Do Less, do Better, Know Why: 4 Practical Lessons From A True Productivity Master
If anyone in the productivity field has “skin in the game,” it’s Cal Newport, author of “Deep Work”. Some of his life-changing insights are outlined below.
Cal Newport is a Computer Sciences Professor at The University of Georgetown and a New York Times Best-Selling Author. He writes mainly about productivity and Deep Work is his most famous book.
Since he is globally known for his words on paper, it is easy to picture his flesh-and-bone version as a hustler with dark circles under his eyes and caffeine breath.
He recently published a video where he talks with another productivity master, Scott H. Young (Ultralearning). For my surprise, their actual looks and vibe were the opposite of what I expected.
Instead of stressed tough men, I found two cool smiling dads who seem to be very satisfied with their new social roles while having their professional life clearly figured out.
I’ve heard the whole talk, did some research, and organized for you the most valuable and straight to the point insights of this precious conversation.
1. Be impressive: The Failed-Simulation-Effect
Have you ever seen a person do something that you just couldn’t think of a reasonable step-by-step process to get there? If so, it felt quite impressive right?
That’s exactly how a magic trick operates. And, the funny thing is, once you get to know the step-by-step process that allows the trick, it loses all the enchant. Gets boring, ordinary, “from this world”.
You might get the same effect in your professional or personal environment. Sometimes, building yourself this “magic person appearance” may be a great door opener.
If there is a new tool/software at your work that everyone is struggling to master, silently put the deep work into action and dominate it.
The next day, while everyone is still struggling, you will operate it like it’s child’s play. Your colleagues will unconsciously look at you with wonder and admiration as if you were a wizard, not from this world.
As a good illusionist, you will keep the secret, so the magical effect remains. After that, the second act takes place: doors open by themselves.
2. It's Not Just About Being Yourself: Watch Old Disney Movies
Older Disney movies like “Hercules” and “Mulan” follow the hero’s journey very clearly.
It means that the hero starts in a position where he is not enough: He/She lacks virtues like strength, courage, wisdom, leadership, etc.
As, let's say Hercules, takes action and risks in the adventure, he goes through experiences (normally painful) that change him deeply.
Those changes give him the virtues he lacked. Finally, he becomes virtuous enough to face his ultimate challenge and transcend.
More recent movies like “Cars” in take another approach.
Cal brings this example in which the plot of the movie is an “old female car” who always wanted to race but was discouraged to.
Finally, she decides to race, and on her first attempt, she beats all the stablished champions, without even training.
The promise here is a little over-optimistic: Just by making a hard decision and finally “being yourself” everything else will flourish automatically.
Unfortunately, that’s not real life. Be yourself is only the first step, and being honest, it's good but not mandatory to be successful.
The hero’s journey is closer to real life since it shows long periods of hard training and many smaller concrete challenges to face before the "ultimate defiance”.
3. Lose The Fear Of Being Extreme: Have Fun With Hard Stuff
Think about a time when you were a kid and had a blast playing something with your friends.
Probably it wasn’t clean, calm, and silent, but dirty, fast, and loud. Rain was falling, you had mud all over, there were crazy runs, jumps, wounded knees, and, most importantly, a huge smile on your face.
If your mother was watching it she would probably order you to slow down, say that you were being too extreme, maybe radical.
In some way, nowadays society plays the mom's role and tell you to cool down when you “heat up” too much, especially when you get involved with hard things like a marathon or a new business from scratch.
Deciding to do hard things and allow yourself to be “extreme” by smearing yourself with mud while playing is addictive. It is also often the fastest way to progress.
4. Tech May Help Or Disturb You: Focus Is Mandatory
Being "extreme" requires a lot of dedication and often devoting yourself to two different projects that require high performance is the maximum you can afford.
Just as important, focusing on few "big swings" and ignore the rest until those few happen is the best way to go.
Likewise, it's recommendable that those projects are related. In Cal's case, he dedicated himself for years to be a university teacher and also a productivity best seller writer, which had lots of synergies.
One of the synergies is the fact that a considerable part of the tech industry is moved by the attention economy. Therefore, if you don't protect it, they will "steal" your attention from you with their fancy algorithms. Cal wrote lots of productivity strategies to prevent that to happen.
One of those is to build artificial constraints.
Since life nowadays is way easier than it once was for our ancestors, we don't need to do much like hunting and lighting fires, so we are more likely to refresh social networks all the time.
Creating artificial constraints like: just drinking alcohol if you don't pay for it; only eating sugar if it's someone's birthday; and only having 30 minutes of social network usage per day, are life-changing.
Conclusion: Do Less, do Better, Know Why
Finally, Cal Newport unfolds his “moto”: “Do less, do better, know why”.
This is great because it flips the common sense idea of being a highly productive person. It’s not about mindlessly doing 100 hours of work per week, but the opposite.
Every time you get the same or better results with less effort you are being productive. As simple as that.
That’s why Cal and Scott seemed so cool and calm: they are skin in the game productive people, they get the real meaning of it.
In the other hand, unproductive people look's should be dark circles under the eyes and caffeine breath. Those got it wrong.
References
The Path to Success — Scott Young and Cal Newport
Deep Work, Cal Newport
Ultralearning, Scott H. Young
