Do I Need More Discipline? | Monday Advice

Deep Questions with Cal Newport

Cal Newport

Education, Self-improvement, Technology

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 20 April 2026

⏱️ 85 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Is developing discipline one of the most effective bulwarks against the constant flood of distraction we face daily? And if so, what’s the best way to accomplish this goal? In this Monday Advice episode of the show, Cal Newport investigates these questions with the help of Brad Stulberg, who writes about these ideas in his most recent book, the New York Times bestseller “The Way of Excellence.” Below are the questions covered in today's episode (with their timestamps). Get your questions answered by Cal! Send an email to podcast@calnewport.com. Video from today’s episode: youtube.com/calnewportmedia 2:27 Do I Need More Discipline? (w/ Brad Stulberg) 1:07:33 Dealing with abundance of choice in media 1:11:45 Using typewriters for first drafts 1:14:44 Success with “information walkabout” 1:17:22 What I’ve been doing 1:19:54 What I’ve been reading Books: A World Appears (Michael Pollan) Links: Buy Cal’s latest book, “Slow Productivity” at www.calnewport.com/slow Get a signed copy of Cal’s “Slow Productivity” at https://peoplesbooktakoma.com/event/cal-newport/ Cal’s monthly book directory: bramses.notion.site/059db2641def4a88988b4d2cee4657ba? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdvqpqHSQas Thanks to our Sponsors: https://www.cozyearth.com/deep (Use code “DEEP”) https://www.monarch.com (Use code “DEEP”) https://www.shopify.com/deep https://www.drinkag1.com/deep Thanks to Jesse Miller for mastering and production, Jay Kerstens for the intro music, and Nate Mechler for research and newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Tell me if this sounds familiar.
0:02.0	You have some ambitious plan for meaningful or productive things that you want to accomplish,
0:07.0	but then your phone enters the scene and the next thing you know,
0:11.0	the day is over, lost in a blur of digital slop.
0:16.0	So I've been interested recently in a potentially powerful strategy for pushing back on this distraction monster.
0:24.8	Becoming a more disciplined person.
0:28.6	All right.
0:28.7	Now, let me be more specific about my hypothesis here.
0:31.2	Here's what I think is true.
0:32.5	If you can cultivate a standout disciplined pursuit in your life, something hard that you can come back to again and again,
0:38.6	then this specific discipline will rewire your brain in a general way so that resisting distractions
0:45.9	becomes massively easier. Now, this idea is super compelling to me, but is it accurate? And if it is,
0:53.4	how do you actually maximize your chances of
0:55.7	succeeding with putting it in the practice? Well, these seem like the perfect questions to ask
1:01.1	in a Monday advice episode of this show. So that is what we're going to do today. Now,
1:05.9	here's my plan to help me find answers. I'm going to be joined by my good friend and friend of the
1:10.5	show, Brad
1:11.5	Stolberg. Brad has an excellent chapter in his most recent New York Times bestselling book,
1:17.1	The Way of Excellence, that talks exactly about cultivating discipline in this way. So I'm going to
1:21.6	have Brad on the show. I'm going to ask him three things that I want his help with. One,
1:26.6	how do you choose the right type of
1:29.5	discipline pursuit? Two, how do you stick with it in a way that is going to be sustainable
	...

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