Ep. 394: Do I Need a Better Planning System?

Deep Questions with Cal Newport

Cal Newport

Self-improvement, Technology, Education

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 2 March 2026

⏱️ 95 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It’s hard to live deeply in a distracted world if you don’t have control over how you spend your time. This goal requires a planning system that both works and can last. Do you have a reasonable planning system in place? If not, don’t worry. Today, Cal is joined by planning expert Sarah Hart-Unger (author of “Best Laid Plans”) to discuss the nitty-gritty details of creating sustainable systems that can help you regain autonomy over your schedule without becoming an over-scheduled drone. 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 IDEAS SEGMENT: Interview with Sarah Hart-Unger [2:12] AUDIENCE FEEDBACK, NOTES, AND CHATTER: Dopamine addictions and TV shows [1:05:06] Watching entire films [1:09:43] Attention span and movies [1:16:38] WHAT CAL IS UP TO: Update on my AI Programmer Project [1:21:12] Other Updates [1:28:02] What Cal Consumed [1:29:17] The Last Kings of Hollywood (Paul Fischer) Movies: The Smashing Machine Song Sung Blue 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? vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/07/why-are-movies-sooooo-long-an-investigation science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adz9311 Sarah Hart-Unger online: Sarah Hart-Unger (MD, if you want to use that but I typically don't even bother in my creative work!) practicing pediatric endocrinologist, author, and podcaster Best Laid Plans Podcast Best of Both Worlds Podcast (cohosted with Laura Vanderkam) Best Laid Plans: A Simple Planning System for Living a Life That You Love, Sourcebooks Dec 2025 Website (since 2004 . . .): theshubox.com Social media: none :) Partially due to your influence, I quit FB in 2016, IG in 2021, and thankfully never got into anything else! I guess I do have minimal Youtube (occasional planner videos + feed of podcast eps) @youtube.com/@BestLaidPlansVideo Thanks to our Sponsors: This show is sponsored by Better Help: betterhelp.com/deepquestions zapier.com/deep calderalab.com/deep shopify.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	Okay, so I have a question for you.
0:05.9	How do you figure out what to do with your time during any given day?
0:11.7	Now, I think this question matters more now than it ever has before, because if you don't have a good answer to it, if you just sort of wing it as your day unfolds,
0:22.7	guess what forces are going to take control of your intention?
0:27.2	Email, slack, social media, online chat, or YouTube, streaming services.
0:31.2	This is a show about finding depth in a distracted world, and to succeed in this goal,
0:35.3	you need a good planning system. But how do you create a system
0:40.8	that's not only going to work, but it's something you're going to stick with over time?
0:44.9	This is what I want to talk to you about today. And I have an expert that's going to join me
0:49.0	that help us in this conversation. Her name is Sarah Hart Unger. She's a doctor and a mother and also a planning
0:57.0	officinado. She's the host of the Best Laid Plans podcast on which I've been a guest. And in December,
1:03.1	she published a book with that same name that had the subtitle, A Simple Planning System for
1:07.7	Living a Life that You Love. Amazon selected it as one of the best nonfiction
1:11.8	books of the month. So I invited Sarah on to get into the nitty, gritty details of how to build a
1:19.2	useful and realistic planning system. She even helps me figure out solutions to some problems I've
1:26.2	been having with my own system.
1:28.2	So there's some changes I make after talking to her.
1:30.7	She also makes a case for why she only uses analog tools, which I think is interesting.
1:35.5	I'm not quite sold on that, but I think it's an interesting case.
1:37.9	So anyways, this is a deeply practical discussion and one that I think is absolutely vital
1:42.5	to our mission here on this show.
1:44.5	So let's get into it.
	...

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