Ep. 43: Unproductive Days, Content Fatigue, and Cultivating Character | DEEP QUESTIONS

Deep Questions with Cal Newport

Cal Newport

Education, Technology, Self-improvement

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 9 November 2020

⏱️ 97 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode of Deep Questions I answer reader questions about dealing with unproductive days, avoiding curated content fatigue, and the importance of developing character, among many other topics.To submit your own questions, sign up for my mailing list at calnewport.com. You can submit audio questions at https://www.speakpipe.com/CalNewportPlease consider subscribing (which helps iTunes rankings) and leaving a review or rating (which helps new listeners decide to try the show).Here’s the full list of topics tackled in today’s episode along with the timestamps:OPENING: The terribleness of my recent experiment with constant online news consumption.WORK QUESTIONS* Dealing with unproductive days [11:50] * My system versus David Allen’s systems [15:16] * The timeline for developing deep habits [22:35]* Assessing your own career capital [31:17] * The road to academic superstardom [36:05] * Ideal number of working hours [45:28] * Building a reasonable schedule for an unreasonable workload [51:32]TECHNOLOGY QUESTIONS* Avoiding curated content fatigue [53:41]* Capture technology [58:22]* The plan for this podcast [1:00:19]* Music and concentration [1:07:01]* Instant messaging and distraction [1:08:02] DEEP LIFE QUESTIONS* Essentialism versus the deep life [1:13:48] * Deep home life [1:16:57] * My ideal work environment [1:23:37]* Character and the deep life [1:27:58] Thanks to listener Jay Kerstens for the intro music. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Cal Newport and this is Deep Questions, the show where I answer queries for my readers about
0:18.5	work, technology, and the deep life. I'm recording this episode on Friday, November 6th, and I have been
0:31.4	doing something in the past few days that I don't normally do.
0:37.0	I am checking online news.
0:40.0	Because I'm interested in the election results and this is information that is coming out here in the US
0:48.1	intermittently. So it is taking a sense of intermittent reinforcement and supercharging it.
0:55.8	Every time you click or refresh a website or a feed, most of the time there's nothing there.
1:01.6	Sometimes there's something there that is
1:04.3	interesting and sometimes there's really big news. And here's my assessment of this
1:10.6	small multi-day experiment with constant intermittently reinforced internet checking throughout my work day.
1:17.0	It's terrible. I hate it. I have a sense of distraction that comes from all of the cognitive network
1:26.8	shifting I can't easily maintain a good sense of focus. It takes a lot more work
1:31.6	than it normally does for me. Also, my nervous system feels
1:36.5	exhausted. As if I've overloaded my autonomic nervous system with these, the surprise, the drama, the intermittent nature, it just
1:48.8	leaves me feeling strung out, it leaves me feeling distracted, and I look forward to stopping doing this very soon.
1:54.0	But here's the bigger point that this brings to mind.
1:58.0	This is what every day is like for a lot of users of technology.
2:05.0	See, I can understand the severity of the impact of this behavior because I can contrast it to just a few days ago
2:14.5	in which I was in my normal life in which I do not
2:20.4	check news online
2:22.3	my time blocked breaks are scheduled, and I do not entertain myself for the most part with the internet.
2:28.0	So I have this transition. It's a natural experiment. Here's what it's like without this behavior.
	...

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