Ep. 376: The Lincoln Protocol

Deep Questions with Cal Newport

Cal Newport

Education, Self-improvement, Technology

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 4 November 2025

⏱️ 84 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How do you escape a world where constant digital distractions and darkness threatens to pull you down? Maybe take a page out of Abraham Lincoln’s life. In this episode, Cal argues that Lincoln faced analog versions of many of the same issues we face in our contemporary digital world, and by studying how he escaped we can learn a method to accomplish something similar. He then answers listener questions on this theme and revisits the comments from a 2008 essay where he first introduced some of these questions. Below are the questions covered in today's episode (with their timestamps). Get your questions answered by Cal! Here’s the link: bit.ly/3U3sTvo Video from today’s episode: youtube.com/calnewportmedia Deep Dive: The Lincoln Protocol [0:30] When do you read long-form articles amongst your book reading? [41:39] Will reading improve my focus? [44:03] What are the mechanics of keeping a deep reading habit alive? [48:17] At what point does it make sense to prioritize autonomy and alignment over prestige and security? [54:48] How do you suggest spending the time playing with the toddler, while also balancing reasonable stimuli without a phone? [1:00:01] CASE STUDY: A military spouse goes back to work after motherhood [1:03:47] CALL: Cal’s thoughts on Apple Watches [1:07:35] CAL READS THE COMMENTS: What people thought about digital distraction in 2008 [1:12:06] Links: Buy Cal’s latest book, “Slow Productivity” at calnewport.com/slowGet a signed copy of Cal’s “Slow Productivity” at peoplesbooktakoma.com/event/cal-newport/Cal’s monthly book directory: bramses.notion.site/059db2641def4a88988b4d2cee4657ba?calnewport.com/would-lincoln-have-become-president-if-he-had-e-mail/calnewport.com/would-lincoln-have-become-president-if-he-had-e-mail/ Thanks to our Sponsors: drinklmnt.com/deepmiro.comcalderalab.com/deep1password.com/deep Thanks to Jesse Miller for production, Jay Kerstens for the intro music, and Mark Miles for mastering. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Back in 2008, in the early days of my writing career, when I had just published two books
0:07.8	and my newsletter was still new, I published an essay with anachronistic title.
0:13.0	It was called, Would Lincoln Still Be President if he had email?
0:17.9	I actually want to load this newsletter essay up on the screen here for people who are
0:22.5	watching instead of just listening. Here it is from my Calnewport.com website. I'll be honest, Jesse,
0:28.4	my main motivation at the time, I remembered this clearly, was I just wanted an excuse to use
0:33.6	this meme, which I thought was funny. For those who are just listening, it basically shows on one
0:37.2	side of the picture.
0:38.4	There's a guy with reading glasses at a typewriter, and it says research paper on a handwritten
0:43.0	side above his head.
0:44.4	And then on the other side, there's a sign lit up with bulbs that's labeled the internet.
0:49.5	And under it is a dinosaur and a woman in a bikini wearing birthday hats with a birthday
0:54.1	cake and fighter jets flying behind them.
0:56.4	I remember at the time I thought that was funny.
0:58.5	But if you look at the actual article, we'd look at the actual content of this post,
1:05.7	I was making an argument, rather, in this essay back in 2008,
1:10.2	that perhaps many of the heroic figures
1:12.2	of time passed would have had a hard time being as impactful in our current world because
1:18.9	of all of the distraction we now face because of the internet.
1:22.8	Now, I mentioned email in the title of that 2008 post, but if I was to rewrite that today, I would
1:28.7	have to also mention, you know, would Lincoln have been president if he had not just email,
1:33.3	but smartphones and social media and AI and online mobs and streaming entertainment and
	...

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