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1:15

now. Hey everyone, it's Adam

1:17

Grant. Welcome back to Rethinking,

1:21

my podcast on the science of what makes us

1:24

tick with the TED Audio Collective. I'm an organizational

1:26

psychologist, and I'm taking

1:28

you inside the minds of fascinating people

1:30

to explore new thoughts and new ways

1:32

of thinking. My

1:36

guest today is Cal Newport. His

1:38

day job is as a computer science professor at Georgetown.

1:42

But I'm more interested in his side hustle. He's

1:44

one of the world's foremost thinkers on how to

1:47

make work better. Cal Moonlights is

1:49

a New Yorker writer, podcast host, and

1:51

best-selling author of books like Deep Work, So

1:54

Good They Can't Ignore You, and Digital Minimalism.

1:57

He's joining me today to talk about his new book,

1:59

Slick. low productivity, the lost

2:01

art of accomplishment without burnout.

2:05

What was happening in our current

2:07

world of work around this nebulous

2:09

idea that we informally referred to

2:11

as productivity was clearly broken. People

2:13

are tired of that idea, they don't know

2:15

what it means, whatever they're doing doesn't seem

2:17

to be working for them. And

2:19

so people are in a space right now where they

2:21

want to start from a blank slate and rethink what

2:24

does it mean to do my work well. We've

2:26

been discussing and debating ideas for

2:29

years, mostly by email, even though

2:31

she hates emails. Today, I'm excited

2:33

to bring that conversation to life

2:35

outside of our inboxes. I

2:40

feel like this has been a long time coming. I know, I

2:42

can't believe we haven't actually done like a formal thing before, so

2:44

here we go. Well, this is

2:46

going to be extremely formal. Yes,

2:49

Dr. Grant, what is your next query? Well,

2:52

Dr. Newport, it's thoughtful of you to

2:54

ask. What's something you

2:56

want me to rethink? The

2:59

need to respond to every email. Our old

3:01

battle, Adam. We've had some emails back and

3:03

forth maybe about it, but we've mostly been

3:05

arguing via Op-Ed. Yeah, like the pages

3:07

of the New York Times. Yeah, we've been. All

3:10

right, good. We'll put a pin in that one.

3:12

The first thing that piqued my interest was your

3:14

title is an oxymoron, slow

3:16

productivity. By definition, productivity is

3:18

a high rate of output per unit of

3:21

time, so it's supposed to be fast. And

3:23

I just, I love oxymorons. I thought that

3:25

was a fascinating juxtaposition. I

3:27

think you're spot on that there's been a

3:29

turn in the zeitgeist, that productivity used to

3:31

be something that we valued. Now we live

3:34

in a culture where increasingly people are anti-productivity.

3:37

And I worry that maybe we've

3:39

been getting it wrong for a long time, but then

3:41

some people are also overcorrecting and missing out

3:43

on the value of meaningful accomplishment. And I

3:46

had a hunch that you've been

3:48

thinking and working on this issue for a long

3:51

time and that you could help to unconfuse

3:53

us a little bit. Here's my

3:55

business case study about what happened

3:58

with productivity. It was. For

4:00

a long time and economic concept

4:02

that was well defined. Starts. In

4:04

agriculture. How many bushels a

4:07

crop per acre under cultivation are you

4:09

producing? If you switch to a different

4:11

crop rotation method you can measure this

4:13

is a hates The number went up.

4:15

Industrial. Manufacturing arises. This.

4:17

Idea ports over easily. Then.

4:20

We get the mid twentieth century. Knowledge

4:22

work arises as a major economic

4:24

sector. Suddenly, we can't directly port

4:26

this definition anymore because the average

4:28

knowledge workers as many different things.

4:31

There's. No one thing the measure or it's

4:33

incomparable from person to person. My portfolio

4:35

of things I'm doing right now is

4:37

different than yours and subtle ways. And.

4:40

There's no clearly defined system. the measure

4:42

or improve because. Productivity.

4:45

Became personal. How I

4:47

organized myself, how I organize my work is

4:49

up The mean. That was a new idea

4:51

in the history of economic activity. I think

4:53

we fell back on a heuristic called suit

4:56

or Productivity was just says. Activity.

4:58

Will be are proxy for doing useful

5:00

stuff. That. Kind of lasted

5:02

for a while, but then we invented

5:04

networks and laptops and smartphones and slack

5:06

an email and it's idea of just

5:08

more is better than less began to

5:10

spin out of control until by the

5:12

time we get to the pandemic, were

5:14

saying this is no longer sustainable. This

5:16

fake definition of productivity doesn't work. We

5:18

gotta do something different. So that's my

5:20

whole story. That goes from the seventeenth

5:22

century up to Twenty Twenty Four. That's

5:24

why things going on. I think the

5:26

cases really compelling and I don't think

5:28

I disagree with any of it. There's

5:31

there's a piece. Missing from that puzzle for

5:33

me that I I wonder how you think

5:35

about which is you go right for manufacturing,

5:37

economy to knowledge work. And.

5:40

I. Think in between and even now looming

5:42

larger the knowledge work as a service economy.

5:45

right? at by my last count something like

5:47

eighty percent of americans work in service jobs

5:49

on and some the subs are also knowledge

5:52

jobs but the the service economy here is

5:54

bigger than the knowledge economy and and man

5:56

the same is true in western europe and

5:58

in most industrialized parts the world. So how

6:00

does service work fit into all this? Because it

6:02

actually seems to me that it follows the same

6:05

arc as your knowledge work argument that you

6:08

can't really measure the quality of service

6:10

just by the number of customers or

6:12

clients or patients that you interact with.

6:15

Yeah, they're having the exact same problem in that sector.

6:17

I mean, if I'm dealing with

6:19

individuals all day, even let's say to keep

6:21

it like simple and like a retail setting,

6:23

right? How do we exactly

6:25

measure how good I'm doing? It's you

6:27

can't. So again, if you bring

6:30

over the like, well, more is better than less,

6:32

longer hours is better than fewer hours, you end

6:34

up in sort of a similar problem. So it's

6:36

like we can think of the problem of the

6:38

20th century as how do

6:41

we do things productively when we don't

6:43

have Model T's to count? That's the

6:45

central problem, I think, of labor strife

6:48

and personal satisfaction in the 20th and 21st

6:50

century economy. How would you define

6:53

slow productivity? So it was

6:55

my answer to the question of can we

6:57

come up with at least one concrete

7:00

definition of productivity that's not just

7:02

more is better than less, that will

7:04

satisfy two things. I don't want to burn

7:07

out or have work stamp on all other

7:09

parts of my life. You know, one of

7:11

my personal motivations for this book was my

7:13

three kids reached a certain age where

7:15

they needed basically every minute I had to offer in

7:17

a way that like they didn't when they were younger,

7:19

like they need a lot of my time. At

7:22

the same time that I'm at the peak of my professional

7:24

power. So that's A, I needed my

7:26

definition to avoid burnout and work

7:28

just taking over my whole life. But

7:31

B, I'm ambitious, I

7:33

like to do things. How do I do

7:35

both those things? Slow productivity was the answer

7:37

I came up with. And it had three

7:40

principles, do fewer things at

7:42

the same time, work

7:44

at a more natural pace. So not just full

7:46

intensity, eight hours a day, five days a week,

7:48

50 weeks a year. But

7:50

couple that with principle three, obsessing

7:53

over the quality of what you do. And

7:55

my argument is if those three things all come

7:57

together, you get a vision of knowledge

8:00

work that can be high impact and

8:03

effective but also is very sustainable

8:05

and meaningful. So it's a attempt to

8:08

try to have some sort of alternative to pseudo productivity

8:10

that might actually satisfy the preconditions

8:12

I had. Fewer

8:14

things is tricky for a

8:16

lot of people who don't get to determine how

8:18

much they do if their schedules and their

8:21

task lists are set by a boss. If I'm somebody who

8:23

doesn't have freedom, how do you think about that? Well

8:25

I mean first let's just think about the case for doing

8:28

fewer things because I think this will get to the answer

8:30

of how do we actually make this happen. The

8:32

misconception I think people have about doing fewer

8:35

things is that this is just about a

8:38

zero-sum trade-off. Yes this

8:40

is going to be worse for my

8:42

employer or my company but it's

8:44

going to make my life better right. I

8:46

think it's actually the opposite. What happens in

8:48

knowledge work because we have typically no systematic

8:51

way to manage or even make transparent workloads.

8:54

I have no idea what you're working on

8:56

or how much you're working on. It's all

8:58

informal and ad hoc. When we put more

9:00

and more stuff on our plate, each

9:03

of these things that we agree to brings

9:05

with it a non-trivial amount of persistent

9:07

overhead. It's the administrative overhead.

9:10

The email is about the thing I agreed to do,

9:12

the standing meetings about the thing I agreed to do,

9:15

even the cognitive real estate. Like I have to just

9:17

remember in the back of my mind I

9:19

agreed to do this. My claim is

9:21

as you pile up work on your list of things

9:23

you said yes to too large the

9:26

fraction of your day that is now going

9:28

to servicing overhead becomes

9:30

larger and larger until now you're spending most

9:33

of your time servicing these

9:35

tasks removing the time

9:37

required to actually accomplish them which then creates

9:39

an even bigger backlog because nothing ever clears

9:41

out. I make this claim in the book

9:43

that for a lot of knowledge workers in

9:45

the first few months of the pandemic this

9:48

happened. This sudden new influx of tasks pushed

9:50

them to the place where a lot of

9:52

people were finding themselves doing eight hours of

9:55

zoom all day. It was like

9:57

an absurd almost cough-cut play of all I'm

9:59

doing is meet These about work Mm I

10:01

had listeners and research he would say. Here's

10:03

my big problem talf window I go to

10:05

the bathroom. So. Actually having fewer

10:07

things on your plate at any given

10:09

time. Actually, Increases the

10:12

rate at which you accomplish things and

10:14

increases the quality. Of. The things

10:16

that you accomplished. So if you zoom out to let's

10:18

say the three months scale. You're. Actually

10:20

probably producing a lot more right overload

10:22

mix of hard to actually do work.

10:25

Then we get to the question of okay, so

10:27

how do you actually negotiate this in your own

10:29

working life? I. Have a lot of

10:31

different ideas in the book about if you work

10:34

for someone else. How do we move

10:36

towards this and allow? These ideas are not

10:38

just about say no. But. They're

10:40

more about surfacing your workload.

10:43

Surface. Senior available time. Surface.

10:46

Seen the amount of time with your been

10:48

asked to do is and making that all

10:50

transparent. So. That you can have like a

10:52

much more reasonable negotiation about what you should be

10:54

doing at any one time as as a lot

10:57

of ways you can do this from. Paul.

10:59

Based Systems the keeping a list of funding

11:01

projects where they can added onto the back

11:03

and see how many things are ahead of

11:05

it. doing preplanning. Have time for projects that

11:07

you can actually come back and say sir,

11:09

But the next time I have the fifteen

11:11

hours available to do this is gonna be

11:13

a month and a half from now. Transparency

11:15

and surfacing of the reality. A worthless can

11:17

go a long way. I. Think of.

11:20

Becoming more reasonable about how much should

11:22

haven't played at the same time. I.

11:25

I'd love that idea. and of course it

11:27

depends on having a reasonable boss, but so

11:29

does everything else in Iraq. The idea of

11:31

doing things at once is interesting, and I'm

11:33

I'm kind of torn on it. I.

11:36

Think on the one hand it makes a

11:38

lot of sense because the more task you

11:40

have the more pressure you face to multitask

11:42

which we now leads to rapid task switching

11:45

and usually detract from the quality of both

11:47

tasks that are are being focused on sort

11:49

of sequentially in a rapid fire some with

11:51

you so far. but

11:54

then i start to think about some of the evidence that

11:56

if you want to get something done you see give it

11:58

to a busy person there's a keeps well at

12:00

all paper, for example, showing that people, when

12:02

they have more on their plate, they actually

12:04

get things done faster. It's related to Parkinson's

12:06

law, the amount that

12:08

you do. Work will expand to fill whatever time. Work

12:10

will expand to fill the time you have for it.

12:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you buy the

12:14

premise that work expands to fill the time you have for

12:17

it, and it also can contract

12:20

as you have less time for it, that suggests

12:22

that we might benefit from doing more

12:24

things as opposed to fewer things. So

12:26

can you reconcile these two competing arguments

12:28

for me? Well, let's look deeper at

12:30

Parkinson's law. So at

12:32

some point I read the original citation, and

12:34

it comes from a critique of

12:37

the British Civil Service. And

12:39

it was as much a critique of

12:41

the arbitrary and pointlessness of a lot

12:43

of these jobs in the Civil Service

12:45

as it was about a general observation

12:47

about time. So they were saying in

12:49

these jobs, you just fill

12:52

whatever time you have because it's advantageous, it just

12:54

looks good for you to be busy,

12:57

right? So here's an alternative is

13:00

principle three, obsess over quality.

13:03

You do have to have a target. And

13:05

that's why I call obsessing over quality the glue that

13:07

holds everything else together in the book. If

13:09

you're not focused on doing something really well

13:12

that you care about, then I'm with you.

13:14

Like who cares? We might as well just be sending a lot of

13:16

emails, right? I mean, we might as well have a lot going on.

13:19

I had this question just a couple of

13:21

weeks ago on my podcast, it was interesting.

13:23

It was a developer wrote to

13:25

me, a computer developer, and said,

13:27

my company is doing all the

13:29

Cal Newport stuff to get

13:32

rid of unnecessary administrative work and

13:34

overhead. There's no email, there's no

13:36

Slack, there's no meetings. Like we

13:38

just have this like really structured

13:40

asynchronous project management system. And

13:42

he was having a really hard time with it because

13:44

he said, look, I can program for four

13:47

hours a day. What do I do

13:49

for the rest of the day? And my answer to

13:51

him was like, I think you have to care about

13:53

what you're doing. You have to have

13:55

some other motivation for finishing things, doing them

13:58

well, being eager to move on. the

14:00

next. Or then I agree. Yeah, then

14:02

having less things on your plate, you're just going to

14:04

either be bored, or you're going to busy

14:06

work it out anyways to fill the time. It

14:09

seems to me that it's easy

14:11

to confuse doing fewer things with

14:13

just doing less work. If

14:15

you're not focusing on quality, a

14:17

lot of it also just engenders an antagonistic

14:20

relationship to your work. But when you add

14:22

in that third ingredient, I am

14:24

obsessed with doing really good stuff. It completely changes

14:26

the valence of everything else. And that's why I

14:28

think it's so important for any of these other

14:31

thoughts. And this is, by the way, what the

14:33

anti-productivity movement often is missing. When

14:35

you take out the part about wanting to

14:37

do something really well, the

14:40

anti-productivity thinking begins to

14:42

stumble. And it either stumbles

14:44

into standard critiques of capitalism,

14:47

or these generic calls for just

14:50

doing less, just do nothing. It ends

14:53

up in places that don't, in the end, resonate

14:55

with people in a sustainable way. You have to

14:57

have that other piece of also humans like to

14:59

make their intentions manifest concretely in the world in

15:01

a way they're proud. You need that in there

15:03

if you want to understand how to deal with

15:05

the hard stuff. So

15:08

you're pro meaningful contribution to the world

15:10

and anti-burnout? I think that's the only

15:12

logical combination. If you think burnout is

15:14

just part of work, your

15:17

contributions long term almost certainly

15:19

are going to be diminished. Ultimately, something's

15:21

going to give if you really are

15:23

just completely overloading yourself. I think the

15:26

way you framed slow productivity, this is something that

15:28

we can all do better as

15:30

individuals. But this is also, I

15:32

think, a real message to

15:34

leaders to say, these are principles for

15:37

organizational cultures and structures, that

15:39

we should have a larger conversation about how

15:42

many things are we doing collectively? What

15:44

kind of frenetic pace are we creating systemically?

15:46

Are we placing the quality bar high enough

15:48

on the things that really matter? What

15:51

does that conversation look like for you? It's

15:53

such a hard conversation. This was my experience

15:55

with my last book. So in 2021, I

15:58

had this book kind of cheap. titled

16:00

A World Without Email. But it was

16:02

really a book about the

16:05

corporate managerial structure and modern

16:07

knowledge work needs to seriously

16:09

re-examine how do we organize

16:11

work, how do we collaborate, we can't just

16:13

let this continue to be up to everyone's

16:15

individual decisions. The way we're working today is

16:18

not working. So I was making an

16:20

argument aimed at organizations that you have

16:22

to get into the game here. You're

16:24

not thinking about how we work nearly

16:27

as much as we do in other industrial sectors.

16:30

That was an impossible sell it turned out.

16:32

It's really hard, it's really big ships. And

16:34

so I got more interested in that recently.

16:37

Why could I not change more

16:39

minds with that? Part

16:41

of my new theory about what's happening here is

16:43

that this is a side effect of managerial capitalism.

16:46

So if we go back to the theory of

16:48

managerial capitalism that emerges in the

16:51

mid-century looking back the early

16:53

20th century, the theorizing around

16:55

managerial capitalism says in organizations

16:58

that are large what the managers

17:00

are optimizing for in terms of

17:02

how things are run no longer

17:04

have to be directly congruent the

17:07

market forces. It's no longer

17:09

the case that hey if we don't use

17:11

email this way, if we're smarter about distractions,

17:13

we're more competitive, we'll get a direct market

17:15

signal and we're gonna do better and other

17:17

companies that don't do this are gonna go

17:19

out of business. If I'm a manager in

17:22

a large company, I'm not necessarily

17:24

optimizing for what in the end is

17:26

going to five years from now make

17:28

our company more productive and extracting value

17:31

from the minds of our employees. I

17:33

might also be biased towards stability. Stability

17:35

of my position, stability of the company.

17:37

This like hyperactive hive mind we all

17:40

just email everyone whenever we need to

17:42

and changing this would be very disruptive

17:44

and disruption is bad. Disruption

17:46

is scary. I'm increasingly convinced it

17:48

is difficult to come in

17:51

and change very large cultures because there's

17:53

not the incentive structure there and so

17:55

it's almost like why this book I

17:58

said okay forget it. go

18:00

back to people. At least like what can you do even

18:02

if you work for one of these companies to make your

18:04

life more manageable. Knowledge work is

18:06

such a weird puzzle. We don't do

18:08

it well, but we also don't attempt

18:10

to do it better. Well, one solution

18:12

that seems to be gaining a little traction

18:15

in organizations in that I

18:17

think at minimum is an interesting experiment, is the

18:19

four-day work week. And

18:21

you're on the record saying, it's definitely not

18:24

a panacea, which I agree with, but

18:26

you also don't think it's going to

18:28

be an effective antidote to burnout, if

18:30

I understand correctly. Yes, I think burnout,

18:33

among most things, is being caused by having too much on

18:35

your plate. If you have too much

18:37

on your plate, you telling me you don't have

18:39

to work on Friday doesn't solve the problem that I

18:41

have too much on my plate. And if anything, it's

18:43

going to make the stress of that worse, because now

18:45

in the four days that remain, more

18:48

of that time is going to be dedicated to

18:50

the admin overhead. I would rather see a fifth

18:53

day, like Friday is a day

18:55

in which you can't service any

18:57

overhead, no meeting Fridays. But this

18:59

failed, Intel tried this years back

19:01

famously with no email Fridays, for

19:04

example. This failed because

19:06

the bigger problem is how we actually

19:08

collaborate. So if in your company, the

19:11

way decisions are made and

19:13

progress proceeds on projects is we just

19:15

slacker email back and forth on demand,

19:18

you can't just say Friday is email free Friday because

19:20

then work stops. So like I've

19:22

been arguing, you can't do these blunt fixes

19:25

for knowledge work. You have to do

19:27

the fine tune fixes, which is coming

19:29

in and saying, here is an alternative

19:31

way that we're going to collaborate. That's

19:33

not just rock and roll with asynchronous

19:35

and synchronous communication on demand as needed.

19:37

Then we need to fix workload

19:40

management. Let's think about this as

19:42

an organization. You should really

19:44

only be working on three projects at a time.

19:46

Let's write them down. Here they are. You fix

19:48

those problems, you're fixing the burnout problem. If you

19:50

instead just say, let's not work on Friday. Let's

19:53

be hybrid. Let's be remote. None of these

19:55

are bad, but none of these actually get to the direct

19:57

problem either. I Think we're in alignment on a

19:59

bunch of. The those points and maybe tension on

20:01

a couple of them having too much to

20:03

do is as far as I know it,

20:06

the most reliable predictor of emotional exhausted. That.

20:08

Being said, I think the evidence

20:10

is is a little bit more

20:13

encouraging than you do. Let's start

20:15

with the the Know Meeting Friday

20:17

idea to ban later and colleagues

20:19

at has to this out with

20:21

what says indeed, seventy six companies

20:23

they ran meeting free days and

20:25

self reports of productivity went up,

20:27

satisfaction spiked, stress went down, and

20:29

you also get better reports on

20:32

just quality of communication and collaboration.

20:34

And I think what they're doing

20:36

is they're committing to block out

20:38

time. To focus. Their. Allowing for

20:40

deep work, he wrote a whole book and

20:42

deep work and this seems to be an

20:45

effective mechanism for it an interesting way and

20:47

least in in this class a experiment, Companies

20:49

that had three know meeting days a week

20:51

got the greatest dividends. Now it there may

20:54

be a selection bias there that the companies

20:56

that are best at managing deep work and

20:58

kind of carving out in the Paul Graham

21:00

sense manager days as separate from maker days

21:03

are more likely to adopt a multiple meeting

21:05

free days a week bed. This seems to

21:07

be good news and it it also tracksuit.

21:10

Wordlessly, parlor said in her quiet

21:12

Time experiment where you know just

21:14

blocking out some mornings to not

21:16

interact and not interrupt each other

21:19

was good for productivity. So why

21:21

are you so skeptical? So so

21:23

are? My real skepticism was is

21:25

on the know email days. So.

21:28

Is that failed? Because in most

21:30

businesses if you can't communicate during

21:32

the day, things fell apart. know

21:34

meetings as interesting. And. what i

21:36

think is happening with the know meeting days

21:39

is it's not about workload is not have

21:41

making it better or worse but what is

21:43

allowing people to do when i'm assuming i'm

21:46

guessing of hypothesizing but what's happening to these

21:48

experiments as if we all agree that fridays

21:50

and know meeting day it's not system meetings

21:52

that were taken off the plate we sort

21:55

of mentally treat this as a deep worked

21:57

eight so we're probably cindy was email were

21:59

probably off and on Slack less. And

22:01

so what you're escaping on those days, you're

22:04

not fixing the workload problem, but you're fixing

22:06

the problem I talked about on my last

22:08

book, which is the distraction of having to

22:10

constantly keep up with digital back and forth

22:12

and fragmentation of schedules. So I do like

22:14

that idea. In fact, my new claim is

22:16

this is how we should think about hybrid

22:18

work in this new era where that seems

22:21

to be the standard for post-pandemic knowledge work.

22:23

Why don't we treat the days, the hybrid days, the days

22:25

you're at home very differently than the days you're in work?

22:28

So it's a completely different cognitive context too. Oh, when

22:30

I'm at home, I'm just working

22:33

as deeper. And when I'm in the office,

22:35

we have like more meetings and emails. I

22:37

think we're actually in alignment. No meeting days

22:39

is solving another problem that's good, but

22:42

it's neither helped me nor hurting the workload problem.

22:45

We're in sync there. Okay, so

22:47

the four-day week, I'd like to see better

22:50

random assignment in the trials that have been done so

22:52

far. But when I look at Juliette

22:54

Shore's work, for example, and a bunch of

22:57

the companies that are experimenting with

22:59

it, burnout does seem to be going down. And

23:03

I wonder if part of what's going on

23:05

is that when you commit

23:07

to fewer days, you're more conscious of

23:09

boundaries and protecting them. You're implicitly

23:12

starting to create a

23:14

culture that cares a little bit more about reducing workload,

23:16

but I would rather explicitly tackle that. I would

23:18

rather get in and say, why

23:20

do I have so much stuff on my plate in the

23:22

first place that maybe the four-day work week is or is not

23:24

sort of helping with? Why don't we get to the heart of

23:26

the problem? I think that's

23:29

very well articulated. I'm on board. Tired

23:34

of unnecessary payroll errors and the problems

23:36

they bring? Like employees missing bills because

23:39

of shorted paychecks. Managers taking

23:41

the heat from angry employees about those

23:43

shorted paychecks. HR and

23:45

payroll teams clocking late hours to

23:47

correct time sheets, expense mistakes, missing

23:49

overtime and sick days? All

23:52

of that is so unnecessary. Pump

23:54

the brakes on payroll errors for good

23:57

by putting employees in the driver's seat.

23:59

With paychecks. Bobby. The. Boys

24:01

do their own payroll said he

24:03

identifies errors and guys employs to

24:05

fix some before submission right in

24:07

the up because no one can

24:09

afford for payroll to be wrong

24:12

and no one knows when their

24:14

pay is wrong or right. Better

24:16

than employees. The one of them.

24:18

Six paypal problems before they become

24:20

problems when you get payroll precision.

24:22

Every time unnecessary payroll has become

24:24

well. And necessary. Manage.

24:27

The process to make payroll

24:29

right for everyone with a

24:31

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25:12

It looks good relating rounds. What

25:14

is the worst productivity advice that

25:16

you here regularly? This idea

25:18

that you choose one thing. Get that done.

25:21

And. Then you've had a successful day. You.

25:23

Think that's a bad idea. Yeah. There's more

25:25

to be a productive day than getting one good thing

25:27

done. I. Think if that's where you

25:29

are your days a disaster. I think you

25:32

need a good plan for the day you

25:34

have that includes a couple important things and

25:36

also handles the small things and smart way

25:38

and is reasonable. What? Is

25:40

something about productivity that you've

25:42

recently. Seasonality. The degree

25:44

to which were not wired to basically work

25:46

at the same level of intensity. All.

25:48

The time. I didn't realize this was

25:50

a problem until the last couple of years and am obsessed

25:53

with it. I think the most productive

25:55

I've ever been. Is. During

25:57

Michigan winter. Literally.

26:00

The do anything else? Yeah, you're stuck in a

26:02

cabin to check it out. Yeah, Yeah.

26:04

And then six spring would come around

26:06

and I played a lot of Ultimate

26:08

Frisbee. You turned out okay, S

26:10

jury's still out. I'm allergic to productivity

26:12

hacks. I think you are two. Seconds.

26:15

That being said, what's your favorite one? Or.

26:17

That sifts all the time. Do want

26:19

the one of our side about right now or the

26:21

one does. The. Stood the test the time most

26:24

will Now I want both. Okay, so want to give you

26:26

the one that stood the test of time. And

26:28

that is fix kettle productivity. Sixty.

26:31

Hours you want to work. And. Do

26:33

everything you can to make that work. That's now

26:35

my God. This is one I work and I

26:37

may have to actually drastically changed things about my

26:39

career if necessary. But. These are my

26:42

limits. That's when I work. It's a

26:44

metre productivity idea because it forces you

26:46

to develop dozens of custom fit practical

26:48

productivity ideas to try to actually satisfied

26:50

this big goal set time with the

26:52

flavor of the month. I really like

26:54

the one for you want for me.

26:56

Meeting scheduling strategy. If

26:59

I schedule a meeting, I have to then fine

27:01

during that same week, a block a time of

27:03

same length, the block off for me to do

27:05

just my own work. It. Keeps your

27:07

schedule fifty fifty but in a flexible when you're you're

27:10

allowing a lot more meetings in the or less than

27:12

I am if it's it with that one to one

27:14

i've I think my philosophy is more like five to

27:16

one. Five. Meetings wait five for

27:18

you and want everyone to five I got

27:20

would be that the yeah? Well it depends

27:22

on the season, but you know how to

27:24

get. Sometimes you're on a committee on seven

27:26

committees. It maybe. Thus it is a timeless

27:28

advice right? As to Richard Feynman advice pretend

27:30

to be really irresponsible. Some people stop when

27:32

you on academic committees though I talked about

27:34

in the book. Ten. Years

27:37

later after that he admitted because he he

27:39

got sucked in the running. The Challenger commission.

27:41

Yeah, the possessor commissioned yeah. And then he

27:43

reflected on that in L A Times interview.

27:45

I don't follow my own advice. I always

27:48

said avoid committees but you know what? This.

27:50

Was important and I'm I'm glad

27:52

I did it. So there's there's

27:54

like interesting sort of philanthropic later

27:56

in life humanists type Twister Fineman.

27:59

It's also good. Minder that almost every

28:01

personal productivity rule has exceptions, which is

28:03

why they should be guidelines, not rules.

28:05

I agree. Where do you stand on

28:07

focus apps? Like you. Know that

28:09

locked down your computer or your phone

28:11

so you can't get distracted. From my

28:13

experience, Focus apps are a. Temporary.

28:17

Measure for most people. So. If

28:19

you want you to break the a

28:21

near sold poll of digital addiction, it

28:23

can be useful to use a focus

28:25

out for a while. What almost always

28:27

happens. Thousand people consistently do this, the

28:29

cravings the and the only to use

28:31

the apps anymore. You'll. Lose your

28:34

taste. For. Browser tab in over to Instagram

28:36

and then once you do, you don't need to focus up

28:38

anymore. What's. The question you have for

28:40

me? Outta interesting. Moment.

28:44

I guess. All. My questions for

28:46

you tend to be very insider baseball leagues were

28:49

both professors. Who also write

28:51

books which is like an impossible

28:53

thing. So here's my question. What

28:55

did you chains? Post.

28:57

For professor. I mean,

28:59

I know you were like nineteen. No, I

29:01

actually think it's a universal question because. Everybody

29:04

at some point will have the experience of

29:06

realizing I achieved one of the major goals

29:08

I was working toward. or I decided it

29:11

wasn't a major goal anymore. And now what

29:13

do I change? Their.

29:15

There's an irony here, which is you're

29:17

talking about doing less. And.

29:20

You were a lot of hats.

29:22

You publish research, you teach, you

29:24

podcast, you write books, you write

29:26

articles and New Yorker. And.

29:30

I think I might be guilty of the same. I

29:33

guess One of things I've been rethinking lately is. How

29:35

how much I need to do and each of those

29:37

categories. So you

29:39

know today, reconsider the number of classes I

29:42

teach her to actually something that wasn't did

29:44

for us or and cove it they dropped

29:46

are teaching load from three to two courses

29:48

a year, which has has been pretty meaningful

29:50

in terms of the amount of time I

29:52

have to do not only the projects that

29:54

I care about, but also the time I

29:56

had to spend with since I think that's

29:58

been a big deal. How are

30:00

you thinking about that balance? Especially now that

30:03

you've written this book saying do fewer things,

30:05

Are you doing less Well Yes, I wrote

30:07

the book in part because I wanted to.

30:10

Improve. My own set up. Some. Things

30:12

I have done right towards that. I

30:14

have brought together my academic and writing

30:16

world's much closer for I'm doing more

30:18

as an academic is I'm thinking out

30:20

loud about the different ways to technology

30:22

affect society. I write books too much

30:24

New Yorker stuff on it, and I

30:26

don't write a bunch of pure science

30:28

papers. So. This disc and silly as

30:31

like these two things coming together. That

30:33

is screen up a huge amount of time.

30:35

Rights of that really help the podcast. When

30:37

I started the podcast I had a rule

30:39

passed a week. You can never have more.

30:42

And. So if I want to do more, I want

30:44

to add video, whatever want to do in the podcast

30:46

as long as it fits and a half day a

30:48

week, go for it. If it doesn't on, I have

30:51

to automate something or hire someone, but it's never allow

30:53

the have a bigger footprint than that and that made

30:55

a big difference as well. But I'll tell you, Adam,

30:57

even with all of those things, I'm.

30:59

Still thinking is there. Even more drastic

31:02

reductions I should consider. I wrote this book

31:04

less about I am the exemplar of this

31:06

and more. This is my aspiration. So let

31:08

me clarify it's I know what I'm going

31:11

for. Okay, let's talk about

31:13

our digital debate here. So you

31:15

want me to rethink my a

31:17

compulsive habit of responding to every

31:19

email. I'm. Willing

31:22

to do that if you

31:24

are really willing to rethink

31:26

your excessive digital minimalists. I

31:28

will ignore more emails if

31:30

you start one. Social media

31:32

can. Ah, I'd.

31:34

Rather, use and more emails me how

31:36

to use social media ssssss get to

31:38

use as if it's. Okay,

31:41

you're fair enough. My whole digital minimalism philosophy

31:43

doesn't have hard edges so he doesn't identify

31:45

bad and good. Tech is as you start

31:48

with your values. And. Then move backwards

31:50

as a what's going to be most useful for

31:52

advancing these values. Any. Social media

31:54

application If I see a really strong use

31:56

case where the positive is going to bring

31:58

me really outweighs the next if it's on

32:01

the table like for example, we put my

32:03

podcast on you tube now and in your

32:05

Youtube as a distracting thing. As.

32:07

I don't use a lot a you tube, but

32:09

that's a decision to be made. but I felt

32:12

like there was a very large audience that doesn't

32:14

listen the podcast traditionally and we could find them

32:16

through you tube and so that's worth doing. They

32:18

have to put some care around it, so I'm

32:20

willing to consider a social media platform if I

32:22

think the benefits are going out with a negative.

32:25

but I'm. Terrified a most

32:27

of them. With you put Me on Twitter.

32:29

I'm going to be on there all the time you're on sale.

32:31

As you put me on Instagram. I going to be on there

32:33

all the time. We. Might have emailed

32:35

at one point about their the

32:37

Michael has Been findings which suggested

32:39

that people with a couple social

32:41

media accounts were more productive than

32:43

those who didn't have any, and

32:45

also more productive with those who

32:47

had five or more and. We.

32:50

Don't know whether this is cause or

32:52

signal, but there is a part of

32:54

me that thinks refusing to engage with

32:56

social media altogether that the same way

32:58

that it leaves. Kids. Out of

33:01

their social circles in high school. It.

33:03

Does close you off to opportunities to

33:05

engage with people to test ideas to

33:07

share some your knowledge and bite size

33:09

formats. and I think you're depriving other

33:11

people have your ideas who would discover

33:13

you answer so and you're also maybe

33:15

missing out on some of the feedback

33:17

that you would get. Like there are

33:19

times when I decide to write an

33:21

article. Because. You're an Instagram

33:24

post to costs and I was just an

33:26

afterthought. I just can't put it out there

33:28

like wait a minute. There's more to say

33:30

about this. People care about this and also

33:32

have been. Some people got mad at what

33:34

I said and any to clarify what my

33:36

point was in other cases. offseason idea that

33:38

I think is really promising and it doesn't

33:40

take off. Maybe this is not. A

33:42

great use of my time as I find

33:44

that feedback mechanism really vile, valuable. And yeah,

33:47

you're not to suggest that you needed some

33:49

spread. I benefited a lot from it in

33:51

it. I want you to benefit from a

33:53

To, so why don't you want to benefit

33:55

from it? Especially I'm i'm a loser and

33:57

one other piece of this which is I

33:59

think you're really. Setting boundaries the way

34:01

you articulate I I've gotta as an amount

34:03

of time that I blocked out for podcasting

34:05

and I'm gonna sit podcasting in that time.

34:07

Why can't you do the same thing with

34:10

several Or Luthor counter argument back. What?

34:12

You and I do. Write books, We

34:14

write articles is not new we haven't noticed

34:16

in the last ten years or so, which

34:18

is which is roughly the era when social

34:21

media has become sort of dominic cultural force.

34:23

It's not like we've seen a notable increase

34:25

in the quality of but essayist and book

34:27

writers are producing. If anything were worried that

34:29

were seen. The opposite says a counter argument

34:31

they were saying. If. This feedback really

34:33

is very useful in the sense that net

34:35

your stuff becomes better. We. Would

34:37

expect books and articles be better because almost everyone

34:40

is on these all the time but we're not

34:42

seen necessarily a trend like that. How the what

34:44

might be happening is well have am cow. That

34:46

just means people are using it. Went well. okay

34:48

but why are they using it? Well because all

34:50

of the incentives in these tools has built a

34:53

mixer. Use a poorly. this is way to assume

34:55

an example Bands like I had to smoke when

34:57

I drink but unlike eventual you to smoke a

34:59

lot because really addictive. The negative externality scare me

35:01

and I'm like I'm. And so

35:04

the negative externalities in terms of like what

35:06

it does, my attention and to my mood

35:08

and like twitter is and anxiety producing the

35:10

seats. I have enough anxiety. right? The

35:12

has such as a slightly different. I

35:14

guess I've tried to do a social media

35:16

what you do with with almost everything just

35:18

hit which is I've tried to build a

35:20

system from maximizing the benefits and minimizing the

35:23

costs and miss a minute. Some of the

35:25

heuristics: A really simple. I only

35:27

log into post. And man

35:29

I only scroll if there's nothing else

35:31

I could be doing and I think

35:34

you have the discipline to pull that

35:36

off. Okay here's my challenge. See what

35:38

if you ran an experiment where you

35:41

ask your team to start making like

35:43

the create a Cow Newport account start

35:45

doing post that synthesize some of your

35:48

favorite ideas and just. Checking

35:50

account once a week yourself to see what you

35:52

think of the reactions and are you getting something

35:54

useful out of it. I I'd be curious to

35:56

see how that expand it plays out and the

35:58

look on your face cells. That

36:00

you don't want to. From abstinence

36:02

to moderation because it's a slippery

36:05

slope. Yeah, as yes, my absence

36:07

has. Personally, this is an unfair

36:09

comparison because. I. Have a really

36:11

large audience. I have a way of

36:13

interacting with my audience. I have a

36:15

large newsletter and blog. I have this

36:17

email address is dedicated the people sending

36:19

me interesting articles and leagues. So I

36:21

I'm basically simulating a lot of the

36:24

benefits you're talking about. I'm able to

36:26

simulate that without actually being on these

36:28

these monopoly platforms, right? So I get

36:30

a lot of interesting ideas and feedback

36:32

from this longstanding audience with other people.

36:34

Might not have. I. Think

36:36

discovery of new audiences it's harder for you. yeah

36:38

is probably the missing piece. it mit dem might

36:41

be the case and to I'm probably more introverted

36:43

The new So like in my life I'm trying

36:45

to meet less people typically since that exhausted So

36:47

I'm with you that yes absolutely with you that

36:49

I don't want to talk about the trying to

36:52

interact with your feeble yeah always yeah I'm not.

36:54

So I'm like I'm not actually looking the so

36:56

from or com or say some are to exhausted

36:58

for how many people have to talk to up

37:00

but in three a cable service in here are.

37:03

As an internet nerd, there's also a philosophical A

37:05

Jackson that I was. Opposed to the centralization

37:07

of the internet to a small number

37:09

of platform monopolies and so there's also

37:11

a philosophical jackson their i don't think

37:13

that's the ideal function of the internet

37:15

which is a mechanism I think is

37:17

world changing. a general purpose technology to

37:19

indulge general purpose technologies. I did not

37:21

like the phase where we centralized it

37:23

into a small number privately owned companies

37:25

and of we all then had to

37:27

use a small number privately owned company.

37:29

So there's also an element of protest.

37:32

Ah, I like my saw electable

37:34

solitude. I think it leads to the

37:36

interest seen like more like original

37:38

thoughts. I think I'm less susceptible with

37:40

the things I write about towards been

37:43

subtly pushed into thought grooves that are

37:45

being it reinforced. In. The

37:47

discourses that happened since last conversation

37:49

platforms. That. That's a really good

37:52

argument. I. Don't have a lot

37:54

of pushback to it as I think

37:56

Sought Grooves is assassinating phrase that caps

37:58

or something that's missing. Talk about

38:00

echo chambers and filter bubbles which are.

38:03

Much more isolating and restrictive than the

38:05

internet actually as the and thought groups

38:08

aren't a silly negatively we think are

38:10

filter bubbles but he see it and

38:12

reporting like I do. I tucked journalism.

38:14

It's really easy to see a new

38:16

topics how people fall into the stockroom

38:18

done up, polarized. They're. Not political

38:20

assists. You see the coalesce around these

38:23

common themes. Now everyone's talking about the

38:25

new technology in the same way. Let's.

38:28

Go now to to your case that

38:30

I I'm i'm see responsive and email

38:32

your neck and as if I think

38:34

I use. Don't respond to

38:36

email. As a stand

38:38

in for don't just have email

38:41

be a general purpose incoming pipe

38:43

that everything comes through and you

38:45

have to service. The. Have more

38:47

intense and all like. here's how you talk to

38:50

me about this vs that the harder the recent

38:52

times. Am. I think you're friendlier than

38:54

me. Some basically trying to make you into like

38:56

a meaner person was doesn't put me in the

38:58

best. Position. I'm I'm actually

39:00

not interested in being friendly. By.

39:03

Email I'm interested in being helpful. And.

39:05

Respectful. And. It

39:08

bothers me when when someone sends

39:10

a reasonable email. And.

39:12

Just gets ghost it. If

39:15

that person walked by you and talk

39:17

to you are left of a message

39:19

on your voicemail. you wouldn't just ignore

39:21

them, you would dignify them with a

39:23

response. and the fact that digitally people

39:25

have an excuse to just pretend it

39:27

never happened or just say i'm sorry

39:29

I was. I was too busy to

39:31

say heidi when he waved at me.

39:33

It's like not okay in my view,

39:35

but I think. He. died i don't

39:37

think you should answer every email i've

39:39

tried to be really explicit about that

39:41

if someone is disrespectful to you if

39:43

somebody is wasting your time if you're

39:45

overwhelmed is reasonable to set a boundary

39:47

but i think there's a little bit

39:49

of in overcorrected here that people are

39:51

drowning and emails most people are facing

39:53

email overload and sometimes they're throwing out

39:56

that baby with the bathwater there's a

39:58

bunch of evidence suggesting that One

40:00

of the signs of a bad manager is being slow

40:02

to respond to emails. I just

40:04

read some research showing that the clearest

40:06

predictors of professors being helpful teachers and

40:09

mentors to their students is

40:11

being quick to respond to student questions. In

40:13

a lot of jobs, email is a

40:15

way that you actually do your job.

40:18

We have a responsibility to respond to the people

40:20

who engage with us thoughtfully. And by the way,

40:22

a lot of us seek help by email. We

40:25

don't just offer it. And so I guess I

40:27

think there's a social contract that as

40:29

you would reasonably try to help a person who sat

40:32

down with you or who called you, you

40:34

ought to do the same thing electronically.

40:37

Well, okay. Let me ask you about a compromise

40:39

then. And first I'll say the bigger picture here

40:41

is there's the bigger problem of our work happens

40:44

by email, right? Because there's also

40:46

good research that shows as you raise

40:48

the email volume of managers, time spent

40:50

on leadership activities drops. So

40:53

there's a trade-off. But let's just set the stage.

40:56

Given that this is how work happens right now, we can't

40:58

fix this overnight, what should we do? How

41:00

do you feel about this compromise? Where

41:02

when it comes to my

41:04

public facing communication channels, there

41:07

I have like a clear, I call it a

41:09

sender filter, where I say here's the different ways

41:11

to contact different people about different things. And all

41:13

of them are clear. There is no actual channel

41:16

for you can just reach out to me out

41:18

of nowhere and I'll respond. Just places you can

41:20

send stuff to me, but it says I'm probably

41:23

not going to be able to respond. So it's

41:25

trying to reset the contract. And then that's different

41:27

than internally, like people I know and colleagues, etc.,

41:29

students and academic colleagues. Of course, I'll answer those

41:31

emails because I know these people. Do

41:34

I get your stamp of approval for that? No,

41:37

I'm 100% fine with that. First of

41:39

all, it's not my place to judge how you manage your

41:41

inbox. Secondly, I think this is

41:43

obviously a different problem for a public figure than

41:46

it is for somebody who's only visible

41:48

inside their own organization, although if it's

41:50

a big organization, you get

41:52

a reputation for being responsive and pretty soon no

41:55

good deal goes unpunished. And I do worry a lot

41:57

about that problem, but I think

41:59

this is an expectation. management problem. I

42:01

think if you're going to habitually ignore email, you should

42:03

have an auto reply that says, I'm

42:06

terrible on email, please, you know, text me,

42:08

or please call me and you should have

42:10

a mechanism to be reachable. What

42:13

I'm objecting to more is the narrative of

42:16

my inbox is just other people's priorities.

42:19

Like, well, if you're a good person, you

42:22

care about other people's priorities, not just your

42:24

own, but also you use your inbox to

42:26

manage your priorities too. And the

42:28

whole system of being able to reach people

42:30

that aren't physically co-located with you or

42:32

that you you're not lucky enough to have a

42:35

phone number for would fall apart. If

42:37

we mass adopted this, well, I'm just gonna only

42:39

answer what I want to answer policy. Okay, I,

42:41

I agree with that. I think our final agreement

42:43

will be, I'll be better at answering emails if

42:45

you don't make me use Instagram. And then we

42:47

got I think we got ourselves a, we

42:50

got ourselves a deal. All right, you have yourself

42:52

a deal on that Cal, I think that's entirely fair. Fair

42:54

enough. Fair enough. I might just ignore an email from you

42:56

out of spite. That's the problem. That's the problem. You're like,

42:58

yeah, I'll give it to you on Twitter.

43:02

You have to go there to find it. Yeah. Create

43:05

an account. Yeah. This has been

43:07

great fun. Yeah, no, thank you. Thank you. I

43:12

think the most important message from Cal to work

43:14

is for leaders and managers. In an

43:16

always on world, the root cause of exhaustion

43:19

is having too much to do. It doesn't

43:21

matter how many stress management courses you

43:24

offer, or how many perks you pile

43:26

on. The best way to

43:28

fight burnout is to stop overloading people

43:30

with work. If you care about

43:32

people, or even about the quality of the work they

43:34

do, give them permission to

43:37

do less well. Rethinking

43:41

is hosted by me, Adam Grant. This

43:43

show is part of the TED audio

43:45

collective. And this episode was produced and

43:47

mixed by Cosmic Standard. Our

43:49

producers are Hannah Kingsley Ma and

43:52

Asia Simpson. Our editor is Alejandro

43:54

Salazar. Our fact checker is Paul

43:56

Durbin. Original music by Hans-Élsou and

43:58

Alison Leighton Brown. This

44:00

includes Eliza Smith, Jacob Winnick,

44:02

Samaya Adams, Michelle Quintz, Ban

44:04

Ban Cheng, Julia Dickerson, and

44:06

Whitney Pennington-Rogers. It

44:11

seems to me that one of the solutions to this

44:13

problem is to recognize that you

44:15

are doing ... Let me try that again. Do

44:18

you ever podcast notes itself? Yes, apparently I

44:20

know how to talk. Do you

44:23

ever feel like your laptop just keeps

44:25

going, but you are completely drained? I

44:27

think a lot of us don't realize

44:29

how much pain we live in because

44:32

of our interactions with computing. NPR's

44:34

Body Electric, a special interactive

44:36

series investigating how to fix

44:38

the relationship between our tech

44:41

and our health. Listen in

44:43

the TED Radio Hour feed

44:45

wherever you get your podcasts.