I'm Cal Newport and this is Deep Questions, the show about cultivating a deep life in a distracted world.

So I am back after our two-week hiatus in the Deep Work HQ here in Tacoma Park, Maryland, joined once again by my producer Jesse. Jesse, I don't know if you felt the same way I felt it was

weird not to be podcasting like to actually go through two weeks without the

rhythm of preping a script and talking about these things. It was like I was bursting with

useless knowledge about time blocking and discipline stacks. It was unusual.

It's good though. So it's good to be back anyway, so get back on our regular schedule.

We got a good show today.

I'm going straight old school technical with our deep dive going to talk about a element of my own

routine that I don't think I've talked about before. We're gonna get deep on that.

We got some technical questions to get into the weeds. It's the fall. It's back to school. It's vacations are over.

People are thinking about getting their systems tuned up, so I want to get in the weeds

with this whole episode. And then in the final segment we will do the books I read in August.

Jesse I wanted to mention first before we get into it though my latest sort of quiet

rebellion against the world of the ubiquitous digital.

What's that?

I bought a new everyday watch.

We're not on camera now, but I can show it to you.

It's a Zen 105 without the UTC complication for those who care about such things.

It's an automatic mechanism.

So no bits, no electricity, no batteries, it harvest the movement of my arm. Now I've been wearing this thing every day

for three weeks, haven't touched it, right? In the sense I haven't touched this

knob, haven't wound it, haven't adjusted it, and I'm within two and a half minutes still of the correct time.

...