DEEP QUESTIONS

Ep. 133: How Do I Defeat Distraction?

Below are the questions covered in today’s episode (with their timestamps). For instructions on submitting your own questions, go to calnewport.com/podcast.

DEEP DIVE:

Is the Desire to Produce Negative? [5:14]

DEEP WORK QUESTIONS

– What are the most popular workflows used to escape excessive email? [17:07]
– How do I read academic papers effectively? [27:40]
– How much studying is enough for a college student? [31:38]
– How do I defeat the allure of distraction? (Plus: Why Soto should get more MVP votes than Harper) [35:17]
– Is it too inefficient to copy a time block schedule into Outlook? [36:51]
– Are the processes from A World Without Email productivity pr0n? [38:59]

DEEP LIFE QUESTIONS

– Why do you (Cal) not pursue FIRE? [42:52]
– How do you avoid confirmation bias? [49:50]
– Should I use TikTok because that’s where people are? [54:07]
– Is deep work a philosophy? [55:26]

Thanks to Jay Kerstens for the intro music and Mark Miles for mastering.

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