Ep. 259: The Four-Hour Work Day
Deep Questions with Cal Newport
Cal Newport
4.8 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 31 July 2023
⏱️ 73 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Do you ever feel completely overwhelmed by everything you have to do? The writer Oliver Burkeman recently experimented with an unexpected response to this common sensation: he decided to work much less. In more detail, he wanted to see what would happen if he reacted to overload by restricting his work to only four hours per day. In this episode, Cal reviews what Burkeman discovered in this experiment and what it teaches the rest of us.
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: What happens when you cut your workday in half? [5:51]
- What does the “celebrate” deep life bucket include? [30:34]
- When are big life changes the right thing to do? [38:38]
- When does Cal “start” his work day? [49:04]
- How do I save for a good retirement without making my current lifestyle worse? [50:05]
CASE STUDY: The Joys of Doing Less [56:44]
CAL REACTS: Chris Nolan doesn’t own a phone [1:05:21]
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Thanks to Jesse Miller for production, Jay Kerstens for the intro music, and Mark Miles for mastering.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Cal Newport and this is Deep Questions to show about living and working deeply in |
| 0:11.6 | a distracted world. |
| 0:14.2 | So I'm joining you once again from the Deep Work HQ north up in Hanover, New Hampshire |
| 0:20.1 | joined by my producer Jesse who is down south in our DC version of the HQ. |
| 0:28.1 | See how's it going down there? |
| 0:30.1 | It's going well. |
| 0:31.1 | It's good to be here. |
| 0:33.3 | I'm excited about your comment last week about the new desk that you want to put in the |
| 0:39.6 | office. |
| 0:41.6 | Yes. |
| 0:42.6 | Yes. |
| 0:43.6 | I am looking forward to my vision of my custom-built three-wall wrap-around desk. |
| 0:50.5 | It's great to daydream. |
| 0:52.4 | I'm actually podcasting right now. |
| 0:53.8 | You can't see it from the camera because the camera is just on me. |
| 0:57.7 | You just see a wood panel background behind me. |
| 1:00.3 | I'm actually podcasting right now from, I guess I would describe it as a conference room. |
| 1:06.6 | So the house in which I'm staying that this fellowship program put me up on has a walk-out |
| 1:11.7 | basement conference room where they really do run conferences down here and other types |
| 1:16.2 | of events. |
| 1:17.3 | And I'm facing three massive arched-pained windows, probably 10 feet tall, that are looking |
| 1:25.4 | out over Acompawn beyond this. |
... |
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