#166 – Cal Newport: Deep Work, Focus, Productivity, Email, and Social Media

The following is a conversation with Cal Newport. He's a friend and someone whose writing, like his book Deep Work, for example, has guided how I strive to approach productivity and life in general. He doesn't use social media, and in his book Digital Minimalism, he encourages people to find the right amount of social media usage that provides value and joy. He has a new book out called a World without email where argues brilliantly. I would say that email is destroying productivity in companies and in our lives, and very importantly, he offers solutions. He is a computer scientist at Georgetown University who practices what he preaches to do, theoretical computer science. At the level that he does it, you really have to live a focused life that minimizes distractions and maximizes hours of deep work. Lastly, he's a host of an amazing podcast called Deep Questions that I highly recommend for anyone who wants to improve their productive life. Quick mention of our sponsors expressVPN, Linode Linux virtual machines, Sunbasket meal delivery service, and simplisafe home security. Click the sponsor links to get a discount and to support this podcast. As a side note, let me say that deep work or long periods of deep, focused thinking have been something I've been chasing more and more over the past few years. Deep work is hard, but is ultimately the thing that makes life so damn amazing, the ability to create things you're passionate about in a flow state where the distraction of the world just fade away. Social media yes, reading the comments, yes, I still read the comments, is a source of joy for me. In strict moderation, too much takes away the focused mind, and too little, at least I think, takes away all of the fun. We need both the focus and the fun. If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube, review it on Apple Podcast, follow on Spotify, support on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter at Lex Friedman. If you could only figure out how to spell that. As usual, I'll do a few ads now, none in the middle. I try to have fun with them more and more, aka I try not to give a damn what the sponsors are actually requesting. I try to only include sponsors I actually use and love. So if they want to drop me, that just means they don't love me back. And any successful relationship requires two way love, my friends. So please do support the sponsors while they're still here because they may not be here for long. This show is sponsored by ExpressVPN. Yes, it's a thing that protects your privacy. And yes, it's a thing with a big red button that I just can't get enough of. But it also lets you watch stuff on Netflix that are geo restricted in some way. There are thousands of shows that are only available on Netflix outside of the United States. I did not know there are places outside of the United States. I have heard about places like Australia, but other than that I thought it was just the 50 we got. ExpressVPN lets you fake your location, hence how you can get the whole Netflix thing to work. I do think that at the core of what a VPN does, there's a lot of interesting ideas about the future of how human beings that are operating in the physical space are going to function successfully in the digital space. It feels like there should be layers of protection where the person has the control about how much information is revealed. A VPN is a strong layer, but I wonder if we'll be adding more and more layers which will enforce greater privacy and put more control in the hands of people versus governments and nations. All that kind of stuff. Anyway, go to expressvpn.com slash Lexpod to get an extra three months free on a one year package. That's Expressvpn.com slash Lexpod. This episode is also sponsored by Linode, which are Linux virtual machines. It's an awesome compute infrastructure that lets you develop, deploy and scale whatever applications you build faster and easier. This is both for small personal projects and huge systems. Linode pretty effectively challenges AWS. So I'm really excited about that because competition is always good. I could list a bunch of ways they stand out, but the one that really jumps to me is the customer service with actual real human beings. 24 7365 I've actually been locked out of Instagram recently. I send my love to the engineers at Instagram or Facebook. I mean, these are just amazing people. A lot of them have written to me with just a lot of love, which I really appreciate, but sort of that's like personal stuff, that's not customer service. Customer service is creating a pipeline where if shit goes wrong, you can always communicate with somebody and fix it. And okay, you can argue that Instagram is probably not as important as a compute infrastructure and you would be 100% right. Which is why it's especially important that Linode provides that customer service. I could say a lot of other stuff, just the interface, just everything is really easy, everything is really nice. I'm a big fan. Hence why they're a sponsor. If it runs on Linux, it runs on Linode. I think that's their superhero catchphrase. Visit linode.com lex and click on create free account button to get started with $100 in free credit. That's lino.com lex. This show is sponsored by Sunbasket. These guys and gals deliver fresh, healthy, delicious meals straight to your door. As you may know, my diet is pretty minimalist, so it's nice to get some healthy variety into the mix. And by nice, I mean it's something that I'm told humans enjoy. I'm not a big fan of fun. It's a distraction. But if you are a fan of fun and variety, they have delicious. Now that I'm a fan of prepared meals, meal kits, and raw ingredients, like just a nice New York strip steak. And now I'm officially hungry. I think my favorite meal would be just a nice steak with a side of vegetables. Sunbasket has a bunch of different varieties of that, and I think on top of that, steak and veggies will be just like a good friend. Add some wine into the mix, maybe wine at first, and then some vodka. It's kind of interesting how central food is to social interactions. Anyway, what was I saying? Oh, yes. Sunbasket is offering $35 off your order when you go to sunbasket.com lex and enter a promo code lex at checkout. Again, that's sunbasket.com lex. Use code lex. How many times can I say Lex to get $35 off your order? This show is also sponsored by SimpliSafe, a home security company. Protect your home with a simple 30 minutes setup. You can customize the system for your needs on simplisafe.com flex. I have it set up in my apartment and I love it. The ad reads today are great. So simplisafe is the protection physical space. ExprsVPN is the initial protection in digital space. How cool would it be if there is now, like a hybrid physical digital space? And then we have tools that we can carry from the physical to the digital and back. The protection will come along with us. And of course, if the anarchists have their say, that will be provided by private companies and will compete over their customers and through that process of capitalism, would then create the best product and the most affordable product. That is, if the anarchists have their way. Michael Malice has entered the chat. Anyway, go to simplisafe.com slash Lex to customize your system and get a free security camera. Yes, friends, I said free. Again, that's simplisafe.com slash lex. And now here's my conversation with Cal Newport.