Ep. 364: Metrics 101

Deep Questions with Cal Newport

Cal Newport

Technology, Self-improvement, Education

4.8 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 4 August 2025

⏱️ 69 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When Cal recently returned home from his time spent up in New England he set up a whole new set of daily metrics to track in the fall to keep him pointed toward the deep life. And they failed. Hard. In this episode, Cal dissects why metrics matter, why they’re easy to mess up (including the mistakes he made), and how to use them correctly (including how he corrected his own setup). He then answers listener questions and discusses a recent AI article that got him all hot and bothered.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Cal Newport, and this is Deep Questions, the show about cultivating a deep life in a distracted world.
0:21.4	So I'm here in my Deep Work, H.Q, joined by my producer, Jesse.
0:26.1	Jesse, the restaurant below is rock and rolling.
0:28.5	There's a storm going outside.
0:29.9	This feels like time for podcasting.
0:32.2	And you're back in D.C., baby.
0:33.7	Back in D.C. I missed my studio.
0:36.6	Missed a thousand degrees humidity or whatever whatever i don't know how you measure
0:40.3	that actually i do know it's due point let's be honest let's be precise i missed a due point that was
0:44.9	above the 71 or 72 market which it shades into the oppressive range i was pretending like i didn't
0:49.6	know about the meteorology here i know about it uh let me tell you what we're going to do today
0:53.9	and this is just for jesse and i read some music about the meteorology here. I know about it. Let me tell you what we're going to do today.
0:51.8	And this is just for Jesse and I. We're here some music today. We've had some more music to the show. Not because we think it's going to give you a better experience, but because we just like the idea of having more music in the show. It just kind of delights Jesse and I. Who's our man who hooked us up here? Keeron. Kieran hooked us up with some music.
0:53.3	We're going to have some fun today with some music.
1:12.2	I think it keeps the energy going. show. It just kind of delights Jesse and I. Our man, who's our man who hooked us up here? Kearon. Kearron hooked us up with some music.
1:11.8	We're going to have some fun today with some music. I think it keeps the energy going because that's the type of mood we're in. You know, it's trade deadline day in Major League Baseball. It's podcasting weather in D.C. So we are going to get rolling. We got a good show. I got a deep dive that is based off of a fail that I recently have and some lessons learned.
1:30.7	We got some questions.
1:32.8	Final segment in the what I'm reading segment.
1:36.2	Can't help myself, Jesse.
1:37.1	There is an article I read on the topic of AI that once again kind of got me a little bit upset.
1:42.8	So we're going to have a little bit of that going on later.
1:45.6	But I want to get to the deep dive.
	...

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