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You’ll Always Have More To Do. (This is a good thing.) | Deep Questions with Cal Newport


Chapters

0:0 Cal's intro
1:10 You don't want an oppositional mindset
1:43 Man is always in action
2:34 What do you want to get for exerted energy?

Transcript

All right, Jesse, let's do some questions. Our first one is a written question. This comes from Colin. Colin says there, there always seems to be more to be done. How do you stop yourself from losing faith in your system? It's like painting the fourth bridge. Once you finish, you just go back to the beginning and start all over again.

So I don't know the fourth bridge reference, but I've heard that saying with the golden gate. Bridge by the time they're finished painting the golden gate bridge, they have to. Go back and I like this question a lot. Repainted again. Now, Jesse, do you think he's talking about, I want to make sure I'm interpreting it properly.

Did you think he's talking about just, there's always more goals or projects or tasks to do, and it's sort of Sisyphean you, no matter how many things you get done, there's always more things to get done. That's what I think he's saying. Right. Okay. Not that you're always, there's always tweaks to do to your system.

I think it's the first situation. Yeah. Well, you know, Colin, that's it's a, it's a good point. So here's the issue. Um, you don't want an oppositional mindset towards the activities or tasks or projects in your life. You do not want to have a mindset of, I have to get through these things.

Until I can get to where I want to get, which is, I don't know, having nothing to do or having free time that my, my task list, my projects, my goals, my task list, my projects, my plans are somehow an obstacle to some other better state that if you could just get through these things as fast as possible, you could get to that better state.

I'm going to suggest a alternative mindset, which is that man is always in action, activity is fundamental to life. Our bodies taken food and water and convert it into energy so that we can actually create movement. We can actually create action in the world. So the goal of a time management system or productivity system and a life structuring system, the various types of things I talk about is making sure that the action that you're doing, because you're going to be doing action one way or the other is as meaningful and directed as possible.

We could think about this. If we wanted to biochemically, there's a certain amount of calories you're taking in each day. That's going to be converted into energy. That energy then allows you to do things like think and move. Taking those calories, you're going to create that energy every day.

There's a certain amount of energy you are burning through. So the question is, what do you want to get in return for that energy? And so thinking about interesting or meaningful things or things that are useful to the world, being, being a leader, being effective, being good to others, all of these type of positive targets for your energy is good.

You're going to burn it one way or the other. You want to direct it towards the thing that's going to make life meaningful. That's going to make life useful. So we're wired for that calling. We're wired for action. Your goal is just to direct that action. It's nice to take a break now and again, but I can tell you if I could take everything off your list, every task, every project, bring in a whole staff to take care of your every need, you could just sit there.

There's the hammock will bring you food, will bring you water. You don't have to do anything. You're not going to be happy. And the reason why you're not going to be happy is that our mind does not expect life to be like that for any extended period of time.

Action is fundamental to the human experience. It's your job to try to make that action as useful as possible. So the bridge needs to be painted because otherwise it rust. So keep painting. Thank you.