Everyday Small Habits That Lead To Incredible Results

00:00:00.000 | We talk a lot here about big changes, we're talking massive overhauls to how you organize

00:00:06.560 | your life or how you approach your work.

00:00:09.640 | Today, I thought it might be fun to talk instead about some of the small things that can make

00:00:15.080 | a surprisingly big impact on the quality of your life both personally and professionally.

00:00:22.240 | So in today's deep dive, I have identified eight such small habits and tactics to suggest

00:00:27.840 | to you, four of these will be related to the world of work, the other four will be related

00:00:33.520 | to your life outside of work, all of them will be oriented at our core goal here of

00:00:38.720 | trying to cultivate a deep life in a world that's increasingly drowning in digital distractions.

00:00:43.600 | Now, here's a key point about what we're about to do here.

00:00:47.840 | These are small, unusual or interesting habits, not the major things, the major classic pieces

00:00:55.140 | of advice that I talk about on this show and in my book, so we're not going to talk about

00:00:58.440 | the heavy hitters, the protecting deep work, the practicing multiscale planning, the becoming

00:01:04.040 | a digital minimalist, using pull instead of push for workload management, these sort of

00:01:08.560 | big classic ideas is not today's goal.

00:01:10.720 | Today's goal is to small things that sometimes get missed, the surprisingly small ideas that

00:01:15.240 | make the surprisingly big difference.

00:01:17.520 | I've mentioned most of these before in passing, but I'm gathering them for the first time

00:01:22.240 | all in one episode.

00:01:23.840 | Two other quick notes, this is not a comprehensive list, just a bunch of things I thought were

00:01:28.060 | interesting.

00:01:29.060 | There's a lot of things I'm missing that are probably important.

00:01:30.460 | It's also not mandatory.

00:01:32.700 | You don't have to do everything on this list to enjoy the benefits of a deeper life, pick

00:01:36.440 | and choose as you see fit.

00:01:38.500 | All right, let's dive right into it.

00:01:40.700 | We will start with small ideas to make a big difference in the world of work.

00:01:47.140 | Here's my first idea, reciprocal meeting blocks.

00:01:52.340 | All right, here's how this goes.

00:01:55.420 | Every time in your context as a knowledge worker in the world of digital technology,

00:02:00.340 | every time someone says, "Hey, let's have a meeting that you have to schedule," I want

00:02:04.740 | you to schedule a corresponding block of time for the same week that you will then protect

00:02:11.100 | for undistracted or deep work.

00:02:13.660 | Now, you have some give here in terms of the ratio.

00:02:18.000 | The obvious thing to do is just one to one.

00:02:19.680 | You want a one-hour meeting?

00:02:20.680 | I'm going to find one hour somewhere else in my week to protect time for deep work.

00:02:25.640 | You could also go with different ratios depending on your job.

00:02:28.380 | Maybe for every hour of meeting you schedule, you put in a half hour deep work somewhere

00:02:33.620 | else or you could go the other way.

00:02:36.320 | For every hour of meeting I schedule, I want two plus blocks I'm going to schedule to protect

00:02:40.440 | for deep work.

00:02:41.440 | It just depends on the details of what you actually do.

00:02:44.700 | Here's why this is a nice strategy.

00:02:48.880 | It doesn't force you to become too rigid about when you have meetings.

00:02:52.980 | I have a suggestion later on in this list of a more rigid way to deal with meetings,

00:02:56.520 | but this is if you need some flexibility.

00:02:58.080 | This takes no time a priori off the table, but what it also does is create a governor

00:03:05.820 | on your available time.

00:03:07.600 | As more meetings get scheduled for a week, more time gets grayed out.

00:03:12.860 | There's less time left for a meeting to fit in that week and more meetings just won't

00:03:16.580 | happen or they'll get pushed to later weeks.

00:03:18.940 | It ensures that in your quest in the moment to be responsive to the needs of other people

00:03:25.260 | in your digital office, that you don't have your schedule become overly saturated with

00:03:29.580 | meetings.

00:03:30.580 | I want to give you a bonus sub tip here, it's related.

00:03:35.500 | When you schedule a meeting on your calendar, add 20 minutes to the end.

00:03:40.260 | I call this the recovery block.

00:03:42.400 | It gives you time after the scheduled meeting is over to first of all, take progress, make

00:03:48.220 | progress and organize the stuff that came out of the meeting to make sure that the obligations

00:03:52.880 | that arose get written down and whatever systems you use to track your obligations.

00:03:58.160 | If there's quick things you can do right away, like, okay, I promised to send out this file

00:04:02.440 | and to follow up with someone else, you can do that right there.

00:04:05.200 | So it doesn't have to just float in the back of your mind.

00:04:08.100 | It also gives your mind chance to just clear out the attention residue of the meeting to

00:04:13.020 | begin to recover from the cognitive act of being part of that focused discussion, so

00:04:18.320 | that it'll be easier to move on to what's next.

00:04:21.400 | Without these recovery blocks, if you go from meeting to meeting, it's difficult because

00:04:24.640 | a the small tasks generated by the meeting will sit in your head, taking up resources,

00:04:29.960 | oh, my God, I gonna have to do this, right?

00:04:32.100 | It's just sitting there distracting you as you move on to the next meeting.

00:04:34.600 | And it can be whiplash, cognitive whiplash to go from one meeting to another recovery

00:04:38.960 | blocks.

00:04:39.960 | Again, this is all tricks for playing with your calendar and meetings.

00:04:43.120 | Recovery blocks make a big difference.

00:04:44.720 | All right, here's my second small idea, work quotas.

00:04:50.840 | For common types of work tasks that you're asked to do on a regular basis and that are

00:04:55.520 | important to your job, the things you can't just not do, establish quotas.

00:05:03.080 | Here is how many of this particular types of projects I do per month, or maybe per quarter,

00:05:09.960 | or maybe per year, depending on the type of work we're talking about.

00:05:14.880 | And when you have these quotas, here's what happens.

00:05:16.560 | You can say yes to these things until the quota is full.

00:05:19.840 | Once the quota is full, you have to start saying no, because your quota is full, but

00:05:23.040 | now you have a good reason for saying no.

00:05:26.640 | You can say to the interested party, you know, thanks for the request.

00:05:31.220 | This is obviously an important part of what I do.

00:05:34.400 | I maintain a quota of doing five of these per season, and I've already hit that quota,

00:05:38.340 | so I can't take this on right now, but you know, I'm going to continue to be engaged

00:05:41.480 | in this going forward.

00:05:43.720 | The nice thing about the quota rationale is that it's hard to push back against.

00:05:48.600 | If I'm the person who wants you to do something, yes, I want you to do it.

00:05:51.840 | But if you say I have a quota, and it's a reasonable quota, and you've hit that quota,

00:05:56.420 | my only comeback at this point is your quota should be bigger.

00:06:00.600 | If your quota is reasonable, they're like, well, that's a lot of work, so let's be concrete

00:06:04.040 | about this.

00:06:05.040 | You know, I have a quota for peer review requests.

00:06:08.600 | I'm a full professor.

00:06:09.600 | I get a lot of requests to review papers.

00:06:11.600 | It's an important part of my job.

00:06:13.280 | I get way more requests than I can possibly actually fulfill.

00:06:17.500 | So I have a quota.

00:06:18.500 | When I come back and say, OK, you know, I've already hit my quota for this semester.

00:06:21.200 | I use semester because I'm an academic.

00:06:23.840 | If that number is pretty large for the requesting person, like, OK, you're doing a lot of reviews,

00:06:28.360 | and that's a reasonable amount of reviews to do, and it's reasonable that you're done

00:06:31.080 | for this semester, let me move on to someone else.

00:06:35.640 | It's much more precise than simply saying, I don't know, I'm busy, because everyone's

00:06:38.560 | busy.

00:06:39.840 | They want you to do this thing to make their life easier.

00:06:41.600 | So you need a better reason.

00:06:42.880 | Quotas are good reasons.

00:06:44.520 | Here's an advanced tip surrounding quotas.

00:06:48.720 | Predictably look ahead and be willing to use the quota to turn down requests before the

00:06:54.840 | quota is full.

00:06:55.840 | Let me be more concrete about this.

00:06:58.800 | If you know, like in my case, that there's some number of peer review papers you do each

00:07:02.800 | semester and a request comes in, and it's not a very important review, the paper's maybe

00:07:09.360 | not, by not important, I mean not important for you.

00:07:11.660 | So maybe it's not a great mix, a match for your expertise, or it's not a very good venue.

00:07:17.240 | You can say, look, I'm coming close to my quota for papers for this semester, and I

00:07:23.040 | want to leave the last final spots for some papers I expect that are coming up.

00:07:29.200 | Papers that are maybe like a stronger match for my expertise.

00:07:32.520 | Or you might have a specific reason to expect in the near future you're going to have some

00:07:36.800 | more requests come in.

00:07:39.520 | So it might be like, look, I need to wait here because there's this big conference in

00:07:44.160 | my field coming up.

00:07:45.160 | I'm going to get some review requests.

00:07:46.160 | I want to keep some slots open in my quota.

00:07:47.320 | So you can predictably turn things down based on your assumption that better things for

00:07:53.000 | your quota is going to come in the future.

00:07:54.320 | But what you get here is clarity.

00:07:55.480 | You're still doing important things, but you are controlling the load, the number of those

00:07:58.780 | things that you do.

00:08:00.640 | All right, small habit or ritual or task, tactic number three, coordination Mondays

00:08:08.500 | and summer Fridays.

00:08:09.500 | And this is the third of our four work-related small things to make a big difference.

00:08:17.860 | Coordination Mondays and summer Fridays is a philosophy for thinking about how you deal

00:08:22.020 | with different days during your work week.

00:08:26.020 | So coordination Mondays, this concept says, I think about Mondays as the day where it's

00:08:30.700 | all about organizing my work and collaboration.

00:08:34.020 | It's where I get a handle on what's going on.

00:08:35.500 | I check in with people.

00:08:37.100 | I learn more about things that need to be done.

00:08:40.340 | I organize and make sense of the work that has been done and get a better sense of what's

00:08:43.660 | still coming.

00:08:44.660 | Mondays is when I do this.

00:08:47.040 | So what this means, for example, is if you're going to ask someone for a meeting, you're

00:08:51.620 | like, okay, I need to talk to this person.

00:08:55.140 | Whatever it is, the work he wants me to do, or she wants me to do or the work we're working

00:08:58.140 | on together.

00:08:59.140 | We got to talk about this, right?

00:09:00.260 | Your default is like, hey, let's find some time on Monday.

00:09:03.900 | Because that's when I do this coordination.

00:09:06.180 | You can also have a really big prominent office hours on these Mondays, a big two hour block,

00:09:12.740 | where a lot of these meetings, instead of actually scheduling them individually, so

00:09:15.580 | just any time during this two hours on Monday, just like call me or stop by my office and

00:09:19.380 | we'll get into this.

00:09:20.380 | Like your mode on Monday is I want to talk about projects, I want to talk to other people

00:09:24.680 | about projects, I want to figure out where things stand.

00:09:27.380 | You can also spend the first hour to 90 minutes of your day and coordination Mondays just

00:09:31.780 | working on your own plans, getting your weekly plan in place, looking through your task systems

00:09:37.860 | and cleaning that up and organizing it all of the sort of maintenance of keeping an organized

00:09:41.980 | life and digital knowledge work.

00:09:44.020 | Monday is all about this.

00:09:46.720 | Someone asked you for a meeting, hey, can we talk to get into this like, yeah, I try

00:09:49.460 | to like, dedicate my Mondays to getting my arms around things.

00:09:52.380 | So let me know when you're free on Monday.

00:09:53.980 | In fact, you can even have a scheduling application for Monday where you have, you know, all of

00:10:00.740 | your non-office hour times between 11am at the end of the day, just available for meeting

00:10:05.220 | slots and just throw this link at people like candy on Halloween or beads on Mardi Gras.

00:10:11.220 | You know what I mean?

00:10:12.220 | Yeah, let's grab a time, grab a time, anyone bothering you, grab a time on Monday, grab

00:10:15.500 | a time on Monday, any Monday you want.

00:10:17.140 | We'll talk about it.

00:10:18.140 | Monday is my coordination day.

00:10:19.140 | If you can get away with this, it makes a big difference because what happens on Tuesday,

00:10:22.460 | Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, they're much more clear.

00:10:25.780 | You're able to actually make progress on work, this focus on something for a long amount

00:10:31.260 | of time to get your, to get your head around something without having to constantly switch

00:10:34.460 | your context back and forth.

00:10:36.480 | And the coordination Monday is such a simple heuristic.

00:10:39.700 | You don't have to remember a lot of complicated scheduling details in the moment.

00:10:42.980 | You just have this simple heuristic push to Monday, push to Monday.

00:10:45.300 | So now you can really handle all these incoming and outgoing requests to chat or talk and

00:10:49.340 | collaborate.

00:10:50.340 | You can handle with handle them all easily by just deferring to Monday.

00:10:53.580 | Hey, it's Cal.

00:10:55.060 | I wanted to interrupt briefly to say that if you're enjoying this video, then you need

00:10:59.560 | to check out my new book, Slow Productivity, The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout.

00:11:07.020 | This is like the Bible for most of the ideas we talk about here in these videos.

00:11:12.460 | You can get a free excerpt at calnewport.com/slow.

00:11:17.820 | I know you're going to like it.

00:11:19.640 | Check it out.

00:11:20.640 | Now let's get back to the video.

00:11:23.020 | The other end of this is summer Fridays.

00:11:24.260 | Well, summer Friday is a reference to how the publishing industry schedules their work

00:11:28.500 | during the summer, which is they end work early on Fridays.

00:11:32.060 | Traditionally, this is when the old school editors needed to leave early to get to their

00:11:37.960 | Hamptons houses.

00:11:38.960 | All right.

00:11:39.960 | Now it just becomes a perk of the publishing industry.

00:11:43.620 | The summer is a slower time.

00:11:46.120 | They lean into this by saying Fridays are half days, they're not meeting days.

00:11:50.100 | You get in, you get some stuff done, have a longer weekend.

00:11:54.980 | I suggest simulate this as much as possible.

00:11:56.820 | Again, how do you simulate this?

00:11:58.220 | It all comes down to your scheduling decisions in the moment.

00:12:01.540 | Don't offer up Friday afternoons for meetings.

00:12:04.100 | Just don't offer them up.

00:12:05.100 | If someone asks you, I'm busy then, but how about Monday or whatever day, right?

00:12:10.060 | That will eliminate 95% of your Friday afternoon meetings.

00:12:14.300 | Now what this allows you to do is to have a real good shutdown at like one o'clock or

00:12:19.140 | two o'clock on Fridays, and then without making a big deal of it, move on to something else.

00:12:23.240 | If you have a lot of autonomy, just move on and have an afternoon to unwind.

00:12:27.540 | If you don't have a lot of autonomy, then you have to sort of fake being around.

00:12:30.700 | You maybe still have to be in your office or do a symbolic email response block at 4:30,

00:12:38.940 | but you can be checking up mentally, working on another project, reading, exercising, doing

00:12:43.740 | something different during those times.

00:12:45.580 | Just having this slow windup into the weekend makes a big difference.

00:12:50.220 | That little bit of extra time when the world is still working makes a big difference.

00:12:53.980 | Coordination Mondays, summer Fridays, it's all about how you conceptually think about

00:12:58.780 | your schedule, but it makes a really big difference, especially in a sort of highly distracted

00:13:02.240 | workplace environment.

00:13:03.240 | All right, my fourth piece of advice, this is a small thing, but a common thing.

00:13:07.060 | I swear by this.

00:13:08.060 | You have to do this.

00:13:09.060 | I'm just going to emphasize it again and again.

00:13:12.140 | If you work at a computer, you need to use a working memory.txt file.

00:13:18.260 | The idea here is really straightforward.

00:13:21.540 | You got a text file on your desktop.

00:13:24.300 | I use a Mac, so I'm using TextEdit, and I make the text file plain formatting.

00:13:30.220 | No fonts, no bolds, nothing like that.

00:13:32.620 | Okay, what is this file used for?

00:13:35.620 | Throughout the day, it is what you use as an extension of your brain.

00:13:41.180 | When you're working on a particular project, the working memory.txt, you type things in

00:13:45.180 | so you don't have to hold it all straight in your head.

00:13:46.860 | You're trying to think about what are the four points I want to make in this presentation.

00:13:51.740 | That's where you can write them down.

00:13:53.200 | When you're in a meeting and there's, okay, action items are coming up, suggestions, things

00:13:57.740 | you need to do are coming up, you're taking those notes just right there on working memory.txt.

00:14:01.140 | You have a place to put that where it's not just in your head.

00:14:04.540 | When you're cleaning your inbox, you're putting notes in there.

00:14:08.660 | You're keeping track of like, okay, this message, I need to do this, remember to do this.

00:14:12.660 | You're just writing down as fast as you can type, like summaries of stuff you have to

00:14:15.940 | do as you clear through these messages in your inbox.

00:14:20.100 | Almost whatever you're doing, it is an extension where you hold information that can't all

00:14:23.100 | fit in your head.

00:14:24.100 | And then you process all that information next time you get a chance.

00:14:26.340 | When you're cleaning your inbox, taking things out of the actual inbox, you might be growing

00:14:31.980 | this list of different things that came out of this inbox.

00:14:35.860 | And then when you're done processing your inbox, you make sense of this list, you realize

00:14:38.820 | a few of these things you can skip, a couple you deal with there, the other things you

00:14:41.900 | move on to your calendar till your to-do list.

00:14:43.900 | But this memory sits here because you can't keep this all track of all this in your head.

00:14:48.060 | So it sits there, right there.

00:14:49.620 | Why a text file?

00:14:50.620 | Because you can type so fast.

00:14:53.020 | You can just type as fast as you're thinking, as fast as people are saying things.

00:14:57.480 | Don't worry about formatting, just rock and roll on this list.

00:15:02.020 | My workingmemory.txt grows and contracts throughout the day.

00:15:06.760 | And if I have an interruption, I can come back later that day or the next day and know

00:15:11.280 | exactly what was going on by seeing what notes were left in the workingmemory.txt file.

00:15:15.180 | So this is a key bit of cybernetic productivity, but it's critical.

00:15:19.820 | You work at a computer, use a workingmemory.txt file to be a literal digital extension of

00:15:25.380 | your brain.

00:15:26.380 | All right, so those are ideas for the world of work.

00:15:30.620 | Let's give a couple quick ideas here, small things that make a big difference for living

00:15:33.560 | a deeper life in your life outside of work.

00:15:37.940 | The first thing I want to suggest here is the use of single purpose notebooks.

00:15:43.340 | And this is something we discussed on the show, I think a couple months ago.

00:15:46.020 | But the idea is the following, when you have a particular problem that's particularly complicated

00:15:51.620 | that you're working on, and this could be a personal problem, like you're trying to

00:15:55.580 | figure out how do I fix this part of my life or this unhappiness I have, or it could be

00:16:00.140 | a particular professional problem, sure, like, what is this a book I want to write going

00:16:04.620 | to be about?

00:16:05.620 | Or how do I overhaul my company?

00:16:08.340 | It's a struggling and I want to make it more successful, or it's successful, but I'm drowning.

00:16:12.300 | I want to reimagine what my company could be like when it was less overwhelming.

00:16:17.060 | Whatever the problem is, dedicate a single small notebook to this problem.

00:16:22.620 | I recommend using a Fields Notes notebook.

00:16:25.000 | These are very small.

00:16:26.740 | They fit easily in your pocket.

00:16:28.800 | Have a good pen, non-bleed pen to use.

00:16:31.060 | I like Uniball Micro 0.5 millimeter ballpoint pens, but you can use whatever you prefer

00:16:37.620 | to use and bring this notebook with you.

00:16:41.720 | Now whenever you have a thought about the single problem, you have a single place to

00:16:45.780 | write it down.

00:16:47.460 | Now you can go, you know, on a dedicated thinking excursion, like, okay, I'm going to go to

00:16:54.540 | this coffee shop and just think for 20 minutes about this problem.

00:16:57.220 | You have a way of doing that.

00:16:58.340 | Bring the notebook, take notes.

00:17:00.580 | The notes accrete in this notebook, and over time, it's going to help you come up with

00:17:05.940 | a solution to the problem in hand.

00:17:10.340 | Now the key about this is by having this notebook with you wherever you go, by having a ready-made

00:17:14.560 | place to put thoughts or insights as they arrive, you're going to get probably 5X more

00:17:20.180 | brain power than if you just instead say, "I'm going to schedule a time to sit and think

00:17:25.380 | about this problem," or "I'm going to get together with someone and we're going to talk

00:17:28.780 | about this problem and solve it in a meeting."

00:17:31.780 | Because you're tapping so much more of your brain in so many different more mind states.

00:17:35.780 | You're tapping so many more momentary insights and fresh starts and bursts of energy.

00:17:40.580 | It is an accelerant to the insight that your brain can generate when you have a notebook

00:17:46.460 | with you at all times dedicated to a single problem.

00:17:49.100 | It's a powerful tool.

00:17:50.940 | I suggest it for making sense of your life or any other big problem you're facing.

00:17:56.460 | Second small thing for your life outside of work, take thinking walks, preferably every

00:18:02.220 | day.

00:18:03.220 | Now, a thinking walk is where you go for a walk.

00:18:06.860 | We're outside now.

00:18:08.800 | Go for a walk and think about yourself, your life, or something that's on your mind.

00:18:14.820 | It doesn't have to be profound.

00:18:17.140 | It could just be kind of fun.

00:18:19.220 | You're toying with a fantasy of what if we moved over here or a new hobby you're into.

00:18:26.220 | Or it could be something like, "I'm excited about something.

00:18:29.780 | Let me go think about it, what this means," or "I'm upset or ashamed of something.

00:18:32.980 | Let me go make sense of this.

00:18:34.100 | Let me walk and think about it.

00:18:36.260 | What am I liking about my life?

00:18:37.660 | What am I not liking about my life?"

00:18:39.060 | It's being alone with your own thoughts and enjoying the company of your own thoughts.

00:18:44.340 | Do this walking, not sitting, not in a car, not in a train, but actually out there walking

00:18:50.420 | in nature.

00:18:53.220 | This is how humans grow.

00:18:56.380 | This is how humans make sense of the messiness that is life.

00:18:59.140 | This is how humans find meaning and resilience among the hardness.

00:19:03.320 | They have to grapple with the world within their own interiority, and this requires thinking,

00:19:10.580 | and walking's the best way to think.

00:19:11.980 | Now, there's a couple other benefits you get from this.

00:19:14.500 | A, it's just really nice to be outside.

00:19:16.660 | We're wired to be outside.

00:19:17.780 | You hear the birds.

00:19:19.140 | You feel the different changes in the weather.

00:19:21.220 | It's just going to be good for you as a human.

00:19:23.620 | It also gets you used to not always having a screen to distract you at a moment's notice.

00:19:28.020 | You'll break that dopamine loop where it says, "Man, we are so close to getting a screen

00:19:31.900 | fixed.

00:19:32.900 | Let's just do that.

00:19:33.900 | We got to do that.

00:19:34.900 | We got to do that."

00:19:35.900 | Because when you're doing a thinking walk, you're not looking at your screen.

00:19:36.900 | You get used to that as a state.

00:19:38.420 | It really does make your life shift from black and white to technicolor when you're able

00:19:44.340 | to spend time to actually make sense of what you're seeing on this metaphorical screen.

00:19:48.260 | All right, third piece of advice for life outside of work, never post.

00:19:54.140 | Again, something we've talked about recently on the show, but I want to underscore here.

00:19:59.420 | I'm not a big fan of social media.

00:20:02.060 | Other people use it.

00:20:03.460 | There's definitely some positive information or purposes that people deploy with social

00:20:08.820 | media.

00:20:09.820 | That's all fine.

00:20:10.820 | But I'm going to argue, don't post unless you really, really have to.

00:20:13.660 | If you run a business or you're a public figure, sure, have a professional posting schedule

00:20:19.140 | that serves a really good need.

00:20:22.660 | Okay, this is specifically how I post.

00:20:24.900 | Preferably have someone else do the posting for you.

00:20:26.820 | Never read the responses.

00:20:27.980 | That's fine.

00:20:28.980 | But if you're not a public figure, just don't post.

00:20:33.420 | It's in the posting that you get the deepest tendrils of the social media addiction mind

00:20:39.380 | warping machine into your brain.

00:20:41.500 | It's when you post that you begin to obsess over what these faceless digital denizens

00:20:47.820 | think about you and what you're saying.

00:20:49.580 | It's where you get the anxiety of do they like this, the euphoria of they do and the

00:20:52.980 | pain of that they don't.

00:20:54.780 | You get the isolation and life destruction of canceling campaigns or imagine canceling

00:20:59.420 | campaigns that might come if you just say or don't do the right thing.

00:21:03.160 | That's what begins to warp your understanding of the world to be based off of the feedback

00:21:07.860 | you're getting from this very artificial algorithmically amplified crowd.

00:21:11.300 | It will change what you believe to be true.

00:21:13.020 | It'll change how you approach your life.

00:21:14.740 | It's most likely going to create a digital cage of unhappiness.

00:21:19.140 | So don't post.

00:21:21.140 | If there's certain things you like to consume, like, yeah, I'm a baseball fan.

00:21:24.660 | I like to see what this reporter has to say about my baseball team.

00:21:28.220 | These comedians are funny.

00:21:29.260 | I like comedy.

00:21:30.260 | They post funny things.

00:21:31.260 | I want to see what's going on here.

00:21:33.440 | The independent media I'm interested in breaks stories on Twitter and that's interesting

00:21:37.700 | to me.

00:21:38.700 | Okay, you can find ways to deal with that.

00:21:39.700 | But just don't post yourself unless you're in a situation where it's really notable that

00:21:42.960 | you're not.

00:21:43.960 | And even if you are in that situation, consider don't posting.

00:21:46.620 | I don't post on social media, and I somehow still managed to get by.

00:21:50.380 | All right, final small thing I want to suggest here that can make a big difference.

00:21:54.380 | Do something hard.

00:21:57.900 | Discipline is practiced.

00:22:00.460 | It's not a character trait.

00:22:02.680 | It's not a binary that you choose to be disciplined or not.

00:22:06.020 | It's more of like a threshold.

00:22:08.580 | The more you practice discipline, the more comfortable you are doing hard things that

00:22:11.860 | aren't going to give you rewards in the moment.

00:22:14.060 | The more comfortable you are sticking with hard things, even when other distractions

00:22:17.100 | are pulling at you, the more disciplined you are, the more likely you are to keep reorienting

00:22:21.460 | your actions around the things you care about most, even if they don't lead to the easiest

00:22:24.900 | decisions in the moment.

00:22:26.640 | This is a practice.

00:22:28.100 | The more you practice discipline, the higher the threshold gets, and therefore the easier

00:22:32.820 | it is to do these demonstrations of discipline.

00:22:37.620 | So the best way to begin practicing discipline, to see yourself more as a disciplined person,

00:22:42.740 | is to do something hard.

00:22:44.060 | And when you're done with that, do another thing hard, and then something else.

00:22:47.300 | You will change your self-conception if you do this.

00:22:50.360 | As your discipline threshold grows, you'll quite literally see yourself more and more

00:22:54.020 | as someone who can resist things you shouldn't be doing and do the things you should be doing,

00:22:57.540 | even if you don't want to.

00:23:01.140 | Start modestly.

00:23:02.580 | Physical things tend to work well for people as a starting point here.

00:23:05.260 | I'm going to change something about my diet, I'm going to change something about my exercise.

00:23:09.280 | Don't make this too small.

00:23:10.280 | It really should be hard, but also don't do too many things.

00:23:12.800 | Don't say I'm going to overhaul all of my health.

00:23:14.900 | Instead say, you know, I'm not going to drink at all for three months, or I'm going to do

00:23:19.100 | a workout, even if it's only 15 minutes, I'll start easy every single day.

00:23:22.660 | I'm just going to make that a big part of my life.

00:23:24.740 | So you do something hard.

00:23:25.860 | It could also be intellectual, I'm going to read this collection of great books.

00:23:29.100 | It could be craft oriented, I'm finally going to build this canoe, but it's going to require

00:23:32.500 | a lot of skills, but I'm just going to do this thing.

00:23:34.700 | You need to be a little bit obsessive about the thing, you need to schedule time in advance,

00:23:37.580 | you need to come back to it relentlessly, prioritize it above other non-professional,

00:23:42.620 | non-family obligations.

00:23:44.260 | But do something hard, and then when you're done, do something else hard.

00:23:47.260 | Get in a habit of doing hard things that are not required.

00:23:51.980 | Your discipline threshold will grow, your identity as a disciplined person will solidify,

00:23:56.580 | and this will be the fuel for almost anything else you want to do as part of the quest to

00:24:00.020 | cultivate a deeper life in a distracted world.

00:24:03.900 | All right, so those are my eight small things that I think will make a big difference.

00:24:08.300 | I'll summarize each of them real quick.

00:24:09.840 | For work, use reciprocal meeting blocks, use work quotas, implement coordination Mondays

00:24:15.660 | and summer Fridays, and always have workingmemory.txt open.

00:24:19.620 | For life outside of work, use single-purpose notebooks for big challenges, take thinking

00:24:23.060 | walks daily, never post if you can avoid it, and do something hard all the time.

00:24:29.780 | Once you're done with something else hard, do something after that, and after that, and

00:24:32.700 | after that.

00:24:33.700 | All right, it's not a comprehensive list.

00:24:35.060 | These aren't the major heavy hitter advice I have, but it's sometimes these small things

00:24:38.060 | that can add up to make the biggest difference.

00:24:40.580 | So keep these eight tactics in mind.

00:24:43.460 | All right, so we have a great collection of questions, but first, I want to give a word

00:24:50.700 | from one of the sponsors that makes this show possible.

00:24:55.300 | Let's talk Cozy Earth.

00:24:56.460 | I miss my Cozy Earth sheets.

00:24:59.980 | I miss my Cozy Earth comforter cover.

00:25:03.060 | Why?

00:25:04.060 | Because I am on vacation and they do not have Cozy Earth sheets up here.

00:25:08.460 | I love them.

00:25:09.460 | I've said this on the show all the time.

00:25:10.660 | There's something about this bamboo-derived material that is the most comfortable sheets

00:25:15.140 | I ever have.

00:25:16.140 | We now own, I think, three different pairs, sets of these sheets.

00:25:19.760 | No matter where we are in the cleaning cycle, we have a pair of Cozy Earth sheets to put

00:25:25.140 | on our bed.

00:25:26.140 | They're super soft.

00:25:27.140 | They're super comfortable.

00:25:28.140 | They run cool, even when it's warmer in the summer.

00:25:31.260 | I didn't know how much I cared about my sheets until I got Cozy Earth sheets.

00:25:37.780 | Here's the good news.

00:25:38.780 | I have a discount code just for you.

00:25:40.660 | If you go to CozyEarth.com/Cal and use the discount code CAL, you'll get 30% off.

00:25:49.580 | You will also get free socks if you do the survey and say, "Where did I hear about Cozy

00:25:56.340 | Earth?

00:25:57.340 | I heard about it from the Deep Questions podcast."

00:25:58.900 | Use CAL to get 30% off at CozyEarth.com and then get free socks if you tell them I sent

00:26:03.180 | you in the post-purchase survey.

00:26:07.460 | There's a lot of cool clothing things that Cozy Earth has.

00:26:11.240 | My wife has the pajamas.

00:26:13.360 | I have a sweatshirt made out of the same comfortable material.

00:26:15.860 | I brought it up here to New England because it's cooler up here at night and I've really

00:26:20.200 | been liking it.

00:26:21.200 | Cozy Earth, big fan.

00:26:22.200 | Go to CozyEarth.com/Cal.

00:26:23.200 | Get 30% off at CozyEarth.com/Cal when you use the discount code CAL.

00:26:29.840 | Don't forget to tell them that the Deep Questions podcast sent you here in the post-purchase

00:26:35.640 | survey and you'll get a free pair of socks.

00:26:38.440 | I also want to talk about our longtime sponsor, Grammarly.

00:26:43.960 | In knowledge work, writing is now everything.

00:26:46.940 | You just write all the time, especially as work becomes increasingly remote.

00:26:50.800 | You're writing emails.

00:26:51.800 | You're writing Slack messages.

00:26:52.920 | You're writing memos.

00:26:53.920 | You're writing presentations.

00:26:55.520 | You're writing social media posts.

00:26:56.820 | You're writing blog posts and newsletters.

00:26:58.800 | Writing is how you put forth yourself in the professional world.

00:27:03.080 | You need your writing to be as sharp and on point and appropriate as possible.

00:27:07.000 | This is where Grammarly enters the scene.

00:27:10.160 | Grammarly is an AI writing partner that helps you get work done faster with high quality

00:27:13.300 | writing for better projects, proposals, presentations, and more.

00:27:17.080 | It works where you work.

00:27:20.040 | I'm on Google Docs.

00:27:21.300 | I'm in Slack.

00:27:22.480 | I'm writing an email.

00:27:23.480 | I'm in Microsoft Word.

00:27:25.480 | Where it is you're doing your writing, Grammarly is there to help.

00:27:30.280 | Grammarly's technology has really been making leaps recently.

00:27:32.880 | It can do a lot.

00:27:34.120 | It's no longer just telling you, for example, "Oh, there's grammatical mistakes here."

00:27:37.900 | The AI intelligence keeps getting smarter in the Grammarly tool, so now it can help

00:27:41.360 | you do things, for example, like adjust the tone of what you're writing.

00:27:45.840 | Make it more professional or less professional.

00:27:49.080 | It can come in and help you actually brainstorm.

00:27:51.640 | You can ask it things like, "Can you give me five ideas for captions for a photo about

00:27:55.920 | whatever?"

00:27:56.920 | It can give you ideas to help you break through writer's blocking, get moving quickly.

00:28:01.200 | It can rewrite paragraphs for you.

00:28:03.440 | It can make suggestions.

00:28:05.940 | Really the power of this tool just continues to grow.

00:28:10.000 | Grammarly now works across 500,000 apps and websites.

00:28:13.480 | 96% of Grammarly users report that it helps them craft more impactful writing, so you

00:28:17.760 | can be confident that it can do the same for you.

00:28:21.440 | All right, so get AI writing support that works where you work.

00:28:26.440 | Sign up and download for free at grammarly.com/podcast, that's G-R-A-M-M-A-R-L-Y.com/podcast, easier

00:28:37.280 | said, done.

00:28:38.280 | All right, let's move on to some questions.

00:28:44.160 | Without Jesse here to ask the questions, I got a coffee up.

00:28:47.000 | To those who are watching instead of just listening, you can see I'm taking my coffee

00:28:50.680 | break to prepare for these questions.

00:28:53.360 | All right, let's get rolling here.

00:28:56.920 | Our first question comes from Kurt.

00:28:59.640 | Kurt says, "I'm a devout user of the Time Block Planner.

00:29:03.520 | However, I struggle to use the weekly plan space, partially because of my atrocious handwriting,

00:29:08.760 | but also because the weekly plan changes so much in the week.

00:29:11.840 | I recall you talking about when you make your weekly plan, you will read through your Trello

00:29:16.120 | cards and notes and then make your plan in your working memory.txt.

00:29:21.640 | That's where my weekly plan has been stored, but you recently spoke of wiping that text

00:29:24.640 | file clear in your daily shutdown.

00:29:26.080 | Where do you keep your digital weekly plan?"

00:29:27.680 | All right, a couple points here.

00:29:29.400 | Great question, Kurt.

00:29:30.400 | A couple points.

00:29:31.400 | First of all, location for your weekly plan.

00:29:32.740 | This is preference.

00:29:34.000 | A lot of people like to handwrite the weekly plan because it makes it concrete, it slows

00:29:39.440 | them down, it makes them trust it more.

00:29:41.980 | So that's why we have a space in the Time Block Planner each week for writing your weekly

00:29:47.080 | plan.

00:29:48.080 | Other people prefer to do it digitally because they type faster than they write.

00:29:51.280 | They like to make verbose weekly plans, so too big to put in a planner space.

00:29:57.480 | And they like to change it more.

00:29:58.480 | They like to tweak it more.

00:29:59.480 | They have more movable weekly plans.

00:30:00.840 | So if that's you, digital is completely fine.

00:30:03.520 | A text file is great.

00:30:05.680 | You can put it in working memory.txt.

00:30:08.260 | I often do this.

00:30:09.760 | When I put it in working memory.txt, I just put it at the top of the file, and I build

00:30:13.080 | a big border with like equal sign lines.

00:30:15.360 | It's like equal sign lines across, capital, weekly plan, line of equal signs.

00:30:23.940 | Weekly plan there, dividing line of equal signs, and I don't wipe that part of working

00:30:27.920 | memory.txt, and everything below it is to working memory.txt that I then manipulate.

00:30:32.920 | Other people like to email their weekly plan to themselves.

00:30:35.040 | They just have that comfort of when they check their inbox, they see it there.

00:30:39.400 | And so they know, oh, I have a weekly plan.

00:30:42.380 | Some people just put it in its own dedicated text file.

00:30:45.200 | Some people will put it in a dedicated file and print it and have the printout at their

00:30:48.600 | desk.

00:30:49.600 | And then if they change the weekly plan, they print a new copy.

00:30:51.160 | So they have a printed version to look at each day, so they don't have to be on their

00:30:54.120 | computer to see what they're supposed to be doing.

00:30:55.920 | All of these are fine.

00:30:57.880 | The key is having a weekly plan discipline.

00:31:00.560 | This is part of the secret sauce of my multi-scale planning.

00:31:04.200 | Looking at the week ahead, figuring out what needs to be done, where you're going to do

00:31:08.320 | it, what you might need to move really makes a big difference.

00:31:11.460 | If you just take each day as it comes, your aperture is too narrow.

00:31:16.560 | You really do want to plan for the whole week.

00:31:19.140 | All right.

00:31:21.500 | Our next question here comes from Nicole.

00:31:25.480 | Nicole said, "I've just realized I am nowhere in life because I always give myself what

00:31:30.740 | I want.

00:31:32.500 | If I want a carbonated drink, I'll give it to myself.

00:31:34.620 | If I want to watch TV, I'll do that.

00:31:36.540 | There's no denial of pleasure.

00:31:38.620 | So it seemed that to succeed in life, your pleasure comes after the hard work.

00:31:42.260 | Do you experience any pleasure during deep work?"

00:31:45.420 | Well, Nicole, we have to think about a couple different types of pleasure here.

00:31:52.900 | Might also use the term satisfaction, okay?

00:31:57.060 | There's dopamine, dopamine reward pleasure.

00:31:59.780 | And I'm not using dopamine here in this sort of vague sense that we sometimes hear about

00:32:05.260 | it's just addiction or dopamine makes me do things.

00:32:09.540 | But if we get really specific about the dopamine system, what it does is it gives you this

00:32:13.580 | sense of action towards anticipated reward.

00:32:18.060 | Like you're near something like that carbonated drink and your mind associates that, like

00:32:22.260 | we're going to enjoy drinking that.

00:32:23.700 | So it's something we should probably do.

00:32:25.720 | Dopamine floods your brain and it gives you this sense of sort of compulsion attraction

00:32:29.720 | to doing that thing.

00:32:31.740 | This is the relationship, of course, we have with our phones often.

00:32:34.840 | Our mind's like, we're probably going to see something on there that could be like interesting.

00:32:38.460 | It could be an email about us with good news.

00:32:40.580 | It could be a really funny post.

00:32:41.580 | It could be something kind of outrageous.

00:32:43.180 | That's going to feel pretty good.

00:32:44.540 | We should do things that feel good.

00:32:45.700 | So dopamine response, and the dopamine response is that compulsive sense of like, I need to

00:32:49.540 | pick this up.

00:32:51.900 | Dopamine derived pleasures are often moderate.

00:32:54.540 | When you do finally drink that carbonated soda or you do look at that phone, you're

00:32:59.100 | like, "Yeah, that kind of tasted good.

00:33:01.260 | Oh yeah, that was kind of funny."

00:33:03.820 | You know, it's not some great reward, right?

00:33:07.080 | It's fleeting.

00:33:08.080 | It's momentary.

00:33:09.080 | So the compulsion is not because this, I'm going to feel really great.

00:33:12.240 | It's just your mind's like, we want good things.

00:33:14.840 | When you do something hard, like you're working on a book chapter and it's really hard, you're

00:33:20.120 | not in a flow state.

00:33:21.260 | It's more of like a deliberate practice state.

00:33:22.760 | It's very difficult.

00:33:23.980 | There's a deeper pleasure that you get out of that.

00:33:26.080 | And especially once it's done, that does not come from the dopamine system.

00:33:29.080 | It instead comes from the future prediction system.

00:33:31.840 | The part of your brain that predicts the future says doing this longer term thing is good

00:33:37.020 | for us.

00:33:38.020 | It will lead to good things down the line.

00:33:39.860 | So let's go execute this plan.

00:33:41.960 | This future prediction system makes you feel good when plans are executed, but it's a deeper,

00:33:47.620 | more fulfilling type of good feeling.

00:33:50.580 | It's a more lasting type of good feeling.

00:33:54.140 | It's the satisfaction.

00:33:55.500 | I'm paraphrasing Matt Crawford here as I often do.

00:33:57.740 | The quiet satisfactions of being able to point to an intention made concrete manifestly in

00:34:03.060 | the world.

00:34:06.020 | That's a different type of pleasure.

00:34:08.420 | I accomplished a plan that I thought was useful pleasure.

00:34:11.080 | That's what you really want to get "addicted" to, Nicole.

00:34:15.300 | That feeling of I'm making progress on an important plan that leads me to something

00:34:18.300 | good down the line.

00:34:20.940 | Not the dopamine pleasure of this might feel good in the moment.

00:34:23.860 | Let's really do it.

00:34:24.860 | And then you do it and it doesn't match up to that intense compulsion you felt in the

00:34:27.500 | moment to do it.

00:34:29.520 | So yeah, there are different types of pleasures.

00:34:31.780 | To practice this deeper sort of pleasure, discipline matters.

00:34:36.960 | So go back to the deep dive where I recommended practicing doing hard things.

00:34:42.040 | That just gets you used to what that type of satisfaction feels like and makes it something

00:34:47.140 | that's more attractive to you.

00:34:49.720 | You can also deprogram the dopamine pleasures.

00:34:52.780 | There's a couple things to do here.

00:34:54.500 | One, just be more comfortable with discomfort.

00:34:57.140 | I'm sort of stealing this idea from Michael Easter and his book, The Comfort Crisis.

00:35:01.380 | Your brain might say, "I'm bored and I really want to look at the TV right now.

00:35:05.860 | It's going to be great.

00:35:06.860 | We might find something fun on there."

00:35:07.860 | And you say, "I'm just not going to do that because that's not in my plan right now.

00:35:11.340 | That's not in my interest."

00:35:12.340 | And just be like, "I'm going to feel uncomfortable about that.

00:35:14.060 | My brain will rebel and I'm going to feel bored and bad, and then it will get better.

00:35:17.500 | And I'm okay feeling bored and bad.

00:35:19.140 | That's not what I'm trying to avoid."

00:35:20.300 | So just being more comfortable with the discomfort that follows from defying your dopamine system

00:35:26.180 | goes a long way.

00:35:28.540 | Also for deactivating these dopamine responses around specific things, have alternative habits

00:35:33.820 | as well.

00:35:36.100 | I don't want to grab a drink here.

00:35:38.860 | Have an alternative thing you do that gives you a different type of reward and just relentlessly

00:35:44.380 | go to the alternative activity when you feel the compulsion for the thing you're trying

00:35:48.420 | to do less of.

00:35:49.420 | So you can deprogram some of these dopamine responses.

00:35:51.100 | But yes, to get to your original question, there's a sort of a deeper satisfaction that

00:35:55.940 | comes from executing a hard but worthwhile plan that's very different than dopamine-driven

00:35:59.620 | satisfactions.

00:36:00.620 | It's the type of satisfaction you want to reorient your life more around.

00:36:04.500 | All right, rolling along here, we got a question from Mike.

00:36:11.060 | Here's a classic question.

00:36:12.060 | I hear this one a lot.

00:36:14.260 | Mike says, "On a weekly basis, what is a good number of deep work sessions to strive for,

00:36:18.940 | assuming my typical work week is Monday through Friday?"

00:36:22.020 | Mike, this depends on your job.

00:36:24.300 | In my book, Deep Work, I talk about your ideal deep to shallow work ratio, where I say you

00:36:28.620 | should identify for your particular job in a typical week.

00:36:33.420 | What is the ideal ratio of deep work hours to non-deep work hours for being as useful

00:36:37.900 | as possible to your employer?

00:36:40.160 | For some jobs, this will be pretty high, like mainly what they need you to do is deep work

00:36:43.380 | with just like a small amount of shallow work to sort of keep up with administrative things.

00:36:46.860 | For other jobs, this might be very low.

00:36:48.900 | There are some things we want you to do that require uninterrupted hours, but there's a

00:36:52.660 | ton of stuff we need you to do that we need you to be more responsive.

00:36:55.660 | You need to know what the answer is, what your ratio is for your particular job.

00:37:00.020 | I suggest talk to your boss or supervisor about this.

00:37:04.160 | Work with them to get this answer so they have skin in the game on this is the ratio

00:37:08.140 | that's ideal.

00:37:09.940 | Why is it useful to have a number?

00:37:11.580 | Well, now you have something to aim for.

00:37:13.840 | And if you're getting much less, hitting much less that number, now you have impetus to

00:37:18.100 | improve.

00:37:19.100 | It's not just a generic sense of I should do more deep work.

00:37:22.260 | Because I'm trying to get to 12 hours, I'm trying to get to 25 hours, I'm well short,

00:37:26.580 | what can I do to get there?

00:37:27.940 | It also gets your boss or your team on board.

00:37:30.940 | Because now you're able to say, hey, remember how we agreed that let's say, for example,

00:37:35.940 | 50/50 deep to shallow work is ideal for me being valuable for this company.

00:37:40.340 | I'm only getting 20% deep work to 80 shallow.

00:37:43.860 | So what should we do to fix this?

00:37:45.380 | And you would be surprised once you have a real metric that has a positive purpose, you'd

00:37:49.260 | be surprised by how many changes will now be possible, how many changes the boss will

00:37:54.380 | now suggest, oh, let's do this, let's do that.

00:37:56.460 | Because you're working towards a positive metric.

00:37:59.300 | One tweak I want to add, because I talked about the deep to shallow work ratio a lot,

00:38:02.540 | and there's some complexities around it, one tweak I want to add.

00:38:06.900 | When measuring this, your deep to shallow work hours, you needed a full hour dedicated

00:38:12.980 | to deep work for it to count as deep work hour.

00:38:14.860 | So you can't have like 20 minutes here, 40 minutes here, 30 minutes there and 30 minutes

00:38:18.500 | there and say, okay, that's two hours of deep work, because if you don't have at least a

00:38:21.620 | full hour, you're not really getting the benefits of non-distraction, you still are dealing

00:38:26.020 | with the intention residue from the thing before too much, it's too fragmented.

00:38:29.460 | You need to count up like sessions, deep work sessions that last at least an hour to add

00:38:35.020 | their minutes to your total deep work count when calculating these ratios.

00:38:39.500 | All right, another deep work question here, this one comes from Sam.

00:38:46.100 | Sam says, I just read the section in deep work about the four disciplines of execution,

00:38:51.980 | the first being to focus on the wildly important.

00:38:55.260 | How do we apply this to our personal lives?

00:38:57.740 | I have so many goals I want to pursue, and I find it difficult to prioritize all of them.

00:39:02.260 | Well, Sam, what I typically suggest is that you first need to divide your personal life

00:39:06.380 | into different areas that you find important.

00:39:09.300 | We often use the lingo of buckets here on the show, it's like a bucket for like family

00:39:13.980 | and community, a bucket for constitution, like your health, a bucket for contemplation,

00:39:18.060 | this is like theological or philosophical foundations for how you live, a bucket sometimes

00:39:22.020 | for what we call celebration, that's finding appreciation in the world and life, connoisseurship

00:39:28.540 | or craftsmanship, et cetera.

00:39:30.060 | All right, once you have these different areas, now I would suggest spend some time with each,

00:39:36.460 | but consecutively, not concurrently.

00:39:39.980 | We're talking three to six weeks per each, all right, I'm going to spend this month just

00:39:43.020 | thinking about this area of my life and clean it up.

00:39:46.620 | All I'm working on is this area of my life.

00:39:48.580 | Get rid of some bad habits, put in place some new habits, if there's some one-time things

00:39:52.180 | to do, I'm going to buy this workout equipment, I'm going to join this gym, I'm going to get

00:39:57.980 | my guitar out and reworked again, whatever it is, one-time things, new habits, get rid

00:40:02.740 | of the old habits, just overhaul that part of your life in a sustainable way, then move

00:40:06.100 | on to the next bucket.

00:40:07.100 | So this could take you the better part of half a year before you have sort of the different

00:40:12.220 | areas of your life that matter, at least all running in a reasonable way.

00:40:18.780 | Now you can think about some larger goals in your personal life, some more ambitious

00:40:22.540 | or radical goals, and again, I would do these one at a time.

00:40:24.900 | This is what I'm working on this season.

00:40:26.980 | In this part of my life, I have this like major new initiative.

00:40:30.380 | That's what I'm working on, okay, and then once that's done, all right, what do I want

00:40:34.460 | to do next?

00:40:35.460 | I mean, this is a really busy part of my professional life, so I don't want any major personal goals,

00:40:39.060 | but when the summer comes, I'm going to take on another one.

00:40:42.040 | Just have patience with this, Sam.

00:40:43.740 | So this first thing is going to give you a good foundation for your life.

00:40:46.380 | You're addressing the parts that are important, you're paying attention to them, and then

00:40:50.700 | in the short term, it might seem hopelessly slow that you're only working on one part

00:40:57.460 | of your life for the next month or two, and all these other parts of your life, you have

00:41:00.700 | these big ideas for radical plans, but let's zoom out to the scale of a couple of years.

00:41:06.980 | Now suddenly, the amount of big goals in your personal life you accomplish is going to add

00:41:10.900 | up, and it's going to seem very impressive, and you're going to feel very deep.

00:41:13.660 | So you've just got to have some patience with this.

00:41:15.900 | Don't try to do everything at the same time.

00:41:18.940 | All right, this brings us to our final question, which is also our slow productivity corner

00:41:24.940 | question of the week.

00:41:27.860 | I don't know if Jesse's going to be able to add the music or not in post.

00:41:30.860 | I hope he does, because I love the slow productivity corner theme music, and whether we have the

00:41:36.820 | music or not, I can remind you what the slow productivity corner is, is where I answer

00:41:40.060 | a question each week that's related to my new book, Slow Productivity, The Lost Art

00:41:44.220 | of Accomplishment Without Burnout.

00:41:45.900 | There we go.

00:41:47.140 | Look, if you like especially the first part of this show, those ideas of these small things,

00:41:53.260 | you got to read Slow Productivity.

00:41:55.540 | If you're a fan of the show, you need that book.

00:41:57.220 | It's like the source guide for the book, so check that out wherever you buy books, Slow

00:42:00.680 | Productivity.

00:42:01.680 | All right, what's our slow productivity corner question of the week?

00:42:03.900 | It's from Adan, who says, "I am currently re-reading your latest book, Slow Productivity.

00:42:10.060 | I love it.

00:42:11.060 | A second read already.

00:42:12.060 | Way to go, Adan.

00:42:13.580 | In the section Limit Daily Goals, you emphasize focusing on one task per workday.

00:42:18.660 | This is a great idea, but it seems somewhat incongruent with time blocking, which seems

00:42:24.060 | to be useful for managing lots of different tasks within the same day."

00:42:29.220 | So Adan, I think this is a vocabulary issue.

00:42:32.660 | Limit Daily Goals is talking about the major initiatives that you work on or make progress

00:42:38.180 | on in a given day, and I'm arguing, if possible, just have one major initiative you're making

00:42:43.020 | progress on.

00:42:44.020 | So I'm working on this research paper.

00:42:46.100 | I'm working on prepping this new hard class.

00:42:49.020 | I'm working on my book and trying to make progress on a chapter from my book, and try

00:42:54.060 | to keep that the one thing.

00:42:55.060 | Do you have a session for, and you can think about in the background and maybe return to

00:42:58.140 | it later in the day, have another deep work session on.

00:43:01.620 | Outside of this one major thing, there'll be lots of other small tasks and obligations

00:43:04.700 | and things that have to go on.

00:43:05.900 | I have these meetings.

00:43:06.900 | I got to follow up on this.

00:43:08.140 | I got to get this paperwork submitted.

00:43:10.100 | This is why you need time blocking.

00:43:12.540 | The time blocking is going to help you make sense of where am I going to work on my major

00:43:15.580 | things?

00:43:16.580 | Where are the other things in the day?

00:43:17.620 | How am I going to get other small things that need to get done in the most optimal way possible?

00:43:20.460 | So most knowledge workers have a lot of things they have to do.

00:43:23.800 | Time blocking helps you make sense of that.

00:43:27.060 | The major things you work on, in an ideal world, though, you would limit that to one

00:43:30.880 | per day.

00:43:31.880 | All right, Adan, thank you for that question.

00:43:33.380 | That is this week's Slow Productivity Corner.

00:43:36.180 | All right, I'm gonna move on here.

00:43:38.460 | I have a case study.

00:43:39.900 | Case studies are where you, my listeners, send in examples of you using my advice in

00:43:43.020 | your actual lives so we can see what it looks like in practice.

00:43:47.060 | Today's case study is anonymous, but it's interesting.

00:43:51.140 | All right, here we go.

00:43:52.140 | I'm reading now.

00:43:54.220 | I want to share how your podcast helped to remind me to build my career around my desired

00:43:59.700 | lifestyle.

00:44:00.700 | When I first graduated from Juilliard and left New York, I moved in with my parents

00:44:06.680 | in the Portland area to save money while I hit the orchestral audition circuit.

00:44:12.060 | I felt desperate to land an orchestra job as fast as possible, but the contrast of leaving

00:44:15.800 | New York for suburbia also made it incredibly apparent to me how much I wanted to get back

00:44:20.700 | to living in a dense, walkable city with good public transportation.

00:44:26.840 | In those early months of desperation to advance my career and move out of my parents' house,

00:44:30.660 | I took auditions for big jobs in cities I would have hated to live in, like L.A., Cleveland,

00:44:35.580 | and Fort Worth.

00:44:36.860 | After getting dangerously close to landing a couple of jobs in places I would have hated,

00:44:39.980 | I'm now living the dream in San Francisco as a freelancer and no longer feel like my

00:44:43.420 | entire life hinges on landing a big, high-status orchestra job.

00:44:48.780 | Last year, I even had the opportunity and flexibility to accept a contract with an orchestra

00:44:53.340 | in Auckland and lived in New Zealand for three months before returning to San Francisco.

00:44:57.740 | I don't make as much money as if I had a full-time position with a major symphony, and in the

00:45:01.940 | eyes of the status hierarchy, I'm just a freelancer, but that's worth the benefit of having autonomy

00:45:06.420 | over where I live.

00:45:08.220 | The weeks where I have holes in my calendar, I enjoy having an abundance of time to read

00:45:11.420 | and write and go for long walks and volunteer in my neighborhood.

00:45:15.300 | Since moving here, I've been in finals for auditions for a couple of different full-time

00:45:19.100 | positions here in San Francisco, and there are more vacancies to be filled, so there

00:45:22.540 | is plenty of opportunity for upward career mobility without having to move so long as

00:45:26.100 | I'm willing to bide my time.

00:45:28.100 | In practicing for auditions, I always get my best work done when applying the principles

00:45:32.340 | of deep work.

00:45:33.900 | Well, I love this case study because it has a core idea that's part of my deep-life philosophy.

00:45:42.260 | So when trying to cultivate a deep life, an intentional life, a life lived on purpose,

00:45:46.340 | a life that's remarkable to yourself and other people, when trying to cultivate a deep life,

00:45:52.140 | a trap to avoid is the hope that the singular grand goal will change everything for the

00:45:57.020 | better.

00:45:58.020 | Now, this is a very common belief, especially in the American context.

00:46:01.980 | This idea that if I want my life to be deep, I need a sufficiently ambitious and unambiguously

00:46:09.340 | impressive goal, and if I accomplish that goal, because that's a hard goal and it's

00:46:13.780 | very intentional and hard to do, my life will be intentional, and I'll enjoy it, and it'll

00:46:17.380 | be deep.

00:46:19.100 | The problem with the grand goal approach is, as we just talked about in a prior question,

00:46:24.140 | is that there are multiple parts of your life that matter.

00:46:28.320 | Singular grand goals tend to just focus on one part of your life, and in making one part

00:46:32.100 | of your life better, they can have unexpected consequences on the other parts of your life.

00:46:38.040 | So in pursuing, for example, the goal of landing a high status orchestra job, you might really

00:46:45.580 | screw with, in this example, other parts of your life that are important, that have to

00:46:48.740 | do with where you live and the pace of your life.

00:46:52.240 | So singular grand goals are worrisome.

00:46:55.600 | So what we see here is working backwards from a general broad understanding of all the aspects

00:47:00.880 | that make the good life good for you.

00:47:03.220 | So you're sort of, I call it your ideal lifestyle plan or ideal lifestyle narrative, and that

00:47:08.260 | leads to a much more subtle and complicated and nuanced approach with many more options

00:47:13.420 | for crafting a life that's going to be much more fulfilling.

00:47:16.580 | So because the case study here, the author of this case study, recognized location really

00:47:23.500 | mattered.

00:47:24.820 | He did not go or accept the high status job in a city in which location would be really

00:47:30.260 | bad, but what he also did, because again, he's very plugged into, here's all the parts

00:47:34.100 | of my life that matter.

00:47:35.100 | It allows you to much more flexibly be looking for opportunities to, how can I service more

00:47:39.900 | of these things that I care about?

00:47:40.900 | He cares about music, got this opportunity to go somewhere interesting, to play in an

00:47:45.500 | orchestra, but not to go to a location he doesn't like.

00:47:47.720 | And also to have the flexibility of a freelancer so that like this other slower pace of life

00:47:52.500 | could still show himself and he could still have downtimes when he's reading, doing other

00:47:55.780 | types of things.

00:47:57.020 | This is not something you sit about when you're in Juilliard and say, here's the obvious

00:48:00.020 | thing I want to do.

00:48:01.020 | I want to be a freelance orchestra player in New Zealand.

00:48:03.680 | You don't think about it from scratch, but when you work backwards from a broad lifestyle

00:48:08.180 | narrative, these are the type of subtle plans that come up that better play on all the different

00:48:12.780 | aspects of your life that matters.

00:48:14.020 | So it's a great case study of deep life planning in action.

00:48:18.860 | All right, so that's all we got for today.

00:48:21.500 | For questions, we've got a great final segment article I really want, I'm excited to react

00:48:25.460 | to.

00:48:26.460 | However, I want to briefly mention another sponsor that makes the show possible.

00:48:29.980 | I'm talking about our longtime friends at Element LMNT.

00:48:35.540 | So the Element Zero Sugar Electrolyte Drink Mix is something I really use, especially

00:48:40.840 | after I exercise, especially after a long day of giving lectures or book touring, in

00:48:46.260 | which I'm dehydrated, because it gives me back those electrolytes I need with none of

00:48:50.740 | the junk.

00:48:51.740 | No sugar, no weird artificial flavors.

00:48:54.780 | I put some element in my water after a workout.

00:48:57.260 | I put some element in my water on a long day of media tours.

00:49:00.620 | I put some element in my water in the morning when it's been a long day before and I'm feeling

00:49:06.360 | that sort of dehydration.

00:49:07.360 | So I love Element.

00:49:08.700 | I'm excited to announce they have this new product, Element Sparkling, which delivers

00:49:13.020 | the same zero sugar electrolyte formulation you already know and trust in a bold 16 ounce

00:49:18.780 | can of sparkling water.

00:49:22.260 | So with Element Sparkling, you can now grab an already cold can of Element enhanced water

00:49:29.100 | straight from your fridge.

00:49:31.440 | And once again, none of the junk, no sugar, no caffeine, just all the electrolytes that

00:49:37.300 | you need.

00:49:38.300 | All right.

00:49:39.620 | So this is becoming, they're rolling out Sparkling for more and more people right now.

00:49:46.300 | At the moment, if you're an Element insider, which you can find out by going to the Element

00:49:50.980 | website, you will get first access to Element Sparkling and then this will become more broadly

00:49:57.020 | available as time goes on.

00:50:01.740 | The website you would want to use, I have that over here, is www.drinkelement.com/deep.

00:50:06.700 | That's www.drinkelement.com/deep.

00:50:11.700 | Other good news, you can get a free sample pack with any drink mix purchase you make

00:50:17.380 | at www.drinkelement.com/deep.

00:50:19.740 | And again, if you're an Element insider, you'll have first access to Element Sparkling, a

00:50:22.780 | bold 16 ounce can of sparkling electrolyte water.

00:50:26.740 | So go to www.drinkelement.com/deep to find out more.

00:50:30.580 | I also want to talk about our longtime friends at MyBodyTutor.

00:50:36.300 | MyBodyTutor is the smartest solution I have seen to getting healthier.

00:50:41.260 | And it's because it focuses on the issue that most people actually have putting their plans

00:50:46.660 | for increased health into action, which is consistency.

00:50:49.060 | It's not too hard to figure out what's a good way to eat and a bad way to eat.

00:50:52.220 | It's hard to do it consistently.

00:50:53.780 | It's not hard to figure out what's a good exercise routine to do.

00:50:56.460 | It's doing that routine consistently.

00:50:59.020 | MyBodyTutor gets around this problem by assigning you a 100% online coach.

00:51:03.860 | This coach helps devise your plan with you.

00:51:06.500 | What are we doing with your diet?

00:51:07.500 | What are we doing with exercise that matches your constraints, what you care about, what

00:51:10.820 | matches your life and personality?

00:51:12.940 | And then here's what's key, you check in with them every day.

00:51:16.100 | That accountability is what gives you consistency.

00:51:19.300 | It also is what allows you to navigate obstacles.

00:51:21.100 | Oh my God, there's a holiday coming up.

00:51:22.700 | I'm really worried about falling off of our diet.

00:51:24.780 | You can talk to the coach and make an alternative plan.

00:51:26.700 | I'm going on vacation.

00:51:27.700 | I went to my gym.

00:51:28.700 | Like, great, here's what you're going to do on vacation.

00:51:30.900 | Let's help you have an alternative plan.

00:51:32.380 | So you get all the benefits of having a dedicated coach without all the expense of having a

00:51:36.380 | physical nutritionist in your house or a personal trainer at the gym because it's 100% online.

00:51:42.380 | So it makes this type of high accountability, personalized training, much more affordable.

00:51:49.820 | Now here's good news.

00:51:51.260 | If you go to my body tutor tutor.com to sign up and mention that deep question sent you,

00:51:57.700 | you'll get $50 off your first month.

00:51:59.740 | So just go to my body tutor.com and mention deep questions to get $50 off your first month.

00:52:05.780 | All right, with that, let's return to our final segment.

00:52:09.780 | All right, so one of the things I like to do in the final segment of the show is react

00:52:14.260 | to interesting articles that I have seen around the internet.

00:52:18.420 | I have an article today that I really liked.

00:52:21.980 | So I want to echo these points.

00:52:24.720 | For those who are watching instead of just listening, I am going to attempt with trepidation

00:52:29.260 | to pull this up on my screen here.

00:52:32.140 | So you should see this now.

00:52:33.580 | The article is called "Countering Pushback to Limiting Social Media for Kids."

00:52:37.900 | It's written by the Washington Post columnist, Lena Nguyen.

00:52:41.660 | Now what I like about this article is that Lena is talking back or addressing five of

00:52:49.340 | the most common complaints that people have about the renewed push that we should limit

00:52:55.500 | social media for kids.

00:52:57.780 | So in other words, there's this growing push driven in large part by the popularization

00:53:02.100 | of research by John Haidt, that we should be careful about giving unrestricted access

00:53:06.660 | to social media and the internet to kids.

00:53:08.180 | Don't just give a 13 year old a smartphone and say rock and roll, kids are kids, rock

00:53:10.940 | and roll.

00:53:11.940 | The data I believe is very clear that this is dangerous.

00:53:14.060 | Our best bet is to delay unrestricted access to the internet and social media in particular

00:53:18.820 | until kids are older, probably high school, post puberty, the safest age would probably

00:53:23.860 | be 16.

00:53:24.860 | Okay, there's been a lot of pushback.

00:53:27.580 | Any big trend is going to be pushback.

00:53:29.300 | I've heard a lot of this pushback over the years, but Lena I think in this article does

00:53:33.260 | a good job of responding to the most common pieces of pushback.

00:53:37.500 | I'm going to go through her responses briefly, right now, because I think she's right on.

00:53:43.580 | All right, so I'm going to share this again on the screen.

00:53:47.580 | Let's start with Okay, first common complaint about limiting social media kids.

00:53:54.260 | There are positive uses of social media.

00:53:55.980 | Here's Lena, some claim that because social media can offer educational resources and

00:54:00.020 | facilitate communication, LGBTQ plus and other youth who normally feel ostracized, are able

00:54:05.320 | to use the platforms to find community more easily, thus limiting social media could hurt

00:54:09.700 | especially vulnerable teens.

00:54:11.560 | I hear this complaint or concern, I don't say complaint, but concern about social media

00:54:16.980 | restrictions.

00:54:17.980 | I hear this concern a lot.

00:54:19.540 | Here is Lena's response.

00:54:22.900 | This is ignoring the fact that without social media, young people seeking community have

00:54:26.660 | other online resources such as forums and support groups.

00:54:30.860 | She's exactly right about this and these other online resources I actually think are much

00:54:34.600 | better than trying to be in an algorithmically driven attention economy echo chamber.

00:54:38.620 | All right, here's objection number two.

00:54:42.200 | Is parents being worried that they need them to keep in touch with their kids?

00:54:48.780 | Here's Lena's response.

00:54:49.780 | Well, I understand the convenience of messaging your children in case pickup plans change.

00:54:53.620 | Surely this does not outweigh the substantial downside of kids being distracted from learning.

00:54:58.660 | There's ample proof that phones are distracting, dot, dot, dot.

00:55:03.180 | Just like the old days, if there's a true emergency, parents can pass messages by calling

00:55:06.860 | the front desk.

00:55:07.860 | And for parents who must have a direct line to their kids, they can use dumb phones that

00:55:12.100 | don't have internet capability.

00:55:13.660 | I'm really on board with this.

00:55:15.060 | It seems like it's really throwing the baby out with the bathwater to have, you know,

00:55:18.220 | hey, I might need to access my kid directly.

00:55:21.180 | In some scenario I've concocted, therefore they should have unrestricted access to social

00:55:24.680 | media.

00:55:26.740 | It's jumping a little bit too far.

00:55:27.740 | All right.

00:55:28.740 | Let's look at the third objection that she addresses.

00:55:30.540 | I'll put this back on the screen again, just for those, for visual variety's sake.

00:55:36.120 | The third objection, kids will find a way around the controls.

00:55:39.860 | All right.

00:55:41.580 | Lena has the right response here.

00:55:42.980 | It's like saying teenagers will drink and smoke anyway, so why bother trying to stop

00:55:47.220 | them?

00:55:48.220 | Yeah, that's crazy.

00:55:49.700 | They will, so just don't give them a phone, don't put controls on it.

00:55:53.120 | It's not a reason to stop it.

00:55:54.300 | All right.

00:55:55.300 | Complaint number four.

00:55:56.940 | It's too simplistic to say limiting social media will improve kids' social health.

00:56:01.620 | Lena goes on to elaborate this complaint.

00:56:03.980 | The mental health crisis among young people has multiple causes of which social media

00:56:07.220 | is one.

00:56:08.580 | No one is saying that restricting social media use will solve the crisis.

00:56:11.660 | Oh, okay.

00:56:12.660 | Then she says no one is saying that restricting social media use will solve this crisis because

00:56:15.860 | research shows that it will help, okay?

00:56:19.220 | Yes.

00:56:20.220 | I think, again, to say there's other things that are causing mental health.

00:56:26.580 | Just getting rid of social media is not going to solve all these problems doesn't then follow,

00:56:30.960 | so let's stop trying to do the social media piece.

00:56:33.980 | That is a big piece of social media of mental health issues.

00:56:37.500 | It's one we can control, so let's do something about it.

00:56:42.620 | Perhaps this complaint takes a common form of complaint for a lot of issues, which is

00:56:47.980 | about messaging control.

00:56:50.660 | Often there's this concern of if you focus too much, and a lot of different progressive

00:56:55.500 | issues, but if you focus too much on a concrete solution that could make progress, people

00:56:59.980 | will stop paying attention to these other things that are problems that we think are

00:57:02.620 | important.

00:57:03.620 | Often things require more systemic changes, and so there's a hesitancy to get concrete.

00:57:09.340 | There's never a good reason to avoid concrete things that can help.

00:57:12.380 | All right, let's go to the final, I'll load it back up here, the final objection that

00:57:18.020 | Lena responds to.

00:57:20.220 | There isn't adequate data to prove social media worsens kids' health.

00:57:24.060 | All right, here's Lena's response.

00:57:27.460 | While it's true that not all studies have found a strong correlation between social

00:57:30.500 | media and youth mental health issues, the data, in my view, is plenty strong enough.

00:57:34.540 | I will add I agree.

00:57:36.020 | I have spent a lot of time with John Haidt and Gene Twenge's annotated bibliography

00:57:39.620 | on this research.

00:57:40.620 | I have watched over the years as the data gets more conclusive.

00:57:44.700 | Research literatures are not about unanimity, they're about directions when they all begin

00:57:48.380 | to head towards the same point.

00:57:51.340 | Different experimental designs and studies all point towards the same conclusion.

00:57:56.660 | That's how you know the research literature is converging on something that's more likely

00:58:00.380 | true, and that's what we're seeing in the harms of social media debate.

00:58:04.700 | In fact, Lena, she has a good way of saying this.

00:58:06.860 | The question isn't, are we 100% sure of cause and effect, but rather, what is the harm of

00:58:11.820 | taking actions versus the harm of not doing so?

00:58:14.540 | Right?

00:58:15.540 | So unless you work for Apple or Meta, there's not a major harm to your kids not having these

00:58:20.580 | phones.

00:58:21.580 | The biggest harm is maybe the perceived social complexity.

00:58:24.900 | That is super solvable.

00:58:26.800 | But the harm of having these things is becoming increasingly well documented.

00:58:31.200 | To ignore, it's interesting, to ignore the data on this, it reminds me a lot of climate

00:58:34.980 | change denialism.

00:58:35.980 | Well, you know, there's this other thing I saw that's saying the islands aren't shrinking.

00:58:41.860 | There's this other thing that it's more complicated about the changes in the temperature, and

00:58:46.780 | the climate change scientists have to say, "Look, the literature's this direction they

00:58:49.860 | pointed."

00:58:50.860 | Not like every article saying the same thing.

00:58:51.860 | We're getting a lot of that same, I think, kids and social media denialism happening

00:58:56.260 | now.

00:58:57.260 | "Well, you know, what about this study over here and the potato study?"

00:58:59.580 | And you kind of have to trust the experts here who are looking at the preponderance

00:59:04.020 | of the evidence and seeing the research moving clearly, increasingly in this direction.

00:59:09.140 | So as Lena, that was a good column.

00:59:11.580 | There's a link to it in the show notes, if you want to read it at the Washington Post.

00:59:15.300 | Those are common objections, and they all are relatively easily parried.

00:59:18.500 | All right, so that's all the time we have for today's episode.

00:59:23.660 | Thank you, everyone, for listening.

00:59:25.660 | Remember to help spread the word if you can.

00:59:26.980 | I think we'll have Jesse back for next week.

00:59:28.620 | He'll be done with vacation.

00:59:29.860 | But thanks for putting up with the solo episode.

00:59:32.180 | We will see you or hear you next week, and until then, as always, stay deep.

00:59:36.580 | Hey, if you like this video, I think you'll really like this one as well.

Everyday Small Habits That Lead To Incredible Results | Cal Newport

Chapters