Ep. 257: Refusing Overwork

Deep Questions with Cal Newport

Cal Newport

Technology, Self-improvement, Education

4.8 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 17 July 2023

⏱️ 73 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sometimes the most effective way to contain your workload is to simply declare how long you’re willing to work and then refuse to violate your pledge. In this episode, Cal revisits this “fixed-schedule productivity” strategy, which he first introduced way back in 2008.

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: How does fixed-schedule productivity work, and how has Cal’s thoughts on it changed over the years? [3:02]

- What activities can fall outside fixed schedules? [30:12]

- How do you manage a workload determined by other people? [33:08]

- Why doesn’t Cal build his weekly plan on his calendar? [43:24]

- How do I deal with having too much work piled up? [51:23]

CASE STUDY: Implementing tactics from “A World Without Email” [53:14]

The 5 Books Cal Read in June 2023 [1:02:28]

Links:

calnewport.com/fixed-schedule-productivity-how-I-accomplish-a-large-amount-of-work-in-a-small-number-of-work-hours/

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 Deep Questions.
0:04.0	The show about living and working deeply in a distracted world.
0:09.0	I am here in the summer HQ up in Hanover, New Hampshire.
0:15.0	I am joined down in the Southern Deep Work HQ in Washington, D.C. by my producer, Jesse.
0:22.0	Jesse, do you think I've done a pretty good job setting up my Northern HQ
0:26.0	to look not unlike our studio down in D.C. itself actually looks?
0:32.0	I never had a doubt. I knew you were going to pull it off.
0:35.0	It looks great.
0:36.0	Now, we still have some kings we're working out.
0:38.0	You might hear a small hiss that should be gone by the next episode.
0:43.0	I'm still playing with the lights, but there's nothing more fun than messing around with AV equipment
0:47.0	when what you really should be doing is actual deep work.
0:51.0	So I think there's irony there.
0:53.0	Working on a podcast about avoiding distraction has been in recent days a wonderful source of distraction for me.
1:02.0	I'm happy to be up here.
1:04.0	I'm happy that we are still rolling with the show, even as I'm up north.
1:09.0	I'll tell you what I wanted to talk about today came from you, my listeners.
1:15.0	Someone sent me a question about an article that I had published back in 2008.
1:22.0	That's one of my classic articles.
1:24.0	I think one of my most cited articles on hardcore productivity.
1:29.0	Let me read the title. I have it here.
1:31.0	The title of that 2008 article I wrote is as follows.
	...

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