Help! My Productivity System Is Failing... | Deep Questions Podcast With Cal Newport

00:00:00.000 | A question from Mukul who says, "It's been over a month.

00:00:07.080 | My to-do list keeps on growing.

00:00:09.560 | My productivity system uses Todoist, Google Calendar, and Notion, but for the past month

00:00:14.320 | I'm falling behind on my work.

00:00:16.820 | There are many days when I don't check my list or forget to create a daily plan or monthly

00:00:20.160 | plan.

00:00:21.160 | I tried to reorder my mobile home screen many times.

00:00:24.680 | Still I'm falling behind.

00:00:26.440 | Can you suggest a way to be efficient with my productivity system?"

00:00:30.200 | Well, Mukul, I find it very hard to believe that your strategy of reordering your mobile

00:00:38.720 | home screen did not solve all of your productivity problems.

00:00:42.320 | That's number one.

00:00:43.320 | If you read my books or see my appearances, I really focus on icons on your mobile home

00:00:50.400 | screen and configuration settings in your productivity software.

00:00:54.120 | That is the key.

00:00:55.120 | You want to understand how Elon Musk gets done what he gets done?

00:00:58.920 | That is how he does it.

00:01:01.440 | His icons are in the right folders on his phone.

00:01:03.480 | I am, of course, being sarcastic.

00:01:07.680 | I'm going to use you sort of as a straw man here, Mukul, to try to make some larger points

00:01:11.720 | for the audience.

00:01:13.480 | What you were describing to me in this question is not a productivity system.

00:01:16.440 | It is a collection of productivity tools.

00:01:19.160 | So for you to tell me about my productivity system is to do as Google Calendar and Notion,

00:01:25.360 | why am I still falling behind and not getting things done?

00:01:27.920 | That's like me coming to you and being like, "Let me tell you about my exercise routine.

00:01:31.240 | I bought a Peloton.

00:01:32.240 | I own some weights and I have a rowing machine.

00:01:34.720 | So why am I not losing weight and getting stronger?"

00:01:38.320 | You would say, "Well, you haven't told me anything about what your actual fitness habits

00:01:41.920 | are.

00:01:42.920 | Like when you exercise, how much you exercise, what you eat, how this fits into your life.

00:01:47.080 | You just listed exercise machines that you own.

00:01:49.640 | It's the same thing that's going on here."

00:01:52.520 | So I think what we need to do is get back to basics.

00:01:56.240 | You need to build a system.

00:01:58.120 | Forget the tools.

00:01:59.120 | You need to build a system from the ground up.

00:02:01.300 | You need to start small, start simple, get a feel for that, and then you can start adding

00:02:06.400 | in the complexity.

00:02:08.080 | You're not going to solve your problem of being scattered and procrastinating and having

00:02:12.360 | too much to do by jumping straight into really complexity.

00:02:15.800 | Complexity doesn't solve your problem.

00:02:17.900 | You need systems that make sense.

00:02:20.280 | So the easiest thing you can do is if you go to my YouTube channel, youtube.com/CalNewportMedia,

00:02:26.480 | I have a video on time management.

00:02:29.400 | So I have this series called Core Ideas where I recorded videos on some of the core ideas

00:02:35.320 | I talk about.

00:02:36.320 | Go back and watch my Core Idea time management video.

00:02:39.080 | You'll get the overview of my philosophy.

00:02:42.000 | For the sake of our audience now, I'm going to excerpt out a sort of starting point for

00:02:46.400 | you.

00:02:47.840 | I think where you are now is you need to go all the way back to the basics and start by

00:02:51.200 | considering what I call the productivity funnel, the collection of three layers of systems

00:02:59.220 | that need to be in place to help you successfully navigate the universe of all possible things

00:03:04.620 | you could be doing at the top of the funnel to things that you actually accomplish that

00:03:09.360 | comes out of the bottom of the funnel.

00:03:10.960 | In between those two things, mediating the universe of everything, what you actually

00:03:14.320 | do, we have three levels.

00:03:15.920 | Level number one is activity selection.

00:03:19.260 | What is your system or philosophy for figuring out what you do, what you agree to do, what

00:03:23.960 | you take on.

00:03:24.960 | Below that, you get the organization.

00:03:27.040 | How do you keep track of, organize, and make plans around what you have agreed to do?

00:03:32.760 | And at the very bottom level, you have execution.

00:03:36.600 | How do you actually in the moment properly execute what needs to be done?

00:03:41.040 | When people are just getting started with time management, this is where I have them

00:03:44.960 | start and I have them start simple on each of these levels.

00:03:48.160 | So activity selection, you need to A, probably clean the decks.

00:03:52.680 | I'm assuming you're doing too many things in a fit of ambition.

00:03:56.680 | You've just said, I'm going to learn this language.

00:03:57.840 | I'm going to become a YouTuber.

00:03:59.040 | I'm going to learn how to program.

00:04:00.040 | I'm going to get promotion over here.

00:04:01.320 | You can't cut that down.

00:04:02.320 | You can cut this down to many fewer things and have some sort of coherent, simple, but

00:04:06.520 | coherent philosophy for what you agree to, how many missions you actually want to be

00:04:11.280 | pursuing.

00:04:12.860 | Maybe you have one in your current job that you're pursuing to help you get promoted faster

00:04:17.020 | and one on your side hustle.

00:04:18.760 | Keep it simple.

00:04:20.040 | With organization, I mean, you have to keep track of and organize things.

00:04:24.360 | If you watch that video on YouTube, that's where I talk about multi-scale planning, daily,

00:04:28.720 | weekly, quarterly planning.

00:04:30.480 | You could watch that video and you can start that.

00:04:32.760 | Or it could be as simple as just, I have a place where everything is written down.

00:04:38.360 | Simple Dave Allen capture.

00:04:40.060 | When new things come onto my plate, it gets captured.

00:04:43.680 | I jot it down.

00:04:44.680 | I have a notebook with me at all times and I transfer that over to my list or my calendar.

00:04:50.120 | Nothing's forgotten.

00:04:51.120 | Everything's written down.

00:04:52.120 | You can start simple, just have something working there.

00:04:54.200 | And when it comes to execution, how do you actually accomplish things when it's time

00:04:59.240 | to execute?

00:05:00.240 | This is where deep work matters.

00:05:02.400 | This is where time blocking matters.

00:05:03.680 | I'm working on one thing at a time.

00:05:05.720 | And when I'm doing this thing, I'm not also checking my phone.

00:05:08.800 | I'm also not also on YouTube.

00:05:11.880 | A lot of young people, Mukul, I don't know that you're young, but I'm just assuming from

00:05:14.700 | your elaboration that you are, have this rough approximation of productivity where they just

00:05:19.360 | throw a lot of frenetic activity at their day.

00:05:21.880 | I'm all over the place and I'm over here and I'm on YouTube and jumping over here and I'm

00:05:25.000 | doing a TikTok over here.

00:05:26.000 | Now I'm seeing this email over here.

00:05:27.680 | How you execute matters.

00:05:29.800 | Time means nothing.

00:05:30.800 | Quantity of activity means nothing.

00:05:33.320 | What you produce is what matters.

00:05:35.080 | And the best way to produce is one thing at a time, giving it your full concentration.

00:05:38.320 | So start with the funnel, selection, organization, execution, have an idea for each.

00:05:43.280 | I elaborated in that video, start simple, but start clear.

00:05:49.360 | What you're trying to do, simple systems, and you can start building up the more complexity

00:05:53.160 | from there.

00:05:54.160 | But I think this is definitely Mukul, a back to basics, a back to basics move.

00:05:58.040 | And if all of that fails, make your iPhone screen grayscale.

00:06:02.400 | And that was a big popular tip back when I was promoting digital minimalism.

00:06:08.800 | All the tech types were like, I know the secret to being distracted by my phone.

00:06:13.360 | I figured out how to make my iPhone screen black and white, and then it's not as distracting

00:06:18.920 | and it won't pull my attention in.

00:06:20.280 | It's all about if I just have the one hack, the one hack.

00:06:25.040 | And if you're a tech person, it has to be a hack that's a little bit technically complicated.

00:06:29.280 | Because then it's conceivable to you that this is why no one else is doing it, because

00:06:33.360 | it's a little bit hard to figure out how to change your phone in the grayscale.

00:06:36.760 | And it's always a dream.

00:06:37.760 | By doing one kind of complicated technical thing on my computer, I have the solution.

00:06:42.440 | Same thing with golf.

00:06:44.560 | It's all the one tip.

00:06:47.040 | That's how they hook you.

00:06:48.040 | It's like the, in Curb Your Enthusiasm, the weatherman had a golf tip.

00:06:56.760 | This is kind of insider baseball.

00:06:57.760 | I don't know if you noticed, the weatherman had this golf tip.

00:07:02.520 | And so Marty Funkhauser was starting to tell Larry, the weatherman, who's like an actual

00:07:10.600 | weatherman, has this great golf tip.

00:07:13.280 | And it changed my game.

00:07:14.280 | And, I mean, I did this one thing and I've been swinging natural, my score is down.

00:07:20.040 | And it's like a season long thing that he never gets the tip.

00:07:23.480 | Because of course he accuses the weatherman of falsely forecasting rain so that he can

00:07:28.040 | get the golf course, like better tee times at the golf course.

00:07:30.640 | So they have a falling out and Funkhauser says, I don't feel right giving you the tip.

00:07:34.640 | And it comes up again and again.

00:07:37.000 | But yeah, I don't know.

00:07:38.000 | Mukul's probably looking for the equivalent of the weatherman's tip for productivity.

00:07:41.000 | That show's so good.

00:07:43.280 | If your notion setup is just properly hooked with a Zapier script to the drafts install

00:07:52.400 | on your phone, you're going to be productive.

00:07:55.240 | Well, the marketing for golf and productivity tools is like really good.

00:07:58.920 | And that's what they try to hook you with.

00:08:02.080 | So why aren't we, because there's all these professional golfers that like my productivity

00:08:06.200 | stuff.

00:08:07.200 | So why have we not brought these two worlds together?

00:08:08.840 | I think it's starting to, you get a lot of professional golfer.

00:08:12.040 | You've gotten a couple questions.

00:08:13.760 | Yeah.

00:08:14.760 | Some of them listen to you.

00:08:16.280 | That's what I need to do.

00:08:18.000 | Deep swing, you know, somehow like meld those two worlds together.

00:08:23.200 | Do an infomercial.

00:08:24.200 | You can start with tennis too, because the city open is going on right now.

00:08:26.480 | Walk over there.

00:08:27.480 | Yeah.

00:08:28.480 | Test out your card.

00:08:29.480 | Tennis players don't know me as much.

00:08:30.480 | I haven't really come across a lot of tennis players who are deep work people.

00:08:34.240 | It's similar to golf.

00:08:35.240 | I know.

00:08:36.240 | What's your problem?

00:08:37.240 | Anyway.

00:08:38.240 | Yeah.

00:08:38.240 | (upbeat music)

00:08:40.820 | (upbeat music)

Help! My Productivity System Is Failing... | Deep Questions Podcast With Cal Newport

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