Cal Newport's Oldest Productivity Strategy | Deep Questions with Cal Newport

00:00:00.000 | All right, so Jesse, I was thinking about trying a new segment.

00:00:06.780 | It's named, I mean, it's an old name.

00:00:08.580 | We used to call Thursday episodes this, but I was thinking about calling the segment Habit

00:00:13.600 | Tune Up.

00:00:15.220 | And the idea was I just take a piece of advice from the types of advice I give and just get

00:00:22.640 | into it a little bit.

00:00:23.640 | So let's just take a piece of, take of advice out of my toolkit and get into it a little

00:00:27.700 | bit even without a question to prompt it.

00:00:31.720 | So we're going to give that a try.

00:00:34.560 | Today's Habit Tune Up is going to be about one of my longest running productivity strategies.

00:00:40.640 | So in terms of strategies that I have run in my own life, this is pretty high up on

00:00:45.640 | the list of things I've been doing for the longest amount of time, and that is fixed

00:00:51.500 | schedule productivity.

00:00:53.040 | All right, so what is fixed schedule productivity?

00:00:57.060 | It's a simple idea where it says you fix the hours that you want to work.

00:01:03.040 | So like on a typical day, here's the length I want for my work day.

00:01:08.540 | And then you work backwards and do what you have to do to make the work actually fit.

00:01:13.480 | So that's primary fixed schedule productivity.

00:01:15.380 | I work 830 to 430.

00:01:17.080 | I work nine to five.

00:01:18.080 | I work eight to six.

00:01:19.080 | You fix the hours and say, that is my line in the sand.

00:01:23.280 | Now I have to do what I can to make that fit.

00:01:25.360 | There's then secondary fixed schedule productivity, which is where you take specific types of

00:01:29.600 | work you do on a recurring basis and give that an even smaller boundary.

00:01:34.780 | In our life, my biggest example of that is probably this podcast.

00:01:39.280 | It exists for me in a half day.

00:01:42.080 | It gets a half day per week.

00:01:43.640 | And as Jesse knows, we will work backwards to fit whatever it takes.

00:01:47.800 | We will work backwards.

00:01:48.800 | And sometimes it takes some scrambling, but we work backwards to make things fit.

00:01:53.720 | I mean, that's why, for example, now that we're going down to one episode, we had to

00:01:57.640 | go down to one episode to spend more time thinking about the show because the fixed

00:02:02.680 | schedule productivity, secondary fixed schedule productivity I'm running here says half day

00:02:05.840 | for the show.

00:02:06.840 | So if we want to spend more time prepping and record two shows, we would break that

00:02:10.160 | boundary.

00:02:11.160 | So we had to change something else.

00:02:12.160 | So it forced to change.

00:02:13.160 | So this is one of my oldest ideas.

00:02:15.840 | I wrote about this way early in my blog.

00:02:20.360 | I'm thinking back 2007, 2008, I was writing about this idea.

00:02:27.080 | This works for a few reasons.

00:02:31.620 | One is you can consider it a meta productivity strategy because it is a high level commitment

00:02:37.540 | that's going to induce a lot of low level specific changes.

00:02:43.060 | When you have the boundary you have to hit, to hit that boundary, you end up having to

00:02:50.020 | do lots of evidence based custom fit tactics that are custom fit to your particular life.

00:02:55.820 | You quickly sort out the stuff that works that doesn't work.

00:02:58.420 | It really is a great way of inducing a lot of small changes.

00:03:02.380 | If instead you try to come up with a lot of ideas from scratch of what you think will

00:03:06.020 | help you manage your time or be more productive, you're just throwing darts.

00:03:08.780 | So fixed schedule productivity is a meta productivity habit and it helps lead to good low level

00:03:14.740 | tactics.

00:03:15.740 | It's also a forcing function to help keep your load sustainable.

00:03:19.700 | So it'll enforce better productivity ideas in the low level.

00:03:22.220 | It'll also lead you to say no to more, get a better sense of what your load is.

00:03:25.540 | When you have these limits, that pushes back and it keeps you or makes it harder for you

00:03:30.460 | to overload yourself, which is likely to lead to burnout.

00:03:35.420 | It also helps you better take advantage of seasonality.

00:03:39.700 | So you go through a period where maybe things are lighter, you're in between jobs, you're

00:03:43.300 | in a quiet season of the job.

00:03:46.160 | With fixed schedule productivity, if you're used to this, you can take advantage of that

00:03:49.940 | situation by collapsing in your fixed schedule.

00:03:55.180 | Now that you could fit your work in less time and you get used to fitting in less time and

00:03:57.620 | you can take advantage of the new time that frees up.

00:03:59.940 | It's like me in the summer.

00:04:00.940 | I have less demands because I don't work for Georgetown in the summer.

00:04:04.420 | I'm on my own dime.

00:04:06.500 | So I can bring in my working schedule and I do to be much smaller.

00:04:10.640 | And because I'm used to fixed schedule productivity, I do what I need to fit it in there and I'm

00:04:14.180 | able to take advantage of the extra flexibility in summer.

00:04:16.460 | It is so easy without that to just fill in your time because there's always more things

00:04:19.780 | possible for you to do than you have time to accomplish.

00:04:23.300 | So without these boundaries, it is going to fill up.

00:04:27.660 | So here are some innovations that have come out of my own commitment to fixed schedule

00:04:30.460 | productivity.

00:04:32.380 | It's where all of my multi-scale planning ideas were formed.

00:04:36.900 | Semester planning, weekly planning, daily time block planning, all of that was forged

00:04:41.540 | in the fires of fixed schedule productivity.

00:04:43.740 | How do I make my 75 jobs fit in the small time I work?

00:04:48.420 | For me, it's roughly 9 to 5, 9 to 5.30 and Sunday mornings is my roughly my main work

00:04:53.140 | blocks.

00:04:54.140 | That's where that came out of is because that's what allowed me to actually fit a reasonable

00:04:57.260 | amount of work in there.

00:04:58.940 | Ruthless quotas and reduction in what's on my plate.

00:05:02.700 | Fixed schedule productivity pushes that for me and I think it helps keep me away from

00:05:05.500 | burnout.

00:05:06.500 | If I can't make it fit, even with my good productivity systems, I have to quit.

00:05:10.860 | I can't do this.

00:05:11.860 | I need to step away from this.

00:05:12.860 | I need to take a break from that.

00:05:14.020 | I'm much more likely to have a sustainable load of work because I have this forcing function

00:05:18.580 | of it has to fit during these hours.

00:05:21.380 | It also helped me lead to more efficient processes.

00:05:24.460 | The type of things I talk about in my book, A World Without Email, come from the demands

00:05:30.340 | of I can't just be going back and forth with you all day on email because my time is really

00:05:37.620 | precious.

00:05:38.620 | I have to get a lot in here because I have to stop work at 5.30.

00:05:42.480 | So we got to figure out a better way to collaborate.

00:05:44.380 | Again, this back pressure from these boundaries really causes a lot of good.

00:05:49.740 | All right.

00:05:50.740 | So I'm a big fan in working backwards from the hours.

00:05:54.260 | The secondary and tertiary positive effects it has on your life can be quite big.

00:06:00.060 | You know, Jesse, I'll have to say fixed schedule productivity is at the source of the amusement

00:06:08.420 | and confusion I often get.

00:06:09.780 | We talk about this sometimes on the show, but there's a very common critique of me.

00:06:15.680 | When people hear about the work I do or the type of things I talk about, it's a very common

00:06:19.920 | critique where they say, well, you can do that probably because of your wife.

00:06:26.600 | There must be some sort of unusual support, maybe someone else having to sacrifice in

00:06:32.240 | order for you to work on these different things and do this deep work.

00:06:37.760 | So this comes up a lot.

00:06:38.760 | Shout out to my friend Scott, who likes to collect these references.

00:06:42.960 | There's one this week.

00:06:43.960 | I forgot who it was, but someone on a podcast, he collected a new example of someone saying

00:06:48.680 | like, yeah, I'd like this stuff, but I think the real hero is probably his wife.

00:06:52.200 | The reason why it always baffles me in the moment is because since I've been a working

00:06:58.640 | adult, practice fixed schedule productivity, my work hours are just normal standard.

00:07:04.560 | I'm a government worker, nine to five style work hours.

00:07:07.800 | I just work the same work hours as like any other normal job.

00:07:11.540 | So it's not like there's some weird Herculean support I need from other people beyond just

00:07:16.160 | the standard thing that everyone who works has to do.

00:07:19.400 | Like my kids need to be in school and that type of thing.

00:07:24.720 | So I'm always baffled.

00:07:25.720 | It's like, well, what do you mean?

00:07:26.720 | Like I work actually probably less hours than most people I know.

00:07:30.280 | And what does the fact that during my normal working hours, I'm very focused, I don't

00:07:34.320 | see what that has to do with needing external support.

00:07:36.560 | But the reason why I think people fall back on that critique is that most people don't

00:07:41.200 | do fixed schedule productivity.

00:07:43.260 | And when you don't do fixed schedule productivity, the assumption is because it's what you're

00:07:46.440 | used to.

00:07:48.120 | More things means more time.

00:07:49.840 | And if you're doing like a kind of like an impressive thing or an impressive number of

00:07:52.640 | things, there must be some impressive time commitment.

00:07:55.580 | You must be Einstein in the 1920s, you know, disappearing until your office till three

00:08:00.000 | in the morning.

00:08:01.440 | But the thing is with fixed schedule productivity, it does work.

00:08:03.800 | You can actually get a lot of interesting stuff happening in a very normal, reasonable

00:08:07.800 | amount of time that does not require unusual support, does not require unusually long working

00:08:14.280 | hours.

00:08:15.280 | Fixed schedule productivity does really work because that back pressure gets you to focus.

00:08:19.040 | It gets you structured.

00:08:20.040 | It gets you organized.

00:08:21.040 | It gets you to essentialize.

00:08:22.040 | It really is like a tonic, really is like a tonic for productivity.

00:08:26.040 | Do you remember what the podcast replaced before you did the podcast?

00:08:30.360 | Like that half day?

00:08:31.360 | Was it just writing or?

00:08:33.560 | It's a good question because I started it during the early days of the pandemic.

00:08:38.360 | So you weren't going to Georgetown and stuff.

00:08:40.240 | I wasn't going to Georgetown.

00:08:41.640 | So I didn't.

00:08:42.640 | So it's a good point.

00:08:43.640 | So I didn't have the fixed schedules around the podcast at first because I started it

00:08:47.880 | during the summer of 2020.

00:08:50.300 | So I had a lot of time and we went into the fall, still a lot of time.

00:08:54.120 | Georgetown was remote.

00:08:56.080 | And so I wasn't going in.

00:08:58.800 | And then I was on leave that spring.

00:09:02.520 | Like my book came out.

00:09:03.520 | So I had I had a lot of time.

00:09:04.920 | The half day came in once we got back to the normal schedule, which was like this fall.

00:09:10.520 | I got to go in.

00:09:11.520 | I got to teach.

00:09:12.520 | I'm on committees again.

00:09:13.520 | And that's like, OK, I have to I have to corral this more.

00:09:19.360 | So yeah, it's a half day of time.

00:09:20.760 | There's a lot of things I could easily spend a half day of time on.

00:09:23.000 | I think it honestly is I went on after my last book launch.

00:09:26.840 | I'm not as you know, I'm not doing a bunch of interviews right now.

00:09:30.080 | I'm not I'm thinking about all the time I would be doing podcast interviews or reading

00:09:33.720 | interviews, I do a little bit.

00:09:35.920 | I was on when you were away last week in Canada.

00:09:41.560 | Their their main morning radio show on CBC, The Current.

00:09:46.880 | So I did a 30 minute.

00:09:47.880 | So I do a few things.

00:09:48.880 | I do a few things.

00:09:51.520 | That's probably where a lot of the time comes from is I focused in my writing life to the

00:09:55.680 | podcast as a half day and then I might my book and article writing.

00:09:58.320 | So.

00:09:59.320 | Yeah.

00:10:00.320 | Yeah.

00:10:00.320 | [Music]

Cal Newport's Oldest Productivity Strategy | Deep Questions with Cal Newport

Chapters