What I've done is I've listed three to four general improvements I'd like to make in each of the four classic buckets and then I've shortlisted a number of habits I'd like to start tracking to hopefully help me make those changes.

My issue is some of these changes are quite general like

spending quality time with my young son or becoming more of a leader in the

studio. I'm Cal Newport and this is a deep questions habit tune-up mini episode.

The format here is straightforward. I take audio questions

specifically about how to tune up your productivity habits in this moment in which

our professional lives are increasingly disrupted.

Now before we get going,

I want to talk about something else that has been on my mind in recent days and that is what I've been calling

shallowness creep. So I've been running this experiment with my personal

productivity this week, which has been interesting. I basically said I'm going to spend

less time on shallow work. You know I'm going to basically have a little bit of time

set aside here a little bit of time set aside there so some

blocks in my time blocks schedule but I'm going to stick to them and the idea is

like get as much done as you can in those blocks but that's it be okay with things don't get done, people don't get

heard back from, things on your your list you're trying to get through this

week don't get churned as quickly as you would think. Stick with these smaller blocks and just see how it goes.

And something I've noticed is, actually it's been fine.

That the shallow work in my schedule had been I think in recent months been

creeping and been creeping into my schedule and I'm not quite sure what's

going on here but I think what what was happening was there's always work to do and I was trying to kind of get it all done

And obviously you're not going to get everything done, but you know what I mean? It was once I got into the shallow work mode

...