Ep. 254: The Laws of Less

Deep Questions with Cal Newport

Cal Newport

Technology, Self-improvement, Education

4.8 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 26 June 2023

⏱️ 78 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Some of the most interesting and impactful people in the world build their work around a commitment to doing only a few things very well. No one remembers that it took Newton decades to finish The Principia, they just know that he wrote a book that changed science forever. In this episode, Cal defines some concrete laws for successfully implementing a shift toward doing less – but doing what you do better – in your own professional life.

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: Why should I do less? [7:29]

- How can a teacher embrace slow productivity? [31:26]

- How do you know if an idea is good enough to spend years working on? [39:07]

- How can I slowly build the success needed to pivot into a new career? [46:16]

- How does Cal read 5 books a month? [49:58]

CASE STUDY: I can do my job in 4 hours a day [55:53]

The 5 Book Cal Read in May 2023 [1:07:04]

Thanks to our Sponsors:

betterhelp.com/deepquestions

cozyearth.com

hensonshaving.com/cal

drinklmnt.com/deep

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 Kel Newport and this is Deep Questions, the show about living and working deeply in
0:10.3	a distracted world.
0:12.2	Alright, well I am not in the Deep Work HQ for those who are watching the video you will
0:20.4	see right now I am actually outside, I am recording from my house in New Hampshire where I will
0:27.4	be spending most of the summer.
0:30.4	Jesse however is joining us from within the Deep Work HQ so the HQ is recognized, it still
0:36.3	is represented in this episode and I have to say Jesse, seeing you in there does make me
0:39.8	a little homesick, hopefully everything is going well down there.
0:44.4	How's the house up there?
0:46.7	It is good, it is good so here's what I'll tell you about it because actually it's relevant
0:51.1	to what we're going to talk about today.
0:53.9	This house is provided by the Fellowship Program so I'm a fellow at Dartmouth College this
1:01.0	summer and this particular Fellowship Program, they own this house that's here on Acompond
1:07.2	up in Hanover so it's sort of this old historic house but this Fellowship Program has actually
1:12.2	been around for a long time and what they do is they have interesting people from all
1:17.3	sorts of different backgrounds, professors, writers, journalists, they even had an ex-president
1:22.0	here there come through.
1:23.3	They come through, they stay in the house for various amounts of time, some people are
1:26.5	just here for a week, some people like I'm doing will come for a whole semester, a whole
1:30.4	quarter and teach a class and they come and stay in the house and usually they give some
1:33.4	sort of lecture and so it's cool, there's a history to this house of really big interesting
1:39.2	people coming through.
	...

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