Ep. 245: "Crazy" Productivity

00:00:00.000 | My response to all of this is, and I say this with all modesty, I told you so.

00:00:07.840 | I've been saying this for years.

00:00:10.820 | As one of the few people who is orbiting this world but has never been an active Twitter

00:00:16.480 | user, I'm telling you from the outside, this metaphorical dinner party got weird a long

00:00:22.760 | time ago.

00:00:23.260 | I'm Cal Newport and this is Deep Questions, the show about living and working deeply in

00:00:36.900 | an increasingly distracted world.

00:00:42.020 | I'm here in my deep work HQ.

00:00:44.700 | There's no Jesse today.

00:00:46.780 | Quick backstory on that.

00:00:47.900 | I'm just about to leave for a quick trip to San Francisco.

00:00:51.340 | I'm going to be speaking on a panel about generative artificial intelligence.

00:00:58.700 | Those who listened to last week's episode or read my recent New Yorker article know

00:01:01.780 | that I do have a few thoughts on that subject.

00:01:04.780 | Anyways, because my week leading up to this trip was correspondingly crowded to make up

00:01:10.660 | for the mixed time, I had this great idea that I would record the podcast in San Francisco

00:01:16.580 | itself.

00:01:17.940 | This idea seemed good until the trip got closer and then it seemed less good.

00:01:23.660 | The backstory here, and there's really a teaching moment to extract from this, the backstory

00:01:26.740 | is I've been pretty overloaded this spring.

00:01:30.540 | I engineer my schedule typically so that the steady state is very reasonable.

00:01:36.180 | But it's a bit of a Rube Goldberg machine to keep the steady state reasonable involving

00:01:41.980 | carefully calibrated rotations of different types of projects.

00:01:47.100 | I'm only working on one at a time typically, so it's not so bad, but it's very complicated

00:01:52.940 | to keep things in the wings and interleave them.

00:01:55.860 | It's not unusual, as I've talked about on the show, to have a couple of weeks typically

00:01:59.420 | in the spring or maybe a few things overlap and it's a little bit busier than normal.

00:02:04.380 | Also professors tend to be more exhausted with teaching by the end of the academic year

00:02:08.700 | than the beginning.

00:02:10.100 | This year, the Goldberg machine collapsed and then it accidentally caught on fire.

00:02:16.940 | And then the fire let the building on fire, which then collapsed.

00:02:20.060 | And then that got hit by lightning.

00:02:21.460 | At least that's what it feels like sometimes.

00:02:24.340 | Multiple things have just sustainably remained stacked on top of each other.

00:02:29.460 | And it's not a two week period after which you recover, but it's been week after week

00:02:33.500 | and almost I'm almost in the clear, but it's been pretty exhausting.

00:02:36.700 | So as this trip was looming, I started thinking, you know what?

00:02:39.620 | I want to just travel.

00:02:41.620 | Let me get there.

00:02:44.140 | Enjoy the fact I can fly across the country without three young kids with me.

00:02:49.380 | That's great.

00:02:50.380 | Read, maybe do a little writing.

00:02:52.100 | I can't help myself from writing.

00:02:53.700 | I got to always be writing.

00:02:55.980 | Just do the thing, do the panel, walk around the city.

00:02:58.300 | You know, last time I was in San Francisco, I believe this was last year around this time,

00:03:01.740 | I had a lot of downtime.

00:03:03.260 | I walked all over the city.

00:03:04.500 | It's great.

00:03:05.500 | It's great.

00:03:06.500 | So anyways, I was like, I don't want to bring my equipment.

00:03:08.340 | I don't want to have another thing on my to do list.

00:03:10.300 | I want to treat the trip as a break from the overload that I've accidentally temporarily

00:03:16.860 | fell into.

00:03:17.860 | So I said, you know what?

00:03:18.860 | I have a little window now between I just got home from teaching and I'm about to go

00:03:21.340 | to my kid's soccer practice.

00:03:22.500 | Like let's get in there.

00:03:24.100 | Let's make it happen.

00:03:25.100 | So I didn't have time to arrange for Jesse to be here.

00:03:27.340 | So we'll be back to normal next week, but that's what's going on.

00:03:32.100 | So there's a little lesson in there about, I don't know, stepping back, recognizing the

00:03:37.820 | unsustainability of overload, recognizing the value of periods of time that aren't trying

00:03:43.340 | to be too scheduled, aren't trying to be too overscheduled.

00:03:45.460 | So hopefully this trip will end up being somewhat recharging.

00:03:50.940 | So we'll see.

00:03:51.940 | All right.

00:03:52.940 | So what's the plan for today?

00:03:53.940 | I have a deep dive.

00:03:54.940 | We'll start with a deep dive.

00:03:55.940 | I want to react to a article I read recently that I really enjoyed.

00:03:59.900 | I thought it was very perceptive and we'll do questions and then we'll end with something

00:04:04.140 | interesting.

00:04:05.140 | But here's the twist for today.

00:04:07.200 | I'm doing something that I may regret with the questions, a approximated and elaborated

00:04:15.900 | version of what I used to call question roulette.

00:04:18.420 | I used to in the old version of this show, randomly select a question and just answer

00:04:22.140 | it on the fly without preparation.

00:04:23.580 | I'm going to do the whole, the whole segment that way.

00:04:26.700 | I've got my spreadsheet in front of me of questions that you have submitted to SurveyMonkey

00:04:31.900 | to the link that's included on the show notes.

00:04:34.700 | Nancy takes those out of SurveyMonkey and puts them into a spreadsheet so I can annotate

00:04:37.840 | them, et cetera.

00:04:38.840 | I'm just going to scroll through and grab things.

00:04:40.240 | And when it gets to the questions, we're going to rock and roll.

00:04:42.080 | So who knows where we're going to end up?

00:04:44.240 | Who knows what weird cul-de-sacs we're going to go into?

00:04:46.440 | I'm doing this all one take.

00:04:47.840 | I'm doing things without prep.

00:04:49.420 | So we're going to cover some ground.

00:04:50.960 | We might get to some weird places.

00:04:53.160 | There's a 30% chance I'll end up canceled after this done and a 20% chance that you

00:04:58.400 | will unsubscribe from this podcast out of frustration.

00:05:01.440 | But that leaves a 50% chance that we'll do something brilliant.

00:05:03.960 | So I'm excited about that.

00:05:04.960 | All right, well, let's start with a deep dive.

00:05:08.560 | I want to talk about an article from the New York Times from April 18th, the day before

00:05:15.440 | I'm recording this show.

00:05:17.280 | It's an article from the New York Times Magazine written by an editor over there named Willie

00:05:20.960 | Staley, and it's titled, "What was Twitter Anyway?"

00:05:26.360 | I don't typically love Twitter reporting as a self-critical reporting on Twitter.

00:05:33.760 | I don't usually love that format.

00:05:35.480 | I don't always care what sort of in-the-weed Twitter users have to say about Twitter because,

00:05:42.600 | I don't know.

00:05:43.600 | It's like talking to the alcoholic about the difference between different brown liquors

00:05:52.480 | and the buzz they create or something.

00:05:54.160 | It's like someone whose life is so involved in it, it can be kind of weird.

00:05:57.400 | This article was great.

00:05:58.400 | It was a Twitter article I was waiting for a journalist to write because I think it is

00:06:04.240 | incisive at getting at, here is how Twitter unfolded.

00:06:08.240 | Here is why me, reporter William Staley, and everyone I know was using this so much, and

00:06:12.880 | here's what's happening now, why that party is coming to an end.

00:06:16.400 | So I'm going to go through this and then react to it a little bit.

00:06:18.160 | Now, if Jesse was here, we would load this up on the screen.

00:06:21.000 | He's not here.

00:06:22.400 | I don't know how to use technology, so I have it printed out.

00:06:25.320 | I'm actually just going to be reading things.

00:06:27.400 | You can, however, watch me.

00:06:29.880 | Can I, however, watch me reading this article at youtube.com/Cal Newport Media?

00:06:35.120 | This is episode 245.

00:06:36.480 | You can also find this episode at the deep life.com.

00:06:39.000 | If you just click on watch and go to episode 245, you'll find the video there as well.

00:06:43.480 | I have a couple of quotes I want to read.

00:06:45.520 | Let's start with who William Staley is.

00:06:47.880 | As he says early in the article, I am an editor at the New York Times Magazine, but I think

00:06:53.920 | I should be, it should be stated clearly up front that I have something of an acute problem

00:07:00.160 | with Twitter.

00:07:01.160 | So he puts that up there right up front.

00:07:03.400 | He gives an interesting anecdote about getting involved in a pile on.

00:07:10.360 | So it was a little bit hard for me to follow, but I think what happened here is that La

00:07:14.920 | Crusade that makes the enameled cast iron cookware famous for, I don't know, wedding

00:07:20.880 | registries everywhere, sort of expensive French cookware had advertised something about Star

00:07:26.000 | Wars themed La Crusade cookware.

00:07:30.200 | And he thought that was incongruous.

00:07:32.320 | He thinks about that as something that people who are really refined people into cooking

00:07:36.160 | care about and Star Wars, he thinks about maybe comic book geeks.

00:07:41.200 | And so he wrote a tweet that said the Star Wars La Crusade pots implied the existence

00:07:47.360 | of a type of guy I find genuinely unimaginable.

00:07:51.960 | He sent it, went back to work.

00:07:54.120 | Then around lunchtime, he says things started happening.

00:07:56.200 | And he talks about this huge pile on and people quote tweeting again and again, all of them

00:08:00.400 | pointing out problems with this tweet that he sent, such as I enjoyed that this tweet

00:08:06.520 | manages to be sexist on multiple levels.

00:08:09.080 | Newsflash women cook and like Star Wars.

00:08:12.240 | Imagine a woman.

00:08:13.240 | Hi, have you met women?

00:08:14.920 | Women like Star Wars men cook.

00:08:16.860 | My husband is a huge Star Wars fan and is the cook in the house.

00:08:19.280 | He bakes too.

00:08:20.280 | Sorry to blow your mind.

00:08:21.360 | And onward and onward and onward for a couple of days.

00:08:25.400 | He pointed out like this is not like a major thing.

00:08:30.440 | And here's how he describes it.

00:08:31.760 | It was low effort clowning that felt charged only because it was traveling along such high

00:08:37.720 | energy vectors, sexism, homophobia, Star Wars fandom.

00:08:41.400 | The platform can coax this exact sort of response out of its users with an incredibly small

00:08:45.600 | amount of effort.

00:08:46.600 | But only on the receiving end where all these messages collect in one place that it feels

00:08:50.200 | oppressive.

00:08:53.640 | That's actually really good writing, by the way.

00:08:58.080 | It was charged only because it was traveling along such high energy vectors, small amount

00:09:02.560 | of effort, but on the receiving end, they collect it feels oppressive.

00:09:05.120 | I like that.

00:09:06.120 | Very clear writing.

00:09:07.120 | He says you could in this situation quit or turn off Twitter.

00:09:11.160 | But he says in theory, you can just log on before the end.

00:09:13.400 | But no one does that.

00:09:14.600 | All right.

00:09:15.600 | So I think right up front, we get an interesting and I think incredibly apt description of

00:09:20.560 | what is this pile on dynamic that dominates Twitter at the moment.

00:09:24.560 | It's this notion of things get put out there and then they can very quickly, people can

00:09:29.960 | take turns and test things out and see if they can gather attention with who can clown

00:09:33.600 | or dunk on the person even better.

00:09:35.760 | And they have a certain energy to them because they often in order to gain attention for

00:09:40.200 | my dunk to perhaps gain the applause of others, if you can connect it to what he calls a high

00:09:46.200 | charge vector that that is successful.

00:09:48.400 | But for me sending that out, I'm just saying, like, let me try something here.

00:09:51.960 | This guy talking about Star Wars, let me try something here connected to this or that.

00:09:55.440 | Maybe I'll get some applause.

00:09:56.960 | Very little effort.

00:09:57.960 | But for the person receiving in, it all adds up.

00:09:59.800 | And disproportionately, it feels like your whole world is coming, collapsing in on you.

00:10:04.600 | So I thought that was a really apt decision of what it's like to be on Twitter right now.

00:10:07.960 | So he's like, that's what's that's what's that's what Twitter, you know, this is sort

00:10:12.480 | of what Twitter's been like recently.

00:10:15.800 | And then he says, then we get the Musk's takeover of the platform.

00:10:18.920 | And he says, this has strained the sense of conviviality that made conviviality that made

00:10:25.400 | Twitter feel like a party in the first place.

00:10:27.120 | The site feels a little emptier, though certainly not dead.

00:10:30.040 | Most like the part more like the part of the dinner party where only the serious drinkers

00:10:33.440 | remain.

00:10:34.440 | Whiskey is being poured into the wine glasses.

00:10:36.660 | He steps back and has the final in this section with reflection.

00:10:40.020 | What exactly how we've been doing here for the last decade and a half.

00:10:44.160 | All right.

00:10:45.160 | So that's the setup to this piece.

00:10:46.160 | He's about now to go into the evolution of Twitter, how it got to this place.

00:10:49.640 | But I think this is a very accurate sense of the last year.

00:10:53.400 | Twitter had become this place where this is one of the primary interactions happening

00:10:57.880 | is a sort of often mild, sometimes intense pile on type of dynamic of quote tweeting

00:11:04.160 | and trying to dunk on each other, typically trying to dunk on your ideological enemies

00:11:07.640 | or dunking on someone in such a way that signals.

00:11:12.360 | You're the approval might solicit the approval of your your crowd or signal that you're a

00:11:17.440 | dunking on a representative of the enemy crowd.

00:11:20.960 | And as Musk took over and journalists who don't like Musk have been leaving Twitter,

00:11:25.360 | then it's been having this sort of empty sense of like it's still going on.

00:11:29.800 | But some of the marquee names that really put an energy into what's going on because

00:11:34.600 | these big name reporters and personalities are on here as they sort of leave.

00:11:38.640 | It's not many people, but it creates an outsized effect.

00:11:41.280 | I think all that is true.

00:11:42.280 | I think that's a really good description of what Twitter feels like.

00:11:44.800 | I think it really is true right now that even just a small amount of sort of these mainstream

00:11:49.640 | news organizations and reporters and personalities moving away from Twitter does give it that

00:11:54.100 | into the dinner party feel.

00:11:55.400 | You're still there.

00:11:56.400 | You're still pouring your drink, but the table's not as full.

00:11:59.120 | It changes the mood a little bit.

00:12:00.480 | All right.

00:12:01.480 | Staley then goes on to give a history, which I'm going to very briefly just hit on some

00:12:04.760 | highlights.

00:12:06.520 | So he talks about how it got started.

00:12:10.120 | Jack Dorsey wanted to call it status or statuses.

00:12:15.640 | And Dorsey was really keen on this idea that the point of Twitter is to report what your

00:12:21.140 | status is.

00:12:22.840 | I am doing this.

00:12:24.100 | I feel like this.

00:12:25.600 | Right.

00:12:26.600 | That was the original idea of Twitter.

00:12:28.240 | He got into an ideological battle with Evan Williams when he got involved with the company

00:12:32.000 | as well, where Williams thought this should be people should be tweeting about stuff that's

00:12:35.560 | happening.

00:12:36.680 | And Dorsey said, no, it should be tweeting about me, what's happening to me.

00:12:42.400 | And so the famous example was if there's a fire over at some address is the tweet.

00:12:47.400 | I am seeing a fire at this address or is the tweet.

00:12:51.960 | There is a fire at this address.

00:12:54.160 | According to Staley, Williams was a big fan of the opposite of the latter.

00:12:58.920 | And Dorsey was a big fan of the former.

00:13:00.720 | Williams won that out.

00:13:01.760 | And the prompt changed from how are you feeling or whatever to what's happening.

00:13:07.680 | And a big turning point there was actually the miracle on the Hudson.

00:13:10.680 | There's someone, you know, the tweets around that news event, solely Solenberger landing

00:13:14.600 | that Airbus A380 on or A330 probably landing that on the Hudson and how the tweets were

00:13:22.880 | more informative than the formal news was sort of this turning point of wait a second.

00:13:27.080 | This can be a place to actually discuss what's happening, not just what's happening to you.

00:13:30.840 | So that was a big change.

00:13:33.120 | The next big bullet point comes in 2009.

00:13:35.320 | Here's a key quote.

00:13:36.760 | Twitter's takeover of the media class was rapid.

00:13:40.160 | In April 2009, Marine Downe interviewed Williams and Stone, telling them that she would rather

00:13:45.960 | be tied up to stakes in the Kalahari Desert, have honey poured over me and red ants eat

00:13:50.500 | out my eyes that open a Twitter account.

00:13:54.400 | She signed up three months later to promote her column.

00:13:56.880 | Another good sentence.

00:14:00.800 | And then it became, and I'm quoting Staley here, absolutely irresistible to journalists.

00:14:05.520 | So this is another big turning point.

00:14:09.240 | People were starting to use Twitter to talk about things that were happening and ideas

00:14:12.960 | that were interesting, not just what they felt like or what was happening to them.

00:14:16.080 | It was no longer the Facebook status.

00:14:17.820 | It was a micro blogging type platform.

00:14:22.020 | This became very appealing to journalists.

00:14:24.240 | And now you get all the journalists on there because information and articles are being

00:14:27.440 | passed along and they want to know what is happening.

00:14:32.120 | There was around this time, and I'm quoting here, an enormous expansion in web media with

00:14:36.320 | Buzzfeed, Vice and others pouring truckloads of venture capital into the field.

00:14:39.520 | And though Twitter never drove much traffic, it was nevertheless important for journalists

00:14:43.400 | to be there because everyone else was there.

00:14:46.760 | This was where your articles would be read and digested by your peers and betters.

00:14:50.160 | It was doubly important because of how precarious these new jobs were.

00:14:54.060 | Your Twitter profile was your calling card, potentially a life raft to a new job.

00:14:58.340 | The platform was an extremely fraught sort of LinkedIn, one you would use publicly to

00:15:02.760 | waste company time.

00:15:05.940 | So that's the next phase of Twitter is we have all the journalists get on there.

00:15:10.660 | They want to know what's going on.

00:15:11.880 | They want to promote their own articles.

00:15:13.320 | They want to be a part of the conversation.

00:15:15.420 | They wanted to build up some sort of new media credibility that they could use if their venture

00:15:20.600 | backed web based mobile news startup failed, that they could point towards I've got these

00:15:27.180 | followers and make it easier for them to land at a new publication.

00:15:33.380 | Once all the journalists were on there, this again changed the character of Twitter.

00:15:37.480 | So here's here's a staley.

00:15:41.220 | But this journalistic swarming instinct made Twitter an ideal place for activists to get

00:15:45.420 | a message out.

00:15:46.420 | So once we figured out what the journalists are on here and they're getting story ideas

00:15:51.500 | from here and they're quoting tweets in their articles and they're using since they're on

00:15:56.780 | here trying to promote their things and what other people are writing, trying to see what

00:16:00.440 | news is going on, they might want to write about.

00:16:02.860 | It is as if there was a single bar in Manhattan where all of the top editors of the main newspapers

00:16:09.100 | 50 years ago were all gathering to drink every night.

00:16:12.100 | If that happened, then if you wanted to spread some news, you would go hang out at that bar.

00:16:17.300 | Twitter became that bar.

00:16:18.700 | And this is where we began to get more of this activist energy.

00:16:22.460 | And I'm using activists in the general sense here.

00:16:24.580 | Anyone who had some sort of message to spread.

00:16:27.900 | And a lot of this was beneficial.

00:16:28.900 | A lot of this was actually grassroots message spreading, but also anyone who had an axe

00:16:32.740 | to grind or an ideology ideology that they were obsessed about.

00:16:36.500 | So then it became a place to try to influence the public sphere.

00:16:42.260 | It was still useful for people to be on here.

00:16:44.260 | Here's a quote.

00:16:45.260 | If you're good at this game, it could be good for you both on Twitter and off.

00:16:48.700 | People got commissions and book deals.

00:16:50.700 | Not many, but enough.

00:16:53.260 | Some people lost their jobs.

00:16:54.720 | Not many, but enough.

00:16:56.920 | A couple of people got TV shows out of it.

00:16:58.820 | Once someone told the story so wild, it was turned to a feature film.

00:17:01.540 | Hell, one guy even went and got himself elected president.

00:17:05.300 | But after a while, this focus and obviously Trump probably pushed us the last bit of the

00:17:11.300 | way towards this new configuration.

00:17:14.740 | But this focus is what in the last four or five years turned Twitter into the Coliseum,

00:17:22.020 | the way I've been describing it in most of my recent talks about this.

00:17:26.700 | Now that all the journalists were on there, now this is where the agenda was being set.

00:17:31.700 | Now this is where ideas were being tested and the feedback could sway how companies

00:17:38.500 | operated and how things were reported.

00:17:40.620 | This importance that was concentrated into this one homogenized social internet tool

00:17:47.380 | inevitably turned it into a Coliseum.

00:17:50.900 | And it became a battleground.

00:17:53.220 | You're either one of the 1% of users responsible for 75% of the tweets waging war on here.

00:17:59.140 | The ultimate ideological, and I mean that not just politically, gladiatorial battlefield.

00:18:07.460 | And you had to take down and dunk on your enemies.

00:18:10.560 | And you also had to be very careful about curtailing your near allies to make sure that

00:18:17.900 | the proverbial or conceptual Overton window did not shift even a little bit.

00:18:22.540 | So if someone shifted a little bit on the Overton window, you had to get everyone on

00:18:26.820 | that person fast because a little shift is how Overton windows make big moves over time.

00:18:31.180 | It wasn't the guy saying the crazy thing.

00:18:32.940 | It was the professor who's more or less aligned with you that's like, "Hey, maybe you have

00:18:36.420 | some questions about this."

00:18:37.420 | No, no, no, no.

00:18:38.420 | We got to get on that because this is where sense is being made.

00:18:41.820 | And William Staley, editor from the New York Times Magazine is on here and he's going to

00:18:45.500 | see that and it's going to affect what they say or don't say in the magazine.

00:18:48.420 | And all this was happening from all sides on all sorts of issues, political, nonpolitical,

00:18:51.660 | sports, entertainment, whatever it was.

00:18:53.540 | Then it became the Coliseum.

00:18:54.540 | And for the last three to four years, the primary, I think, addictive quality of Twitter

00:18:59.260 | for the average user, which is not one of these reporters, not one of these partisans,

00:19:03.000 | but a non-posting observer is that it's fun to watch important people hit each other with

00:19:09.300 | sticks and to say, "Ooh, this guy ducked under it, spun around and escaped.

00:19:17.700 | This guy got nailed in the head and then everyone else swarmed on him.

00:19:21.980 | He never got up.

00:19:23.160 | This guy was like the final battle against Magwa at the end of Last of the Mohicans where

00:19:29.700 | he swung his hatchet and the older, wiser man with his sword somersaulted under the

00:19:36.500 | hatchet, spun backhand sword to the back, right through the spine."

00:19:41.680 | You got to watch the final scenes of Last of the Mohicans if you don't know what I'm

00:19:46.100 | talking about, Michael Mann.

00:19:47.700 | All right.

00:19:49.080 | We're talking DDL, Daniel Day-Lewis, must watch.

00:19:52.040 | You can find it online.

00:19:53.380 | And then that's what it became.

00:19:54.380 | And that was inevitable.

00:19:55.560 | And then Musk took over.

00:19:56.860 | And when Musk took over, the journalist, especially for the mainstream leftist center or left-leaning

00:20:02.680 | journalist said, "This party, we're at this nice dinner party and it was getting kind

00:20:08.020 | of raucous."

00:20:09.020 | And then the host said, "By the way, I sold my apartment to someone you don't like and

00:20:12.360 | now it's his dinner party.

00:20:14.220 | And so they're like, we're going to kind of leave."

00:20:16.060 | And that's where we are now.

00:20:18.840 | And we find this question, what was Twitter anyway, being the headline.

00:20:23.860 | And my response to all of this, beyond just saying this is a well-written and very perceptive

00:20:28.760 | article and I really enjoyed it, the link is in the show notes and I recommend it.

00:20:33.540 | My response to all of this is, and I say this with all modesty, I told you so.

00:20:41.220 | I've been saying this for years as one of the few people who is orbiting this world

00:20:47.460 | but has never been an active Twitter user.

00:20:50.740 | I'm telling you from the outside, this metaphorical dinner party got weird a long time ago.

00:20:58.140 | This metaphorical dinner party became less an Algonquin round table and more shades of

00:21:04.000 | eyes wide shut.

00:21:06.340 | It's weird.

00:21:07.700 | The rich guys are putting on masks.

00:21:09.260 | I don't know what's happening here, but it's weird that you're defending this so strong.

00:21:13.460 | I mean, it's not the worst thing in the world, but why is everyone using this?

00:21:18.020 | Why are so many editors and journalists and academics saying, "Of course I have to be

00:21:21.660 | on here."

00:21:22.660 | I was like, "No, you don't.

00:21:24.020 | This is weird."

00:21:27.700 | It's entertaining, but this is weird.

00:21:29.180 | This should be much more niche than it is.

00:21:31.460 | And I used to say, and I stand by it, Twitter should have been like Game of Thrones, something

00:21:36.660 | that a non-trivial group of people were very into, but most people could care less.

00:21:40.960 | And it somehow fought above its weight class.

00:21:43.780 | So again, this is yet another example that I've, from news reporting I've been talking

00:21:48.100 | about in recent weeks, where I'm glad to see this sort of retrospective distancing from

00:21:54.380 | this platform.

00:21:55.380 | I don't think it's evil and I don't think you're bad if you use it.

00:21:58.180 | I just do not think it should be ubiquitous.

00:22:00.620 | I do not think it should be necessary, a precondition to be part of the conversation.

00:22:05.460 | I was so happy to see the Washington Post move their nationals coverage off of live

00:22:10.720 | tweets and into really nicely designed websites.

00:22:13.440 | I was happy a couple of weeks ago when I talked about, for whatever reason they did it, NPR

00:22:17.520 | saying, "We're not tweeting news.

00:22:19.280 | Come back to NPR."

00:22:20.520 | I think this is all healthier.

00:22:22.520 | I think we're going to see more and more retrospectives like William or Willie Staley's, where people

00:22:28.800 | look back and say, "Not my proudest moment, what I was doing on there."

00:22:34.560 | Not as essential as I was telling everyone that it was.

00:22:38.820 | I think the haze is lifting.

00:22:42.160 | I think the fog is dissipating and we're going to gain back, hopefully, a more diverse, grounded

00:22:50.680 | public discourse.

00:22:51.800 | So let's knock on wood.

00:22:52.800 | But that was a great article.

00:22:53.800 | It was a good history.

00:22:54.960 | I think seeing Twitter's evolution in those phases, that was interesting.

00:22:57.560 | It's not something I'd seen before laid out so clearly.

00:23:00.200 | So check that out and hopefully join me in my cautious optimism that Twitter's not going

00:23:07.560 | away, but it's no longer being mistaken for the town square.

00:23:11.640 | We now see that it's devolved into a coliseum.

00:23:13.760 | I want to see the demolition derby sometimes, but I don't want the demolition derby to be

00:23:17.560 | at the core of how the discourse unfolds.

00:23:20.480 | All right, enough Twitter stuff.

00:23:22.040 | I want to get to some questions.

00:23:24.200 | First let me talk about our good friends at Henson Shaving.

00:23:29.760 | So Henson makes this very nice razor, precision milled in high quality aluminum.

00:23:37.880 | Henson has all these precision CNC routing machines because they, as their primary business,

00:23:44.160 | make high precision parts for the aerospace industry.

00:23:46.360 | So they have the ability to mill metal to really precise dimensions.

00:23:51.440 | And so this very nice metal razor they made leverages that ability.

00:23:55.700 | And at its core is the idea that you can put a standard 10 cent safety blade in it and

00:24:00.400 | only .0013 inches of the blade will extend past the metal casing.

00:24:05.520 | This allows you to get a close shave without the up and down diving board effect that causes

00:24:10.920 | nicks, that causes less close shaves, that causes clogs.

00:24:13.960 | So they can use their precision to build a really nice razor that gives a really nice

00:24:19.320 | shave.

00:24:20.320 | So not only is it a beautifully milled piece of equipment, I really enjoy this.

00:24:23.280 | They actually sent me an aluminum stand recently to put it in.

00:24:26.100 | So my razor, this nice aluminum razor and this nice aluminum stand, it looks very nice.

00:24:31.380 | The economics makes sense.

00:24:33.180 | Yes, you pay more for the razor because it's this beautiful milled piece of metal, but

00:24:36.980 | then you have it and you have it for good.

00:24:39.660 | And the blades you put in there are just 10 cent safety razors.

00:24:43.420 | So it doesn't take long, right?

00:24:45.840 | It doesn't take long before you've made back the money you've spent on the expensive razor

00:24:50.500 | before you're coming out ahead of using the disposables or using the subscription services,

00:24:55.780 | because once you have it, it costs nothing to run.

00:24:58.820 | Ten cents a week to run because you can just use a standard blade.

00:25:01.940 | It's great technology, great product.

00:25:04.760 | So it's time to say no to subscriptions and yes to a razor that will last you a lifetime.

00:25:09.720 | Visit hinsonshaving.com/cal to pick the razor for you and use code CAL and you'll get two

00:25:14.220 | years worth of blades free with your razor.

00:25:16.520 | Just make sure to add them to your cart.

00:25:19.580 | That's 100 free blades when you head to hinsonshaving.com/cal and use that code CAL.

00:25:29.100 | I also want to talk briefly about our friends at Huel.

00:25:33.180 | H-U-E-L.

00:25:34.180 | I want to talk about their Huel Black Edition, a high protein, nutritionally complete meal

00:25:41.620 | in a convenient shake.

00:25:44.340 | That means it has everything your body needs in two scoops, including 27 essential vitamins

00:25:48.340 | and minerals and 40 grams of protein.

00:25:52.580 | So since each scoop has 200 calories, you do two scoops and you're replacing essentially

00:25:57.740 | an average meal.

00:25:59.120 | You're doing it easily and getting all of that good stuff.

00:26:02.340 | A couple benefits of Huel Black Edition, vegan, gluten-free, lactose-free, no artificial sweeteners,

00:26:09.500 | naturally flavored, low GI, omega-3, omega-6, GMO-free, palm oil-free, contains vegan vitamin

00:26:15.580 | D2 and V3 available in nine flavors.

00:26:18.260 | It works out to only about $2.50 per 400 calorie meal.

00:26:22.860 | The way I like to use Huel is my fitness health philosophy is breakfast, lunch, automate.

00:26:29.760 | Something that you know is healthy, that's not going to set you back on any goals you

00:26:33.140 | have in your health and is easy, and then put all of your attention into enjoying food

00:26:36.980 | and experimenting and cooking.

00:26:38.420 | Do that all at dinner.

00:26:40.180 | So Huel allows me when I'm in, don't want to think at all about food, I get you some

00:26:45.340 | breakfast before I go to class, I've been writing, scoop, scoop, shake, boom, 400 calories,

00:26:51.020 | barely cost me anything, all these other vitamins, other nice things in it.

00:26:54.060 | That's how I use it, but you can use it however you want.

00:26:56.580 | All right, so here's the good news.

00:26:58.060 | You'll get a free t-shirt and a shaker for shaking up the shake with your first order

00:27:04.100 | by going to Huel.com/questions.

00:27:06.540 | That's H-U-E-L.com/questions.

00:27:07.540 | All right, let's do some, speaking of questions, let's do some questions with no preparation.

00:27:15.300 | I'm sure this will go well.

00:27:18.260 | I'm loading up my laptop here.

00:27:20.580 | All right, I got my spreadsheet.

00:27:25.220 | I am not going to overthink this.

00:27:28.660 | Let's just jump in.

00:27:29.660 | All right, question number one, haven't even read this yet, from Chandler, 44 years old

00:27:34.780 | from North Carolina, an executive director.

00:27:37.620 | All right, here's a question.

00:27:40.820 | I don't disagree with your critique of follow your passion.

00:27:43.940 | Thank you.

00:27:44.940 | Good question, Chandler.

00:27:45.940 | Let's move on.

00:27:46.940 | No, I'm joking.

00:27:47.940 | He goes on.

00:27:48.940 | I don't disagree with your critique of follow your passion, but I wonder what you'd say

00:27:53.740 | to people considering or working in jobs where passion or a sense of calling to the profession

00:27:58.740 | is important, like nonprofits or mission-driven professions.

00:28:04.540 | I run a faith-based summer camp and retreat center and work with many pastors, and I know

00:28:08.900 | how important a sense of calling is to make it through many of the difficult parts of

00:28:13.520 | these jobs.

00:28:14.520 | It's a good question, Chandler.

00:28:18.620 | Calling is different than passion.

00:28:21.860 | I know that sounds like it's a semantic game, but there is actually a substantial difference

00:28:26.580 | there that's important.

00:28:28.740 | Calling comes out of the religious context.

00:28:30.420 | In particular, calling is used in the Judeo-Christian context for being called into the pastor or

00:28:38.060 | to be a priest and called into the clergy.

00:28:40.780 | But traditionally, from a religious perspective, to be called into doing, let's say, to be

00:28:47.820 | a clergyman or something like this is a very different experience than the modern notion

00:28:52.700 | of following your passion.

00:28:54.580 | Following your passion says this thing is really interesting and exciting to you.

00:28:59.220 | So by matching that thing to your work, you will have all these positive attributes in

00:29:02.780 | your job.

00:29:03.780 | You'll be interested and excited in your work, and that will be beneficial.

00:29:07.500 | Callings can be burdens in the religious context.

00:29:10.100 | Callings can be hardship.

00:29:11.940 | Read the lives of the saints.

00:29:13.100 | They're not high-fiving everybody.

00:29:15.620 | It's often felt as, "Okay, I feel as if God wants me to do this."

00:29:21.140 | They get great meaning out of it, but it's not enjoyable.

00:29:25.340 | You're called to be a Coptic ascetic living in the desert in the year 300.

00:29:32.540 | You weren't high-fiving everyone every day.

00:29:34.780 | You weren't like, "Man, I'm going to Instagram out a motivation porn picture of every day

00:29:41.660 | you can crush it by living in the sand and never bathing."

00:29:46.340 | So there's a difference.

00:29:47.340 | In other words, what I'm trying to say is it's a very important potential component

00:29:52.180 | to building a deep and meaningful career that you feel that there is something very important

00:29:56.360 | about what you're doing.

00:29:58.020 | This is, "I am bringing myself to a challenge, and I'm acting useful in the challenge."

00:30:03.180 | We know this from self-determination theory.

00:30:05.020 | The sense of impact on other people or improvement of the world can be very motivating.

00:30:09.060 | I think all of that, if it's present in one of your job options, can be very powerful.

00:30:13.740 | You just don't want to expect that it's going to make every day exciting.

00:30:16.500 | You just don't want to expect that it means you'll be whistling on the way to work each

00:30:19.380 | day.

00:30:20.380 | Callings can be difficult.

00:30:21.380 | My critique of follow your passion is twofold.

00:30:24.460 | One, this notion that you shouldn't rely on the fact that you have a clear preexisting

00:30:28.760 | passion to follow.

00:30:30.380 | That's true for callings too.

00:30:31.580 | Most people don't.

00:30:32.580 | It's not a big deal if you don't have that.

00:30:34.260 | My second critique doesn't apply to callings.

00:30:37.020 | That's this idea that you're mistaken to believe that matching the content of your job to a

00:30:40.940 | preexisting interest will mean you have a sense of excitement and interest for your

00:30:44.460 | work every day.

00:30:45.460 | That's just not the way it works.

00:30:46.460 | Fulfillment in work is more complicated and multifaceted.

00:30:49.680 | A sense of social contribution, a sense of theological call, this type of stuff can be

00:30:56.740 | an important part of meaning, but it's a different thing than the follow your passion advice

00:31:01.260 | typically advises.

00:31:02.260 | I'll give you one more very extreme example.

00:31:04.620 | You have a relative, a family member, who's very sick.

00:31:09.740 | You can get great meaning out of "I am taking care of this person," but it also sucks.

00:31:15.500 | It's not what follow your passion proponents would say, "Follow your passion, you'll never

00:31:19.060 | work a day in your life."

00:31:20.060 | No, it sucks, but where does the meaning come from?

00:31:23.100 | This is important, and I feel that this is important, and I'm willing to get through

00:31:27.740 | the hardship because it's important.

00:31:29.660 | It's like raising kids.

00:31:30.940 | It's a calling.

00:31:31.940 | A lot of times it ain't so great, but deep down it's very good.

00:31:37.580 | I don't know if that makes sense, Chandler, but I think of calling as different than passion.

00:31:42.220 | Good on you, in other words, for what you're doing.

00:31:44.140 | I'm glad you're using calling as part of a sense of depth and meaning in your life, and

00:31:50.060 | hopefully you're comfortable with that, even if not every day is exciting.

00:31:54.620 | All right.

00:31:56.660 | Let's just do ... Let's see what we got here.

00:32:02.140 | That's not a real question.

00:32:03.140 | All I'm skimming here is to make sure that it's an actual question.

00:32:07.020 | I'm otherwise not trying to edit this.

00:32:08.820 | All right.

00:32:09.820 | Let's see here.

00:32:10.820 | Hi.

00:32:11.820 | Oh, let me give the name.

00:32:13.860 | Mary, 40-year-old from New York City.

00:32:17.540 | Hi.

00:32:18.540 | I work in leadership development in a large ... Oops, I lost it.

00:32:24.020 | Large healthcare institution.

00:32:25.780 | I think your ideas on work processes, minimizing the footprint of a given workflow, are potentially

00:32:30.580 | game-changing for many of the leaders I work with, but I am struggling with how to share

00:32:34.140 | it with them and/or how to support them in hacking or improving workflows they are responsible

00:32:38.820 | for.

00:32:39.820 | In the places where I've heard you write or talk about this as reference with one or two

00:32:43.620 | examples, where can I learn more about how and not just why reimagining a workflow for

00:32:48.820 | efficiency and deep work?

00:32:51.580 | Well, Mary, if only someone had written a book that explains the whole history of how

00:33:00.020 | we got to our current structure of knowledge work and the principles.

00:33:03.660 | Yes, it would be great if there was principles.

00:33:05.660 | I don't know, maybe four, if I had to choose a number.

00:33:08.940 | Four principles for how you could then go about reimagining work, just to pick a word

00:33:16.460 | out of many, reimagining work to be free of the structure of constant distractions.

00:33:22.260 | What would those principles be?

00:33:23.900 | What are the strategies for successfully implementing those principles?

00:33:27.160 | What are examples of people and companies and organizations doing this?

00:33:29.780 | If only someone wrote that book and it was called A World Without Email and it came out

00:33:36.220 | in March of 2021, if only that existed.

00:33:39.060 | All right, obviously I'm being facetious, but I really would say, Mary, read that book.

00:33:45.740 | I really do try to get into a strong case for what is wrong with how we work and the

00:33:50.940 | four principles for how we'd want to rebuild it with lots of examples and thoughts.

00:33:54.620 | The issue is, and I think this is part of the problem with this whole potential movement

00:33:58.220 | that I was trying to spark with that book, it's not easily summarizable on an index card.

00:34:04.620 | And when you do try to summarize on an index card, people insert their own understanding

00:34:08.780 | of what you're trying to say, which is wrong.

00:34:10.300 | They're like, "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, turn off your notifications on your email and send

00:34:17.180 | an email if the meeting doesn't need to exist.

00:34:19.700 | And we need to reset our norms so that you don't expect a response to your email too

00:34:24.380 | soon."

00:34:25.380 | Everyone just has these hacks about their own interaction with emails.

00:34:29.420 | They think this is the key.

00:34:30.980 | And the book is trying to get at something much more fundamental, completely reinventing

00:34:34.140 | these processes around avoiding the productivity poison that is constant context shift.

00:34:39.700 | This means you have to put in place collaboration and information spreading processes that minimize

00:34:44.740 | the number of unscheduled messages that must be seen and replied to.

00:34:47.620 | None of that fits well on an index card.

00:34:49.460 | It really does take some depth.

00:34:50.620 | So that book is a good place to start.

00:34:52.460 | My interview about A World Without Email from March of 2021 with Ezra Klein, I think that

00:34:57.220 | was a pretty good, we got pretty in the weeds in the book.

00:35:00.320 | So if you want to listen or read the transcript instead of reading the whole book, I think

00:35:04.180 | that can do pretty well as well.

00:35:06.580 | And that book is doing pretty well, but not, it didn't jump out the gates like digital

00:35:11.580 | minimalism did.

00:35:12.740 | And I think part of it is timing.

00:35:16.220 | There's a pandemic and there's so much bad going on.

00:35:19.300 | And people's work lives were not great, but there was so many reasons why it was not great

00:35:23.460 | that they weren't in the mood to overhaul collaboration systems.

00:35:30.100 | If you live in a blue state, you still probably had your kids at home doing Zoom while you

00:35:34.860 | were working.

00:35:36.820 | Those who are watching will see my giant scare quotes.

00:35:40.020 | And the last thing you had time to worry about is let's revamp how we spread the information

00:35:45.980 | to minimize message shifts.

00:35:47.220 | I think there was a timing issue in the pandemic itself.

00:35:50.380 | So I'm trying to re-spread the word about it now.

00:35:52.700 | Also the book was, I think it was received as a little more organization focused and

00:35:57.260 | individual focused.

00:35:59.020 | I think books do better for obvious reasons.

00:36:01.740 | If any reader who picks it up feels like they can change their life right away.

00:36:04.620 | Now, the reality is a world without email is very individual focused.

00:36:07.820 | I get into great detail about these ideas you can put into place right now, even if

00:36:11.660 | your boss doesn't know it, but it feels like it is something that is more organizational

00:36:17.180 | focused.

00:36:18.180 | So, you know, that might've suppressed it as well.

00:36:20.780 | I mean, not that this book hasn't been selling copies, it has, but my standards are high.

00:36:24.100 | All right, let's roll.

00:36:25.100 | Let me try to go faster here.

00:36:26.100 | I'm just scrolling here randomly.

00:36:29.940 | Here's Steve, 38 year old from New Jersey.

00:36:33.260 | I hope this is not too personal.

00:36:35.100 | Ooh, there's an interesting, a trepidatious, I proceed with trepidation after the start

00:36:42.060 | to the question.

00:36:43.060 | I hope this is not too personal.

00:36:45.080 | How does watching movies fit with Cal's deep life?

00:36:48.240 | It seems that movies have many of the same problems that shallow life tech platforms

00:36:56.000 | in the world today.

00:36:57.000 | And in general, movies seem to open your mind up to values that may not be consistent with

00:37:00.740 | your deep life principles.

00:37:02.740 | I don't agree with this, Steve.

00:37:05.900 | As a aspiring cinephile, there is incredible craft and art and legacy and cultural impact

00:37:13.720 | and artistic brilliance embedded into this medium.

00:37:17.460 | So if you really appreciate movies, it's like appreciating music or appreciating art.

00:37:22.140 | I would not compare that to a tweet dunkathon on Twitter or a high view, you know, Mr. Beast

00:37:30.540 | video on high view, Mr. Beast video on, you know, YouTube.

00:37:36.940 | I mean, let's just even things you think, uh, what's the point?

00:37:39.940 | This is not great.

00:37:40.940 | There's greatness often embedded in movies that people don't even see.

00:37:42.900 | I was just re listening to recently Quentin Tarantino joined Bill Simmons's rewatchables

00:37:48.700 | podcast to talk about what he thinks is one of his best 10 movies of the last decade,

00:37:52.660 | which was Tony Scott's unstoppable Denzel Washington 777 train out of control.

00:38:01.340 | Watch this movie and the, the artifice that goes into this, the constantly moving camera,

00:38:07.020 | the as a Simmons calls it downhill movement that starts five minutes in and doesn't stop

00:38:11.660 | till the end, the propulsive energy of the film, what's happening with the color palette

00:38:16.220 | and the rust.

00:38:17.220 | I mean, it's a, a brilliant guy who spent two years putting all of his energy into constructing

00:38:21.660 | this thing that works and hits you at an interesting level and works with your mind and calves

00:38:26.900 | your intention.

00:38:27.900 | I don't know.

00:38:28.900 | It's a beautiful art form.

00:38:29.900 | I love movies.

00:38:30.900 | I reject your premise.

00:38:31.900 | I don't have a lot of time to watch them.

00:38:34.460 | It takes me days to finish a movie.

00:38:36.820 | Like often, especially if I'm busy, if we alternate bedtimes, often if I'm not doing

00:38:42.540 | bedtime, I can get 45 minutes in.

00:38:44.300 | So maybe in one week I can get a movie done when I'm not as busy.

00:38:48.140 | I like to put in like twice a month, a movie watching lunch where I go and get a sandwich

00:38:53.820 | and watch a movie midday when I'm at home.

00:38:56.660 | I do enjoy doing that.

00:38:57.980 | I just saw air.

00:38:58.980 | Julie and I went and saw air in the theater.

00:39:01.540 | I've got thoughts.

00:39:02.540 | I'm going to say six out of 10 right now, but I do see a lot of movies.

00:39:06.540 | I really like movies.

00:39:07.540 | So you're not, you have no, you have little chance of getting me to agree that movies

00:39:10.540 | are shallow and we shouldn't spend time watching them.

00:39:13.180 | All right, let's go here.

00:39:15.460 | I'm just rolling.

00:39:16.460 | Alex, no information.

00:39:19.260 | I really like the idea of fixed schedule productivity.

00:39:21.420 | However, my schedule really fluctuates between weeks, which makes it difficult for me to

00:39:26.460 | implement a fixed in time for my work.

00:39:29.440 | Some weeks are lighter while some weeks are more stressful and I have to push in the evenings

00:39:33.900 | and weekends.

00:39:34.900 | Additionally, I want to have some weeks where I work longer and some weeks where I work

00:39:38.700 | shorter days because there are some weeks where my family needs more of my time than

00:39:41.500 | others.

00:39:42.660 | This makes a fixed deadline, which is same every day, very difficult to implement.

00:39:45.540 | All right.

00:39:46.540 | That's an interesting case, Alex, you're asking.

00:39:48.100 | And I, you know, by the way, I just realized I haven't been marking these questions as

00:39:51.540 | red.

00:39:52.540 | If I don't mark them as red, I don't know later that I've already done it.

00:39:55.700 | So now I've started marking them as red.

00:39:56.900 | So if you hear any of those first questions show up again in the later episode, it's my

00:40:00.980 | fault.

00:40:01.980 | Alex, I think this is a good idea.

00:40:03.540 | So fixed schedule productivity for those who don't remember is the idea that you fix your

00:40:07.220 | work schedule in advance.

00:40:08.300 | And I'm just talking about the raw hours you'll be working.

00:40:11.060 | This is it.

00:40:12.060 | I do work backwards from that goal to figure out how in the world do I make my work fit?

00:40:16.700 | It's a meta productivity strategy because to accommodate this one goal, you're going

00:40:22.940 | to have to innovate and implement many different concrete productivity systems and ideas and

00:40:28.180 | rules to finish it.

00:40:29.740 | You're going to have to cut back on your workload.

00:40:32.380 | You're going to have to use time block planning to be more efficient about your time.

00:40:34.820 | You're going to have to start moving things around farther and back and into the future.

00:40:38.620 | You're going to have to start cutting out time wasting.

00:40:40.220 | I mean, it just changes.

00:40:42.500 | It induces so many concrete changes, small changes in order for you to hit this big goal.

00:40:47.100 | Alex is saying, does it have to be the same fixed schedule every week?

00:40:50.380 | I say no.

00:40:51.380 | I think it's interesting.

00:40:52.380 | You have A weeks and B weeks.

00:40:54.180 | And you kind of choose what week is this?

00:40:56.220 | It's an A week or a B week.

00:40:57.580 | There's a different schedule for each.

00:40:58.700 | Whatever.

00:40:59.700 | This is the week I'm doing this week.

00:41:00.700 | This is the schedule.

00:41:01.700 | Make it work.

00:41:02.700 | This week is different.

00:41:03.700 | Make it work.

00:41:04.700 | I think that's fine.

00:41:05.700 | I think it's a good idea, Alex.

00:41:06.700 | Good innovation.

00:41:07.700 | Multi-scaled, multi-valued fixed schedule productivity.

00:41:11.500 | MVSSP.

00:41:12.500 | I like it.

00:41:13.500 | Let's get on a t-shirt.

00:41:15.720 | All right.

00:41:16.920 | Jumping around here.

00:41:21.500 | How does this is Kevin, how does the philosophy like effective altruism fit into the VFLCCP

00:41:26.740 | model you discussed on episode 18?

00:41:29.580 | Kevin, bonus points for good acronyming.

00:41:33.540 | That is value, VBFLCCP is what I'm used to.

00:41:39.620 | Value based lifestyle centered career planning.

00:41:41.580 | So I don't know.

00:41:42.580 | FL, value focused lifestyle career planning.

00:41:44.700 | I'll assume that's what you mean.

00:41:47.700 | How does effective altruism fit into it?

00:41:50.220 | So I don't understand the direction of the question.

00:41:53.640 | So it's the question, how would something an interest like an interest in effective

00:41:57.980 | altruism fit into this?

00:42:00.220 | Or specifically, are you asking what does effective altruism say about approaching lifestyle

00:42:07.220 | centered career planning?

00:42:08.220 | I think you mean the latter.

00:42:10.220 | So you're asking what specifically does effective altruism.

00:42:15.820 | How does that, what does that specifically tell us about this lifestyle centered career

00:42:18.780 | planning?

00:42:19.780 | I mean, I assume a hardcore effective altruist would, I guess, orient their bucket design

00:42:28.860 | around maximal good.

00:42:32.220 | And so I guess what I'm trying to say here is if you're a big believer in effective altruism,

00:42:39.180 | that's important part of your life.

00:42:40.300 | You could certainly influence your value centric lifestyle career planning that way.

00:42:45.300 | I know certainly some of those practitioners really do.

00:42:48.580 | Every aspect of their life is geared towards this John Stuart Millian utilitarianism.

00:42:54.580 | And so, yeah, but I think why this is important is not that that's what everyone should do,

00:42:58.020 | but that there are different flavors to this.

00:42:59.660 | So what are other flavors that could significantly influence how your lifestyle centered career

00:43:04.980 | planning is shaped?

00:43:06.580 | I think there are certainly theological flavors to VFLCCP.

00:43:11.980 | So you can imagine someone coming at this from a strong faith based tradition, it's

00:43:15.740 | going to affect all of those buckets.

00:43:17.460 | It'll be oriented around revelation from, you know, the relevant scripture.

00:43:23.300 | I could imagine an artistic creativity type focus at all the buckets that some people

00:43:31.500 | just very strongly build their whole life around artistic.

00:43:34.460 | I could imagine a sort of justice themed, a justice flavored approach to VFLCCP.

00:43:40.380 | The point being is, you know, you create these buckets and then you understand what in these

00:43:44.660 | different parts of my life, how am I craft those parts of my life?

00:43:47.720 | What matters?

00:43:48.720 | How have I crafted my life to emphasize that?

00:43:50.780 | How you answer that question is influenced by so many things that are internal to your

00:43:53.600 | experience and your values.

00:43:54.600 | And those values can be super influenced or super dependent on very specific philosophies,

00:43:58.980 | be it altruism or your religion or justice.

00:44:01.360 | So I think you can have different flavors there.

00:44:03.900 | I'm trying to remember the name of a particular effective altruist who William, one of the

00:44:11.780 | main guys at Oxford, there's the New Yorker profile of him.

00:44:14.020 | All I know is William is involved.

00:44:15.540 | I don't know if that's his last name or his first name.

00:44:18.540 | Pretty sure I've met him too.

00:44:19.860 | All right, let's, uh, let's roll here.

00:44:22.940 | Victoria, what do you think about David Graeber's bullshit jobs theory in relation to your idea

00:44:28.460 | as work as a means to an end?

00:44:31.540 | Actually, it's Recline who convinced me to finally read that book.

00:44:34.560 | People really like David Graeber's bullshit jobs book.

00:44:38.100 | I read it.

00:44:39.780 | I think I need to read it again.

00:44:42.380 | I don't think it hit me as strongly as it hit other people, because to me there was,

00:44:48.500 | there's a very British sort of British civil service, British sentiment to the book that

00:44:56.020 | mismatch to some degree with the much more sort of high integer entrepreneurial approach

00:45:01.540 | to work that we have here in the States.

00:45:03.660 | And so the, the, the gears weren't grinding clearly for me.

00:45:08.220 | My memory of Graeber's book is he's talking about these bureaucracies would literally

00:45:12.160 | have fake jobs, right?

00:45:15.020 | It was like office space.

00:45:17.700 | You know, what would you say you do here?

00:45:20.060 | You're like, well, I give the memo from this person, that person.

00:45:23.060 | Oh, so you walk it over to the person.

00:45:24.780 | Well, no, I have someone else come do that for me.

00:45:27.340 | You know, like actual fake jobs where nothing happens and how soul deadening that is.

00:45:30.580 | And I'm sure it is.

00:45:31.780 | It's just the American experiences.

00:45:33.740 | That's not our problem as much.

00:45:35.780 | Yeah.

00:45:36.780 | Often, you know, our jobs are really, they're doing things like we were very energize.

00:45:42.060 | We don't have this bureaucracy sense of nothing to do here matters.

00:45:45.380 | I'm just buying out the time.

00:45:46.460 | It's like, I'm incredibly busy.

00:45:48.220 | I can't keep up with all I have to do.

00:45:50.100 | And I'm actually distressed because I'm letting people down that I'm not getting back to them.

00:45:54.300 | Their emails, there's almost like an opposite problem here.

00:45:56.960 | It's like an overly energized job issue.

00:45:59.060 | And I think the, the issue that a lot of people have here is not the job is ultimately meaningless,

00:46:05.580 | but the approach to the work itself is ultimately unsustainable.

00:46:09.740 | This hyperactive hive mind, let's constantly switch back and forth to asynchronous and

00:46:13.740 | ongoing conversations about all this different work coupled with this autonomy mindset of

00:46:18.460 | there's no centralized control or agreement on reasonable workloads.

00:46:21.660 | You can just get piled deeper and deeper and deeper until you get so stressed.

00:46:24.820 | You just call out uncle.

00:46:26.260 | And that's what stops people from pushing more back onto your plate.

00:46:29.260 | It's incredibly stressful.

00:46:30.440 | You feel like you're spending most of your time managing work instead of actually executing

00:46:33.740 | work.

00:46:34.740 | You're always behind.

00:46:35.740 | It's hitting all these triggers inside your brain, the way we're wired.

00:46:37.980 | It makes us unusually miserable.

00:46:40.820 | This is the problem.

00:46:41.820 | I think the bigger problem here, especially in the States, it's not that our jobs mean

00:46:45.820 | nothing and we're boring ourselves to death.

00:46:48.360 | This is not the pale King David Foster Wallace.

00:46:51.020 | It is that we're working in such an incoherent manner that meaning or not our jobs are slowly.

00:46:58.860 | And for some of us quickly, completely burning us out.

00:47:02.860 | So the first read that then it didn't click with me as strongly as people thought it might,

00:47:06.780 | but I should read that again.

00:47:08.380 | All right, let's, let's do a couple other right now.

00:47:11.900 | I'm just, I'm just looking for quick things.

00:47:17.340 | All right, Raphael, I'm a teacher of young students from 15 to 19 years old.

00:47:22.700 | I've noticed that the capacity to focus is increasing each year.

00:47:25.460 | Is there any possibility that the ability to focus could be irreversibly damaged?

00:47:28.540 | It's not great.

00:47:29.540 | If you spend your adolescent and young adult years constantly on your phone, your brain

00:47:34.140 | is going to get very used to that.

00:47:35.500 | It's going to have a hard time not having that distraction.

00:47:38.380 | And it's not that this is preventing your brain from being able to focus entirely, but

00:47:45.060 | it's keeping you away from the type of training you need to build up that muscle and that's

00:47:49.620 | reading and being alone with your own thoughts and trying to integrate data and understand

00:47:53.980 | hard things and rewind that scene from Tony Scott's Unstoppable to understand what he

00:47:58.100 | was trying to do with that glass reflection shot and why that's poetically appropriate

00:48:02.740 | for the scene.

00:48:03.740 | When you don't do this type of work with your mind, you don't build up those cognitive muscles

00:48:09.340 | and this highly salient distraction keeps that away from you.

00:48:13.460 | And it also builds up this addiction to that type of information.

00:48:17.180 | So I think it's an issue.

00:48:18.500 | My big advice to young people is you don't have to outrun the bear.

00:48:23.740 | You just have to outrun the person you're with when the bear starts charging.

00:48:27.020 | And so if you are even a little bit treating your phone with wariness, treating your brain

00:48:32.980 | with respect, it's like the old proverb, the one eyed man is king in the world of blind

00:48:40.340 | people.

00:48:41.420 | You're going to have a huge competitive advantage.

00:48:43.180 | So that's the only silver lining here.

00:48:46.220 | All right, I'm running out of time here.

00:48:47.220 | Let me do one more.

00:48:49.380 | One more question.

00:48:50.380 | Nick, 35 year old programmer from Ireland.

00:48:54.460 | Let me mark this as red.

00:48:57.140 | Hi, Cal, I'm curious on your thoughts on the crossover between parenting and professional

00:49:02.540 | improvement.

00:49:03.540 | Crossover, you don't mean direct negative correlation.

00:49:07.700 | I kid.

00:49:09.780 | I have a three year old daughter and a chronically ill wife with just one kid.

00:49:15.140 | We've been pushed to the breaking point at times, but managed to survive with lots of

00:49:17.780 | time off work to help at home.

00:49:19.860 | With my daughter recently starting school, I thought I could get back to a bit of my

00:49:22.940 | productive life.

00:49:23.940 | And it seems that it may have been a little ambitious with three kids.

00:49:29.180 | Did you purposely scale back things professionally, whether that was writing or research in order

00:49:34.260 | to be more available for family, ride more difficult waves at home to speak, sort of

00:49:40.180 | goes on and on like that.

00:49:41.980 | Oh, wait, look at the final part.

00:49:43.620 | Do you have seasons that are unbalanced and you find a way sometimes to sacrifice important

00:49:46.620 | things in the short term?

00:49:47.620 | All right, it's a good question.

00:49:48.860 | No, kids make it harder to do professional stuff.

00:49:53.540 | It just makes it harder.

00:49:55.900 | And you have to rethink things.

00:49:58.260 | And I think for me, that difficulty is part of what went into the development of slow

00:50:03.780 | productivity as a philosophy, realizing that a philosophy of productivity that is based

00:50:10.620 | on the maximizing the rate of production or maximize what a lot of people don't even measure

00:50:17.900 | production, maximizing the hours spent producing.

00:50:20.980 | This is actually the heuristic that most people fall back onto because it's too difficult

00:50:25.180 | or maybe too disillusioning to measure what did I actually produce and how much do people

00:50:30.060 | care.

00:50:31.060 | So they say, I'll adopt what I call in my new book pseudo productivity, and I will try

00:50:34.780 | to measure instead just activity with the idea that activity generates results.

00:50:38.220 | So more activity will generate more results than less.

00:50:40.460 | That conversion function between that time and results, I don't even want to know.

00:50:44.060 | It's a monotonically increasing function.

00:50:46.120 | So more is better.

00:50:48.840 | That mindset of productivity does not mix well with kids because kids take away time.

00:50:54.860 | They take away energy and they take away sleep.

00:50:59.180 | And yes, I can imagine all the emails now and it hits everyone very differently.

00:51:04.460 | And some people have this much worse than other people.

00:51:06.980 | And some people's kids are incredibly well behaved and slip through the night.

00:51:09.660 | And other people's kids have real serious issues that take up a lot more time.

00:51:12.860 | And there's the gender dynamics and there's the et cetera, et cetera.

00:51:16.900 | But it's also bad for everyone, just in all different ways.

00:51:19.260 | But it's bad for everyone.

00:51:20.260 | Let's put it that way.

00:51:21.260 | A wildfire sweeping through your town is bad for everyone.

00:51:24.540 | And we can agree on that even if some people's houses burn to completely down to a crisp

00:51:29.900 | and other people's houses, they only lose some trees.

00:51:34.380 | The baseline here is it's bad for everyone.

00:51:36.180 | So if your definition of productivity is amount of work per day, or if you're a little bit

00:51:43.100 | more careful rate of production of things in the short term, kids can be psychically

00:51:48.300 | dislocated.

00:51:50.860 | On the other hand, if you have a slow productivity mindset, what matters is production on the

00:51:56.940 | larger scale.

00:51:57.940 | I mean, I want to keep, obviously keep the lights on and be responsible in the short

00:52:00.620 | term and I'm not going to just disappear or leave a business partner in the lurch.

00:52:07.260 | But I'm also no longer of the mindset that it's the 10 hours a day that's going to sort

00:52:12.100 | of that I'm 20 and I'm eager and ambitious and don't even know what to do.

00:52:17.340 | It's an inchoate energy that I'm just spraying wildly.

00:52:22.140 | That mindset doesn't work.

00:52:23.140 | It's instead over the next few years, I want to produce a book I'm really proud of.

00:52:30.400 | And yeah, I have these kids at home and this one kid is having hyperactivity issues or

00:52:35.620 | real bad allergies and we have to go through all these doctors.

00:52:38.380 | So I'm slowing the hell down on the rate of work in the near term.

00:52:42.580 | It's okay though.

00:52:43.580 | What's the impact?

00:52:44.580 | Like maybe it takes three years instead of two and a half or three years instead of two.

00:52:49.060 | I don't care.

00:52:50.060 | 20 years from now, I'm just going to look back and say, hey, remember that period of

00:52:52.180 | life when you had young kids, you produced this cool book.

00:52:53.900 | We don't notice those differences, those epsilons of 20, 30, 40% when we look back through time.

00:53:00.500 | We don't look at Newton and say, man, it took you a while to really work through all of

00:53:06.540 | the implications of the inverse square law and produce the Principia Mathematica.

00:53:09.980 | We just say Newton produced this great book.

00:53:12.460 | Most people don't know it took him 25 years to do and that he could have done it in five,

00:53:16.940 | but he had this whole detour where he was convinced he was going to solve alchemy and

00:53:20.020 | make gold out of lead and was kind of a weirdo.

00:53:22.500 | I know it just, he produced the book and it was cool.

00:53:25.300 | I could stop working today on any type of writing and 20 years from now, people would

00:53:30.700 | probably still say the same thing.

00:53:32.100 | Oh yeah, I read deep work.

00:53:33.860 | That was cool.

00:53:34.900 | We changed something at our office about it, you know?

00:53:36.820 | So slow productivity, which I think is a necessity if you have kids, slow productivity is much

00:53:44.660 | more comparable.

00:53:46.080 | You give yourself permission to slow down.

00:53:48.420 | You give yourself like right now, I do not like that I accidentally fell into a really

00:53:51.520 | busy semester because I've become so used to slow productivity.

00:53:54.500 | I'm going to react hard to this.

00:53:56.540 | I'm going to slow down for a while.

00:53:59.020 | And that's a slow productivity mindset says, yes, great.

00:54:01.960 | Don't do anything this summer.

00:54:03.500 | Recharge.

00:54:04.500 | Life is long.

00:54:05.500 | Days are short.

00:54:06.500 | You're okay.

00:54:07.500 | It's okay if this season is slow and this season is more.

00:54:12.940 | So I'm a believer in it.

00:54:14.940 | And I don't want people to delude themselves that you can somehow avoid kids being an impact

00:54:20.620 | professionally.

00:54:21.620 | And I don't want people to elude themselves that other people aren't feeling any impact

00:54:24.060 | and somehow it's unusual what's happening to them.

00:54:27.140 | I don't want people to feel that frustration or isolation.

00:54:30.100 | Everyone feels at the different degrees.

00:54:32.440 | Everyone's life is messed up to some degree when the wildfire moves through.

00:54:34.740 | I hope my kids don't listen to this podcast.

00:54:36.460 | I don't mean to describe them as a wildfire, a wildfire destroying people's houses.

00:54:41.580 | It's maybe not the right metaphor, but you get what I'm trying to say.

00:54:46.220 | So anyways, Nick, I guess my off the cuff response here is life is long.

00:54:51.940 | Days are short.

00:54:52.940 | All sorts of triumphs and tragedies will happen.

00:54:56.400 | There's a lot of beauty in what's happening in your life right now.

00:54:59.100 | There's a lot of hardship in what's happening in your life right now and work.

00:55:02.580 | You know, you're doing what you can.

00:55:04.000 | You're being responsible to your employer.

00:55:05.780 | You're envisioning things you might do in the future.

00:55:07.660 | And that's a perfectly appropriate season.

00:55:09.860 | Just like there might be another season in your life where you're locked in and you're,

00:55:13.420 | you know, on a work project that's really important and maybe just things come together

00:55:17.840 | much more slowly for you.

00:55:19.340 | I always think about, who am I thinking about?

00:55:22.500 | Hilary Mantel, Mandel, Mantel, Wolf Hall, historical novelist.

00:55:27.900 | She died recently, I believe.

00:55:29.420 | She was chronically ill and had a lot of issues health wise.

00:55:35.760 | So she wrote those books slow.

00:55:38.440 | And I really hope I'm not missing, mixing up Hilary Mantel with someone else.

00:55:42.200 | I might be mixing her up with, well, does Laura Hildebrand also have a chronic illness?

00:55:48.240 | I may be incorrectly ascribing chronic illnesses to people who don't have them, but there is

00:55:53.080 | an author I have in mind.

00:55:54.080 | I do think it was her.

00:55:55.600 | And I might, you know what, I'm looking it up.

00:56:00.360 | All right.

00:56:01.720 | There's no more compelling radio than hearing someone type into something.

00:56:10.040 | I believe.

00:56:11.040 | All right, let's see.

00:56:12.920 | I do think it was Hilary Mantel who did die last year.

00:56:19.500 | And I am scrolling.

00:56:21.360 | Yeah, during her twenties, Mantel had a debilitating and painful illness.

00:56:30.040 | And so she wasn't Stephen King in 1986, coked up to his eyeballs, writing 600 pages a week.

00:56:41.180 | She couldn't do that.

00:56:42.180 | But you know what?

00:56:43.620 | I had to look it up to say, was this the person I was thinking about who had that illness?

00:56:47.240 | Because what do I, like most people know about her, she won two Booker prizes and her books

00:56:51.200 | were fantastic.

00:56:52.200 | So anyways, what I'm trying to say is a slow productivity mindset where the idea is do

00:56:56.760 | fewer things, work at a natural pace with ups and downs and all different timescales,

00:57:00.940 | but obsess over the quality of the things you do.

00:57:04.160 | Not how fast, but the quality.

00:57:06.280 | It can be the recipe for a very fulfilling professional life that is adjustable and adaptable

00:57:11.220 | to all sorts of different situations.

00:57:13.760 | So anyways, this is all a long commercial for when my book comes out next year on slow

00:57:18.720 | productivity, you got to buy it.

00:57:21.200 | I think you're going to like it.

00:57:22.520 | All right.

00:57:23.520 | Look, we're short on time here.

00:57:24.520 | I want to do a quick something interesting before we get there.

00:57:27.320 | Let me mention a sponsor of ours, our friends at Rhone, R H O N E.

00:57:33.540 | For years I actually, and continue to this day, wear Rhone workout style t-shirts as

00:57:39.640 | my main DC summer wear.

00:57:42.040 | I think they look nice.

00:57:43.040 | They wick the moisture.

00:57:44.480 | They're a higher quality than like a cheaper t-shirt.

00:57:46.440 | They feel really sturdy, which is why I was excited to find out about their new commuter

00:57:50.880 | collection.

00:57:53.400 | This is Rhone style clothes with their comfort, their breathability and flexibility, but in

00:57:57.800 | a more of a business casual style, something you could wear to the office.

00:58:01.960 | In my case, something I can teach in.

00:58:05.360 | While having clothes that's very light, very flexible, something I'm not going to overheat

00:58:08.680 | into.

00:58:09.680 | Rhone helps you get ready for any occasion with the commuter collection, which offers

00:58:12.540 | the world's most comfortable pants, dress shirts, forth zips and polos.

00:58:17.560 | You never have to worry about what to wear when you have the Rhone commuter collection.

00:58:21.840 | Four way stretch fabric is breathable.

00:58:23.600 | It's flexible, leaves you free to enjoy what life throws your way.

00:58:26.880 | I think Jesse has mentioned he's worn some of this playing golf.

00:58:29.480 | I like it teaching.

00:58:31.080 | I'm moving around.

00:58:32.080 | I'm working up a head of steam.

00:58:33.080 | I don't want some thick, stiff, starch shirt on that's going to completely overheat me.

00:58:39.400 | It looks good.

00:58:41.120 | Sprinkle free technology, gold fusion, anti-odor technology, a hundred percent machine washable.

00:58:46.660 | It's just a good set of good looking clothes for men that you can use in active situations.

00:58:54.600 | So the commuter collection can get you through any workday and straight into whatever comes

00:58:57.840 | next.

00:58:58.840 | Head to rhone.com/cal and use the promo code Cal to save 20% off your entire order.

00:59:03.760 | That's 20% off your entire order.

00:59:05.120 | When you head to rhone.com/cal and use that code Cal, it's time to find your corner office

00:59:12.000 | comfort.

00:59:13.000 | And there's a good tagline, corner office comfort.

00:59:16.760 | I also want to mention our friends, a newish sponsor, Fields of Greens.

00:59:23.200 | Field of Greens.

00:59:24.520 | I talked about earlier in the show how I like to automate my health before dinner.

00:59:29.600 | I don't want to think about what I eat or what I drink.

00:59:32.800 | I just want it to be healthy and energized so I don't waste any brain cells on it.

00:59:36.000 | And then I can care about food and enjoy food when I get to dinner.

00:59:40.820 | So one of the things, as long as I'm automating my food morning through afternoon, I want

00:59:46.480 | to make sure I'm getting, as long as I'm automating it, I want to make sure I get the stuff I

00:59:49.200 | need.

00:59:50.200 | Now, doctors say that should include six cups of fruits and veggies a day, but probably

00:59:55.160 | not going to have time to sit there and actually eat six cups worth of vegetables.

00:59:59.760 | This is where Field of Greens enters the pictures.

01:00:02.600 | It is a supplement that gets you that needed nutrition easily.

01:00:07.000 | Unlike other fruit and vegetable supplements, each specific fruit and vegetable in Field

01:00:10.760 | of Greens was medically selected to support specific functions like heart health, liver

01:00:15.280 | and kidney health, immune system and metabolisms.

01:00:17.920 | I take Field of Greens to help me stay healthy, make sure I'm getting what I need.

01:00:23.120 | It works fast.

01:00:24.120 | You'll feel healthier.

01:00:25.120 | You'll have more energy.

01:00:26.120 | Your skin and hair will look better.

01:00:27.640 | Here's a cool thing they're doing.

01:00:29.860 | The Better Health Promise.

01:00:32.540 | Take Field of Greens and at your next doctor's visit, if your doctor doesn't say something

01:00:35.560 | like whatever you're doing, it's working, keep it up, return it for a refund.

01:00:42.800 | And to help you get started, I got you 15% off your first order.

01:00:46.240 | Plus you'll get another 10% off when you subscribe to recurring orders.

01:00:49.520 | Visit fieldofdreams.com and use the promo code DEEP.

01:00:51.800 | That's fieldofdreams.com promo code DEEP.

01:00:55.400 | All right, let's do something interesting to end the show.

01:01:03.400 | So again, I would normally have this up on the screen, but I don't know how to do that

01:01:06.000 | without Jesse.

01:01:07.000 | I'm helpless without Jesse.

01:01:08.060 | So I'm just going to read it to you.

01:01:10.360 | This is a productivity thing to have a little bit of a meta commentary on.

01:01:14.000 | There's a link in the show notes.

01:01:15.960 | So there's a thread someone posted about a, there's a, someone out there called Rob Drydeck,

01:01:22.880 | who has launched 18 brands and exited six of those brands for over $550 million.

01:01:27.600 | So this guy's out here, very successful businessman.

01:01:30.180 | Someone else did a Twitter thread about his productivity system.

01:01:34.200 | I want to read a little bit about how this person is describing Rob Drydeck's productivity

01:01:38.960 | system because there's an observation I want to make.

01:01:40.880 | All right, so here's the description that this Twitter commenter had on Drydeck's system.

01:01:46.400 | He says, how does he do all this by tracking every hour of his life?

01:01:51.420 | Here's a breakdown of his system.

01:01:54.060 | Rob's goal is to be optimized towards life mastery.

01:01:57.360 | He has an 80 page operating manual for his life managed by four people, and he has systems

01:02:01.000 | and automation in place that makes everything effortless.

01:02:03.200 | What exactly does he do?

01:02:05.360 | Every day he gets up at 5am, brain trains, meditates, works out, maintains a clean diet,

01:02:09.600 | doesn't drink, take supplements.

01:02:11.180 | He calls these the core seven and realized that every time he completed the seven, he

01:02:14.640 | felt happier.

01:02:15.640 | So that's his base now.

01:02:16.800 | He tracks every hour of his day.

01:02:19.300 | This year, I don't know if this is average or not, he spent seven hours sleeping, seven

01:02:23.000 | hours working, two hours on a physical body, seven hours with family and friends.

01:02:26.280 | Perfectly balanced, he said.

01:02:27.280 | But he tracks more than just time.

01:02:29.400 | Every day he tracks on a zero to 10 scale how he feels about his life, work and health,

01:02:32.640 | how motivated he is, how well he slept, his full body composition, how his wife feels

01:02:36.760 | about his relationship.

01:02:37.760 | Then he analyzes it.

01:02:38.760 | If it's below five, you look at the world half empty.

01:02:41.640 | Anything above five, you're half full.

01:02:42.920 | It doesn't matter what hits you.

01:02:44.040 | You keep going.

01:02:45.120 | By doing this, he becomes what he calls qualitatively aware, which helps him identify what brings

01:02:48.760 | him down and eliminate it.

01:02:50.620 | He designed his ideal life in 2015.

01:02:52.320 | It was a 10 to 20 year plan.

01:02:54.600 | He's already 75% there.

01:02:55.600 | It's not hard.

01:02:56.600 | It's not even discipline.

01:02:57.600 | It's just how he lives.

01:02:58.600 | He gamified the process and automated as much as he can.

01:03:01.400 | So everything is effortless.

01:03:03.520 | I am pretty obsessed with optimization, but this is the craziest level I have ever seen.

01:03:09.360 | Here's what caught me about this description.

01:03:13.160 | The tone of it doesn't really match the reality.

01:03:17.080 | Now, I didn't listen to the source interview on which all these observations was pulled

01:03:22.040 | out.

01:03:23.380 | But if you take away that tone and the way that this Twitter commenter is talking about

01:03:27.160 | Rob Drydeck's productivity system, what you actually see is something that is probably

01:03:33.440 | not the craziest, most obsessed optimized thing you've ever seen.

01:03:36.200 | There's actually just some common sense here.

01:03:38.160 | Let's break this down briefly.

01:03:40.440 | So when he talks about having an 80 page operating manual managed by four people and systems

01:03:45.820 | and automation in place to make everything effortless, I am guessing that's a red herring.

01:03:49.240 | I'm guessing that is referring to Rob Drydeck's business, that his business that handles these

01:03:54.000 | brands is systems oriented, which is smart.

01:03:57.320 | And I'm assuming this 80 page operating manual for people and automation, I'm guessing, I

01:04:01.120 | could be wrong.

01:04:02.120 | A lot of that is his business.

01:04:03.120 | Let's put that aside and talk about his personal productivity.

01:04:07.560 | When you look at this, nothing here, and maybe I'm immune, but nothing here hits me as that

01:04:11.680 | crazy.

01:04:12.680 | He gets up early and meditates and exercises.

01:04:14.960 | He doesn't drink, he eats healthily, he takes supplements.

01:04:17.320 | That's like a very standard doctor recommended lifestyle.

01:04:21.360 | Get some sleep, you should exercise, like don't put crap in your body.

01:04:25.600 | So far, not the craziest system I've ever seen.

01:04:28.680 | He tracks every hour of his day.

01:04:30.160 | Well, you know, he time blocks plans.

01:04:32.660 | Seven hours sleeping, seven hours working, two hours physical body, seven hours with

01:04:35.800 | friends.

01:04:36.800 | So he like works a normal schedule.

01:04:37.800 | I guess he tracks it.

01:04:40.600 | That's not crazy.

01:04:42.680 | Like how much did I sleep last night?

01:04:44.360 | How much did I work today?

01:04:45.360 | That's not a crazy thing.

01:04:46.640 | Like if I was doing this now, I could go back and say, I feel overloaded recently.

01:04:51.280 | How much am I really working?

01:04:53.700 | How much work makes you feel overloaded?

01:04:55.040 | It's sort of like a diary.

01:04:56.040 | Again, I don't think that's that crazy.

01:04:59.280 | And then he does this thing where he keeps metrics on how different parts of his life

01:05:03.320 | are going.

01:05:04.320 | I mean, that might be a little bit more fiddly than most people would do.

01:05:07.600 | But again, it's a nice bit of feedback.

01:05:09.560 | Okay, this is getting out of whack.

01:05:11.720 | I need to make some changes.

01:05:14.160 | And that's it.

01:05:15.160 | Oh, and he has a life plan, but okay.

01:05:17.160 | VBLCCP, you should have a life plan.

01:05:20.640 | I'm okay with that.

01:05:21.640 | So anyways, what I'm trying to say here is this mismatch is important because this mismatch

01:05:27.880 | in tone versus this actual system reveals two things.

01:05:32.480 | One, you know, a lot of people who maybe are very successful like this Rob Drydeck, they're

01:05:37.240 | not actually implementing the craziest optimization scene you ever lived.

01:05:40.960 | And they're also not working all the time.

01:05:42.240 | They're actually it's pretty common sense.

01:05:43.960 | There's just some discipline there, but try to keep work constrained to the workday.

01:05:48.600 | Eat well and exercise.

01:05:50.420 | Maybe keep track in your diary of how things are going so that you have some record of

01:05:53.960 | things are out of whack and then figure out how to fix it.

01:05:56.360 | Notice his system doesn't automatically fix it.

01:05:58.320 | He's not trying to optimize these numbers.

01:05:59.960 | He's just using these numbers as qualitative feedback.

01:06:02.360 | So he can say, you know what, I'm not seeing my friends a lot.

01:06:05.400 | I'm putting a low number here.

01:06:06.840 | You know, I'm going to cut back on this or this is going to remind me to go reach out

01:06:09.280 | and talk to her friends.

01:06:10.280 | I don't know.

01:06:11.280 | It all seems pretty common sense.

01:06:12.320 | So it tells us that not everyone who is in this sort of is very successful in an entrepreneurial

01:06:17.560 | sense is necessarily working all the time or using a crazy system.

01:06:21.980 | But the fact that this particular Twitter follower is in doing in booing in booing.

01:06:29.120 | Injecting this tone of crazy optimization, I think, also emphasizes how there's this

01:06:35.480 | whole subculture online that just like I was involved in in 2007 with the early productivity

01:06:42.760 | prong movement.

01:06:45.200 | Holds out this idea that with the right systems and the right discipline following the systems,

01:06:49.760 | all these other good things will happen in your life.

01:06:51.500 | And so it shows there is the fury of this subculture.

01:06:54.560 | Not only fury, I mean furious energy, the furious energy of this hustle subculture that's

01:06:58.120 | like systems and optimized.

01:06:59.360 | And if you get all the numbers just right, there'll be an epiphenomenon of this activity

01:07:04.400 | is going to be success and happiness.

01:07:05.680 | And then you see the reality of like, actually, people are really doing that.

01:07:08.400 | Well, this guy's not.

01:07:09.400 | And I thought that mismatch was really telling.

01:07:11.160 | So I don't know.

01:07:12.160 | I'm just seeing that on the fly.

01:07:13.160 | But I thought that was something interesting.

01:07:14.520 | All right.

01:07:15.520 | Well, this is all the time we have for today.

01:07:18.080 | So thank you for listening for this, Jesse, free episode.

01:07:20.320 | Thank you for listening to me make my way through questions for which I had no preparation.

01:07:25.000 | Hopefully that went OK.

01:07:26.000 | I'll be back next week with Jesse for a normal episode unless something unexpected happens.

01:07:31.160 | So until then, as always, stay deep.

01:07:37.040 | (upbeat music)

Ep. 245: "Crazy" Productivity

Chapters