Modern Wisdom

Key Takeaways 

• The key question to consider about work and productivity: “How do we produce stuff, and be proud and ambitious about what we are doing, but also not burn out?” 
• Pseudo-productivity places too great an emphasis on looking busy but not creating anything of value; it is busyness for the sake of busyness because measuring productivity any other way in the knowledge work sector is too difficult  
• Do not shatter your day into fragments so small that you get nothing meaningful done 
• History’s greatest knowledge workers worked very slowly 
• Doing fewer things at once will enable you to accomplish more things 
• Your results are determined by intensity in the short term and consistency in the long term 
• Never give a yes or a no in the room; not saying yes or no in the room creates psychological distance from the decision 
• “Busyness” is attractive to people because it is a goal that they can succeed at; if a person wants to be busy, they will be busy   
• Signal to others that you are very careful about your time
• “People who obsess over quality grow antibodies to busyness.” – Cal Newport 

Read the full notes @ podcastnotes.org

Cal Newport is a computer science professor at Georgetown University, a productivity expert and an author.

If you’ve ever felt that you’re not as productive as you could be, you’re not alone. But what if the goal isn't to be more productive, but to let go of the goals that aren't serving you? What if the power of saying no to more things is the most important skill you can develop?

Expect to learn what our current problem with being productive is, why pseudo-productivity is a catastrophe, the advantages to what Cal calls Slow Productivity, how to better organise your communication, the best strategies for implementing a productivity schedule, how to stop saying yes all the time and much more...

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