:21.920 | which is actually not the case.

01:26:23.080 | Like as far as I understand the machine learning algorithm

01:26:26.240 | underneath TikTok is probably like a relatively standard

01:26:29.600 | sort of multi-arm bandit, you know,

01:26:31.960 | intermittent feedback reinforcements algorithm.

01:26:34.080 | All they did is they cleared out all the other noise.

01:26:36.260 | So, you know, if you're Facebook or something like this,

01:26:38.740 | you're trying to use algorithms to curate things,

01:26:40.840 | but you have all of these other legacy structures

01:26:43.380 | you also have to try to satisfy.

01:26:45.440 | There's friends and, you know, you wanna show stuff

01:26:47.720 | that your friends like more than other people,

01:26:49.720 | and there's groups you're joining.

01:26:51.160 | TikTok just got rid of all the noise.

01:26:53.280 | And so we're just gonna, all we're doing is optimizing

01:26:56.200 | watch time to, we think, we don't know,

01:26:58.400 | but we think watch time is the main thing

01:26:59.840 | that they're optimizing.

01:27:01.640 | So we'll optimize it, watch time.

01:27:03.480 | And everything, all these videos all just exist

01:27:05.800 | as multi-dimensional points in this sort of semantic cloud.

01:27:08.320 | And all we're doing is just showing you things.

01:27:10.640 | And then you swipe another thing, swipe another thing.

01:27:12.440 | So when you get rid of all the noise

01:27:13.600 | from a machine learning algorithm,

01:27:14.640 | it doesn't also have to satisfy

01:27:16.320 | that I follow this person on Instagram,

01:27:18.280 | or this is my friend.

01:27:19.440 | All I have to do is optimize this one number.

01:27:21.720 | How long did they watch before they swiped?

01:27:23.440 | It just turns out like, oh, it's really easy.

01:27:25.540 | Like you do that for a couple hours,

01:27:27.940 | you're gonna hone in on these sub regions

01:27:30.080 | in this massive multi-dimensional space

01:27:31.640 | of stuff that just tickles this particular person's brain.

01:27:34.080 | You know, and it's very cybernetic

01:27:35.340 | because now I'm the user of TikTok,

01:27:36.760 | I'm the content creator.

01:27:38.080 | I'm getting immediate feedback, what's working, what's not.

01:27:40.400 | I really quickly find these particularly rich regions

01:27:43.020 | in this sort of cybernetic space.

01:27:44.800 | And so it's like TikTok just purified something

01:27:47.280 | that was simple, basic machine learning,

01:27:49.880 | but just like purify what we're doing here.

01:27:51.960 | And that turned out to be enough to create

01:27:53.560 | what's like probably the most addictive force

01:27:55.820 | we've seen in the digital world in a long time.

01:27:58.140 | - So TikTok is optimized for dwell time.

01:28:00.900 | - Yeah, that's the thought, right?

01:28:02.540 | Because it's not public.

01:28:03.520 | So like we don't exactly know how the algorithm works,

01:28:05.940 | but people have been studying it like a Skinner box,

01:28:08.460 | you know, a hundred phones.

01:28:09.860 | And we look at all these accounts, look at the variables.

01:28:12.280 | It seems like that's largely what it's optimizing for

01:28:15.540 | is how long did you watch before you swiped, right?

01:28:20.300 | And that's it.

01:28:21.140 | I mean, it's not, this was both what was smart about TikTok

01:28:24.660 | and also why I've been arguing it's destabilized

01:28:27.180 | the whole traditional social media narrative

01:28:29.780 | is because the traditional massive social media players

01:28:32.740 | of the last decade had this first mover advantage

01:28:36.100 | on these giant actual social networks, right?

01:28:39.460 | So like Twitter and Facebook and Instagram

01:28:41.940 | had these massive networks of people's preferences

01:28:46.860 | of I'm following this person and this person I'm following

01:28:49.780 | and they could leverage these actual social graphs

01:28:53.420 | as a huge source of producing interesting content, right?

01:28:56.660 | And this was a huge first mover advantage

01:28:58.260 | because you can't, it's hard to get a hundred million people

01:29:01.240 | to use something now, right?

01:29:02.780 | TikTok got rid of all of that.

01:29:03.900 | We don't want a social graph.

01:29:04.980 | You as a user don't have to declare anything.

01:29:06.980 | You don't have to follow people

01:29:08.480 | or say who your friends are.

01:29:09.880 | We'll just start showing you things.

01:29:11.420 | And that was more compelling

01:29:13.300 | than what you could generate with a social graph.

01:29:15.100 | But now there's no first mover advantage.

01:29:17.760 | So as the big social media players follow the TikTok model

01:29:21.260 | which is much more algorithmic,

01:29:22.420 | let's just try to curate based on algorithms,

01:29:24.440 | not who you follow or who your friends are,

01:29:26.460 | they're now much more vulnerable

01:29:28.300 | because TikTok could come along and do this

01:29:29.860 | without having to spend five years

01:29:31.220 | getting people to declare their friends.

01:29:32.500 | And now if someone else could come along and do this.

01:29:34.260 | So I think the major players are giving away

01:29:36.660 | their competitive advantage,

01:29:38.060 | which is this social graph IP

01:29:39.980 | that no one will ever replicate again.

01:29:41.860 | They're giving away that advantage.

01:29:43.340 | And now it's a free for all playing field

01:29:44.900 | of all sources of attention and engagement.

01:29:46.620 | So I don't know, I think TikTok accidentally destabilized

01:29:50.880 | the social media decade that had been defining

01:29:53.200 | until I think just recently.

01:29:55.180 | - What I find so interesting about social media platforms

01:29:57.560 | like TikTok is that sure,

01:30:00.040 | it makes sense that kids and teens would use it.

01:30:03.320 | They were raised with it, Snapchat, et cetera.

01:30:06.000 | But when I see my peers who, you know,

01:30:08.560 | we call ourselves adults,

01:30:10.600 | people in their mid to late forties, fifties,

01:30:14.360 | essentially like playing kids' games

01:30:17.980 | or engaging through these platforms that are,

01:30:20.580 | and they're not childlike necessarily,

01:30:22.580 | but they just prove that the,

01:30:25.520 | or rather that their adherence/addiction to them

01:30:28.740 | just proves that this is tapping

01:30:30.180 | into some core neural circuit that exists in everyone.

01:30:33.500 | So while it might be shaping the young brain a lot,

01:30:36.460 | this is adults basically eating junk food all day,

01:30:39.500 | which raises a question, you know,

01:30:41.140 | I think while there are many different ways to eat

01:30:44.060 | and that's not a topic we want to get into now,

01:30:46.780 | Lord knows that's a great way to create

01:30:49.100 | a lot of social media content,

01:30:50.680 | debating which diet,

01:30:51.800 | omnivore, carnivore, vegan, et cetera.

01:30:54.300 | The notion of intermittent fasting,

01:30:56.040 | limiting one's portion of the day where they eat

01:31:00.040 | to whatever, six hours, four hours, 12 hours,

01:31:02.360 | is an interesting one

01:31:05.040 | that maybe has some applicability here.

01:31:08.080 | What are your thoughts about

01:31:10.120 | simply not turning on the phone,

01:31:12.700 | maybe even not turning wifi on

01:31:14.360 | if people are not as disciplined as you are

01:31:16.400 | with the laptop or tablet

01:31:18.520 | for the first two hours of the day

01:31:20.800 | or four hours of the day,

01:31:21.960 | or for a portion of the day,

01:31:23.560 | sort of like you're taking a social media fast

01:31:27.440 | that isn't 30 days.

01:31:28.760 | It's, you know, which I think for a lot of people

01:31:30.400 | is going to evoke high cortisol release,

01:31:33.680 | just the idea of it.

01:31:34.840 | - Yeah, you know, this is an idea I've written about before.

01:31:37.760 | You know, in "Deep Work,"

01:31:38.600 | I had this chapter called "Embrace Boredom."

01:31:41.020 | That was the entire idea, right?

01:31:42.720 | So the idea was boredom by itself

01:31:45.420 | is not, I think, laudable, right?

01:31:47.880 | There's a reason why it feels distressing.

01:31:49.560 | When things feel distressing,

01:31:50.480 | that's usually an evolutionary signal

01:31:51.920 | that there's something going on here.

01:31:53.640 | But what I was arguing in that chapter

01:31:55.120 | was exactly what you're talking about.

01:31:56.880 | You should have some moments every day

01:31:59.680 | where you're free from distraction

01:32:02.600 | even though you could be accessing distraction

01:32:04.720 | and you want to.

01:32:05.840 | And like a little bit each day, 20 minutes each day,

01:32:07.800 | and then maybe a longer session once a week,

01:32:09.680 | like a couple hours.

01:32:11.260 | My argument for that was

01:32:12.780 | it's about breaking a Pavlovian connection in this sense,

01:32:15.500 | right?

01:32:16.340 | So if it's every time I feel bored,

01:32:18.380 | I'm lacking novel stimuli,

01:32:19.860 | I get this release of the phone.

01:32:22.180 | Your mind is really gonna make that association

01:32:24.100 | of like, this is what we always do.

01:32:26.020 | If sometimes you don't,

01:32:28.520 | it's a different cognitive landscape, right?

01:32:30.020 | Your mind is, sometimes we get the distraction,

01:32:32.620 | sometimes we don't.

01:32:34.120 | That's a much better place to be

01:32:35.500 | because now when it comes time

01:32:36.600 | to actually focus on something,

01:32:38.160 | your mind's like, I've been here before,

01:32:39.840 | like we don't always get the distraction.

01:32:42.160 | So this is going back early 20th century psychology,

01:32:45.240 | there's probably a more neuroscientific way

01:32:46.720 | to think about this,

01:32:47.560 | but it's like breaking Pavlovian loops.

01:32:49.120 | If like sometimes at the end of the day I'm exhausted,

01:32:52.320 | it's Instagram time and it like scratches an itch.

01:32:54.400 | But other times I'm bored,

01:32:56.160 | I'm in line at the pharmacy and I don't look at the phone.

01:32:58.960 | My brain learns like, yeah, we don't always do it.

01:33:01.340 | And so the idea is that

01:33:02.440 | if you make boredom more tolerable,

01:33:04.840 | then you're much more likely to succeed

01:33:06.720 | with doing things that are boring, but hard.

01:33:08.300 | And I think deep work, for example,

01:33:09.500 | is boring just in the clinical sense

01:33:11.540 | of there's lack of novel stimuli.

01:33:13.260 | You're just doing the same thing for a long time.

01:33:15.460 | So I've always advocated for that,

01:33:16.940 | is like, you shouldn't be super uncomfortable with boredom.

01:33:20.540 | Like don't go seeking it, I'm not a big believer of,

01:33:22.580 | and boredom is where all creative insight comes from.

01:33:26.140 | I think it's a strong evolutionary cue,

01:33:27.580 | like leave this state,

01:33:29.640 | but you do have to have some tolerance for it.

01:33:32.740 | - I wonder if we need a different word than boredom.

01:33:36.480 | Are you familiar with this notion

01:33:37.660 | of gap effects in learning?

01:33:39.100 | These gap effects are similar to the effects

01:33:41.980 | of neural processing during sleep.

01:33:45.240 | Focused attention with some agitation

01:33:46.860 | triggers neuroplasticity in learning,

01:33:48.760 | but it's during sleep in particular, deep sleep,

01:33:50.880 | rapid eye movement, sleep, states of depressed,

01:33:52.860 | maybe in some forms of meditation,

01:33:55.140 | that the actual rewiring takes place.

01:33:56.620 | And then there's this literature about gap effects,

01:33:58.360 | which have been demonstrated for music, for math,

01:34:00.080 | for many things in which if people say

01:34:02.520 | are practicing new scales on the piano, for instance,

01:34:05.340 | but it could be any scale.

01:34:06.460 | And then they intermittently are cued by a buzzer

01:34:11.220 | to just stop and do nothing.

01:34:12.540 | The hippocampus, which is involved in learning memory,

01:34:15.100 | replays the action, sometimes in reverse,

01:34:17.260 | just as it occurs during sleep,

01:34:18.860 | at a rate of maybe 20 or 30 times faster at the neural level.

01:34:23.080 | We're not talking about boredom.

01:34:25.340 | What we're talking about is pauses during which perhaps

01:34:28.260 | we are obtaining accelerated neuroplasticity.

01:34:32.660 | The gap effects certainly accelerate learning.

01:34:35.420 | I've talked about these in other podcasts,

01:34:37.060 | but I wonder whether or not this thing

01:34:38.060 | that you're calling boredom.

01:34:38.900 | So being in line to get some groceries

01:34:41.480 | and not taking one's phone out

01:34:43.040 | while the checker is scanning the groceries through

01:34:45.460 | and just not really doing much of anything,

01:34:47.380 | it's entirely possible that the thing

01:34:49.460 | that we were working on earlier that day

01:34:50.900 | or the previous day is being processed in the hippocampus

01:34:53.420 | at an unconscious level at a much more rapid rate

01:34:55.820 | where we to look at our phone,

01:34:57.180 | we would inhibit those gap effects,

01:35:00.060 | which are truly beneficial.

01:35:01.660 | - Yeah, well, I mean, professors feel this all the time,

01:35:04.020 | right, at least a lot of ones I've talked to

01:35:05.660 | with peer review.

01:35:06.500 | So I don't know if you've had this experience,

01:35:07.700 | but you're like reviewing a paper.

01:35:09.400 | I often have this experience

01:35:10.860 | where when I'm first engaging with the paper,

01:35:13.340 | I feel incredibly frustrated.

01:35:14.820 | Like I don't quite understand what they're doing here.

01:35:17.120 | Like this mathematics isn't quite making sense to me.

01:35:19.540 | And it'll often be the fact I come back later.

01:35:22.300 | Like, well, let me just like write up what I have so far.

01:35:24.820 | And your understanding is like much, much better, right?

01:35:27.580 | So there's this sense

01:35:28.580 | of maybe something's been processing.

01:35:30.060 | I took that so seriously when I was a,

01:35:32.180 | especially at postdoc, like when I was at the height

01:35:34.260 | of just all I do in my life is produce value with my brain.

01:35:37.580 | Every day I would do what I call Thoreau walks

01:35:39.980 | because I discovered Thoreau while a grad student,

01:35:42.900 | I read it down by the Charles,

01:35:44.020 | like the full sort of, you know,

01:35:45.580 | just minus the beret, like pretentious grad student thing.

01:35:47.860 | But I was really into the Walden,

01:35:50.380 | real influential book for me.

01:35:51.740 | So every day when I would walk back,

01:35:53.620 | I was living on Beacon Hill, walking from MIT.

01:35:55.940 | So people who know Boston,

01:35:57.540 | it's going across the Longfellow Bridge.

01:35:59.740 | I would say nothing but nature observation.

01:36:01.980 | Like, that's what I'm doing.

01:36:03.180 | I'm just, ooh, the ice is thinner on the Charles today.

01:36:06.100 | Like, look at this tree or the leaves coming back.

01:36:08.380 | Partially, I think what was going on is like,

01:36:10.140 | this was right after I'd been whiteboarding it, right?

01:36:13.660 | I think it was letting stuff process, right?

01:36:16.660 | So I had this explicitly in my routine a lot of time

01:36:21.220 | where I was, okay, I can't think about work at all.

01:36:23.020 | I can't do anything else.

01:36:24.060 | But, you know, I'm thinking about the tree.

01:36:27.780 | I'm thinking about the water,

01:36:28.620 | like really sort of minimal cognitive lifts.

01:36:30.500 | And I wonder if that's what was going on there.

01:36:31.900 | Like, to me, I mean,

01:36:32.740 | that was a very productive period of my life.

01:36:34.940 | - Yeah, I feel like in the last five, 10 years,

01:36:37.900 | thanks largely in part to Matt Walker's book,

01:36:40.500 | "Why We Sleep" and the advocacy around sleep from others,

01:36:44.260 | we've come to understand that sleep is essential

01:36:47.260 | for mental health, physical health,

01:36:48.620 | and learning, cognitive performance, physical performance.

01:36:51.100 | So much so that now people devote immense amounts

01:36:53.540 | of attention and resources

01:36:56.220 | to trying to get the best possible night's sleep.

01:36:57.840 | Whereas it was the, I'll sleep when I'm dead mentality

01:36:59.900 | prior to that.

01:37:01.020 | And I would love to see a world

01:37:03.140 | where people embrace not the notion of boredom per se,

01:37:07.980 | but the notion of gaps,

01:37:11.620 | lack of external stimuli coming into our eyes

01:37:15.780 | and our cognitive system as a means to get smarter,

01:37:18.460 | to get more creative, to get better.

01:37:20.220 | We just need a language for this.

01:37:21.980 | And I think it's the, you know,

01:37:23.060 | so often language is a separator

01:37:25.220 | when it comes to health and performance tools.

01:37:27.660 | And that's something I really strive for

01:37:28.720 | is to try and create language

01:37:30.980 | that's not linked to any one person

01:37:32.480 | that illustrates what something is for.

01:37:34.480 | So maybe, no small task, Cal,

01:37:37.080 | but maybe we'll just have you rename boredom

01:37:39.440 | as a neural rewiring epochs or something like that.

01:37:43.440 | - I'll come up with a term.

01:37:44.760 | My whole writing career, by the way,

01:37:45.840 | is based on taking things people already intuitively know

01:37:48.920 | in their gut and giving it a two-word name.

01:37:51.760 | Just having the language around that really matters.

01:37:53.440 | Like, oh, deep work.

01:37:54.840 | Oh, okay, that's like this activity.

01:37:56.600 | I kind of knew that was important,

01:37:57.920 | but I didn't have a name.

01:37:58.760 | Or digital minimalism.

01:38:00.280 | Like, oh, yeah, I kind of know what that means.

01:38:02.680 | Like, it's a different philosophy towards it.

01:38:04.920 | But there's all, so I do have a name related

01:38:06.640 | to the gaps we're talking about,

01:38:08.800 | but for one of the other negative effects, right?

01:38:10.800 | So we have the positive effects you talked about,

01:38:12.880 | which is consolidation of learning

01:38:14.400 | and acceleration of learning.

01:38:15.880 | We had the one negative effect,

01:38:17.400 | which was the Pavlovian connection to distraction.

01:38:20.780 | The other one I've written about before

01:38:22.760 | is solitude deprivation, right?

01:38:25.160 | So I'm using a different definition of solitude

01:38:27.680 | than the colloquial one.

01:38:28.620 | Most people think of it as a physical thing.

01:38:30.200 | I'm just isolated.

01:38:32.160 | But there's a cognitive psychological definition

01:38:34.600 | of solitude, which means absence of stimuli

01:38:38.540 | created by other human minds, right?

01:38:40.640 | So I'm not taking in information

01:38:42.820 | that's coming directly from another human mind.

01:38:45.960 | Having no period with this solitude,

01:38:48.960 | so having no period in your day

01:38:50.880 | where you're free from stimuli created from other minds

01:38:54.760 | is solitude deprivation, and it's a real issue.

01:38:57.160 | And partially it's a real issue

01:38:58.520 | because when we're processing input

01:39:00.960 | from another human brain, it's all hands on deck, right?

01:39:03.960 | I mean, we're very social beings.

01:39:05.640 | A huge portion of our brain is dedicated to this, right?

01:39:09.480 | So it's a very cognitively expensive activity

01:39:11.680 | when I'm trying to understand another human's,

01:39:14.080 | what they're saying.

01:39:15.140 | I'm simulating their mental state.

01:39:16.720 | I'm trying to understand, like, where do they fall

01:39:19.600 | in this sort of social hierarchy?

01:39:21.120 | And one of my arguments was,

01:39:22.880 | when you spend your entire day in that state,

01:39:25.040 | it's exhausting and anxiety producing.

01:39:27.200 | And like, until we had smartphones

01:39:28.840 | and ubiquitous wireless internet,

01:39:30.480 | the idea that you could banish all solitude from your day

01:39:33.560 | is laughable, it's just impossible, right?

01:39:35.240 | So of course we had a lot of portions of our day

01:39:37.380 | where our brain was not like ramped up in gear

01:39:39.840 | for the sort of social processing mode.

01:39:42.440 | But smartphones makes it possible

01:39:43.720 | that you can be in that mode all day long.

01:39:46.200 | And so like, one of the things I hypothesize

01:39:48.040 | is some of the anxiety rises

01:39:49.600 | that goes with the age of smartphones is brain exhaustion.

01:39:53.160 | So that's another negative effect of the constant.

01:39:55.760 | We have two negative effects now for the constant stimuli

01:39:58.240 | and one positive effect

01:39:59.680 | for the absence of the constant stimuli.

01:40:01.800 | So I think we're making a case here

01:40:03.520 | for not always being on your device.

01:40:06.320 | - Yeah, I agree.

01:40:07.320 | One of my favorite literatures from neurosciences,

01:40:09.560 | I think most people have heard of the so-called

01:40:10.880 | critical period stages of development

01:40:12.580 | when the brain is essentially hyperplastic

01:40:14.320 | to any input for better or worse.

01:40:17.000 | This is a stage of life called childhood.

01:40:20.240 | And then of course, people throughout the number 25,

01:40:22.560 | after age 25, plasticity is possible,

01:40:24.840 | requires more effort, tension, et cetera,

01:40:26.480 | and then sleep, so forth.

01:40:28.600 | But we know based on really beautiful studies

01:40:31.480 | that if you deprive someone of sensory input

01:40:36.320 | for even a few hours,

01:40:39.120 | and we're not talking about sitting

01:40:40.480 | in a completely blackened room with no input,

01:40:43.340 | but you essentially limit the amount of sensory input.

01:40:46.320 | In the period that follows,

01:40:47.440 | you get an opportunity for a hyperplastic response

01:40:51.120 | to any stimuli.

01:40:52.480 | And this just makes sense if you understand basics

01:40:55.120 | about signal to noise in the visual system

01:40:57.040 | and the brain, it just means

01:40:59.720 | when there's a lot of background shatter of stuff,

01:41:01.480 | it's harder to see the stuff that matters

01:41:03.000 | and the stuff that the brain's rewired to.

01:41:05.440 | Very computer sciencey, neuroengineering type perspective.

01:41:08.560 | But yes, I would love for you to come up

01:41:10.600 | with a two word description of this.

01:41:13.720 | It's not boredom induced plasticity,

01:41:15.480 | it's this quiet induced hyperplasticity or something.

01:41:18.200 | I don't know, maybe we can riff on this together sometime.

01:41:19.960 | I'm not trying to move into your space,

01:41:21.240 | but I have a very practical question.

01:41:24.420 | And I'd love to get a little more insight

01:41:27.840 | into the structure of your days.

01:41:30.000 | But are you a list maker?

01:41:31.480 | Like do you wake up in the morning and make lists

01:41:32.960 | and cross things off and then decide

01:41:34.760 | what are the key items on that list?

01:41:36.440 | - No, I'm a time blocker.

01:41:37.720 | - Time blocker, okay.

01:41:39.400 | - Yeah, so I'm not a big believer in to-do list.

01:41:41.240 | I like to grapple with the actual available time.

01:41:44.080 | Like okay, I have a meeting here,

01:41:45.480 | I have to pick my kids up from school here.

01:41:47.360 | Here's the actual hours of the day

01:41:49.560 | that are free and where they fall.

01:41:51.300 | All right, what do I want to do with that time?

01:41:53.280 | Well, okay, now that I see that there's a lot of gaps

01:41:55.320 | in the middle of the day here, they're short,

01:41:56.980 | maybe there I'm gonna do a lot of small,

01:41:58.380 | non-comically demanding thing.

01:41:59.620 | Oh, this first 90 minutes in the morning

01:42:01.320 | is like the main time I have uninterrupted.

01:42:03.320 | Okay, so this I'm gonna work on writing.

01:42:05.880 | So I've been a big believer of this since I was an undergrad.

01:42:08.840 | Like you give your time a job

01:42:11.380 | as opposed to having a list,

01:42:12.660 | which is somewhat orthogonal to what's actually happening

01:42:14.520 | in your day.

01:42:15.360 | And then just as you go through your day saying,

01:42:16.480 | what do I want to try to do next?

01:42:17.680 | Which I think is a lot less efficient.

01:42:20.200 | - I'm gonna try your method.

01:42:22.400 | I try and structure my days as much as I can,

01:42:24.200 | but it just never quite works.

01:42:26.740 | Do you work late into the night or you, no?

01:42:30.000 | - No, I'm a 5.30 man.

01:42:32.080 | - Okay.

01:42:32.920 | So 5.30 p.m., that's it?

01:42:34.760 | - Yeah, more or less, that's my cutoff.

01:42:35.960 | Now the one exception is if I'm writing on deadline,

01:42:40.480 | I'll sometimes, like if I need to get more writing done,

01:42:43.100 | I can do an evening writing session,

01:42:45.580 | which I got used to through long experience.

01:42:47.700 | I used to write my blog post at night

01:42:49.220 | after like my kids went to bed.

01:42:50.660 | Now they're older and they don't go to bed as early.

01:42:52.420 | So it's like the one thing I have left

01:42:54.460 | that I'll do after 5.30 is like every once in a while,

01:42:56.540 | I'll do like a 90 minute evening writing block.

01:42:59.780 | But I call this, by the way, this whole philosophy,

01:43:01.740 | I call fixed schedule productivity.

01:43:03.340 | I've been doing it since I was a grad student.

01:43:05.380 | Fixed to work hour schedule.

01:43:07.340 | That's my commitment.

01:43:08.500 | I work in these hours.

01:43:10.340 | And then work downstream from that for everything else.

01:43:12.400 | So like this controls like even what you decide

01:43:14.920 | to bring into your life

01:43:15.760 | because you know I can't go past a schedule.

01:43:18.060 | And it drives you to be more innovative

01:43:19.680 | in how you deal with your time and schedule.

01:43:21.320 | You have to be efficient

01:43:22.160 | because you only have these hours here.

01:43:24.520 | That's been a signal for my life

01:43:27.960 | since I was in my early 20s.

01:43:29.360 | Fixed to schedule and don't work outside of that schedule.

01:43:32.560 | Now it's your move to figure out anything you wanna do,

01:43:34.880 | you have to make that work.

01:43:35.720 | You wanna become a professor,

01:43:36.560 | figure out how to make that work.

01:43:37.800 | You wanna write books while you're being a professor,

01:43:39.360 | figure out how to make that work.

01:43:40.460 | You don't have the option of just throwing hours at it.

01:43:42.660 | And you innovate a lot, I think,

01:43:44.020 | when you have the constraints.

01:43:45.740 | - Where do sleep and exercise fit into your schedule?

01:43:48.500 | What's your typical to bed time, wake up time?

01:43:50.620 | What's your typical exercise routine?

01:43:53.300 | And the reason I ask about this

01:43:55.020 | is because I think nowadays we hopefully people understand

01:43:59.060 | that exercise and cognitive function

01:44:01.380 | are inextricably linked.

01:44:03.980 | And we're all going to live longer lives

01:44:07.020 | and be sharper mentally by doing exercise.

01:44:10.560 | - Yeah, so I mean, my main, like actual working with weights,

01:44:13.420 | I do this pre-dinner, right?

01:44:15.100 | And this was an innovation in the last couple of years.

01:44:16.900 | It's fantastic psychologically for me.

01:44:20.020 | This is a transition from work

01:44:22.140 | to like family time after work.

01:44:24.380 | So I'll do like 45, 50 minutes garage gym,

01:44:28.340 | you know, that we built during COVID

01:44:30.060 | after I'm done working before dinner.

01:44:32.020 | And once you get used to that,

01:44:33.140 | like it also forces you, like I gotta finish work

01:44:35.380 | 'cause I gotta get this in before dinner.

01:44:37.100 | But then I'll do also quite a bit of walking

01:44:38.780 | if it's not a teaching day, so I'm not on campus.

01:44:41.140 | I do a lot of thinking on foot, you know,

01:44:43.580 | walking my kids to the bus stop,

01:44:44.820 | which isn't particularly close and back.

01:44:46.180 | So I'll do a lot of walking,

01:44:48.060 | but that's when my serious exercise now

01:44:50.180 | is always pre-dinner.

01:44:51.980 | Then I wanna be up, you know, in our room by 10.

01:44:55.540 | And then at that point, I don't track.

01:44:58.040 | So I have insomnia issues,

01:45:00.300 | which actually has been like key driver

01:45:02.500 | of a lot of the things I think about,

01:45:04.020 | especially with slow productivity is I'm very wary

01:45:07.340 | because I can, without any control on my own,

01:45:10.820 | just find myself unable to sleep sometimes.

01:45:12.740 | - Fall asleep or stay asleep.

01:45:13.940 | - Fall asleep, yeah.

01:45:15.140 | I mean, I used to get it really bad.

01:45:17.260 | Not so bad now, but you know, it comes and goes.

01:45:19.700 | That really affected the way I thought about productivity

01:45:22.460 | because it seemed like to me,

01:45:24.140 | the definition of just I get after it with a bunch of stuff

01:45:28.260 | wasn't really on the table

01:45:29.780 | because if my notion of productivity depended on me,

01:45:32.660 | like every day being able to just like hammer

01:45:34.620 | on a bunch of stuff, I'm very busy,

01:45:36.500 | I have lots of commitments,

01:45:37.780 | what would happen if I couldn't sleep?

01:45:39.900 | I wouldn't be able to do that.

01:45:40.940 | So I drifted naturally towards a definition of productivity,

01:45:44.300 | which was it doesn't really matter if you work tomorrow,

01:45:47.980 | but it is important that like this month you work,

01:45:49.940 | like writing a book.

01:45:50.780 | It doesn't matter if you work on your book chapter

01:45:52.660 | tomorrow in particular, but like this month,

01:45:54.820 | you have to spend a lot of time working on it.

01:45:56.220 | So it was like an insomnia compatible definition

01:45:59.700 | of productivity was sort of morphed

01:46:01.020 | into this idea of slow productivity,

01:46:02.380 | taking your time with it.

01:46:04.020 | So it's interesting, so like sleep issues

01:46:06.500 | really shaped the way I thought about work

01:46:08.260 | and put me on these much longer timescales of productivity.

01:46:10.960 | Try not to be dependent on any particular day

01:46:14.260 | being critical to what you do.

01:46:15.300 | I don't want the high stress situation.

01:46:17.180 | I don't want the like, I'm just gonna 10 hours a day

01:46:19.620 | for the next 10 days, we're gonna make this deal happen.

01:46:22.660 | Like I can't operate in that space

01:46:24.300 | 'cause I worry about it anytime my brain could betray me

01:46:27.280 | and I could like lose sleep for a couple of days.

01:46:29.620 | - I think it's really important that you're sharing this

01:46:31.660 | because while people's challenges differ,

01:46:34.420 | I think oftentimes people hear the content of my podcast

01:46:37.740 | or other podcasts and think,

01:46:39.220 | oh gosh, I have to have everything dialed in just right.

01:46:41.860 | When in fact, most all of the tools and protocols

01:46:44.500 | that have been discussed on the Huberman Lab podcast

01:46:47.980 | are in response to a particular challenge that I've had

01:46:51.500 | or that others close to me have had.

01:46:53.320 | And I love this, I'm sorry that you suffer from insomnia.

01:46:58.460 | We have a series on sleep with Matt Walker

01:47:00.580 | in which he lays out some great tools

01:47:02.820 | that we haven't yet discussed on the podcast.

01:47:04.340 | I'll just send you, I'll text you,

01:47:07.060 | I'll call you with a short list of those

01:47:09.740 | and hopefully they'll help.

01:47:10.560 | But as we do cover insomnia in some depth,

01:47:13.060 | but I think it's important that people realize

01:47:15.900 | that they can be very productive

01:47:17.380 | with the hours that they have

01:47:18.660 | and the moments or hours of high focus clarity

01:47:23.060 | that they have, even if they're not sleeping great,

01:47:26.520 | even if they're raising small children

01:47:29.140 | because that's the real world.

01:47:31.180 | And certainly that's the real world of deadlines

01:47:33.340 | and academia, but family and colds and flus

01:47:38.340 | and travel and jet lag and arguments

01:47:41.660 | and all the happy stuff too, vacations.

01:47:44.180 | So sounds like you're very good at adapting your day

01:47:47.860 | to what's going on around it,

01:47:49.540 | but that you have certain sort of committed time.

01:47:52.420 | Am I correct in assuming that you have

01:47:55.500 | at least one period of say 60 to 90 minutes

01:47:59.260 | of real, what you would call deep work,

01:48:02.540 | let's say at least five days a week.

01:48:04.140 | I know that might be an underestimate,

01:48:05.580 | but it seems like that's what I'm extracting from this.

01:48:09.380 | - That's the goal, right?

01:48:10.240 | So to me, depending on the season

01:48:12.860 | is how extreme that can get.

01:48:14.400 | So the busiest season would be like a teaching semester.

01:48:17.700 | Right, but even then I'm gonna make sure

01:48:19.740 | that five days a week, I'm starting with deep work

01:48:21.620 | and the non-teaching days are more than the teaching days.

01:48:24.540 | Compare that to the summer, for example,

01:48:26.380 | where like all I do for the most part is deep work.

01:48:28.660 | No meetings on Mondays and Fridays.

01:48:30.540 | All admin stuff is midday to early afternoon,

01:48:34.140 | Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

01:48:35.800 | Everything else is deep work.

01:48:37.260 | You know, just locked in hours at a time.

01:48:39.660 | But I want, if I'm not getting five days,

01:48:42.500 | five days of starting the day with deep work, I'm unhappy.

01:48:46.820 | Right, because I mean, I keep coming back to this is,

01:48:49.180 | okay, because I'm not gonna be able to,

01:48:51.300 | I mean, fortunately the insomnia doesn't bother me in years,

01:48:53.620 | but the threat of it like completely shaped

01:48:56.140 | the way I think about things.

01:48:57.420 | And because I know I'm never gonna be,

01:48:59.860 | have sort of like an Elon Musk style energy

01:49:02.100 | of like I can just take on seven companies

01:49:03.940 | and make it happen, right?

01:49:04.860 | I just don't have that ability.

01:49:06.920 | I've always focused on the long game.

01:49:08.540 | And to me, the long game plays out with

01:49:10.620 | get your deep work time in.

01:49:12.500 | You know, just keep working on the stuff you do best

01:49:15.740 | and get better at it.

01:49:16.820 | You know, tomorrow doesn't matter.

01:49:18.380 | But if you're doing this most days for the next four months,

01:49:20.900 | like that's gonna matter, you know?

01:49:22.300 | And so I often think about productivity in my own life

01:49:24.740 | at the scale of decades.

01:49:26.260 | Like what do I wanna do in my twenties?

01:49:27.900 | You know, okay, what do I wanna do in my thirties?

01:49:29.540 | You know, what do I wanna do in my forties?

01:49:30.920 | You know, and that helps.

01:49:32.580 | Like in my thirties, I had a lot of young kids.

01:49:33.980 | Like it's, yeah, I mean, the amount of time

01:49:35.620 | I could spend total working is like much less, right?

01:49:39.500 | But I could still think about

01:49:40.420 | what do I wanna do in my thirties?

01:49:42.180 | How do I make that happen?

01:49:43.460 | Let me make sure I'm pushing like on those things,

01:49:46.400 | then everything else I can adapt to,

01:49:47.780 | I can give here and there.

01:49:48.840 | You know, it allows you to be very adaptable

01:49:50.960 | when you're thinking about what do I wanna do,

01:49:52.620 | you know, for the next 10 years.

01:49:53.740 | It also means you're not on a random Tuesday

01:49:57.020 | chiding yourself because like,

01:49:58.580 | why didn't I get three more hours of work?

01:50:00.340 | That becomes sort of a nonsensical question.

01:50:02.660 | And what you care about is like

01:50:03.620 | what happens in the next decade?

01:50:04.980 | Which is, that's the long game.

01:50:06.300 | It's not about, you know, hustling today.

01:50:09.580 | It's about I came back to deep work day after day after day

01:50:13.060 | when other people got distracted by TikTok, you know?

01:50:16.180 | Like I gotta, you know, whatever.

01:50:17.220 | It's that coming back to what matters again and again.

01:50:20.900 | - Years ago, I was in a scientific competition/battle

01:50:24.200 | and one of my tools, it wasn't really the kindest tool,

01:50:26.920 | was I would just suggest to the competitor

01:50:29.800 | great television series.

01:50:33.160 | So "The Wire," you know, which at that time was great.

01:50:36.300 | We won a few, they won a few.

01:50:37.680 | But, you know, there's something very addictive

01:50:39.920 | about those Netflix shows.

01:50:43.680 | You know, I mean, they're unbelievably addictive.

01:50:46.160 | Just even seeing the slider, next episode slider come up,

01:50:50.380 | you can skip the intro.

01:50:51.520 | It's just like, they've just dialed it in.

01:50:53.520 | - Just let it go, yeah.

01:50:54.720 | - So I suggest those to competitors all the time.

01:50:56.640 | Not, no longer, but then who knows what role they played.

01:51:00.360 | But I just noticed in myself how distracting they could be.

01:51:04.440 | They could take me to, when I started watching "Ozark,"

01:51:07.200 | I found myself waking up in the middle of the night,

01:51:08.940 | perhaps to use the restroom or something,

01:51:10.340 | and then starting another episode of "Ozark."

01:51:12.720 | It was wild.

01:51:13.880 | And I wonder whether or not a way to reverse engineer

01:51:17.740 | one's way to productivity, reverse hack,

01:51:20.840 | our way to productivity,

01:51:22.080 | would be to think about all the ways

01:51:23.980 | that you would benevolently deploy distraction

01:51:28.680 | for a competitor.

01:51:30.180 | And then ask yourself which of those

01:51:33.600 | you're still engaging in,

01:51:34.780 | and think of yourself as sort of in a competition

01:51:37.120 | with the highly distracted version of oneself.

01:51:40.160 | Because I think that one task,

01:51:42.480 | I think for us today is to try and think about,

01:51:46.080 | for the person listening to this who's not an academic,

01:51:48.460 | who's hearing about all this distraction

01:51:49.700 | that enjoys some social media,

01:51:51.420 | how can they bring about the best version of themselves

01:51:53.560 | in terms of productivity, but also presence for family,

01:51:57.000 | presence with self, et cetera.

01:52:00.320 | And if one isn't in a competitive environment,

01:52:04.420 | then maybe it's about setting up

01:52:06.420 | different mental maps of the self,

01:52:09.460 | and then trying to pit them against one another

01:52:12.100 | and be the best version, literally.

01:52:14.180 | - I think that's interesting, right.

01:52:15.180 | Like think about what would be,

01:52:17.220 | yeah, I like this idea of thinking about my competitor.

01:52:20.380 | What would really give me a leg up?

01:52:22.540 | Am I doing this?

01:52:23.780 | But I would also add in here,

01:52:25.500 | this is like a slower productivity type idea.

01:52:28.300 | You figure out the thing you really care about.

01:52:29.900 | You figure out what you would need to do

01:52:31.380 | to really show up for that thing.

01:52:32.980 | And then if you're doing that,

01:52:35.540 | like give yourself a break on everything else too.

01:52:38.020 | You know what I mean?

01:52:38.860 | It's like I'm this way with,

01:52:39.900 | if I'm getting in my writing time, I have to write.

01:52:42.420 | I'm very uncomfortable when I'm not writing.

01:52:43.740 | I just write all the time, articles, books.

01:52:45.620 | You know, I'm always writing.

01:52:46.940 | If I'm getting in my writing time,

01:52:48.780 | then it's like, okay, the rest of the day,

01:52:50.940 | maybe like this week was kind of a loss.

01:52:53.740 | Like the kids were homesick,

01:52:55.100 | or there was a crisis at the university or whatever.

01:52:57.300 | And like I'm just trying to keep that under control

01:52:59.940 | and like have good productivity habits

01:53:01.940 | and like don't context switch too much

01:53:03.460 | and don't be too distracted,

01:53:04.460 | but still have your fixed scale of productivity,

01:53:05.980 | like end at 5.30 every day and time block

01:53:08.700 | and try to be reasonable with that time.

01:53:10.700 | Limit the damage.

01:53:12.180 | But if I'm doing the thing that ultimately really matters,

01:53:15.020 | I'm gonna be pretty happy with it.

01:53:16.500 | So it's like moving to the definition of,

01:53:19.100 | am I happy with what I'm producing

01:53:21.180 | away from a quantity metric and to this more,

01:53:24.180 | am I aggregating the quality reps, you know?

01:53:26.700 | And like, I think in weightlifting,

01:53:27.860 | this would make a lot more sense, right?

01:53:29.140 | It's like, yeah, there's a certain number

01:53:31.420 | of like a certain amount of time under load

01:53:33.820 | each muscle group needs to be on.

01:53:35.420 | And like, if I'm doing that, I'm happy

01:53:37.500 | if I'm weightlifting, right?

01:53:39.420 | There's no notion of like, why can't I,

01:53:40.900 | why didn't I exercise five hours more or this or that?

01:53:43.060 | And so I sometimes try to think

01:53:43.980 | about my core intellectual work that way.

01:53:46.100 | Like if I'm getting in the core deep reps

01:53:47.940 | and the thing I care most about,

01:53:49.140 | which for me is almost always writing,

01:53:51.060 | then like the rest I just wanna, it's like damage control.

01:53:54.420 | Like I wanna like do the other stuff well

01:53:56.120 | and like not get too stressed out about it.

01:53:58.060 | And you know, there's the productivity habits

01:54:00.580 | then that are about doing the stuff

01:54:01.700 | that matters and protecting it.

01:54:03.220 | And then there's the habits that are all just about,

01:54:05.460 | let's not let the other stuff get out of control.

01:54:07.980 | You know, I find it a little bit easier.

01:54:09.180 | I go easier on myself when I think about it that way.

01:54:11.860 | - Do you listen to music while you work?

01:54:13.420 | - No.

01:54:14.920 | - Well, the data certainly support not listening to music

01:54:17.220 | or if you do listen to music,

01:54:19.020 | listening to music without lyrics.

01:54:20.660 | - Yeah, you have to train even to get used to it, right?

01:54:23.140 | I mean, even to get used to music without lyrics,

01:54:24.740 | you gotta get used to it.

01:54:25.620 | I guess your brain's building the filters.

01:54:28.180 | Some people I have met have trained themselves

01:54:31.020 | to work with lyrical music,

01:54:32.680 | which I think it took them a long time.

01:54:34.320 | But I met a self-published novelist

01:54:37.000 | who does like a million words a year, which is crazy.

01:54:40.020 | Then he blasts, because he has four kids,

01:54:42.340 | he blasts Metallica in NASCAR earphones.

01:54:45.700 | And I was like, how do you possibly write like this?

01:54:47.120 | I think he just trained,

01:54:47.960 | his mind has just like a pure auditory filter

01:54:51.140 | that is he adapted, I guess.

01:54:54.700 | Or maybe his books aren't that good, I don't know.

01:54:56.740 | (laughing)

01:54:58.020 | But I like silence or like background noise.

01:55:00.380 | But even background noise is hard.

01:55:01.820 | I have a hard time writing at cafes, for example.

01:55:04.900 | Like I really do like lack of stimuli.

01:55:08.120 | - Do you use visual blinders?

01:55:09.440 | You know, like some people will actually do this.

01:55:10.800 | They'll use like a hoodie

01:55:11.800 | and they'll be like really trying to tunnel their vision,

01:55:13.960 | which makes perfect sense

01:55:14.920 | from the perspective of neuroscience.

01:55:16.880 | I mean, your visual world strongly constrains

01:55:21.240 | the narrowness or the broadness of your cognitive maps.

01:55:25.600 | - Yeah, I mean, I just have my spaces engineered, right?

01:55:27.440 | So like where I write in my library at home,

01:55:30.440 | all the interesting windows are behind me and over here.

01:55:34.060 | I'm staring across two windows

01:55:36.080 | that just was right next to the neighbors

01:55:37.360 | and like just typically blinds down.

01:55:39.320 | - Well, as you say this, it just makes me want to shout

01:55:42.920 | that so many people

01:55:45.760 | who think they have attention deficit issues

01:55:48.580 | have probably just put themselves

01:55:50.120 | in compromised environments,

01:55:52.080 | which include smartphone apps and things that.

01:55:55.600 | I mean, like there's absolutely no way

01:55:57.800 | that they ought to be able to focus.

01:55:59.640 | In fact, perhaps the fact that it can focus at all

01:56:01.680 | is miraculous given the constraints

01:56:04.220 | like trying to run with shackles on.

01:56:05.820 | - Yeah, I mean, look, we're used to this

01:56:07.580 | with physical stuff, right?

01:56:09.140 | If we analogize to physical fitness,

01:56:11.700 | we're so used to all these details, right?

01:56:13.540 | Like it matters like what you're eating,

01:56:15.420 | like how you're sleeping,

01:56:16.980 | the details of how you train

01:56:18.700 | and when you train and how much,

01:56:19.900 | like we're very used to this idea that that really matters.

01:56:21.780 | We have no intuitions for cognitive development

01:56:24.340 | or application.

01:56:25.260 | We like treat our brain,

01:56:26.980 | I guess because we associate it so much

01:56:28.820 | with a sense of self.

01:56:29.780 | It's just this sort of ineffable connection

01:56:32.560 | to us as a person.

01:56:33.520 | We don't think of it as much of an organ

01:56:35.040 | as like a muscle or something like this,

01:56:36.680 | but we don't have a sophisticated vocabulary at all

01:56:38.960 | for thinking about how do you do stuff with your brain,

01:56:41.900 | which is the, if you're in knowledge work,

01:56:43.880 | that's the whole game.

01:56:45.200 | Like the whole game is this brain takes an information,

01:56:49.100 | adds value to it.

01:56:50.080 | It alchemizes value out of mind stuff.

01:56:53.680 | And people who alchemize value out of muscles,

01:56:57.640 | I'm a relief pitcher in baseball.

01:56:59.280 | I know like my whole job is like to take a certain muscles

01:57:02.280 | on my kinetic chain and use them to move a ball very fast.

01:57:05.240 | And if I really am very careful about this,

01:57:07.800 | I can have a multimillion dollar deal.

01:57:09.660 | Those of us who do this with our brain

01:57:11.640 | don't have any of these intuitions.

01:57:13.520 | It's just like, you know, you have to work hard, you know,

01:57:16.960 | and we're on our phone all day.

01:57:18.160 | I mean, this has to be the physical equivalent

01:57:20.320 | if you had like an endurance athlete

01:57:21.680 | who was smoking all the time.

01:57:23.140 | Like this is crazy.

01:57:23.980 | Like this is directly contra-indicating

01:57:27.040 | or indicating what you need to do.

01:57:29.320 | What matters, like what the actual activity is

01:57:32.080 | that matters for your value production.

01:57:33.680 | But with cognitive stuff, we have no intuition like this.

01:57:36.000 | - Yeah, when I was a junior professor,

01:57:37.320 | this was down in San Diego, not Stanford.

01:57:39.020 | My girlfriend at the time, she said to me,

01:57:41.040 | she said, "You're like a professional athlete."

01:57:44.320 | That was before I got tenure.

01:57:45.600 | And she was like, "And you're trying to go

01:57:46.840 | "from like minor leagues to major to go from, you know,

01:57:49.960 | "you're like second string to starter."

01:57:52.320 | It's like, you have to treat what you're doing

01:57:53.900 | like a professional athlete with their game,

01:57:56.720 | like prioritize sleep, prioritize food,

01:57:59.040 | prioritize time, prioritize, you know, it's.

01:58:01.200 | And we, as you point out, we don't do that with the mind.

01:58:04.600 | We tend for cognitive stuff,

01:58:06.360 | we tend to assume that we could just flip a switch

01:58:08.220 | and like focus time.

01:58:09.400 | And I think that's in part

01:58:11.280 | because there are certain things such as social media,

01:58:14.120 | such as a great movie,

01:58:15.640 | such as certain social interactions

01:58:17.240 | that can immediately and completely harness our attention.

01:58:20.480 | Unlike a marathon or where,

01:58:22.040 | sure, I could probably finish the 26 miles

01:58:24.040 | or wherever it is, 26.23, I forget what it is,

01:58:27.360 | if I had to do it right now to save my life.

01:58:29.560 | But it's not like I can just hit a switch.

01:58:32.360 | And I think that's the kind of caveat here

01:58:36.760 | is that the kid that loves video games

01:58:39.280 | can definitely focus.

01:58:41.440 | Give him or her a video game they love

01:58:43.000 | and boom, they're focused.

01:58:44.520 | So it seems as if there's a problem when they can't,

01:58:47.920 | but they know they can, right?

01:58:51.040 | Stuff's obvious when one states it,

01:58:52.760 | but I think it's worth pointing out

01:58:55.560 | that this stuff needs attention.

01:58:57.440 | It needs work.

01:58:58.840 | - Yeah, which means, and it starts with vocabulary,

01:59:00.840 | it starts with intention, it starts with examples.

01:59:03.200 | I mean, there should be a book like "How to Think"

01:59:05.240 | that we just give to everyone.

01:59:07.200 | - How to think and learn.

01:59:08.040 | - And learn, right?

01:59:08.860 | Yeah, like how to use your brain, like the user manual.

01:59:11.160 | Like that would be a very useful user manual.

01:59:13.360 | And I think in like elite cognitive professions,

01:59:16.000 | this gets handed down as lore and people figure it out.

01:59:18.560 | I mean, like this was like my experience training at MIT.

01:59:21.760 | In the theory group is that, you know,

01:59:23.360 | everything was focused on getting the most out of your mind.

01:59:25.520 | And so it's being passed down from person to person.

01:59:28.400 | It was also in the culture.

01:59:29.520 | It was in the way that people acted,

01:59:31.360 | but most places that do cognitive work

01:59:33.080 | don't have these cultures.

01:59:35.600 | Yeah, but here's the advantage though.

01:59:37.360 | Like here's the silver lining, right?

01:59:39.120 | If you're one of the few who cares about it,

01:59:40.560 | it's a huge advantage right now.

01:59:42.520 | Like it's a big part of like my success.

01:59:44.560 | I don't think I have the highest horsepower brain,

01:59:46.440 | but like I care a lot about trying to, you know,

01:59:49.600 | get the most out of it.

01:59:50.480 | Like to push it to like the edges of like the reps,

01:59:53.480 | I can actually, RPMs, I can actually get out of it,

01:59:56.120 | you know?

01:59:56.960 | So it's an advantage as, you know,

01:59:58.280 | someone who's listening to this,

01:59:59.760 | you start caring about your brain, how it works,

02:00:02.040 | how you wanna take care of it,

02:00:03.200 | what you wanna get out of it.

02:00:04.480 | You start caring about this,

02:00:06.800 | you're gonna get advantages compared

02:00:08.080 | to the person right next to you.

02:00:09.440 | Like suddenly in your office or, you know,

02:00:11.200 | in your grad program, it's gonna be like,

02:00:12.920 | well, what's going on here?

02:00:14.000 | - Yeah. - You know,

02:00:14.840 | a little superpower.

02:00:15.680 | - And sometimes there's a bit of a social cost upfront.

02:00:17.680 | - Yeah.

02:00:18.520 | I had to make the shift from being a,

02:00:19.840 | let's just call it a not serious student

02:00:21.800 | to a serious student in college.

02:00:23.520 | And I was coming from behind,

02:00:24.640 | I had to put so many more hours in.

02:00:26.120 | And so partying was something that happened fairly seldom.

02:00:30.640 | I still did it, but, and it was isolating.

02:00:33.320 | - Yeah. - I actually lived alone

02:00:34.160 | in a studio apartment.

02:00:35.140 | I mean, it's isolating.

02:00:36.400 | You're gonna miss out on certain things.

02:00:38.400 | There's some deprivation there,

02:00:39.680 | but you eventually end up in a position

02:00:42.720 | to do far more with your life.

02:00:44.200 | - Yeah. - Of course.

02:00:45.560 | What you said a moment ago also reminds me,

02:00:48.120 | David Goggins, the David Goggins, no introduction needed,

02:00:51.300 | has been quoted as saying,

02:00:54.920 | it's easy nowadays to be exceptional

02:00:57.200 | because so many people are just distracted

02:00:58.880 | and wasting their time.

02:01:00.120 | So you put in 20% more effort to being more focused

02:01:04.160 | or toward your fitness program,

02:01:06.560 | and you're gonna surpass many, many people.

02:01:09.520 | - Yeah. - So it's not that

02:01:10.760 | hard to accelerate.

02:01:11.840 | It's just, it takes some practices

02:01:13.680 | that are socially challenging to implement.

02:01:17.040 | - It's funny, I had that same experience

02:01:19.120 | as an undergrad that you had.

02:01:20.760 | Yeah, because I cared.

02:01:22.660 | I was impatient to be done with college

02:01:25.040 | and to do things with my brain.

02:01:26.560 | I wanted to be a writer.

02:01:27.720 | I wanted to be an academic,

02:01:28.720 | but that takes a lot of work,

02:01:30.100 | and I really cared a lot about it.

02:01:32.560 | So I was a fraternity brother for one day,

02:01:35.360 | and I went to the first meeting where they're doing,

02:01:39.040 | he was held up pledging or whatever.

02:01:40.400 | And I remember, I said, "This is not for me."

02:01:43.120 | And I walked away.

02:01:43.960 | I was like, "I'm not gonna,"

02:01:44.780 | because this is gonna be distracting.

02:01:46.080 | Like the hangovers and this and that,

02:01:47.800 | and I wanna focus on writing.

02:01:50.020 | I wanna learn how to do this.

02:01:50.860 | It is pretty isolating.

02:01:52.380 | - Yeah, and I know some people

02:01:53.880 | that were in the Greek system

02:01:55.320 | that also benefited tremendously from that.

02:01:57.440 | I wasn't one of them,

02:01:59.240 | but I definitely resonate with it.

02:02:03.000 | - Yeah, yeah, so not everyone, yeah.

02:02:04.480 | I mean, the good way of saying it is like,

02:02:05.580 | they don't all have to be as intense as you and I were,

02:02:09.080 | but caring about your brain, it gives you a lot of options.

02:02:13.040 | - And if you're playing catch up,

02:02:14.700 | there's almost always a social cost associated with it,

02:02:17.320 | but you eventually are joined by many other people.

02:02:19.280 | You find the other nerds.

02:02:20.440 | - There's a lot of nerds out there.

02:02:22.680 | - The other nerds, misfits,

02:02:23.960 | and people who are seeking something,

02:02:28.040 | they come around, you find them.

02:02:30.680 | I'm interested in this concept of burnout.

02:02:33.400 | We hear about burnout.

02:02:35.600 | We associate with it too much adrenaline,

02:02:39.540 | lack of sleep, tired and wired, feeling disengaged.

02:02:43.720 | The poet David White has a beautiful poem,

02:02:46.280 | I forget the title, about burnout,

02:02:48.160 | where he says that I think the cure to burnout

02:02:52.040 | is wholeheartedness.

02:02:54.060 | And I always like that, it's a bit more abstract

02:02:56.520 | than the kinds of things we're talking about today.

02:02:59.480 | But I like that,

02:03:00.320 | because there's something about wholeheartedness,

02:03:03.280 | really leaning into something with the true desire

02:03:06.740 | to be there and to explore it, no matter how hard,

02:03:09.420 | that is the opposite extreme of burnout.

02:03:12.300 | - Yeah, well, I mean, I think burnout in,

02:03:14.360 | if we're thinking knowledge,

02:03:15.200 | we're talking people with office jobs.

02:03:16.880 | My diagnosis there, it's not exactly quantity of work

02:03:20.640 | that does play a role, it's the kind of work.

02:03:24.020 | Because I think what's happening,

02:03:25.480 | what's been deranging, actually,

02:03:28.240 | for people in these jobs is workloads are getting larger,

02:03:33.240 | right, in part because communication is low friction,

02:03:35.860 | and we always wanna be demonstrating activity

02:03:37.940 | because of pseudo productivity,

02:03:39.320 | and people are always asking us to do things,

02:03:40.760 | and we say yes.

02:03:42.240 | Everything we say yes to

02:03:44.120 | brings with it administrative overhead, right,

02:03:46.760 | which is talking about the thing,

02:03:48.180 | but not actually doing it.

02:03:49.020 | So it's like emails about the commitment,

02:03:50.760 | it's meetings about the commitment.

02:03:53.000 | Because our workloads are larger,

02:03:55.200 | what happens then is more and more of our time

02:03:57.320 | has to service this administrative overhead,

02:03:59.120 | because everything we say yes to

02:04:00.560 | brings with it its own overhead,

02:04:02.000 | it adds up, it aggregates, right?

02:04:03.640 | So now more and more of our day

02:04:05.040 | is spent talking about work,

02:04:06.680 | and not actually doing the work,

02:04:07.760 | and to make it even worse,

02:04:08.760 | it's not like this overhead is all batched together,

02:04:11.520 | it's sort of spread out throughout your day,

02:04:14.080 | so it's also putting you in that state

02:04:15.700 | of constant distraction, which makes it hard to do work.

02:04:18.360 | What I think is burning people out

02:04:19.920 | is they're now in this state where they're saying,

02:04:21.760 | I'm spending most of my day talking about work,

02:04:23.980 | sending emails, attending meetings.

02:04:25.960 | Very little time is left to actually

02:04:27.960 | make progress on the work,

02:04:29.680 | and then the workload gets larger and larger.

02:04:31.840 | This by itself is deranging, right?

02:04:33.920 | It feels like you're in some sort of nihilistic experiment.

02:04:37.760 | Like, what is this?

02:04:38.620 | Why do I have six hours in meetings?

02:04:40.080 | I'm not actually, this can't be the right way to work.

02:04:42.520 | And then what happens, of course,

02:04:43.960 | is you have to recover time in the morning and the afternoon,

02:04:46.120 | maybe after your kids go to bed,

02:04:47.680 | to try to actually make progress.

02:04:49.040 | So now you also have just a straight work quantity issue.

02:04:51.880 | So you're working more hours, there's an energy drain,

02:04:54.740 | but I think that psychological piece

02:04:57.240 | of this can't possibly make sense,

02:05:00.160 | that like I'm checking email once every two minutes

02:05:02.960 | and spent six hours in Zoom,

02:05:04.480 | like doing very little actual high-value work.

02:05:06.960 | Like, this can't be the right way to work.

02:05:08.960 | That's what I think the burnout epidemic

02:05:10.280 | right now is coming from,

02:05:11.360 | is that psychological component of,

02:05:13.320 | we all know this is stupid,

02:05:15.120 | but no one is saying the emperor has no clothes on.

02:05:17.120 | We all know that the amount of email and meetings I'm doing

02:05:19.880 | is such a waste of my salary.

02:05:21.640 | Like, this is a highly trained brain.

02:05:22.920 | Like, I could be writing these reports or this code

02:05:24.880 | or creating these business strategies,

02:05:26.640 | but we're all just accepting this.

02:05:28.000 | So I think the absurdity of the current situation

02:05:30.960 | is creating as much of the burnout as it is just,

02:05:33.680 | we also have to add these extra hours.

02:05:35.360 | There's just like a straight aggregation of work quantity.

02:05:38.720 | - It's almost analogous to taking professional athletes

02:05:43.720 | or would-be professional athletes

02:05:46.720 | and having them do a bunch of other physical labor

02:05:49.040 | so that they're showing up not fresh for the game

02:05:52.040 | and little micro injuries and distracted.

02:05:55.600 | - And no one's admitting that this doesn't make sense

02:05:57.440 | and everyone's just getting injured

02:05:58.680 | and no one's talking about it.

02:05:59.960 | So it's the absurdity of it would drive people crazy.

02:06:02.040 | And it is driving people crazy.

02:06:03.600 | - It's so difficult though,

02:06:06.360 | because certain things like smartphones

02:06:08.760 | are very useful on the hospital ward.

02:06:11.800 | I mean, doctors can communicate,

02:06:13.120 | nurses communicate so much faster now.

02:06:15.360 | Parents and kids can communicate.

02:06:17.960 | Who's going to pick up the kids?

02:06:18.920 | Nope, got stuck in traffic.

02:06:20.040 | You go this way.

02:06:20.880 | Alternate route on Google maps and on and on.

02:06:23.320 | So it's all woven in with stuff

02:06:25.440 | that's also highly adaptive.

02:06:27.800 | It makes it tough.

02:06:29.480 | It's almost like the work of being a selective filter

02:06:32.200 | is half the work of trying to deload the cognitive systems

02:06:35.320 | that would allow you to do deep work.

02:06:36.880 | - Yeah.

02:06:37.720 | Well, in the workplace is even harder than that, right?

02:06:39.960 | Because part of the issue is email and Slack,

02:06:43.680 | let's just say digital communication.

02:06:45.800 | I spent a lot of time studying that closely, right?

02:06:47.880 | From like a technocritic standpoint,

02:06:49.840 | the introduction of digital communication to the workplace.

02:06:53.120 | And the problem there is the reason

02:06:55.240 | why we're checking this all the time.

02:06:56.560 | It's not some like individual habit de-optimization.

02:07:00.800 | It's not, oh, I should just check this less often.

02:07:02.960 | What happened is when we introduced low friction

02:07:05.120 | digital communication to the office,

02:07:07.080 | this emerging consensus came about that said, great,

02:07:11.440 | let's just use ad hoc messaging

02:07:13.480 | as our major way of collaborating.

02:07:15.720 | Like we can just figure things out on the fly.

02:07:17.440 | I can just be like, Andrew, what's going on with the whatever

02:07:19.320 | and you can answer me and I can send it back.

02:07:21.640 | This was very convenient.

02:07:22.680 | The activation cost was low.

02:07:24.320 | And so this is how we began actually collaborating on work.

02:07:26.920 | Now what happens is as workloads get higher,

02:07:29.000 | we now have many things at the same time.

02:07:31.040 | They're all generating these asynchronous

02:07:32.680 | back and forth conversations.

02:07:34.400 | Most of these have some sort of time sensitivity, right?

02:07:37.040 | So if I email you and say like,

02:07:38.440 | what's going on with like the guests coming later today,

02:07:40.640 | we have to kind of resolve this before later today.

02:07:44.200 | So now it's not just that these messages

02:07:45.840 | are going back and forth with all these different threads,

02:07:47.880 | but I have to keep checking my inbox

02:07:49.440 | to make sure the gap's not too big.

02:07:51.160 | This is not a failure of habits.

02:07:52.760 | It's not a moral failure.

02:07:53.840 | It's necessitated by the fact

02:07:56.720 | that all these back and forth conversations

02:07:58.400 | have to keep moving forward.

02:08:00.200 | So it is difficult then, if you're in this system,

02:08:03.880 | to step out by yourself.

02:08:05.680 | Because this is the way we're collaborating

02:08:07.680 | is these asynchronous back and forth messages.

02:08:09.480 | And I can't disengage myself from that

02:08:11.800 | without slowing things down.

02:08:13.760 | Like from a like a mathematical game theory point of view,

02:08:16.640 | it's a suboptimal Nash equilibrium.

02:08:18.840 | It's not the right place,

02:08:20.200 | not the right way to run this.

02:08:22.560 | The utility value of this configuration is low,

02:08:24.920 | but no one individual can deploy a different strategy

02:08:27.240 | that's gonna be higher value.

02:08:28.560 | We're stuck in it, right?

02:08:30.000 | And so now it becomes really hard for an individual

02:08:32.040 | just to say, I want to check my email less often.

02:08:34.160 | It's built in systemically

02:08:36.040 | into this hyperactive hive mind workflow.

02:08:37.920 | And the only way to break free

02:08:39.440 | from the suboptimal configuration

02:08:41.400 | is to basically have the organization itself

02:08:43.360 | do like a really high cost change to the rules of the game.

02:08:46.400 | These are how we're collaborating now.

02:08:48.040 | We're not using email freely anymore.

02:08:50.280 | We're gonna use this system instead.

02:08:52.760 | It's a very expensive top-down procedure

02:08:56.600 | to free ourselves from the suboptimality.

02:08:58.760 | So like in the world of work,

02:08:59.840 | that's partially why this is such an intractable problem.

02:09:01.960 | I mean, I tried to write a book about this recently

02:09:04.800 | and it was really hard to gain traction

02:09:06.360 | because it's not easy to solve this.

02:09:07.920 | Like no individual can move out of this

02:09:09.720 | and you have to put in a lot of energy as an organization

02:09:12.720 | to try to change this.

02:09:14.560 | So it's in some sense,

02:09:15.520 | email is a more insidious problem

02:09:19.280 | than social media on the phone.

02:09:20.960 | 'Cause at least over here,

02:09:22.520 | this is my engagement with this.

02:09:24.120 | And I might have these moderate behavioral addictions,

02:09:26.040 | but I could make differences here.

02:09:27.880 | In my company, oh, this is much worse.

02:09:30.240 | This is like a systemic problem.

02:09:32.120 | It's an emergent deterministic work impact

02:09:35.400 | on a economic, social, cultural system

02:09:37.800 | that was completely dynamical

02:09:39.600 | and went in a way we didn't really expect.

02:09:41.280 | So it's a really tough situation sometimes,

02:09:44.320 | especially in the world of work.

02:09:46.080 | How do we get out of this constant distraction?

02:09:48.400 | It's why, you know, I wrote "Deep Work"

02:09:50.360 | and I was like, well, why don't people just do this?

02:09:52.000 | That's why they don't just do this

02:09:53.360 | because it's not so easy to reclaim this time.

02:09:56.880 | - Well, it's like when I was a graduate student in postdoc,

02:10:00.360 | I was focused on eating pretty well,

02:10:02.440 | meaning just clean-ish food.

02:10:04.800 | And people talked less about that at that time.

02:10:09.800 | I was also really committed to exercise since I was 16.

02:10:13.600 | People were less committed to that

02:10:15.440 | in the academic sector at that time.

02:10:17.000 | Now, I think it's commonplace for people.

02:10:18.680 | Like, I'm going to my yoga class.

02:10:19.720 | I'm doing my zone two cardio.

02:10:20.800 | I go to the gym.

02:10:21.640 | You know, men and women do this.

02:10:22.920 | I remember having like this, like sneak off to the gym.

02:10:25.360 | Like, oh, yeah, yeah.

02:10:26.640 | And, you know, you felt like a bit of an oddball

02:10:31.640 | if you were the one bringing your lunch

02:10:33.600 | to the, you know, the pizza luncheon.

02:10:35.960 | Not that there's any wrong with pizza, I love pizza,

02:10:37.560 | but I was trying to eat well.

02:10:38.880 | I have for a long time.

02:10:39.760 | I feel better when I do.

02:10:40.720 | And I'm grateful that I did.

02:10:42.200 | But you get some weird looks like,

02:10:43.560 | oh, do you have an eating disorder or something like that?

02:10:45.520 | That's what people would say then.

02:10:47.560 | Now, people would probably look and go,

02:10:49.640 | that looks better than the pizza.

02:10:50.920 | People start to understand.

02:10:51.840 | So, I think there needs to be a cultural shift.

02:10:53.880 | And I think there has been a cultural shift

02:10:55.800 | around food and exercise.

02:10:57.160 | Certainly food, meditation, sleep.

02:11:00.000 | I think people are far more accepting

02:11:02.800 | and actually encouraging of their workers and coworkers

02:11:07.120 | taking really good care

02:11:08.080 | in order to function better for longer.

02:11:10.960 | - Yeah, I think this is gonna be the next revolution.

02:11:12.640 | And it's gonna be a revolution that's gonna unlock,

02:11:14.760 | we're talking on the scale of like a trillion dollar GDP.

02:11:17.440 | When we go through the knowledge work

02:11:18.680 | and have this revolution,

02:11:19.800 | I call it like the cognitive revolution.

02:11:21.920 | Let's take really seriously

02:11:23.000 | how the brains of our workers work.

02:11:25.320 | These are our number one assets,

02:11:26.720 | not to be too mechanistic about it,

02:11:28.360 | but what is our main capital asset

02:11:30.320 | if we're a knowledge work organization?

02:11:31.720 | We have some buildings, but it's really these brains

02:11:33.680 | that we have employment contracts with.

02:11:35.080 | These brains create value.

02:11:36.920 | Let's take seriously how the brains actually operate.

02:11:39.320 | And as soon as we do, we'll say, oh my God,

02:11:41.520 | these brains are checking email once every two minutes.

02:11:44.440 | What a disaster.

02:11:45.600 | It's like if we had a car factory

02:11:47.200 | and we spent $20 million on one of these German robots

02:11:51.320 | that can put cars on the doors or whatever,

02:11:53.960 | and we just weren't taking care of it.

02:11:55.480 | And it was like rusty and it was dropping the doors

02:11:57.560 | and the production pipeline was going down.

02:11:59.080 | It was like, this is crazy.

02:12:00.120 | We gotta take care of this equipment, right?

02:12:02.680 | When we have the cognitive revolution,

02:12:04.320 | the sort of cognitive capital revolution in knowledge work,

02:12:06.680 | I think it's gonna unlock a trillion dollar GDP.

02:12:08.680 | I think that's how unproductive we've been.

02:12:11.960 | If we just think in the pure raw terms

02:12:14.400 | of brains producing stuff that's worth money,

02:12:18.560 | like if we're just like super deterministic

02:12:20.320 | and kind of inhumane about it,

02:12:22.480 | so much is being lost

02:12:24.760 | because we're in these suboptimal Nash equilibriums.

02:12:26.680 | Everyone just email everyone all the time.

02:12:28.000 | Everyone's just on Slack all the time.

02:12:29.400 | That when we finally have the revolution to get over that,

02:12:32.720 | it's gonna be a massive economic hit.

02:12:34.640 | And AI might play a role in this, right?

02:12:37.320 | Because maybe AI, once it gets planning capabilities,

02:12:39.840 | is gonna be able to take the burden

02:12:42.120 | of some of this back and forth planning.

02:12:43.840 | I think it's easier to get there with cultural shifts.

02:12:45.680 | I don't think we have to wait

02:12:46.560 | to build an email capable chat GPT to do this.

02:12:49.480 | Like you could solve this tomorrow.

02:12:50.840 | This is cultural as much as it's tool-based.

02:12:53.120 | But I think it's gonna be a huge revolution

02:12:55.080 | when we get there,

02:12:55.920 | akin to like the assembly line in manufacturing,

02:13:00.800 | which was like a 10X improvement in productivity metrics.

02:13:04.080 | When we figured out the continuous motion assembly line

02:13:06.120 | with interchangeable parts was a massive,

02:13:08.680 | it created this productivity engine.

02:13:11.080 | I'm using the economic sense of productivity now,

02:13:13.440 | you know, dollars per worker.

02:13:15.120 | The economic miracle that came

02:13:17.080 | from this process-based industrial innovations

02:13:20.120 | in the late 19th, early 20th century,

02:13:22.640 | that the money generated by that,

02:13:24.240 | the wealth generated by that

02:13:25.240 | was the foundation of the modern West.

02:13:27.280 | Like the whole world as we know it was built.

02:13:29.560 | So there's these huge latent potentials.

02:13:31.920 | And right now I don't think we're there with the brain.

02:13:33.760 | And I think it's gonna be a huge revolution.

02:13:35.680 | It's just difficult, right?

02:13:37.560 | It's not an easy revolution to start,

02:13:39.120 | but I think it's gonna change whole industries

02:13:42.160 | in ways that it's gonna be hard to even imagine.

02:13:44.760 | - And I think as long as there are individuals

02:13:46.440 | who either by virtue of lack of family or other constraints,

02:13:51.440 | or by virtue of just having more energy

02:13:53.340 | and requiring less sleep,

02:13:54.440 | because these individuals do exist out there,

02:13:57.560 | there will always be these individuals

02:13:59.260 | that can kind of apply themselves more than others

02:14:01.840 | in the sense that they can get in earlier

02:14:03.520 | and stay in later.

02:14:04.780 | And that trying to be them is not a good idea,

02:14:10.320 | that we all need to optimize for our best balance

02:14:13.480 | of productivity, deep work and work-life balance

02:14:17.600 | for lack of a better term.

02:14:19.440 | When I was a graduate student,

02:14:21.980 | I was really committed to my craft.

02:14:25.300 | And I remember hearing about a student,

02:14:26.840 | he's now a professor, a very accomplished endocrinologist.

02:14:29.720 | I'll just give him a name 'cause he did this thing.

02:14:31.560 | He doesn't know me, but I heard about this guy

02:14:33.040 | that had been in the department, Randy Nelson.

02:14:35.000 | And everyone was like, he used to work 100 hours a week.

02:14:37.680 | So I was like, all right, great.

02:14:38.680 | I'm gonna start logging my work hours silently.

02:14:40.680 | I'm gonna do 102 hours.

02:14:42.000 | And I ended up with a flu and an autoimmune condition.

02:14:45.020 | I literally had an autoimmune condition.

02:14:46.480 | I've never had one since.

02:14:47.320 | And then I stopped working that much,

02:14:49.400 | started working "smarter" along the lines

02:14:51.640 | of many of the things you're saying here,

02:14:52.960 | although I didn't implement

02:14:54.680 | or know about all these tools at that time.

02:14:56.960 | And of course the autoimmune thing went away.

02:14:58.880 | It was a fairly minor thing, never had it again.

02:15:01.260 | But you can destroy yourself simply by working more,

02:15:05.440 | even if it's deep work.

02:15:06.580 | So that the solution is not necessarily more,

02:15:08.880 | it's just like with exercise.

02:15:11.040 | I mean, I guess that's obvious,

02:15:12.640 | but I thought I'd share that anecdote

02:15:14.140 | because Randy Nelson taught me what I'm capable of

02:15:16.680 | and what I'm not capable of.

02:15:18.120 | - Yeah, well, the other thing that happens, by the way, too,

02:15:20.120 | it's not just who's capable of working more

02:15:22.480 | get these advantages.

02:15:23.360 | There's these other unpredictable inequities.

02:15:26.200 | I talked at a law firm once years ago about deep work,

02:15:28.840 | and I was invited by a group.

02:15:31.000 | It was actually a group of women lawyers

02:15:33.020 | who had a reading group.

02:15:34.120 | And they said, part of what was happening at this law firm

02:15:36.880 | is that people who were disagreeable,

02:15:40.720 | like just sort of gruff and jerks,

02:15:43.800 | would get asked to do less

02:15:45.600 | of what they would call non-promotable activities,

02:15:47.880 | or can you organize this or whatever,

02:15:49.480 | which meant they had more time to do deep work,

02:15:52.120 | which meant they would do better and they would rise faster.

02:15:54.840 | And then what was happening then

02:15:55.880 | was you had accidentally built a system that said,

02:15:57.800 | let's make sure we have a fast track

02:16:00.040 | for like our most disagreeable employees

02:16:02.480 | to the partnership level,

02:16:03.960 | where actually you need to be pretty agreeable

02:16:05.920 | because your client acquisition is really on the partners.

02:16:09.440 | And so they accidentally had pushed towards this inequity.

02:16:13.960 | And these type of inequities happen all the time

02:16:15.720 | when we leave it like haphazard.

02:16:17.600 | And okay, so who's doing less work?

02:16:19.440 | It's like, well, I just sort of like,

02:16:21.400 | I'm gruff and people don't like me,

02:16:22.920 | or I have something going on at my house

02:16:24.280 | that means I don't have the same time to do this.

02:16:26.560 | And you end up pushing people up these paths

02:16:29.040 | that might not be who you really wanna select

02:16:30.920 | because you're selecting for things

02:16:33.000 | that are sort of unrelated

02:16:34.840 | to their actual underlying talent

02:16:36.440 | or like how much they can actually produce.

02:16:38.240 | And so I'm with you on that.

02:16:39.800 | - Yeah, it's a complex problem,

02:16:42.080 | but a tractable one nonetheless.

02:16:44.240 | I'm interested in your thoughts on remote work

02:16:46.360 | versus in-person work and the hybrid model.

02:16:49.280 | I've heard about a hybrid model recently,

02:16:53.320 | a friend who owns a big record company here in Los Angeles

02:16:57.520 | said that they require one in-person day per week

02:17:01.000 | unless on sick leave.

02:17:02.140 | They require one at home day per week.

02:17:06.800 | And then the other days, it's at your discretion.

02:17:10.160 | It's kind of an interesting model

02:17:11.760 | for in a five-day-a-week model.

02:17:13.160 | - Yeah, I mean, my proposals,

02:17:15.720 | I've thought about this a lot,

02:17:17.680 | is, okay, if you're gonna do hybrid work,

02:17:19.880 | and I proposed this in Atlantic article recently,

02:17:22.240 | which created some positive, some negative waves.

02:17:24.480 | I was like, here's the way you should do it.

02:17:26.320 | Synchronize the schedule.

02:17:27.920 | Here's at-home days, here's an office days, but-

02:17:30.640 | - For everybody. - For everybody.

02:17:32.560 | Or have a few of these schedules,

02:17:33.720 | but like groups of people who work together

02:17:35.560 | have the same schedule.

02:17:36.640 | But then make the rule, at-home days, no meetings, no email.

02:17:40.400 | Like, that's the way to really get the full benefit

02:17:42.240 | out of hybrid work.

02:17:43.080 | When we're in the office, we have meetings,

02:17:45.400 | and we can talk about work.

02:17:46.400 | And we're at home, we're just doing work,

02:17:47.840 | and we can do it without distraction,

02:17:49.120 | and we can just stay deep and really turn through things.

02:17:51.400 | I think it would really make a big difference

02:17:52.560 | on the overload issue.

02:17:53.440 | I think it would be much more sustainable.

02:17:55.140 | Remote work, 'cause I did a lot of coverage of remote work

02:17:57.960 | as this was first emerging, the early pandemic.

02:18:00.320 | There, I became convinced.

02:18:02.040 | I was doing this twice-a-month column

02:18:03.320 | for "The New Yorker" back then

02:18:04.240 | that was just looking at the pandemic transforming work.

02:18:07.520 | And I came away with the idea

02:18:08.920 | that remote work can be fantastic, but it's difficult.

02:18:13.360 | And it can't just be, do the job you were doing in person,

02:18:16.840 | but just do it at home.

02:18:18.080 | And we have Zoom, and we'll figure it out.

02:18:19.720 | Like, if you're gonna be fully remote,

02:18:21.600 | we have to rethink what work means for that.

02:18:24.200 | And there's a lot of differences it needs to have.

02:18:26.240 | It needs to be way more structured.

02:18:28.320 | It probably needs to be, you're working on less things.

02:18:31.240 | It's very clear what you're working on.

02:18:33.320 | The collaboration is much more defined

02:18:35.360 | and much less frequent.

02:18:36.520 | You probably need to be freed

02:18:38.160 | from the sort of hyperactive hive mind dance

02:18:40.120 | of we're just emailing each other all day

02:18:41.480 | and in Zoom meetings all day.

02:18:42.800 | You have to sort of reconstitute

02:18:45.280 | what a remote work job is, I think, before it works.

02:18:48.360 | And we know this in part

02:18:49.200 | because software developers pre-pandemic

02:18:51.840 | were one of the only knowledge sectors

02:18:53.160 | to have a really successful track record with remote work.

02:18:56.760 | That is the only sector within knowledge work

02:18:58.640 | where we had large companies fully remote.

02:19:01.140 | They did that because their jobs,

02:19:03.260 | they had really structured them

02:19:06.040 | around these agile workload management systems

02:19:09.560 | where, okay, here's when we talk about work.

02:19:11.560 | Here's how long it takes.

02:19:12.760 | Here's how we assign you new work.

02:19:14.080 | You work on one thing at a time.

02:19:15.280 | You sprint till it's done.

02:19:16.400 | They had all this structure around work,

02:19:18.440 | which then it didn't really matter

02:19:19.320 | if you were in the office or not.

02:19:20.240 | So the less structured work is,

02:19:21.760 | the more free-for-all, the more you need,

02:19:24.120 | we have to be in the office.

02:19:25.080 | So like, I'm a huge fan of full-time remote work,

02:19:27.600 | but I think those jobs have to look very different

02:19:29.480 | than like a standard 2019 job.

02:19:32.280 | - Yeah, I've always done a hybrid of remote work.

02:19:35.920 | I used to take Wednesday mornings at home from the lab,

02:19:38.620 | but nowadays it's wild

02:19:41.700 | because especially during the pandemic, but still now,

02:19:44.000 | I mean, you can do the whole day in pajamas

02:19:46.100 | and getting work done.

02:19:47.140 | And I love this idea of no email

02:19:51.940 | and limiting text and social media

02:19:54.080 | while at home doing work

02:19:55.220 | to really extract the most out of it.

02:19:57.220 | Are there any data maybe from the pandemic era

02:20:00.340 | or prior or beyond about Zoom and things like it

02:20:04.820 | in terms of how they enhance or diminish

02:20:08.100 | or perhaps have no effect on productivity?

02:20:10.620 | Like Zoom specifically and meetings.

02:20:13.700 | We just found ourselves in Zoom all the time for a while.

02:20:17.020 | - That was the bigger problem.

02:20:18.220 | I mean, so there is data that says,

02:20:19.920 | for example, a hybrid meeting,

02:20:21.820 | some people are online, some people aren't.

02:20:23.740 | These are less effective meetings.

02:20:25.160 | They don't work as well.

02:20:26.980 | But the bigger problem with Zoom, I think, was the quantity.

02:20:29.820 | And part of it was just the technology involved, right?

02:20:33.840 | So if we're in the office together

02:20:36.260 | and I have a relatively quick thing to talk to you about,

02:20:38.580 | I can just grab you and we can talk about this.

02:20:40.340 | And the footprint's gonna be five minutes,

02:20:42.140 | but it's not just that it's five minutes,

02:20:43.420 | it's five well-allocated minutes,

02:20:45.540 | 'cause I'm probably gonna use the social cues

02:20:47.700 | of your door's open

02:20:48.620 | or you're going to get coffee anyways, right?

02:20:51.020 | In the Zoom era, instead we would say,

02:20:53.020 | well, we should set up a meeting, right?

02:20:54.780 | 'Cause we have to talk about this.

02:20:56.660 | But if you think about a standard online calendar,

02:20:58.600 | it's difficult to have a meeting

02:21:00.300 | that's less than 30 minutes long.

02:21:01.460 | I mean, you just, you have to drag it, you know?

02:21:02.900 | I mean, 30 minutes is like the default

02:21:04.660 | smallest length meeting.

02:21:06.660 | So we're taking a lot of informal back and forth

02:21:08.580 | and inflating the time.

02:21:09.540 | I think that was part of it.

02:21:11.060 | So we just had too much Zoom going on, right?

02:21:14.060 | If it was just, I do one meeting a week,

02:21:16.160 | now it's on Zoom, it used to be in person.

02:21:18.260 | We were all on Zoom, we used to all be in person.

02:21:20.020 | That's not that big of a deal.

02:21:21.140 | It's maybe like a slightly less effective meeting,

02:21:23.500 | but it's fine, it's good enough.

02:21:25.100 | But if it's, I have 4X more meetings than I used to

02:21:27.780 | because of the inherent inefficiencies

02:21:29.680 | of having to go to pre-scheduled virtual

02:21:31.200 | for basically all collaboration,

02:21:32.900 | that could be a huge problem.

02:21:34.600 | The data I saw from Microsoft,

02:21:36.240 | the last data I saw was a 252% increase

02:21:40.120 | in these meetings from 2020 to now.

02:21:42.600 | And it's not a number, it's not like it peaked

02:21:44.840 | and then it started coming back down again

02:21:46.180 | once we went to hybrid.

02:21:47.840 | It's just high and it's still creeping up, right?

02:21:50.360 | That's a lot of time that just vanished.

02:21:53.480 | And we sort of pretend like it didn't,

02:21:55.280 | but that's a lot of time that is not actively working

02:21:58.540 | on things and just talking about work

02:22:00.540 | or talking about other stuff

02:22:02.260 | while we get around to talking about work.

02:22:03.780 | I think it's a real issue.

02:22:05.780 | - Is there a top three list of things

02:22:09.160 | that if you had a magic wand,

02:22:10.900 | you would see everyone do each day?

02:22:15.580 | You know, if you had three wishes.

02:22:18.420 | - Yes.

02:22:20.140 | - What would they be?

02:22:20.980 | - Vis-a-vis knowledge workers.

02:22:22.060 | - Vis-a-vis enhancing work creativity, focused work.

02:22:25.200 | I mean, I think you and I both clearly agree

02:22:28.460 | that there's not just great value in terms of productivity,

02:22:32.260 | but a great degree of life enrichment,

02:22:36.540 | like a deep level of enrichment in terms of happiness,

02:22:39.300 | feelings of wellbeing, time for connectivity with others,

02:22:42.620 | lessons about deep work that can be exported

02:22:45.020 | to time with others where we are really present, et cetera.

02:22:48.340 | Just so much to be gained from engaging in deep work

02:22:51.940 | and things like it that you've written about

02:22:53.900 | in your various books and talk about on your podcast.

02:22:57.580 | Is there a top three?

02:23:00.500 | - Yeah.

02:23:01.340 | Yeah, so if I had to do three, I would say, okay,

02:23:04.540 | first of all, with your workload,

02:23:06.340 | simulate something like a pull system

02:23:08.900 | instead of a push system.

02:23:09.740 | And what I mean by that is when you keep track

02:23:12.100 | of what you're working on, have the top part of that list,

02:23:15.780 | which is I'm actively working on these things,

02:23:17.980 | and keep that top part of your list

02:23:19.420 | to like two or three things.

02:23:21.340 | Everything else is in the bottom part of the list.

02:23:23.140 | It's to work on next, and it's in an ordered queue.

02:23:26.500 | And so when you finish something that you're working on,

02:23:28.460 | you pull something new to take its slot

02:23:31.260 | from the list below, right?

02:23:33.300 | So what I'm trying to do with that advice

02:23:35.560 | is reduce all this administrative overhead.

02:23:37.740 | 'Cause now, even if like you can't get away,

02:23:39.580 | you have to say yes to these things

02:23:40.960 | because it's the way like your organization works.

02:23:43.480 | The stuff that's in the waiting to work on queue,

02:23:45.900 | you say, I don't have meetings about that.

02:23:47.320 | I don't do emails about that.

02:23:48.860 | I wait till I'm actively working on it.

02:23:50.540 | And I only actively work on three things at a time.

02:23:52.840 | Now, I'm gonna finish those things really quickly

02:23:55.420 | because I don't have 15 items worth of meetings

02:23:58.140 | I'm going to every day.

02:23:59.320 | So things are gonna pull up there pretty quickly.

02:24:01.240 | And so the rate at which I'm accomplishing things

02:24:03.000 | will probably be higher than it was before.

02:24:05.140 | But I only work on three things actively.

02:24:07.300 | You could even make this visible.

02:24:09.040 | It's in a shared document if you want to.

02:24:11.060 | When someone asks you to do something new,

02:24:12.980 | tell them to put it on the end of your queue.

02:24:15.580 | You're like, oh, okay.

02:24:16.420 | So like Andrew is not working on this right now.

02:24:18.380 | He's working on these three things.

02:24:19.580 | And there's seven things here,

02:24:20.700 | and I'm adding something number eight.

02:24:22.280 | So I know not to expect something for a while.

02:24:25.400 | In fact, I can keep checking this list

02:24:27.860 | until I see Andrew's working on it

02:24:29.540 | so I can see it's making progress.

02:24:31.220 | And then once I know he's working on it,

02:24:32.660 | I can start emailing him about it.

02:24:33.780 | We can do just a normal type of overhead

02:24:36.100 | you would have with projects, right?

02:24:38.780 | That alone is gonna have a huge difference.

02:24:40.940 | Like now the amount of distraction your day

02:24:43.100 | is going to plummet

02:24:45.480 | because that's generated from overhead

02:24:47.080 | of things you've agreed to do.

02:24:48.140 | And that's gonna plummet that down.

02:24:49.580 | All right, so that'd be number one.

02:24:50.660 | - Could I just, thank you.

02:24:51.940 | Could I just ask a few questions about that

02:24:53.480 | just to clarify? - Yeah, of course, yeah.

02:24:55.180 | - I'll use myself as an example, selfishly,

02:24:57.080 | but then of course I don't know

02:24:58.180 | what everyone else out there is pursuing.

02:24:59.620 | But so substitute the specifics I'm about to insert here

02:25:02.520 | for whatever it is that you care about in your life.

02:25:05.500 | So researching podcasts.

02:25:08.980 | A solo podcast in particular for me

02:25:10.600 | is my major task in life these days with respect to work.

02:25:14.160 | So that would be top of the list.

02:25:16.500 | And then there could be two other items on this top of queue

02:25:22.500 | would daily activities like exercise, social time

02:25:26.260 | with loved ones, et cetera.

02:25:27.220 | Would that be included there

02:25:28.380 | or we're talking specifically about work?

02:25:30.260 | - Yeah, let's just keep just work.

02:25:31.500 | - Okay, so it would be, you know, podcast prep.

02:25:34.180 | - But you might have- - Podcast prep.

02:25:36.100 | - You might have the particular topic though.

02:25:38.540 | - Right, right.

02:25:39.380 | Okay, so I'm working on an episode right now

02:25:41.340 | about skin health.

02:25:42.700 | - Yeah, you could have two different episode topics

02:25:45.940 | you're prepping.

02:25:46.780 | Those could both be up there.

02:25:47.600 | - Yep, so skin health, allergies episode.

02:25:49.940 | These are two that I'm spending a lot of time on.

02:25:52.660 | Months, in fact.

02:25:53.900 | - Yeah, right.

02:25:54.740 | And then your third might be something

02:25:55.560 | that involves the media company,

02:25:57.660 | something around the business side of it.

02:25:58.860 | Like, okay, we're trying to figure out a plan for whatever.

02:26:02.020 | - Right, content for a brand association or something.

02:26:05.820 | Okay, got it.

02:26:06.700 | Great, so those three would be top of the list.

02:26:08.740 | And every day until those are done,

02:26:11.460 | they could sit top of the list.

02:26:12.980 | And then there are a number of items underneath those

02:26:15.440 | that fall under whatever.

02:26:17.360 | - Yeah, and critically, when these other items come up,

02:26:19.720 | right, like, oh, this is like a topic, for example,

02:26:21.600 | I want to do a show on.

02:26:22.440 | You have a place to put it, right?

02:26:23.720 | It's not being forgotten.

02:26:24.560 | Or here's a business idea.

02:26:26.520 | We need to figure out, like, whatever.

02:26:28.120 | We want to do something with our camera, configure.

02:26:30.200 | Okay, put it on the list.

02:26:31.040 | So it's not being forgotten.

02:26:32.560 | Like, it's on there and you can see where it is.

02:26:34.760 | Not only is it on there,

02:26:35.920 | but like this could be shared among your team.

02:26:38.280 | So as people had extra information

02:26:41.280 | or things to add to one of these projects,

02:26:43.300 | they can add it to it on the list, right?

02:26:45.800 | So the information is aggregating.

02:26:47.220 | So if you use a tool like Trello for this.

02:26:49.080 | - Trello, spelled?

02:26:50.520 | - T-R-E-L-L-O.

02:26:52.400 | - Okay, it's an app of some sort?

02:26:53.800 | - It's a web-based service that,

02:26:55.520 | the metaphor is just index cards in piles.

02:26:58.520 | - Got it. - Right?

02:26:59.360 | But they're virtual. - Okay.

02:27:00.280 | - But you can flip over the index card digitally,

02:27:02.860 | attach files, write notes.

02:27:04.640 | And so I use Trello for my own organization,

02:27:07.320 | what I'm working on.

02:27:08.160 | So now you have a place where you can gather,

02:27:10.720 | like, oh, I just heard about something that's relevant

02:27:12.880 | to this thing I need to work on.

02:27:13.860 | You have a place to put it.

02:27:15.200 | Like, it goes onto the Trello card.

02:27:17.060 | Or you could do this with shared documents, doesn't matter.

02:27:18.840 | You're just, like, literally typing things

02:27:20.400 | into a Google Doc.

02:27:21.400 | - Or a whiteboard.

02:27:22.240 | - Or a whiteboard.

02:27:23.080 | - Right. - Yeah.

02:27:23.900 | Yeah, you could be,

02:27:24.740 | we're keeping track of these things, right?

02:27:26.080 | - I'm gonna do this, by the way.

02:27:27.200 | - Yeah, well, I mean, I'm a big believer in this.

02:27:29.060 | And then everyone can see what you're working on.

02:27:31.640 | And then, but the key thing is,

02:27:33.060 | if it's not in your active list,

02:27:34.240 | you don't have meetings about it.

02:27:35.880 | And you don't have emails about it, right?

02:27:37.640 | Like, if people have ideas or things,

02:27:39.120 | they just add it to the card.

02:27:40.580 | So when that gets up to the active list,

02:27:43.160 | we can work on all the information there.

02:27:44.520 | We haven't forgotten anything.

02:27:45.600 | - And what two-word language do you use

02:27:48.680 | to describe this first point, this method?

02:27:50.680 | I love this.

02:27:51.520 | - I called it a pull-based.

02:27:53.000 | - Pull-based, right.

02:27:53.840 | What gets pulled up?

02:27:55.040 | - You pull into the, so you're fixing in advance.

02:27:57.440 | Here's how much concentration I have to give on work.

02:27:59.460 | And you pull stuff into that.

02:28:00.860 | The alternative is push-based,

02:28:02.600 | which is how most organizations run,

02:28:04.120 | which is when I want you to do something,

02:28:05.340 | I just push it onto you, and now you have to deal with it.

02:28:07.280 | - Got it.

02:28:08.800 | I once heard email described as a public post to-do list.

02:28:11.960 | - Yeah.

02:28:12.800 | - That made me scared of email

02:28:13.620 | in a way that nothing else had.

02:28:14.760 | - Yeah.

02:28:15.600 | - It's Newport's pull-based system.

02:28:18.120 | I called it that, by the way.

02:28:20.280 | - This is what, a lot of the advice in the first,

02:28:22.920 | one of the chapters of the new book,

02:28:24.560 | is basically how do you get away with implementing this

02:28:28.040 | when you have a boss?

02:28:29.880 | And there's like all sorts of different,

02:28:31.080 | so you're your own boss.

02:28:32.240 | You can just say, this is what we're doing.

02:28:33.700 | Here's the board.

02:28:34.540 | But there's a lot of like subtle ways you can do this.

02:28:36.360 | Yeah.

02:28:37.280 | Right, so that's number one.

02:28:38.120 | - That's number one, Cal Newport's pull-based system.

02:28:41.920 | I'm gonna do this,

02:28:42.740 | and I'm actually gonna report back on this at some point.

02:28:45.460 | You won't see the post on social media

02:28:47.020 | 'cause you're not there, but others will.

02:28:48.700 | - All right, so that's one.

02:28:49.540 | All right, number two would be multi-scale planning.

02:28:52.220 | - Okay.

02:28:53.360 | - So now this is planning.

02:28:55.020 | You're planning on three different scales,

02:28:57.900 | daily, weekly, seasonally, or quarterly,

02:29:01.220 | however you wanna think about it.

02:29:03.060 | Right, so you have a plan for like the semester,

02:29:06.460 | the season, or the quarter.

02:29:07.620 | Like this is what I'm working on.

02:29:08.860 | These are the big objectives I wanna hit.

02:29:10.380 | Here's the reminders to myself about like what matters,

02:29:12.620 | like remember, like I'm overhauling my workout routine.

02:29:15.940 | We're trying to like do this with the podcast.

02:29:18.420 | You look at that scale of planning every week

02:29:21.180 | when you build your weekly plan.

02:29:23.180 | And the weekly plan, it gets free form text.

02:29:25.100 | You don't need anything, you know, any special tools.

02:29:27.020 | Your weekly plan, you're looking at the actual calendar.

02:29:29.940 | All right, what for my bigger scale plan,

02:29:32.980 | my seasonal quarterly plan,

02:29:34.420 | what am I trying to make sure

02:29:35.580 | I can make progress on this week?

02:29:37.100 | And you confront the reality of your week.

02:29:39.020 | You see where it's the empty space,

02:29:40.300 | where there's the busy space.

02:29:41.660 | You also change what's on your plate right here.

02:29:44.140 | You know, if I cancel this thing,

02:29:46.340 | that frees up that whole morning,

02:29:47.900 | which means like I could really make progress on this,

02:29:49.900 | which I really wanna make progress on.

02:29:51.060 | So great, I'm gonna cancel that thing on Friday.

02:29:52.700 | So you're looking at the whole week as one unit.

02:29:54.900 | Then every day, you look at your weekly plan.

02:29:58.460 | Like, okay, so I'm gonna use this

02:30:00.260 | when I make my plan for the day.

02:30:01.580 | And when you do your daily plan, you do time blocking.

02:30:04.660 | Now I'm giving a job every minute on my workday,

02:30:07.780 | not my day after work,

02:30:08.740 | but every minute of my workday, I'm time blocking.

02:30:10.500 | So I call it time blocking

02:30:11.660 | 'cause you're literally drawing blocks around the free time.

02:30:14.380 | Okay, this, I'm working on this, this, I'm working on this.

02:30:16.380 | So you're making a plan for your day

02:30:18.540 | that is informed by the weekly plan.

02:30:20.940 | So in multiscale planning,

02:30:22.020 | you have like the big picture things you care about

02:30:25.300 | trickle their way all the way down to,

02:30:28.300 | okay, what am I gonna do during this hour, during the day?

02:30:31.660 | But you don't have to grapple every,

02:30:34.260 | this is what most people do.

02:30:35.220 | Every time I'm figuring out what to do next,

02:30:37.340 | I'm not grappling with all these scales at the same time.

02:30:39.460 | What are my objectives?

02:30:40.500 | What's my big plan?

02:30:41.420 | What's going on this week?

02:30:42.900 | You're dealing with each of these scales

02:30:44.940 | when the time is right.

02:30:45.980 | And so when it finally gets down to, it's now three o'clock,

02:30:48.620 | you're just doing what that block is.

02:30:50.100 | And you figured out that block earlier today

02:30:51.580 | when you looked at your weekly plan.

02:30:52.700 | That weekly plan reflected what was in your semester plan,

02:30:56.060 | which you figured out,

02:30:56.940 | you spent a whole afternoon working on

02:30:58.540 | at the beginning of the semester.

02:30:59.820 | So multiscale planning,

02:31:01.900 | it keeps you focused on what matters.

02:31:03.900 | It prevents you from wandering through your day

02:31:06.740 | and how you disperse your energy.

02:31:08.420 | And it gives you control over your time on different scales

02:31:11.460 | from like canceling major ongoing obligations

02:31:14.420 | to just being more efficient

02:31:15.340 | about what you do during a given day.

02:31:17.340 | So I swear by multiscale planning

02:31:18.940 | to try to keep this whole lumbering ship

02:31:22.100 | that is sort of like Cal Newport,

02:31:23.740 | aiming towards the right shores,

02:31:27.380 | keep correcting and keeping it aimed back.

02:31:30.180 | - I love this.

02:31:31.420 | This is more or less what I do with my physical workouts.

02:31:34.260 | Every week I know I'm gonna get

02:31:35.540 | three resistance training sessions,

02:31:37.660 | two or three cardiovascular training sessions.

02:31:40.340 | I know I'm gonna train my legs once.

02:31:41.940 | It's either gonna be on,

02:31:43.460 | depending on travel, Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday,

02:31:45.900 | I'll train torso muscles in the middle of the week.

02:31:47.860 | I'll train sort of limb accessory muscles on a Saturday.

02:31:51.580 | Long run on Sunday or hike on Sunday or some other day,

02:31:54.340 | there'll be some sort of hit workout

02:31:55.620 | in the middle of the week.

02:31:56.460 | And ideally there's a jog in there too.

02:31:58.220 | - And you can adjust it a little bit

02:31:59.260 | based on the reality of the week.

02:32:00.620 | - Yeah, I might double up for two days,

02:32:02.460 | then take a day off.

02:32:03.300 | I have my ideal schedule,

02:32:04.940 | but sometimes it gets compromised.

02:32:06.580 | And then I do that for 16 week cycles

02:32:11.020 | where I vary the kind of intensity load, et cetera.

02:32:13.940 | And I've done this for years

02:32:15.980 | and it's just kind of works for me.

02:32:18.700 | Now with cognitive work, I don't tend to do this.

02:32:20.620 | It tends to be more deadline-based,

02:32:22.780 | but I think that the pull-based system

02:32:25.300 | is really gonna help

02:32:27.100 | if I dovetail it with this multi-scale planning.

02:32:30.180 | I love this.

02:32:31.020 | - And you can see the deadlines now.

02:32:31.980 | You see them coming, right?

02:32:33.380 | So that's part of what's nice about multi-scale planning

02:32:35.220 | is you know the deadline's coming up.

02:32:37.700 | And so when you're doing your semester planning,

02:32:39.340 | you start thinking like, okay, for the big deadlines,

02:32:41.380 | like when I get to December,

02:32:42.380 | I need to be really started getting after this thing

02:32:45.260 | that's gonna be due.

02:32:46.100 | - Yeah, I've got a book due.

02:32:47.020 | - Yeah, so then you know.

02:32:48.220 | And so this really helps in book writing

02:32:50.060 | because now when I'm planning,

02:32:51.220 | it's like a year in advance,

02:32:53.500 | I know this month I need to get like roughly

02:32:56.660 | the rough draft of chapter two done, you know?

02:32:59.180 | And then that trickles down to my week

02:33:00.620 | where I'm gonna make sure I have enough time cleared

02:33:02.340 | to like be on track for finishing it.

02:33:04.500 | And then that trickles into my day.

02:33:06.580 | Now I know to like block those mornings to work on it.

02:33:08.580 | So it all works together.

02:33:10.340 | An added bonus of the daily scale is I would say

02:33:14.020 | communication should get its own block.

02:33:16.460 | Email, social media,

02:33:17.980 | whatever that's like you communicating

02:33:19.860 | with the outside world goes into your time block plan.

02:33:22.740 | So if your block doesn't include that, you don't do it.

02:33:25.820 | So it's like, this block is writing.

02:33:27.380 | It's not email, it's not social media.

02:33:29.220 | So the rule is really simple.

02:33:30.420 | I'm not gonna use email or social media,

02:33:32.620 | but I still need to do email at some point.

02:33:34.420 | So I have to put a block in for it.

02:33:35.740 | And when I'm in my email blocks, I'm doing the email.

02:33:38.300 | If I need to go on social media to see what's going on

02:33:40.140 | with like the latest episode or something,

02:33:41.940 | I got to give that time.

02:33:43.940 | And then you can monofocus

02:33:45.420 | because then it's a psychological hack.

02:33:48.140 | But basically when you particularly,

02:33:50.740 | when you schedule communication and distraction,

02:33:53.220 | now the only thing you have to muster willpower to do

02:33:56.060 | is obey the single rule of I'm following my blocks.

02:33:59.460 | If you don't do that,

02:34:01.020 | if you're like I just sometimes do email and social media,

02:34:03.180 | sometimes I don't.

02:34:04.220 | Now what you have to do

02:34:05.260 | is just constantly be having this debate.

02:34:07.820 | Is now the right time to do this?

02:34:09.100 | I know I'm gonna do it at some point today, why not now?

02:34:11.020 | Well, what about now?

02:34:11.860 | What about now?

02:34:12.700 | Like you're just constantly asking yourself, right?

02:34:14.620 | That's impossible, right?

02:34:15.660 | That's gonna drain you.

02:34:16.500 | But if all you have to do instead is say,

02:34:17.860 | my commitment today is to follow my blocks.

02:34:20.060 | And I get, I really feel good when I do it.

02:34:21.820 | And like, I check off a box.

02:34:22.980 | If I do, give yourself some feedback here.

02:34:24.620 | It's a much easier cognitive battle to win

02:34:27.940 | than just trying to be reasonable about,

02:34:29.580 | well, let me wait a little longer to check my email.

02:34:31.300 | Like you're gonna lose that battle,

02:34:33.140 | you know, eight times out of 10,

02:34:34.500 | which is like enough to really overcome it.

02:34:36.420 | So that's like a hidden bonus of time blocking

02:34:39.820 | is now you can really get your arms around

02:34:41.700 | separating different cognitively distinct activities.

02:34:46.220 | - This is where the analogy

02:34:47.180 | of time-restricted eating comes to mind.

02:34:50.620 | - Yep.

02:34:51.620 | - Again, not that that's the best way to lose weight

02:34:53.540 | or maintain weight or it's role in longevity

02:34:56.340 | is still debated, et cetera.

02:34:57.580 | But I think for many people, not all, but for many people,

02:35:00.860 | the decision that they do not eat

02:35:02.300 | during certain time blocks

02:35:03.860 | and they do eat in other time blocks

02:35:05.280 | is just far more tractable in the real world for them

02:35:09.860 | than trying to limit portion size,

02:35:11.300 | decide whether or not they're gonna eat,

02:35:13.220 | they're gonna pass the cookie and have a little bit.

02:35:14.620 | Nope, they're in a fasting window.

02:35:16.260 | It's just, it simplifies the issue.

02:35:18.740 | And as a consequence, I think it improves behavior overall.

02:35:22.620 | Although the clinical trials point to some mixed results

02:35:25.500 | with that last statement.

02:35:26.420 | Again, I don't want the nutritionistas after me.

02:35:29.220 | - The point is the time blocking

02:35:30.460 | and the thick black line didness of the yes, no,

02:35:34.780 | the binary yes, no, as eat, don't eat.

02:35:37.940 | - It's a single commitment.

02:35:38.860 | - Email, communicate, don't communicate

02:35:40.740 | in a given time block.

02:35:41.820 | I think that really is what it's about.

02:35:44.540 | It honors the power of those sorts of neural computations.

02:35:49.540 | - And there's another hidden bonus of time blocking too

02:35:52.140 | is visually distinct blocks.

02:35:54.460 | So what I do, for example,

02:35:55.940 | is I put a double thick line around deep work blocks,

02:36:00.060 | focusing on some, not just deep work,

02:36:01.500 | but deep work on things I really care about.

02:36:03.740 | Just this gives you a visual record.

02:36:05.700 | How much deep work am I doing, right?

02:36:07.420 | Like it's this diagnosis.

02:36:09.100 | I use a paper-based time block planner.

02:36:12.020 | So you flip through those pages

02:36:14.580 | and you're just looking for dark blocks, right?

02:36:16.420 | So you see, if I see, I don't have a lot of dark blocks.

02:36:20.300 | I say, this is my whole job.

02:36:21.860 | Like my whole life, I've been trained in a lab

02:36:24.260 | to think really hard about things and write things.

02:36:25.940 | Why do I not have very many dark blocks?

02:36:28.020 | You get this feedback mechanism.

02:36:29.500 | So there's all these bonuses

02:36:31.100 | when you start doing this type of planning.

02:36:34.540 | - Before you tell us about number three,

02:36:36.060 | I often have fantasized about a web-based program

02:36:39.380 | that seems to run counter-current

02:36:40.700 | to much of what you're talking about,

02:36:41.780 | but goes back to the whiteboard MIT observer stuff

02:36:45.460 | that you talked about at the beginning,

02:36:46.740 | which is I often long for, okay, I need to write today.

02:36:49.220 | I need to write a book

02:36:50.060 | or I'm gonna do some podcast prep.

02:36:51.620 | I'm gonna pop up a few windows of other people

02:36:53.420 | that are also doing deep work,

02:36:54.980 | and we're not gonna communicate.

02:36:56.780 | In fact, if we do, or if music comes through

02:36:59.500 | on the microphone or somebody coughs,

02:37:01.180 | that's gonna be considered a distraction.

02:37:03.140 | But does anyone wanna join me for some deep work

02:37:06.100 | where we don't communicate?

02:37:07.380 | And I've often thought I would just pay someone to be there,

02:37:10.540 | to just sit there, but I haven't done that.

02:37:14.020 | - There are multiple companies that do this.

02:37:15.540 | - Okay. - Yeah, it's interesting.

02:37:17.580 | You're online with, or in person,

02:37:21.020 | with just other people doing deep work.

02:37:23.700 | - So a deep work club. - Basically.

02:37:25.300 | - The challenge is synchronizing schedules,

02:37:27.220 | 'cause I might wanna do this with somebody on the East Coast

02:37:29.140 | and they might not be doing deep work at the same time,

02:37:30.700 | and a recording isn't the same 'cause then, you know,

02:37:32.360 | they're not really watching. - Yeah.

02:37:34.300 | - But there's something really to this, right?

02:37:36.100 | - Yeah. - I mean, especially

02:37:36.940 | for at-home workers or people like me

02:37:38.320 | that work often in isolation.

02:37:39.900 | - Well, grad students do this, right?

02:37:40.740 | Dissertation bootcamps.

02:37:42.140 | I don't know if you had this experience,

02:37:43.760 | but Georgetown does, a lot of colleges do this.

02:37:46.180 | Okay, everyone working on their dissertation,

02:37:47.620 | we're all gonna get together

02:37:49.340 | and we're gonna work on it together.

02:37:50.740 | 'Cause they would often have me come speak

02:37:51.940 | at these things earlier in my career.

02:37:53.300 | It would just be a bunch of grad students.

02:37:55.220 | They were just coming to the same space

02:37:57.300 | and they would work for like, okay, 90 minutes,

02:37:59.220 | and then they would have like a speaker come in or lunch,

02:38:01.100 | and so the group cohesion

02:38:03.540 | of everyone working deeply at the same time.

02:38:05.380 | Writers retreats are the same way.

02:38:07.040 | We all go to the same house in the middle of nowhere

02:38:09.940 | so that we're all just gonna encourage each other, right?

02:38:11.620 | Because that's all what everyone's doing here.

02:38:13.460 | Yeah, so social pressure, I'm with you.

02:38:15.780 | I was thinking if I ever needed to, you know,

02:38:18.500 | put a big extension on my house, that's what I should do.

02:38:20.700 | Just like, okay, pay me money,

02:38:22.440 | and I will sit there on Zoom and do deep work with you.

02:38:24.900 | This is my secret plan.

02:38:26.660 | - I'd pay money to do deep work in parallel

02:38:31.660 | with you with a virtual window there.

02:38:33.980 | There's Cal in his office doing that.

02:38:35.900 | I think there's something nice

02:38:36.820 | about having some knowledge of who people are.

02:38:39.780 | You know, like, hey, logging in today.

02:38:42.420 | Yeah, all right, let's get down to it.

02:38:43.700 | Set the timer and go.

02:38:45.140 | And then, you know, Asta, I'm out.

02:38:47.100 | - Working at the library, academic libraries.

02:38:48.740 | Why do people do that?

02:38:49.580 | - Right.

02:38:50.740 | - Everyone there is working.

02:38:51.900 | - Right. - Yeah.

02:38:52.740 | No, I'm a big believer in that.

02:38:54.340 | - There's really something sticky to that.

02:38:55.820 | Okay, number three.

02:38:57.140 | - All right, have a shutdown ritual,

02:38:58.940 | which clearly demarcates the end of work

02:39:03.420 | and the start of the night after work.

02:39:05.900 | And the shutdown ritual, so it has to,

02:39:09.860 | you have to close open loops, right?

02:39:12.020 | So you gotta make sure, this is like a review type period.

02:39:15.180 | Let me look back at my inbox and look at my plan.

02:39:17.860 | Let me look at my time block and my calendar.

02:39:21.220 | Really make sure, there's nothing urgent

02:39:23.540 | that needs to be dealt with that I didn't.

02:39:26.420 | And there's nothing that's just in my head

02:39:28.860 | that I don't wanna forget.

02:39:30.180 | It's not written down somewhere.

02:39:31.180 | Like, take care of all of that, right?

02:39:32.620 | So you review all these things.

02:39:34.180 | You get, what am I gonna do tomorrow?

02:39:35.460 | You don't have to build your whole plan for tomorrow,

02:39:36.820 | but you have a sense for it.

02:39:38.420 | And then you need some sort of demonstrative thing you do

02:39:43.420 | to indicate that you finished a routine, right?

02:39:45.940 | So my longtime newsletter readers know,

02:39:48.140 | I used to actually have a phrase.

02:39:49.640 | I would say, "Schedule shutdown complete."

02:39:52.720 | Like a crazy phrase, right?

02:39:53.820 | It's not how normal people talk, right?

02:39:56.140 | Now I have a planner that has like a checkbox

02:39:58.780 | that says, "Shutdown complete," next to it.

02:40:01.220 | The reason why that is a demonstrative anchor

02:40:03.940 | is that you use this then for cognitive behavioral therapy,

02:40:06.740 | 'cause at first people have a hard time shutting down work.

02:40:09.820 | I mean, I invented this because I had a very hard time

02:40:11.860 | shutting down, working on my dissertation.

02:40:13.480 | I just, what if this proof doesn't work and blah, blah, blah.

02:40:16.420 | So what you do is when you get a rumination post shutdown,

02:40:20.060 | hey, what about what's going on with our work?

02:40:21.980 | Are we doing the right thing?

02:40:22.860 | Do we forget this or that?

02:40:24.180 | Instead of engaging in the rumination,

02:40:26.540 | well, it's like, no, I think we're okay.

02:40:28.180 | Let me think about my schedule tomorrow.

02:40:29.380 | What's my plan?

02:40:30.380 | You instead can just say,

02:40:32.580 | "I said that crazy phrase," or, "I checked that box."

02:40:35.140 | I wouldn't have said that phrase

02:40:36.580 | unless I had gone through everything

02:40:38.060 | and made sure that I had a good plan

02:40:39.500 | and nothing's being missed

02:40:40.540 | and it was okay to shut down work.

02:40:42.400 | Because of that, I'm not gonna engage with your rumination.

02:40:45.740 | I said the weird thing.

02:40:46.580 | Let's get back to what we're doing.

02:40:47.980 | This is like cognitive behavioral therapy

02:40:49.860 | that after a month or so,

02:40:51.700 | you are really able to actually effortlessly

02:40:55.540 | disengage from work and do everything,

02:40:57.660 | all the other stuff that matters, right?

02:40:59.300 | Without having the constant ruminations about work,

02:41:02.180 | which gives your mind an actual break to do other things.

02:41:04.700 | So, I mean, this is more mental health and productivity,

02:41:08.140 | but for me, it was critical.

02:41:10.140 | I mean, I can really remember when I came up with this,

02:41:12.640 | exactly where I was in my grad student career.

02:41:15.120 | And there's just too many ideas and concerns

02:41:18.200 | that were just roiling.

02:41:19.680 | And once I did this, it took a few weeks

02:41:23.480 | and then I could actually shut down

02:41:24.720 | and go on and do other things.

02:41:26.720 | - Yeah, the paired associative nature of the brain

02:41:29.600 | can make it really problematic

02:41:31.560 | if you're thinking about work at the dinner table.

02:41:34.200 | You start to associate the dinner table with work.

02:41:36.120 | I mean, when Matt Walker came here

02:41:38.320 | to do this six-part series that's soon to be released

02:41:41.020 | and we were discussing insomnia,

02:41:43.660 | he said, one of the major issues with insomnia

02:41:46.420 | is people who have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep

02:41:48.580 | will often stay in bed when they can't sleep.

02:41:50.420 | And then the bed becomes associated

02:41:52.220 | with challenges with sleep.

02:41:54.340 | Hence the recommendation that virtually every sleep coach

02:41:57.100 | and sleep scientist recommends that people actually,

02:42:00.580 | if they can't sleep for 20 minutes or so of effort,

02:42:03.020 | then you get up and leave the bed and go someplace else

02:42:05.180 | until you feel sleepy enough to go back and try

02:42:07.680 | or fall asleep on the couch elsewhere.

02:42:10.100 | I put that in as a note to you.

02:42:14.100 | But this seems incredibly important

02:42:16.500 | also for enrichment of relationships

02:42:18.660 | with spouses and children and people in your life.

02:42:21.340 | I mean, the problem is the first thing that we ask people

02:42:23.980 | when they walk in the door typically was how was work today?

02:42:26.500 | Or how was work?

02:42:27.340 | What'd you do today?

02:42:28.420 | Tell me about your school day.

02:42:29.460 | Tell me about your work.

02:42:30.300 | Maybe we need to come up with better questions.

02:42:32.380 | - Yeah, like here's something interesting we could do.

02:42:34.820 | Or here's like something I read about unrelated to work.

02:42:37.180 | - Yeah, no, I think it makes a huge difference.

02:42:39.960 | And again, there's all these meta benefits for these things.

02:42:42.620 | So one of the meta benefits for all of these is also,

02:42:45.720 | these are all very structured.

02:42:47.760 | You'll begin to build a reputation as someone

02:42:50.960 | who is very careful about how they manage themselves

02:42:53.680 | in their time.

02:42:54.520 | Like if you're doing multi-scale planning,

02:42:55.480 | and certainly if you're doing

02:42:56.880 | pull-based workload management,

02:42:58.460 | people are gonna start thinking,

02:42:59.980 | this is someone who thinks a lot

02:43:01.820 | about like how they manage their work day

02:43:03.280 | and how things happen.

02:43:04.400 | This gives you massive leeway, right?

02:43:07.580 | Yeah, because we think what like our colleagues want

02:43:10.140 | from us is accessibility.

02:43:12.260 | But really why they want accessibility

02:43:14.060 | is because they have no clarity about,

02:43:16.760 | are we gonna do this thing?

02:43:17.820 | Are we gonna remember to do this thing?

02:43:20.060 | Am I gonna have to keep bothering you?

02:43:21.460 | You know what?

02:43:22.300 | If I don't really think you have your act together,

02:43:23.980 | I just wish you would just do this right away

02:43:25.760 | or respond to me right away,

02:43:26.680 | because I'm gonna have to worry about this

02:43:28.420 | until I hear back from you that you did it.

02:43:30.160 | Like accessibility is born from lack of trust

02:43:32.580 | or lack of clarity, right?

02:43:34.220 | So if you have the reputation of someone

02:43:35.620 | who really has her act together,

02:43:37.080 | you can, for example, lean into a shutdown.

02:43:39.580 | I don't do email at all.

02:43:41.000 | And people, they don't think that you're being lazy

02:43:44.100 | or that you're not keeping up with the work.

02:43:45.300 | They're like, no, like Andrew has his act together

02:43:47.740 | with this stuff.

02:43:48.580 | I trust him.

02:43:49.400 | When you show them something

02:43:50.240 | like this workload management system,

02:43:51.520 | like this is where the cue is.

02:43:52.540 | Like, I can't get to this yet.

02:43:54.060 | Like, okay, that's reasonable.

02:43:55.840 | Like you have your act together.

02:43:57.000 | So there's this meta benefit

02:43:58.700 | of starting to get a little bit more structured

02:44:00.480 | about your time and cognitive work

02:44:02.200 | is that people will give you more flexibility

02:44:05.680 | to work with the better you get

02:44:07.420 | at actually working with the resources you have.

02:44:10.060 | As your reputation grows, your autonomy grows.

02:44:13.580 | - Yeah, and of course, as your reputation grows,

02:44:17.980 | more gets thrown at you

02:44:19.020 | and it probably takes a bit more discipline

02:44:20.660 | to enforce these things.

02:44:21.960 | But I always remind myself and other people

02:44:24.400 | that the reason people want to access you

02:44:26.780 | is because of presumably the consequences

02:44:28.860 | of the deep work you did.

02:44:31.060 | But people love meetings.

02:44:32.720 | Gosh, do they?

02:44:33.560 | I won't do brainstorm meetings anymore

02:44:35.440 | unless it's with my close team.

02:44:36.960 | It's like, you can pitch me a contract

02:44:39.280 | and we can reverse engineer the idea, you know?

02:44:42.920 | But it just doesn't work to meet with people

02:44:45.520 | and kind of brainstorm stuff.

02:44:47.000 | But I don't know what this is.

02:44:48.440 | Like, I think maybe people are taking their own

02:44:50.960 | lack of structure and projecting it on to other people

02:44:54.240 | as a way to fill the time.

02:44:55.520 | - Yeah, pseudo productivity as well.

02:44:57.240 | Like, this is what I have, like visible activity.

02:44:59.640 | And so let's, can we have meetings?

02:45:01.180 | Let's talk, let's hop on calls.

02:45:02.700 | Like, that all feels useful when ultimately it's not.

02:45:06.800 | Like, I'm with you on it.

02:45:07.780 | Like, remember, the reason why everyone wants to talk to me

02:45:10.420 | is because not, I'm so great at brainstorming meetings.

02:45:13.740 | You know, people are like, this is great.

02:45:14.980 | Like, Andrew's great at brainstorming meetings.

02:45:16.820 | So that's why we want to bother him.

02:45:17.700 | No, it's because you were really good at the podcast

02:45:19.580 | and you were doing like the deep thing.

02:45:20.940 | And then that brings in, you know,

02:45:22.060 | the better you get at what you do best,

02:45:24.100 | the more the world conspires to take away your time

02:45:26.300 | to actually work on it.

02:45:28.160 | Like, professors know this well.

02:45:29.500 | Like, pre-tenure, they, most big universities

02:45:31.900 | are pretty good at preaching to professors.

02:45:34.340 | All that's gonna matter is gonna be your research.

02:45:36.300 | - But they throw a ton of other stuff at you at that time.

02:45:38.140 | - It depends on the school.

02:45:39.220 | Like, I would say like Georgetown is very good about this.

02:45:41.100 | They're like, we don't, from our perspective,

02:45:43.260 | it's a waste of resources to hire you

02:45:44.700 | and have you not get tenure.

02:45:46.580 | So like, we want to try to protect you from,

02:45:48.820 | they keep service requirements low, for example.

02:45:51.660 | And like, just focus on, you know,

02:45:53.220 | just focus on your research

02:45:54.220 | 'cause that's what's gonna matter.

02:45:55.060 | And at least professors know this, right?

02:45:56.340 | Like, there's a clear process, like the tenure process.

02:45:59.460 | Most people don't understand tenure.

02:46:00.860 | They think it's like getting promoted at a job

02:46:02.900 | and there's like all these different ways

02:46:04.300 | you can sort of impress your boss.

02:46:05.640 | It's none of that, right?

02:46:06.660 | I mean, it's these confidential letters

02:46:09.220 | from leading scholars in your field

02:46:10.900 | that are doing nothing but brutally assessing your research.

02:46:13.540 | How good is Cal?

02:46:14.940 | Who are two people who are better than him

02:46:16.740 | on the market right now?

02:46:17.780 | Who are like two people he's slightly better than?

02:46:19.540 | Would you tenure him at your university?

02:46:21.380 | What university could he get tenured at?

02:46:22.860 | I mean, it's all that matters is, yeah, research quality.

02:46:26.100 | So you have to somehow rediscover what that is

02:46:28.140 | if you're not a professor.

02:46:29.460 | Like, ultimately, like this is the thing I do best

02:46:31.660 | for my company.

02:46:32.940 | So let me do that, let me do that really well.

02:46:35.600 | There's also an aspect, by the way,

02:46:37.380 | of if you do a deep thing really well,

02:46:40.540 | that does not attract as much work

02:46:42.740 | as if what you do is you're just really good

02:46:44.500 | at like responding to people's things and putting out fires.

02:46:47.340 | It's like, you don't wanna get too much trapped in that game

02:46:50.340 | unless that's the game you wanna play.

02:46:52.020 | You know, if you get trapped in the game

02:46:53.360 | of how I distinguish myself as I reply right away,

02:46:55.900 | it doesn't matter when it is, I make your life easier.

02:46:59.060 | You're playing the game

02:46:59.900 | of making other people's lives easier.

02:47:01.400 | And that's what they're gonna ask you to do.

02:47:03.060 | But if instead you play the game of,

02:47:05.100 | I'm competent with this, like I'll respond to the emails

02:47:07.720 | and not be, I won't be pathological about it.

02:47:10.840 | But the real thing you care about is like this code

02:47:13.240 | I'm producing or these reports I'm producing

02:47:15.060 | are just really second to none.

02:47:17.580 | Then you're not gonna get a much of the small stuff.

02:47:20.180 | They're like, okay, well do that then.

02:47:22.220 | You know, like that's what we want,

02:47:23.260 | that's what we want you to work on.

02:47:24.260 | So like what is your equivalent of research

02:47:26.300 | is probably a really key question for a lot of people.

02:47:29.220 | - How do you treat social engagements through work?

02:47:32.780 | Like, you know, like the company barbecue,

02:47:35.460 | I don't know anyone does company barbecues anymore,

02:47:37.360 | but you know, like happy hour

02:47:40.180 | or I don't know anyone does that either.

02:47:42.740 | And social engagements with family, like, you know,

02:47:46.080 | because obviously those things are important too.

02:47:47.980 | - Yeah.

02:47:49.100 | - Are those on your schedule?

02:47:50.660 | - Well, you know, I treat work schedule different

02:47:52.820 | from non-work schedule, right?

02:47:54.100 | So my work schedule is this time block plan,

02:47:56.340 | part of a multi-scale plan, really dialed in.

02:47:59.620 | Like when I'm working, I'm working, right?

02:48:01.940 | But then when I'm not working, I'm way more lax, you know?

02:48:04.940 | So I don't do time block planning

02:48:06.800 | of my weekends or my evenings.

02:48:08.780 | The work shutdown being clear

02:48:11.140 | gives you more flexibility there.

02:48:12.860 | So I was like, okay, what do we wanna do?

02:48:13.980 | Like, let's go like see these people,

02:48:15.300 | see these things with the family.

02:48:16.800 | I like to be flexible and not overly planned

02:48:20.500 | outside of the workday.

02:48:22.180 | But then during the workday itself, you know,

02:48:24.980 | it's much more machine-like.

02:48:27.340 | - So you're fairly, not lax,

02:48:31.440 | but you're a bit more relaxed around social engagements

02:48:34.540 | and engaging with the kids, but at work

02:48:37.380 | or when you're working at home or in the office,

02:48:39.800 | you're a beast.

02:48:40.780 | - Yeah, I'm like a black box in the workday.

02:48:42.700 | Like when I'm working, like I disappear.

02:48:44.880 | - Nice. - Yeah.

02:48:45.720 | And then when I'm done, like I'm around,

02:48:47.020 | but like my family and friends,

02:48:48.620 | and they've learned like if you text me during the workday,

02:48:52.660 | I'm not part of that game of like,

02:48:55.300 | I'll just respond back to it.

02:48:56.440 | People know like it may have been four hours

02:48:58.140 | since I saw my phone.

02:48:59.100 | - That's like Lex Friedman.

02:49:00.500 | - Yeah.

02:49:01.340 | - And people often ask to get in touch with Lex,

02:49:02.700 | and I've, you know, made that connect for a few people,

02:49:05.700 | but I always point out, you know,

02:49:07.460 | Lex will go long periods of time where we don't connect,

02:49:09.620 | and then we're close, close friends.

02:49:11.080 | We spend a lot of time in person, on the phone, text.

02:49:13.740 | But I understand that if I text Lex,

02:49:15.920 | I might not hear from him for four or five days,

02:49:17.800 | and it's all good.

02:49:19.180 | - Yeah.

02:49:20.020 | - You know, it's just, in fact, it tells me he's good.

02:49:22.020 | It's like that scene at the end of "Good Will Hunting"

02:49:23.940 | where he's like, I just want to show up at your house,

02:49:25.440 | and you're not there.

02:49:26.280 | And he gets there, and he smiles, his friend's gone.

02:49:27.820 | He knows he went the direction of his heart.

02:49:30.940 | - So you're saying if you start to get a lot of like memes

02:49:33.620 | texted to you from Lex.

02:49:34.700 | - That's not gonna happen.

02:49:35.540 | - You're gonna be like, what's going on, Lex?

02:49:37.100 | - That's never gonna happen.

02:49:38.100 | - What struggle are you having in your life right now?

02:49:40.780 | - I'm a big believer in the phone.

02:49:42.060 | I'm old school.

02:49:42.900 | I pick up the phone, make a call.

02:49:44.300 | We'll get on a call, sometimes FaceTime.

02:49:46.620 | We do text one or two things back,

02:49:48.200 | but it's often really quick, really quick.

02:49:50.800 | And I have other friends in the podcast space

02:49:52.280 | for which it's the same.

02:49:53.120 | It's just, phone is a great tool,

02:49:56.160 | and, you know, drop in and then get back to it.

02:49:58.640 | Not a lot of chitter chatter on text.

02:50:00.480 | - I like that.

02:50:01.320 | I always like, text is like a great logistical tool.

02:50:03.760 | You know, like, wait, what restaurant are you at?

02:50:06.200 | Oh, you know, okay, I'll meet you there.

02:50:08.600 | Are you free to talk?

02:50:09.440 | Like, I love text as a logistical tool.

02:50:11.840 | But you're right, as a conversational tool,

02:50:14.080 | yeah, it's not for me either.

02:50:15.200 | - And do you take vacations where you are on pure vacation?

02:50:18.320 | So just with family or maybe even solo or with your spouse,

02:50:22.200 | where it's, like, no digital anything?

02:50:24.900 | - Yeah, digital's not a problem for me on vacation,

02:50:27.920 | but my wife won't let me not bring something

02:50:31.160 | to work on on vacation.

02:50:32.360 | - Because?

02:50:33.200 | - 'Cause I'd become a monster.

02:50:34.280 | - Got it.

02:50:35.120 | Your brain needs that.

02:50:35.940 | - It needs it, yeah.

02:50:36.780 | When we had little kids, I tried this, right?

02:50:39.260 | I was like, okay, like, this is it.

02:50:40.800 | I'm not gonna think about anything.

02:50:43.040 | And I would just become, like, an anxiety case.

02:50:45.400 | So what I've learned is bring one thing

02:50:47.240 | that's, like, very deep and non-urgent,

02:50:49.900 | like a book concept I'm trying to make work

02:50:51.800 | or an academic paper that I was, like, trying to crack

02:50:54.040 | or, like, something new.

02:50:54.960 | And I need, like, that 90 minutes a day

02:50:57.240 | to, like, walk on the beach and think.

02:50:58.720 | And I have to have a notebook.

02:51:00.440 | I have it with me in here.

02:51:01.480 | I have to have a notebook with me

02:51:02.640 | so that, like, I can capture notes

02:51:04.240 | and get 'em out of my head on vacation.

02:51:05.720 | And now we have a happy medium.

02:51:07.320 | Like, I work a little bit every day.

02:51:09.520 | No email.

02:51:10.360 | Not email, not, no, deep work thinking.

02:51:13.360 | I'm much happier.

02:51:14.560 | - It's like an itch that you have to scratch.

02:51:16.600 | - Yeah, if I'm not writing or thinking,

02:51:19.040 | it's, I get cognitively antsy.

02:51:22.280 | I get anxious, you know?

02:51:24.120 | Like, I'm on, I've been now, I'm talking to you now,

02:51:26.760 | but I've been, you know, traveling,

02:51:28.120 | doing some podcasts and stuff like this.

02:51:29.560 | And I'm way out of my cognitive comfort zone here

02:51:32.880 | because I'm not logging.

02:51:34.360 | Like, early in this trip,

02:51:35.240 | I was on a New Yorker and Atlantic deadline,

02:51:37.580 | like, writing all the time, you know,

02:51:39.120 | California time up at 5 a.m., like, you know.

02:51:41.240 | And I'm done with that now.

02:51:42.680 | And I'm really cognitively antsy.

02:51:44.240 | Like, I just feel out of sorts right now, you know?

02:51:46.400 | Like, I'm not working.

02:51:47.920 | I'm not thinking.

02:51:49.000 | - Love it.

02:51:51.040 | Cal, for me, this has been such an honor.

02:51:55.280 | I mean, I should have said this

02:51:57.280 | at the beginning of the episode,

02:51:58.320 | but I've been such a fan for such a long time.

02:52:01.520 | Long before we met or communicated at all,

02:52:04.760 | I started reading your books.

02:52:06.840 | And I would say you and Tim Ferriss

02:52:09.000 | are the people who, early in my academic career,

02:52:12.400 | had such a profound influence on how I approach work.

02:52:15.180 | And it required that I do things

02:52:17.280 | kind of against the grain, people around me.

02:52:20.120 | And very quickly, I saw that I was making progress

02:52:23.920 | much faster than I would have otherwise.

02:52:25.840 | - Yeah.

02:52:26.680 | - And I never looked at it as a competitive endeavor

02:52:27.900 | with others, but, and you've just continued

02:52:30.880 | to churn out valuable information, actionable tools,

02:52:34.640 | you know, book after book after book.

02:52:37.400 | And obviously they require some structure

02:52:40.200 | and some restriction,

02:52:41.920 | but also some moving toward action items.

02:52:45.680 | And I love these top three that you provided us,

02:52:49.000 | the pull forward, the multiscale planning,

02:52:51.080 | and the shutdown ritual,

02:52:53.020 | and all the others that you've put forth.

02:52:55.920 | And I guess the major takeaway for me today

02:53:00.360 | is that, yes, you've developed all these tools,

02:53:04.040 | but you also use them, and it's not lost on me

02:53:06.600 | that you also have a flourishing career

02:53:08.220 | as a computer scientist.

02:53:09.840 | So you're not just somebody who talks about,

02:53:11.920 | and here I'm not dissing anyone else

02:53:13.320 | in the information sphere,

02:53:14.960 | like just talks about habits or just talks about protocols.

02:53:17.920 | You do these things and you implement them

02:53:20.400 | in the context of your work life, your creative life,

02:53:22.820 | your family life, and your relationship to self,

02:53:24.840 | and you exercise.

02:53:25.800 | And I think that that all combines

02:53:29.000 | to be an amazing example of what's possible

02:53:32.600 | if we introduce a bit of understanding

02:53:36.220 | about how we function as a being,

02:53:39.000 | and that we implement some of these tools

02:53:43.040 | in the user manual that you've come up with.

02:53:45.320 | And so I just want to say on behalf of myself

02:53:47.580 | and everyone who's listening and watching,

02:53:49.800 | thank you so much.

02:53:50.680 | This is incredibly valuable information,

02:53:52.760 | regardless of what one is doing in life.

02:53:54.960 | And I'm certainly going to implement this three-step system.

02:53:59.800 | And I do have the book.

02:54:01.160 | I always like to read books after guests are on.

02:54:02.840 | I'm going to read the book,

02:54:04.720 | and I'm going to do some posts

02:54:07.040 | about what I experience as a consequence.

02:54:10.440 | So thank you so much.

02:54:13.120 | I would pay a substantial amount of money

02:54:15.420 | to do deep work sessions with you on the screen there,

02:54:18.320 | but I won't put that on you.

02:54:19.200 | I'm going to just bite down and do this stuff.

02:54:22.960 | So thank you so much for being a pioneer in this space

02:54:26.280 | and for such a clear communicator.

02:54:28.280 | We all owe you a debt of gratitude.

02:54:29.940 | - Oh, thanks, Andrew.

02:54:30.780 | - And for the rest of us professors

02:54:32.360 | who are also podcasting,

02:54:33.760 | we owe you a debt of gratitude

02:54:35.040 | because you're showing us what's actually possible.

02:54:38.200 | So this has been great.

02:54:39.240 | Meeting you as well has been fantastic.

02:54:41.040 | - All right, well, thank you.

02:54:41.880 | We won't see each other on social media,

02:54:44.280 | but we'll share a meal at some point before long.

02:54:47.400 | Thank you for joining me for today's discussion

02:54:49.640 | with Dr. Cal Newport.

02:54:51.320 | To find links to Cal's website, books,

02:54:54.000 | and to his excellent podcast,

02:54:55.740 | please see the links in the show note caption.

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02:55:00.720 | please subscribe to our YouTube channel.

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02:55:10.820 | you can leave us up to a five-star review.

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02:55:19.340 | If you have questions for me or comments about the podcast

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02:55:29.360 | Not during today's episode, but on many previous episodes

02:55:31.840 | of the Huberman Lab podcast, we discuss supplements.

02:55:34.480 | While supplements aren't necessary for everybody,

02:55:36.560 | many people derive tremendous benefit from them

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02:56:23.200 | one- to three-page PDFs where we spell out specific items

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02:56:46.280 | Thank you once again for joining me

02:56:47.560 | for today's discussion with Dr. Cal Newport.

02:56:50.160 | And last, but certainly not least,

02:56:52.320 | thank you for your interest in science.

02:56:54.220 | (upbeat music)

02:56:56.800 | you

Dr. Cal Newport: How to Enhance Focus and Improve Productivity

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