All right. Our first question comes from Sufian, who says, is your new online course applicable for someone with ADHD? That's a good question. I mean, I have two courses, so I don't know which one you're talking about. Longtime readers of mine and listeners of the show more recently know that one of the areas I explore is alternative forms of pedagogy.

So when it comes to the type of things I write about or podcast about, I did a lot of book writing, article writing. Obviously, I'm messing with audio and video as a way of delivering information. And another thing I have an ongoing experiment with is really focused online, high-end online courses as yet another channel through which you can deliver information.

I mean, I'm very interested in innovation in this space. So I have a longtime working relationship with my longtime friend Scott Young, who actually has a whole company that does nothing but produce online courses. It's technically incredibly demanding. You have to have a support staff, an IT staff. It's not for the faint of heart.

So he has this great company that does it. And we've collaborated on two courses. One, which was the first one, was called Top Performer. The course we did before I even wrote Deep Work, and it was about applying deliberate practice, the concepts of deliberate practice to your career. And we re-released that this year, I guess, or last year.

Recently, we did a second version, like a 2.0 version, where we went back to the studio and we filmed new mini courses and new lessons. And we sort of upgraded the course because it had been around for a while. We've had 5,000 students go through that course. We learned a lot.

So that might be what you're talking about. But then the first fall of the pandemic, we launched our second online course, which was called Life of Focus. And that has three modules to it. But it integrates ideas from digital minimalism, ideas from deep work, and ideas from Scott's book, Ultra Learning.

So there's something in there about learning things really quick. There's something about being better at deep work and something else about the deep life more generally. So I don't know if you're talking about a Life of Focus or Top Performer 2.0. Either of those courses, I don't think ADHD is an obstacle.

I mean, it gives clarity on here's what you should be working on. Here's what happens next. But then gives you, obviously, freedom to figure out when and how you execute that work. So I think whatever strategies you already use for organizing and scheduling your attention and time can be applied here.

These courses are going to give you plenty of flexibility for, here's what you're working on this week for the next couple of weeks. But you can figure out how you want to get it done. Now, there's difference in the delivery. So Life of Focus has a method where you're working on one project for a month.

So each of the modules has a month dedicated to a project. But then you get these quicker updates throughout the week that give you extra information and give you tips and support for the project you're working on. So that might actually be good if you're worried about your attention wandering away from the project.

You get these quick updates to help keep you on track for working on a longer project. Now, from a timing perspective, we launched-- Top Performer 2.0 was open earlier. And I'm not sure. It might be a little while until it's open again. Life of Focus, we're going to open that soon.

I don't have the exact date. But I think we're opening that back up again for a new class at the end of January, early February. So stay tuned for that. If you're interested in learning about when these courses open up or whatever, at calnewport.com/blog. So on the website for my blog, on the sidebar there, I believe there's a link for both courses.

If you click on it, there's a place you can put in an email address for the waiting list. And then Scott will just send a note when, hey, by the way, the course is opening again. I think sometimes also we do waiting list version of the courses where the people who are on the waiting list will say, if you're interested, we're going to launch a special version just for you.

So anyways, check that out. Sign up for those waiting lists if you're interested. These are great courses. It's been a really cool experiment. We've had thousands of people take these. I think it's the future of what we do in pragmatic nonfiction. But sign up for those lists at calnewport.com/blog if you want to be kept up to speed.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music)