Deep Questions with Cal Newport

Ep. 297: The Deep Life Hardware


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Why do you struggle with your grand attempts to escape distraction and aimlessness to make your life deeper? In this episode, Cal draws on an unexpected metaphor – Charles Babbage, Ada Lovelace, and the Analytical Engine – to help identify the subtle obstacle on your path to increase depth. With this new understanding in hand, he then details a specific gameplan to get around it. Later, he takes questions from the audience and reacts to the new AI Pin, a tool intended to render smartphones obsolete.

Below are the questions covered in today's episode (with their timestamps). Get your questions answered by Cal! Here’s the link: bit.ly/3U3sTvo

Video from today’s episode:  youtube.com/calnewportmedia

Deep Dive: The Deep Life Hardware [4:09]

- Does personal productivity make us anxious? [34:04]
- How can I build skills without getting in the way of my existing work? [42:11]
- How can I build a deeper life after years of neglect? [46:00]
- How is Sam Sulek’s stripped down YouTube channel doing so well? [52:12]
- How can I convince my husband that I’m not a time management snob? [1:02:38]
- CALL: Obsessing over quality [1:06:04]

CASE STUDY: Shifting a mindset to do more deep work [1:11:04] 

CAL REACTS: Is the Al Pin the End of Smartphones? [1:17:46]

Links:

  • Buy Cal’s latest book, “Slow Productivity” at www.calnewport.com/slow 
  • computerhistory.org/babbage/engines/
  • theverge.com/24126502/humane-ai-pin-review
  • podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/conversation-with-cal-newport-the-key-to/id1498802610?i=1000652834277 
  • samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/363-knowledge-work 
  • Use this link to preorder a signed copy of “Slow Productivity”: https://peoplesbooktakoma.com/preorder-slow-productivity/


Thanks to our Sponsors: 

  • rhone.com/cal
  • shopify.com/deep
  • policygenius.com/deepquestions
  • grammarly.com/podcast
  • tim.blog


Thanks to Jesse Miller for production, Jay Kerstens for the intro music, Kieron Rees for slow productivity music, and Mark Miles for mastering.

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Deep Questions with Cal NewportBy Cal Newport