Down With Pseudo-Productivity: Why We Need to Transform the Way We Work

The Art of Manliness

Philosophy, Education, Society & Culture

4.7 • 14.8K Ratings

🗓️ 6 March 2024

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The last several years have seen the rise of a sort of anti-productivity movement. Knowledge workers who feel burned out and that work is pointless, meaningless, and grinding, have been talking more about opting out, “quiet quitting,” and doing nothing.

My guest would argue that, in fact, productivity itself isn’t the problem and that most people actually want to do good work. Instead, he says, it’s our whole approach to productivity that’s broken and needs to be transformed.

Cal Newport is a professor of computer science and the author of books like Deep Work and Digital Minimalism. His latest book is Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout. Today on the show, Cal explains what’s led to the rise of what he calls “pseudo-productivity” and the fallout when we apply the structures of the industrial revolution to modern work. He then unpacks the tenets and tactics of the “slow productivity” approach to work, and how to implement them whether you work for yourself or for a boss. We discuss why you need to do fewer things in the short-term to do more things in the long term, the artificiality of working at the same intensity every day and how to inject more seasonality in your work, the role quiet quitting can play in achieving greater balance, and many other ideas on how to make modern work more sustainable, humane, and fruitful.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness Podcast.
0:11.2	The last several years have seen the rise of a sort of anti-productivity movement.
0:15.0	Knowledge workers who feel burned out and that work is pointless, meaningless, and grinding,
0:20.0	have been talking more about opting out, quiet quitting, and doing nothing. My guess would argue
0:24.4	that in fact productivity itself isn't the problem and that most people actually want to do
0:28.6	good work. Instead he says it's our whole approach to productivity that's broken and needs to be transformed.
0:35.0	Cal Newport is a professor of computer science and the author of books like Deep Work and
0:38.5	Digital Minimalism. His latest book is Slow Productivity, The Lost Art lost art of accomplishment without burnout.
0:44.5	Tain the show, Cal explains what's led to the rise of what he calls pseudo-productivity,
0:48.6	in the fallout when we apply the structures of the industrial revolution to modern work. He then impacts the tenets and tactics of the Industrial Revolution to modern work.
0:52.9	He then impacts the tenets and tactics of the slow productivity approach to work, and how to implement
0:57.4	them, whether you work for yourself or for a boss.
1:00.1	We discuss why you need to do fewer things in the short term to do more things in the long term,
1:04.0	the artificiality of working at the same intensity every day and how to inject more seasonality in your work,
1:09.3	the role quiet quitting can play in achieving greater balance,
1:12.1	and many other ideas on how to make modern work more sustainable, humane, and fruitful.
1:17.0	After the show is over, check at our show notes at AIM.IS slash slow productivity. All right, Cal Newport, welcome back to the show.
1:35.0	Right, it's a pleasure to be back.
1:36.8	I mean, as we were just mentioning before we started recording,
1:39.7	you and I just passed our one decade mark of podcasting together so it's been quite the journey
1:45.3	you and I am so it's a pleasure to be back for sure it has been a journey and this is the
1:50.0	fifth time you've been on the show and I think that's a record you hold the
	...

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