Ep. 251: The Efficiency Trap

Deep Questions with Cal Newport

Cal Newport

Technology, Self-improvement, Education

4.8 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 5 June 2023

⏱️ 71 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Productivity YouTube is filled with breathless videos about optimizing systems and squeezing every ounce of speed out of your common habits. But does all of this efficiency really end up improving the quality of the most important things you produce? In this episode, Cal takes a deeper look at the different ways that productivity systems and tools can help your professional life, separating the boring but effective from the exciting but over-hyped.

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

Today’s Deep Question: Does working faster make work better? [3:56]

- Why doesn’t Cal agree with other productivity YouTubers about apps? [27:50]

- How can I be productive if my organization bans third-party tools? [32:36]

- How do top writers keep their research process “efficient”? [37:29]

- How do I stop teaching from devouring all my time? [44:00]

- Is it a problem that I don’t feel overwhelmed? [50:19]

Something Interesting: The Productivity Diet & A Hotel for Book Lovers [1:02:33]

Links:

kickstarter.com/projects/mikevardy/the-productivity-diet-by-mike-vardy

sylviabeachhotel.com/

Thanks to our Sponsors:

Thanks to Jesse Miller for production, Jay Kerstens for the intro music, and Mark Miles for mastering.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I'm Cal Newport and this is DeepQuestions, the show about living and working deeply in
0:17.4	a distracted world.
0:23.2	I'm here on my DeepWork HQ, joined as always by my producer, Jesse.
0:28.6	Jesse, I got to tell you, the marketing worked.
0:32.8	I have ordered a remarkable tablet.
0:35.0	Nice.
0:36.0	Once it come in.
0:37.0	It takes a long time, Monday, when you order it.
0:42.8	I ordered it on the like, Tuesday.
0:45.4	So, six days?
0:47.0	Yeah.
0:48.0	Okay, not that long.
0:49.0	But still, it feels like long in today's, today's a…
0:51.0	Yeah, it's on Amazon.
0:52.4	I expect to, by Monday afternoon, to be looking thoughtfully towards a window as sunshine
0:58.4	shines on my face before someone comes over with really expensive looking glasses on and
1:03.7	looks down at the remarkable with me where there'll be a chart that'll draw a circle
1:06.9	around something.
1:07.9	Because as I've learned from the videos that market the remarkable, it's a lot of looking
1:12.2	into the sunshine and drawing arrows and circling charts while people look thoughtfully over
1:16.2	your shoulder.
1:17.2	So, I'd like for it to be doing that for hours.
	...

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