“How is it possible to do work that you’re proud of and not feel like your job is encroaching on all parts of your life?” Cal Newport, author of ‘Slow Productivity,’ explains.

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When the Knowledge Sector emerged in the mid 20th century, our best understanding of the word ‘productivity’ came from manufacturing, which led to us measuring productivity based on quantity produced per hour.

But in knowledge work, we’re not producing just one thing: We’re working on 7-8 different things at one time, that differ per worker. Our solution to this was to introduce a rough heuristic that author and professor Cal Newport has dubbed “pseudo productivity,” which uses visible activity as a crude proxy for useful effort.

More and more of our time is focused on performing this busyness rather than focusing on high-quality outputs, leading to burnout. Newport has a solution: An idea called ‘slow productivity,’ which is focused on the quality of items produced over time and based on three main principles.

Timestamps for easier navigation:-

0:00 - Burnout

0:50 - Slow productivity

1:35 - Pseudo-productivity

2:25 - Principle 1

3:32 - Principle 2

4:23 - Principle 3

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About Cal Newport:

Cal Newport is an MIT-trained computer science professor at Georgetown University who also writes about the intersections of technology, work, and the quest to find depth in an increasingly distracted world.

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