There is really nothing to talk about in this piece so I'm just going to echo the sentiment here about Cal Newport. Read Deep Work, it's a great book, one of my favorite actually. But, once you've done that, you've read everything he has to offer because every book, blog post, and video is an idea from Deep Work recycled and stretched 16 different ways.
While most people here seem to be dismissive, it's not like his books are targeted at the already successful, accomplished, or polished. They are meant to show people a way to become more successful in a world that has too many distractions. Not every job supports deep work and the other approaches, but many people, especially students, will benefit. I know I could have used it 30+ years ago!<p>I've only read Deep Work, but I found it very motivating and have tried to incorporate some of the lessons into my life. Now, (literally) buying into the whole ecosystem of Cal Newport is probably overkill, but occasionally listening to his podcast, which essentially answers the same questions over and over and over again, can be motivating and uplifting for those of us who are lacking in the perfection department.
Do yourself a favor and don't buy any books by Cal Newport. They're glorified blog posts with a bunch of overblown common sense rebranded with marketable terminology. Read Flow by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi if you want something similar that has more substance.
Mental math "tricks" and "thinking hacks" [1] are a couple shortcuts I'm trying to cram in order to be more productive with my aging wetware.<p>The first chapter is several memorization techniques, all related to hanging vivid associations to numbers, keywords, and physical spaces.<p>[1] Hale-Evans, Ron. 2006. "Mind Performance Hacks."
> <i>Scientists who work in labs, and have to run experiments or crunch numbers, can famously work long hours.</i><p>Since the author is a CS theory person, I guess "experiments" includes CS systems people, who tend to have very time-intensive building of systems for experiments.<p>In that same Stata Center as the author, my young CS systems principal investigator (PI) was working at least as hard as any grad student or postdoc. One time, probably in the wee hours of a morning, when a few of us were still working in the lab, I bumped into her, and joked something like, she won't have to work so hard once she gets tenure. Without missing a beat, her deadpan response: "I already have tenure."<p>Work ethic and endurance aren't the only requirements for success like hers, but they really help in systems-building work.
This guy's work - imho - is like many business books. Simple idea, stated over and over. Most of the ideas can be summarized in a paragraph or so.
It's Cal (not Carl) and he has essentially been writing the same book for the past decade. If you have read Deep Work you have read his next five books (including this one).
I gained nothing from reading this piece other than there are smart people at MIT (which i've already known) and that this guy has a new book coming out.
My first instinct was "I bet this guy is promoting a new book". Scroll down and lo and behold. I should mention though that I have no opinion on the author and his books since I haven't read them.
I think a more interesting dichotomy than "productivity" vs "business" is "efficiency" vs "efficacy". Our work culture (and business pop culture) has come to worship at the shrine of efficiency & productivity, but spends relatively little time dwelling on efficacy. What is the impact that only <i>you</i> can drive? The Effective Executive shaped my thinking about this quite a bit, and I'm a better professional for it.
Productivity often depends on the ability to concentrate. But also on motivation, time management skills, workload, environment, and overall well-being
I wonder how he regards his success as a productivity guru vs professor. All credit to him for achieving a level of success, notoriety that most will never get close to in their life. At the same time, I suspect productivity guru is not quite what he wanted to become. Or maybe it is. I don't know.
It's that time of the year again.<p>Newport (a relentless marketer, a bit like Tim Ferris) has been on a contract to churn out these filler "books" based on the same bloody theme for <i>years</i>. I've been harping on it since 2019[1].<p>As I noted here[2], "for a guy advocating 'minimalism', he churns out [far] too much needless crap. The irony seems definitely lost on him."<p>More comments on this tiring topic here[3]. Stop wasting your money buying his crap. What's the alternative? Again, as I've noted in the past[3]:<p>"The alternative to the empty books [...] is to read the original classics, and the actual scholars who did the work (Csikszentmihalyi, Kahneman, Richard Thaler, Timothy Wilson and many others)."<p>Edit: You can also get far more value by reading one of Plato's dialogues from 2000 years ago, instead. (Start with the excellent "Five Dialogues" selected by Hackett Classics.)<p>[1] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20082125">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20082125</a><p>[2] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36024139">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36024139</a><p>[3] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29035998">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29035998</a>
> I was astonished at how the most impressive of my colleagues could listen to a description of a complicated proof, stare into space for a few minutes, and then quip, “O.K., got it,” before telling you how to improve it. It was important that they didn’t master your ideas too quickly: the dreaded insult was for someone to respond promptly and deem your argument “trivial.” I once attended a lecture by a visiting cryptographer. After he finished, a monster mind in the audience—an outspoken future Turing winner—raised his hand and asked, “Yes, but isn’t this all, if we think about it, really just trivial?”<p>> I was sent all around Europe to present papers at various conferences. The meetings themselves weren’t the point. It was the conversations that mattered—one good idea, sparked on a rooftop in Bologna or beside Lake Geneva in Lausanne, was worth days of tiring travel.<p>God save me from ever having to work with people this pretentious
This must be Cal's twin brother, Carl. /s<p>Deep Work is a solid book and very quick to read. Most of his other books cross over into self-help, which can be tiring.