transcript:

Deep Focus:
Interview with Cal Newport
Cal

Hi, Im Cal Newport. Im the author of So Good They Cant Ignore You and I run the
Study Hacks blog at CalNewport.com.
Ramit

Cal, thanks for being here.

C

Thanks Ramit.
R

Its a huge treat to be able to talk to you because I think youre one of the deepest thinkers
on getting things done in a very disciplined sort of way. So its a treat to be able to talk to
you and Im excited to kind of get some of your insights because one of the things that
you and I both laugh about is kind of these top 10 tips that are shared all over the place.
Your approach is very different. I wonder if you could talk about your general philosophy
on getting things done.
C

Well its worth noting that what makes my approach different than a lot of what youll see
on the Internet is that I dont write about these issues as my full time job and that really
changes the way I see things. So my day job is Im a Computer Science Professor. Im a
Professor at Georgetown University. Its a field where getting really hard things done is
not just interesting, its not just intellectual exercise, its a requirement to keep your job.
That is what tenure review is. It says, Heres your job. You can try it for 5 years and if you
havent done excellent things youre fired. You have to earn the right to keep the job.
So it has a way of focusing your attention on not just what tips sound good or what tips
feel like theyre going to be a little challenging and a little bit different than what other
people are doing, but you can definitely handle them. Instead, what advice actually works
because literally my job depends on it.
So my philosophy tends to be a little bit more disciplined, a little bit sort of more hard
nosed than you might see at a lot of websites out there. Thats because I am desperately
interested in figuring out what really does work.

Transcript: Deep Focus: Inter view with Cal Newport

Right, okay. So you and I have also a lot in common in terms of our views on passion, on
testing and I want to get into all those things. But first, I want to just start off with how
you got to this point. So you studied computer science, you were a PhD student, you got
your PhD at MIT, perhaps the most competitive computer science program in the country.
At the same time you were a PhD student you were writing a popular blog, you were
writing books and you even did a little bit of speaking.
Thats a very, very stressful, time consuming role to have and yet one of the things that
stands out to me is you did all of these things and you also managed to have a social life,
you have a family. I wonder if you could just walk us through how you did some of these
things and then we can dig into details.
C

Somewhat, perhaps ironically, the fact that I was doing those multiple things is actually
what enabled me to get it all done in a way that wasnt too stressful. What I mean from
that is that Ive always had two parallel things happening in my professional life. Since I
was an undergraduate Ive been writing books about how to do whatever Im currently
doing well at the same that Im doing it. So as an undergraduate I was writing books on
how to be a better student.
As I was a graduate student trying to apply for academic jobs I was writing about how to
be more successful in finding a job and doing well in your job, for example. So I always
had a sort of in parallel observation on what was going on in my life. Always asking, Okay,
whats working? Whats not? Whats important and whats not? because I needed to
write about that at the same time I was doing it. So that observed approach to my life
actually helped me be a lot more efficient in what I did, but also just a lot more ruthless on
focusing on what really matters and avoiding all the stuff that doesnt.
R

Okay, but that sounds very enlightened. I love it. However, most of us dont do that, right?
We try something new, it doesnt work and one of the things Ive learned is we get very
discouraged and we self label. We do this thing where well say stuff like, Well Im just
lazy, or Im really tired after work. or in my case I would say things like, when it came to
the gym, I can never get as big as those white guys. I would literally say that kind of thing
and I thought it was because I was Indian that I was just a naturally skinny guy.
Your approach was much more experimental, much more observationally based. Why do
you think sometimes we dont look at it like a science experiment and instead we just say,
I could never do something like that?
C

I think its an American phenomenon to be honest. I mean this is what Ive noticed talking
with and advising different people. We have this American phenomenon of intrinsic talent,
intrinsic traits. We love this notion that youre just naturally good at something and when
you find it things come easily, fame and fortune follows. And therefore, if things arent
coming easily, and fame and fortune isnt happening quickly, you just assume, well that
must not be my natural strength. That must not be my intrinsic talent.

Transcript: Deep Focus: Inter view with Cal Newport

That must not be, to use a word we hate, my passion. Its a mindset that I think is incredibly
defeating, starting at school age and then amplified once you get out there in the working
world.
R

When I look at your accomplishments, my initial reaction, if Im someone who is an

ordinary performer, or Im trying to be a top performer, I just say, I could never be like
that guy.
I cant get into MIT. I cant be a Computer Science professor. I cant write books. All
these things. You have now worked with, coached, and taught many, many thousands of
students.
What are some of the insights that you share with them, who may not have gotten into
MIT, or may not be a Computer Science professor? What are some of the insights you
teach them so that they can become top performers?
C

The core philosophy that Ive found studying top performers and trying to be one myself,
is this notion that real accomplishment, the accomplishments that really create value in
the world, those accomplishments require two things.
One, expertise, and two, time. Its almost unavoidable, those two things. Until you are
really good at something, it is very difficult to do anything that the world values.
Even once youre good at something, every project you can do within that field, that
people will care about, is going to take a large amount of your time and attention. Way
more than people think about.
Way out of scale with the way that most people blog or talk about, being more productive,
or getting things done. Once youve acknowledged those two facts, it completely changes
the way you think about, How am I going to do interesting things with my life?
It blows the scales out of proportion. It changes this notion of, Hey, theres some tips I
can put in place so that three months from now, my mom will be impressed with me.
Right? It blows that out of proportion and makes it more, Okay. Five years from now, I
could be in a position where Im starting to do interesting things.
Its a completely different scale. High achievers think about things at completely different
timescale than most people in the quick fix Internet world.
R

Love it. Okay. Were talking about sustainable change. Were talking about real impact. Not,
as you put, a quick fix change that can impress my mom.
All right. Lets share a couple examples from our own lives. Ill start with one that comes to
mind for me. I actually just got rejected from this thing that I was trying to do.
I was trying to speak for a certain organization, and it was a dream of mine. I was able to
get in front of the decision-maker through some personal relationships.

Transcript: Deep Focus: Inter view with Cal Newport

I got in front of her, and I made my pitch. I could see it on her face. I instantly knew I had
been rejected. I blame myself, because I didnt prepare enough going into that meeting.
I walked out of there, I was kind of bummed. I mean, this doesnt happen that often, but
it still happens a lot. One thing I said to myself was, Okay. A couple more years and Ill go
back and try to pitch again. A couple more years.
Whats interesting is, I talked to couple friends about this, and one of my friends is a bigtime top performer. He said, Oh, yeah. Well, just keep your head down. Keep working.
Couple more years youll go in there, youll nail it.
Another friend was kind of surprised that I would say two years. Two years, that sounds
crazy. Who even knows what well be doing in two years.
But, my answer is I know Im going to keep working at what Im doing. I know Im going to
try to become the worlds best. Whether or not I say two years, ten years, two years from
now Im going to be two years older. Im still going to be here.
That timescale to me is very immaterial. It just means two years from now, set a calendar
reminder, and make sure Im there. Im curious about your own examples of working on a
long timescale.
C

Sure. I should preface it by saying the classic example, here, I think is Steve Martin, who
famously said, when he decided to pick up the banjo, and start playing the banjo as a
young man.
He said, You know, one day, if I keep doing this, Ill look up and say hey, you know what?
Ive been playing the banjo for forty years. At which point, Ill probably be pretty good.
Well, it was about forty years, give or take five, from that point, that he won his first
Grammy for banjo playing. Hes the expert at this sort of this long timescale thinking.
In my own life, I think about my writing career. I wrote and submitted the manuscript for
my first book while I was a senior at Dartmouth College.
It was in the spring of 2004. The first book was a student advice guide. It was done in a
short format that was easy for me to write. Rules that were a couple pages long.
After that experience, I said, You know what? My goal is, I like this. I like writing. I have an
agent now. I have a relationship with Random House. I would like to write a general nonfiction book thats a hardcover and is on the front table at Barnes & Noble.
This was the spring of 2004. That finally happened in the fall of 2012.
R

Wow.
C

I worked on that goal, systematically, in between there. I wrote two more books in
between there. Each one pushing me closer to what I needed to actually have a big deal
idea book on the front table in hardcover Barnes & Noble.
Transcript: Deep Focus: Inter view with Cal Newport

In between those books, I gave myself particular writing assignments that would stretch
my abilities in ways that theyre weak. I spent a lot of time with articles and books by
people who wrote those types, and tried to understand and deconstruct what they did,
then tried to write those type of things myself.
It took me about eight years, but I finally got to that goal. To me, thats actually a
completely reasonable time frame. Its very hard to do most anything that the world
values. It takes a very long time to build up that skill.
R

One of the things that I love talking to you about is this long timescale, as well as our views
on passion. Theyre not very popular ideas.
Its more popular to say, Do this thing. You can hack your way to doing it in three days,
and you can go on national TV. Thats a very popular idea, because by definition, most
people want the quick win, the magic bullet.
Here, we are necessarily talking about deeper levels of mastery. The lucky thing for us is
that the people listening to this, theyre willing to put in the time. What they want to know
is a guideline, a roadmap for people who have done it.
To say, Yeah, its okay to put two, three years into this goal to become even on the cusp of
being in the company of the worlds best. Lets start here by talking about getting started.
A lot of people I know, they have five, ten things they want to do. I want to learn a new
language. I want to learn how to play a new instrument. Write a book, etc. What is your
approach to getting started?
C

Whats important, when youre thinking about that, is the two things I said earlier. That
almost anything that the world values requires first, expertise, and second, a lot of time
once you have that expertise.
The side effect of that is that you really do not have time to do much thats of value,
especially not simultaneously. When it comes to getting started, Im actually incredibly
hesitant to do that.
I completely push back on this notion that the art of the start is what matters. Just jump
in. Just do it. You dont know how things are going to shake out.
Because it can take years to build the necessary expertise, and if you have the expertise, it
can take many months, if not years to actually complete a reasonable project. I flip things.
I flip around the way that most people normally think of it.
I say the art of not starting is whats important. The art of waiting until you have
something that youre really willing to spend years focusing on, and then actually retaining
that focus.

Transcript: Deep Focus: Inter view with Cal Newport

Actually, turning your attention away from all the shiny things that come up during those
intervening years, and keeping them on that one thing you decided before. Thats the key
to actually ending up someplace really interesting.
I dont like getting started. I avoid getting started, because I know the commitment that
entails.
R

Right. You know that once you decide to do something, thats a multi-year process.
C

Yeah. Ive essentially said yes to two things in the last decade. Trying to become a
computer scientist, and trying to become a writer. Everything else thats come across my
plate Ive said no to.
R

Interesting.

Its essentially been about a decade of working on those two same things. Theyre just
now starting to get to pretty interesting places in my life.
R

Got it. Okay. Interesting. Now, lets talk about goals. Personally, I was horrible at setting
goals for a long time.
I resisted them, because if you have no baseline I just felt like I was making numbers up.
These are goals regarding marketing campaigns, or how many new email subscribers do I
want to have, or even how much do I want to weigh. I had no idea. I had no context.
Finally, only recently, like in the last couple of years, did I have enough data, enough
experience, enough intuition that I could start to set goals, and then know if I was doing
well or not. What is your philosophy on goals?
Personally, I dont believe that most people are very good at setting goals. I dont believe
that when people say, Figure out what you want to do first. I find that its a little tough,
because I think most people dont know at all. What is your take?
C

I think thats absolutely right. Again, Ill bring it back to those two keys. Expertise followed
by time is whats required to do anything worth doing.
Until you have expertise in a field, its almost impossible to set any sort of reasonable goal.
Youre essentially just throwing out random numbers, and theres a coin flip that youll sort
of accomplish it or not.

Transcript: Deep Focus: Inter view with Cal Newport

Thats not that useful. It doesnt have that much useful of a service. Thats why you have to
actually spend the time. Id say before I can have a reasonable goal for something, I need
to spend the time to become an expert in it.
Now, once youre expert in it, you can set, as you talked about, really nuanced, wellmotivated, evidence-based goals that are calibrated just enough to push you, to stretch
your skills, to make you better, but to still get output. The sort of perfectly designed,
outside of the gray zone goals, but they require this type of expertise first.
So, for someone to say, You know what, I want to write a book and my goal is to write
a book in the next six months, or something, thats a ridiculous statement. If you dont
know anything about how that type of book is written, how people normally do it, whats
involved in it, I mean thats essentially the same as saying, I want to see six red cars in a
row on the way home from work. Hey, it might happen but its a completely random goal.
So, expertise is going to have to come first if youre going to set a relevant goal. Once you
have expertise its probably going to change what you think you want to do.
R

Okay. All right, so I want to go into some of the more day to day interactions and then lets
come back out because you and I have a lot to talk about in terms of passion.
Lets say that youve decided, okay, this is something that I want to do. I want to learn
a new language or I want to start a new website or more commonly, I want to lose 10
pounds and fit into my high school jeans. Perfect, youve picked what you want to do, you
set a goal which, in this case, sometimes need to set a goal as you said you need expertise
to set a goal on a more nuance level.
So we all know what we want to do. The problem is when it comes down to doing it, its
very difficult. And this is where we retreat to these common lines that we have, Im just
lazy, Im tired after work, I know I should do it, Ill start next week. Im curious, on a more
prosaic level, something like, going to the gym, what has your experience been with some
of your students on getting them to follow through with some of these ideal goals that
they set.
C

Well, I am a believer in this philosophy that when it comes to tasks at that scale of
granularity, the sort of smaller scale granularity, going to the gym or following the national
novel writing month plan I set out for myself, that procrastination, the resisting, the not
doing what you set out to do, is actually a very useful feedback.
Procrastination in this setting is often not a character flaw, but instead a perfectly
reasonable evolutionarily inspired neurological reaction. A reaction that says, You dont
really know what youre doing here. You dont really have a plan I believe in. Theres not
really a goal here that we need to be wasting our time on.
I really believe that theres a part of your mind thats really good at evaluating your plans
and procrastination for tasks at this granularity is essentially your mind saying that you
havent put enough thought into this.

Transcript: Deep Focus: Inter view with Cal Newport

So, people that have a particular philosophy about working out. They know that they want
to be in shape, why they want to be in shape, they have a system that they know fits into
their lifestyle thats believable, thats sustainable, they often dont have a hard time going
to the gym.
But those that say instead, Man, I just got to go to the gym, Ive got to pound it out, Ive
got to do an hour a day every day after work, even though they know theyre very tired
then and often have to work late and that thats an unreasonable amount of workouts,
theyre the ones that are going to have trouble. And its not because theyre lazy or weak,
its because they havent thought through what theyre trying to do, why theyre doing it
and how theyre going to do it.
R

Okay, that could be very true for me and I think youre right. When you dont have a plan,
when its just this vague, ephemeral thing in the back of your head, and its not something
natural, of course youre going to resist it.
I hate going to the gym. I hate it. Im going to sweat, Ive got to change my clothes, Ive got
to walk 10 blocks, I hate it. But of course, once I get there and I do it, I feel great, especially
if I know exactly what to do.
I remember once I had a box of papers in my bedroom and it had been sitting there for
about a month and a half and I was supposed to clean it out. Just, empty it. And I finally
was like, Okay, this is ridiculous. This box, I see it every night before I go to sleep, its
three feet from my bed, and I set one hour on my calendar on a Saturday afternoon
because I knew Id be in bed and Id just get up and Id do it.
Im sitting there in bed, Im looking at this box of papers, its looking back at me, my
calendar reminder pops up, my text message goes off, its like the wholeand I have
nothing else to do. Ive nothing planned on this Saturday. Im sitting in bed looking
suspiciously at this box and I still couldnt get myself together.
To me, what occurred to me was this point about energy management. Its not just time.
I had all the time in the world to clean this box. I just didnt want to do it. Which brought
me to this larger idea of sometimes if you want something to get done, you may not have
to do it yourself, you may just have to cause it to get done. Whether that means hiring
somebody to, lets say, clean your apartment for you because youre not doing it on your
own, or mow your lawn or whatever it may be. Or getting an accountability partner. There
are a variety of other strategies.
You talk to a lot of students who struggle to finish the essay before its due. They have this
enchanting notion of pulling all- nighters and stuff like that. How do you get them into the
habit of consistent disciplined work?
C

Well, students Ive found, theyre a great case study in this bigger point, that if you
dont have a system that makes sense, that you believe in, that you think can work, and
is going toward a goal that you believe in, that youre going to struggle. Youre going to
procrastinate.

Transcript: Deep Focus: Inter view with Cal Newport

So, for students, that often means they have some vague goal like write a paper or
study for a test, but they dont have a particular plan for how to do that. They dont have
a particular system theyre using to actually learn the material that they feel good about.
They dont have a way to integrate that studying into their day in a way that maintains their
energy and is sustainable.
So without those plans, its this vague thing. Their mind says, I dont know what your plan
is here, so Im not going to give you energy for this, and they procrastinate.
So, the fix there for students is simple. I say, learn how to build a study plan, learn how to
have real study techniques. And I get specific. I mean, Ive sold a lot of copies of a book
called How to be a Straight-A Student, and it basically just gives you a specific plan for
studying.
And I dont think thats even the best plan, its just giving someone specifics suddenly
breaks that procrastination. They say, Oh, thats right. This is an essay for a non-technical
class. Im going to do quiz and recall notes followed by flashcard style studying at this type
of rhythm. Oh, now I have a specific plan for what Im going to do is going to work, you
find that the urge to procrastinate vanishes.
So it turns out, no, you werent lazy. It wasnt a moral flaw. You just had a bad plan. So if
you dont have a system that makes sense. That can fit into your life thats sustainable, that
is realistic about you and your energy, and if its not heading towards a goal that you really
believe that you need to do and that you should do, then you are going to procrastinate.
Thats why I think procrastination is useful. This is why, for example, lets take the gym.
Okay, how do I handle the gym? I used to live a half mile from campus before I moved,
what I said was, Oh, this is simple. The way I get to work is I run. I dont have a car. My
wife has the car. Its too long to walk, so I have to run to work. I bought a waterproof
backpack and I can put a change of clothes in there.
Okay, well if I run to work, Im going to be sweaty, so I have to get a locker at the gym
so I can shower when I get there. Well, now that Im at the gym and Ive just done a run,
well Im might as well do a ten minute pull up based bodyweight workout. Im there. Im
warmed up. Its the first thing in the morning. Thats not really the worst thing to do, since
Im there and Im going to have to take a shower anyway.
That turned out to be a wonderfully sustainable plan that gets me to the gym every day
and had me working out every day in a very efficient way, because it was a system that
made sense, and it was realistic with my energy levels. It was something that I had all the
pieces in place.
If I had just said, I need to go to the gym more. I have a gym membership. Its not far
from my office. Its on campus. I need to go more. Good luck, right? Thats not a specific
plan that realistically fits into my energy levels that I trust will work. So, procrastination
in that case would have told me not that Hey, youre lazy, it tells me that you have lazy
plans.
R

You talk a lot about a process and systems, something I have a shared love for as well, and
one of my philosophies, especially in the early days, is focus on the process over

Transcript: Deep Focus: Inter view with Cal Newport

the results, because if you get the process right, and you optimize that, the results will
naturally follow.
Now, over time, of course, theres some people that spend all day long just tinkering with
their process, and they never actually focus on results. Their business never generates
any revenue. They sit around and debate paleo versus Atkins and they never actually look
better or feel better, but for the most part, I believe, focus on the process, get that system
right, and the results will take care of itself.
This is quite different than what most people believe. They dont even have a process or
system at all, they just kind depend on willpower, let me try harder, and Ill get things done.
But what is your approach on systems and process versus results?
C

I absolutely agree with your philosophy. I first started preaching that when I was doing
my student advice. The phrase back then was Focus on your grade, not your GPA. The
idea being, if youre focusing on having the best possible process for the test ahead of
you, your GPA will work itself out. The process will work itself out. Youll start to get good
grades, so focus on that, not the GPA.
In my everyday life thats sort of become the center of how I approach things. Theres a
great book on this philosophy called Work the System, which basically lays out in a few
hundred pages exactly what you said there, that the outcomes in your life are basically the
results of processes, so if you dont like the outcomes, you have to fix the processes.
You dont try to react to the outcomes, you try to fix, youre not managing outcomes, your
fixing processes. I actually have a list, a Google.docs folder, called systems. And that list
of various systems in my professional and personal life, and the process there is simple. I
look over those once a week in my weekly planning to remind myself if theres new one on
one I forgot, I can look at it and remind myself. And roughly once a month, when I do my
bigger view check in, I might edit some of those or add some new systems there. All the
other times, thats how I execute. Those are what I do. Those define all of my behavior.
Its a little bit robotic, I might feel that way. But it absolutely works. Processes is
everything, right? Thats what matters. The outcomes is just what the result is of actually
running those processes. So, Im always tinkering with systems in my life. I have a whole
system for tinkering with my systems. And its been incredibly effective for me.
R

Love that. And I love what you said. Focus on the systems, the results are just the
outcome of that. We have something in our team, we do a lot of documentation. So, if
something works, we document it. If something doesnt work, we document it. And what I
tell my team is, we are all cognitive misers. We have limited cognition, limited willpower.
We dont want to use our limited creativity for things like Hey, did we make sure to
include this color on the sales page because we know it works best? Or Hey, did we
make sure that this link is tested? That stuff, we put it into a checklist and were done. But
we save our limited creativity for the stuff that really matters. Coming up with amazing
offers, great copy, great courses.

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10

Atul Gawande and his great book The Checklist Manifesto, he talks about using the
power of checklists. Theyre not fancy. Ours are on a Google doc. Theyre simply laid out.
Theres nothing fancy about them. But what it does is, that process lets me not have to
think about things. Just like a pilot whos flown a plane 100 times, he still uses a checklist
to take off and to land. Because he doesnt need to worry about these little things.
He goes through the checklist done and that way, he can focus on using his expertise for
the stuff that really matters.
C

It really works. I mean, if I didnt have systems for my classroom responsibilities, for
example, thered be no way thatd Id have the clear mind or time to do the deep thinking
on research and writing that I need to do. Systems seem robotic, but theyre the
foundation of very creative non-systematic breakthroughs.
R

Good, thats a great insight. I love that. Lets talk about something that I think affects us all.
We may pick something that we want to work on. We may start developing an early level
of expertise. We may be measuring it and tracking it and building a process. But probably
the biggest barrier that I hear about these days is distraction. And I know I am guilty of
this as much as anyone else.
If you watched me writing at a coffee shop, youd be like This guys is insane. Hes
opening his e-mail every five seconds. Hes looking at a YouTube video. Hes writing two
sentences and then spending 30 minutes chatting with someone on GChat. Its crazy
how many distractions we have. How do you handle distractions for you and what do you
recommend for your students?
C

Well, I coined this term deep work, which captures the notion of doing concentration
without distraction on cognitively demanding things. And to me, this skill is becoming
increasingly rare in our economy right now at exactly the same time that its becoming
increasing valuable in our economy. And those who systematically develop this skill are
going to thrive. Thats the way I see things.
Its a tier 1 skill. Like being able to program Ruby or to be a great writer or to be a gifted
marketer. I think its just as important skill as any of those things and its something that
has to be developed just as systematically. So, its something that I believe really strongly,
right? The ability to do deep work is really important.
So, in order to do deep work, you have to be very careful about managing distraction in
your life. Think of it, youre going to be able to do this deep work in a world where you
spend most of your time doing quick hits of semi-personalized social media interactions.
Like, thinking that youre going to be a professional athlete, but drink milkshakes most of
the time. Its just not going to happen.
So, I actually preach in my own life and to my students and to the people that I work with
through my writing, this notion that the ability to concentrate to do deep work is a tier 1
skill. Its something that you have to train and because of that, you minimize, for the most

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11

part, sources of distraction in your life. You only maintain network tools that are vital
to you that solve major problems that you had before that tool existed. And that you be
comfortable with boredom.
You be comfortable with uninterrupted concentration. And that its a deeper, less
distracted, very different lifestyle than what most people are running. So, I push it to an
extreme, but I think as an extreme thats really valuable right now in our economy.
R

I think the context thats important for everyone to understand is, youre very
unapologetic about your views and I love it, because I know, from going from being just an
average person to being, what I wanted to be, world class in certain areas of life, you do
have to be unapologetic about the ways you go about things.
I think, what Im hearing, if Im reading between the lines, youre saying, Look, you dont
have to do this. But, if you want to be world class, these are the characteristics that other
world class people go through in order to become the best at whatever it is theyre doing.
Am I reading that right?
C

Yeah, thats absolutely right. I dont particularly mind if you want to use 19 different social
media services, because the less people that can perform deep work, the more valuable
the ability becomes for those who can still do it.
Im not saying that everyone needs to quit Facebook. Im actually saying those who do are
way more likely to be very successful. To put this in context, keep in mind where I come
from.
I did my formative professional years in the Theory of Computation Group at MIT. This is a
place where the ability to concentrate was essentially the number one skill. Right?
This was the number one skill that people had. I worked around three different MacArthur
Genius Grant winners. One of these MacArthur Genius Grant winners was my age.
He had been a tenured professor at MIT since he was 21. He would often spend an entire
day staring at a whiteboard with a group of visiting scholars arrayed around him.
Occasionally, he would walk up, or someone would walk up, and write something on the
board. You cant email him. Hes not on Twitter. Hes not on Facebook.
Hes not very accessible. I counted, last year he published 16 papers.
R

Wow.
C

Those are the types of people I was surrounded with. Right? People that made a deep
work, the ability to concentrate a tier one skill.

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I do have an extreme stance on it. I guess its not for everyone, but I think its for more
people than we think.
I think way less people need to be using Facebook. I think way less people need to be using
Twitter. I think way less people need to be accessible by email to people they dont know.
These things sound extreme. I dont think they should. Not in an information economy
where mastering complex systems and creating new value out of information is the
number one skill.
In an economy like this, I think we should be talking way more seriously about what really
matters and what doesnt for creating value.
R

All right. Lets talk about creating value. In particular, how it relates to this idea of passion.
One of the things that we see on virtually every interview, every article, every blog post is
find your passion and magically the rest of it will fall into place.
Do what you love. You will be a millionaire, or at least, youll be financially comfortable.
Youll never work a day in your life. Youll just find what you love.
Before I dig into my views on this, you have written extensively about your views on being
great, and how that relates to finding your passion. I wonder if you could share that.
C

Right. I have written extensively. In fact, I just published a book last year, the entire point
of which was to argue that follow your passion is bad advice. This is clearly something that
Ive put a lot of thought into.
I do think its bad advice. If your goal is to end up passionate about what you do for a living,
follow your passion, as a strategy, will decrease the probability that you succeed in that
goal.
I think theres two simple reasons for it. Number one, most people dont have clearly
defined, pre-existing passions that they can use to make career choices. For most people,
this advice just fails them, out of the gate. Theres no passion to follow. Why would we
expect a 21-year-old, for example, to have a specific passion related to a knowledge-work
career? Its sort of an absurd notion, that were all hard-wired with these.
The second point, is that we have no evidence that simply matching a job to a topic that
you really like is what matters in you ending up liking that job. If anything, we have decades
of research out of motivational psychology and business satisfaction studies that tell us
that theres many factors that matter, if youre going to end up really liking what you do
for a job.
Matching it to a pre-existing interest isnt even on that list. Things like a sense of autonomy,
a sense of competence, a sense of connection to people, that youre having an impact on
the world, the ability to have creativity.
These are the factors we know, from study after study, that lead people to love what they
do for a living. They have very little to do with matching your job to some magic preexisting trait in your personality.

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I think follow your passion, as a piece of advice, is a red herring. It makes people think that
the match is what matters, and it distracts them from all of the more complicated, harder
steps that actually do seem to lead people to lives that they really love.
R

Why is it so prevalent then?

C

Its actually a pretty recent piece of advice, which is whats interesting. It doesnt really
show up in the context of career advice until the mid-1980s. This is not ancient piece
of Greek wisdom that everyone has always agreed on. It was sort of a bastardization of
Joseph Campbells follow your bliss notion and What Color is Your Parachute? which
came out around that same time.
Its popular because its compelling. It says if you make a major change and are bold today
you could be loving your job tomorrow.
Boldness is much easier than, for example, getting good at something, building an
expertise, or building real skills that give you leverage over your career and allow you to
do things. People dont want to hear that message. Thats a message that translates to
three to five years of hard work. Boldness, on the other hand, is about building up your
courage tomorrow, and then youre all set. So, its a quick fix.
R

Yeah.
C

Follow your passion is a quick fix, and our society likes it.
R

Whats fascinating is you actually gave this talk at a conference full of other talks about
passion run by one of our mutual friends, Chris Guillebeau. Your talk wasnt particularly
well received, although I thought it was 100 percent correct. There was a lot of groaning
and grumbling at the event. But, I know from many peoples blog posts afterwards, as well
as talking to a lot of people, they were like, wow I really needed to hear that.
I do think that the passion advice is handed out like candy. Its an easy quick fix. But, if you
really talk to any top performer in their field, Im talking about any field, yeah they might
say passion. Because its kind of a script that we all follow.
But, if you dig in, you say, really, what did you do last Wednesday evening when you
got home, or, what do you do on a Saturday morning. Theyll say, Im at the gym, or Im
reading marketing blogs, or Im writing in a coffee shop just to get better at creative
writing. Is that passion? Maybe, but most of it is pure hard work over and over again for
years.

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I think thats absolutely right. When I wrote this book on the topic I just did something
simple. I said, I will just find a bunch of people in a variety of fields who would admit to
loving what they do right now, who would admit to feeling passion for what they do right
now. Then, Im going to ask them, tell me your whole story. I dont want your advice. I want
your story.
And thats what I did. It turned out that the vast majority of these people did not follow
their passion. The vast majority of these people had no idea in advance what they wanted
to do or where they would end up. Their story instead followed a much more consistent
script. They got really good at something that the world valued, step one. Then, step two,
they used that value as leverage to take control of their career and steer it away from
things that annoyed them and towards things that resonated with them.
It was that two-step process that they all followed. But, if you just pinned them down
and said, whats your advice, they might say follow your passion, but what they really
mean is follow the goal of ending up passionate about what you doand thats a kind of
complicated, hard process.
R

Yeah. To me, its more empowering, your advice here, for two reasons. One, no one else
is doing it. I dont like competing against people head on because I always lose, so I like to
find out what people arent doing and then do that if its valuable. Because the rewards
you get are disproportionate.
Im not sure people truly understand the power of disproportionate rewards. Like, when
youre number one in a field, you dont just make 10 times what everyone else makes.
You make 100 or 1000 times. When youre the best, everybody comes to you. If youre
thinking of, whos the best talk show host, the first name that comes to mind is David
Letterman, or Jay Leno. The best comedian, anything, writer, any example, you get
disproportionate rewards.
The second reason your advice, to me, is more empowering - passion is something
typically that people wait for it to happen to them. What is my passion? I have to find my
passion. But they kind of look up at the sky with their arms outstretched. To me thats
disempowering. I dont know where to find it.
But, hard work? I know how to do that. Even if I dont know I can start to practice to
become better at doing hard work. So, for me, while I think I agree with what you said, its
like everyone likes the idea of passion, to me with a top performer mind I find your advice
much more empowering. Do the work and the passion will come afterwards.
C

Yeah, I think its exciting. Because if youre looking at a knowledge work field, for example,
in a knowledge work field there is basically no systematic system for training or improving
your skills. In most knowledge work fields its not at all like baseball or chess where
everyone knows the same high performer training techniques, and everyones doing the
same thing, and its really, really hard to be the best.

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In most knowledge work fields its like competing in an NBA basketball league where most
people are throwing the ball underhand granny style. No one is doing systematic training
like they do in the world of music, sports, and chess. So, if youre that person whos in a
job and saying, whats really the valuable skill here? Whats really the thing thats valued?
Then you train it systematically, like you would train a muscle, or train your ability to
master chess openings. No one else is doing that.
People get intimidated, sometimes, when they hear my advice, because they think about
Gladwell, and they think about the 10,000 hour rule, and they do the math, and theyre
thinking, Thats a huge number of hours, and ten years from now. Oh, man, I cant be
bored for ten years and then finally have skill.
Well, yeah, it takes 10,000 hours if you want to be first chair in the Philharmonic playing
violin, but it takes a lot less if you need to be better, at whatever you do, than Phil, down
the hall, because hes not practicing, at all.
You dont need 10,000 hours to get better than the people down the hall. Just like you
dont have to run faster than a bear, just faster than the guy next to you, when the bear is
chasing you.
R

Right.
C

To me, thats exciting. Heres something you can do thats going to give you returns in
maybe, like, a year or less, because essentially, no one in your field is probably doing it.
R

Right. Okay. Lets zoom out to the big picture for a minute. I want to talk about a couple
of things here, and a lot of these have to do with getting derailed. As Mike Tyson says,
Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.
Its great to make plans. Its great to set up a process. Its great to commit to spending
a long time on becoming the best, but no matter what, invariably, youre going to get
derailed at some point.
For me, it may be I go on vacation. Youre on vacation, your plans get derailed, whether its
your spending plans, your workout plans, whatever plans. Or, it could be that you just get
stuck.
Like when I was writing my book. I took time periods of two months where I did not write
one word. It took me eight months to get my table of contents right. But, once I had that,
I was good to go. My question is, for you, in your experience, how do you get back on the
horse after youve gotten derailed at one point or another?
C

The systems-based approach really helps. I have a habit of doing a very thorough monthly
review that has me actually go in, look at all my systems. Part of this review is Im very
honest.

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Ill say, This is a system that I just didnt follow. Why didnt I follow? Theres usually two
answers for it. One is that its just mis-calibrated.
This turned out not to be sustainable. This turned out not to be the right way to handle
this. I need to reflect on why it didnt work, and change it.
The other answer is this wasnt the right project. Actually, it turns out that when I get into
it that Im lost. I dont have the expertise I need. I dont really see my way to a successful,
worthwhile outcome here, so I need to actually kill the system, and the whole project that
its supporting.
This monthly check-in actually makes it very easy to deal with derailment, because whatll
typically happen is youll come back. Youll see the system is wrong. Youll tweak it. Its a
little bit better. The next month you tweak it some more.
After a few months of doing this, you finally fall into that groove where, Okay. Now I sort
of know where I am, and I have the right system for working on it. About 20 percent of
the time you end up throwing out the project.
This regular monthly review basically takes care of the issues for me, so that I dont have
to be worrying about it every day. Lambasting myself, Why didnt I work on this today?
Why didnt the system work? I can just say, Hey, if this isnt working, Ill get to it. Ill get to
it when I do my next review.
R

Thats your system on top of a system. You set up a monthly review to look over things
and make sure youre on track, and if not, reevaluate whether its the system, or is it just
the whole project in general.
C

Some systems, I can tell you, in my life, get changed and tweaked all the time. Like the
systems that are relevant to me, doing deep thinking for my academic research that gets
changed all the time.
Im constantly tinkering and tweaking that to try to get it better, to try to get more out of
it, for example. It leads to periods where Im less productive, and periods where Im more.
Its a work in progress. But, I know where to look. If theres an issue, I know where the
issue is. That really makes it easier to deal with these issues.
R

Got it. Okay. Sometimes its not a specific derailment. Its just naturally losing momentum.
I see this a lot after starting a new project.
Im very excited. Im in the early phases where Im Googling around, and Im making blue
sky plans. Then, things just stop, or stall. How do you deal with that?
C

Again, I think theres two outcomes there. One conclusion is you chose the wrong project.
This is what I was saying before, the evolutionary description, or understanding, of

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procrastination is your mind saying, Why are we doing this? I dont know why were doing
this.
Or, I know why were doing this, but you dont really know how to do this. Therefore, Im
going to withhold energy. Im not going to give you my glucose for National Novel Writing
Month because, honestly, I think this is not how people publish novels. That type of thing.
The other conclusion is, Im just not doing this right. My system is not sustainable. My
plan, for example, that I would work at this every night, for one hour when I first got home
from work, thats not working. I dont have the energy then.
Thats whats going wrong here, so I need to tweak the system. Its always going to be one
of those two choices. Either outcome, I think, is useful.
R

Interesting. Okay. All right. You write, in your blog, that people can either be busy or
remarkable, but not both. Can you talk about this?
C

Yeah. Its an interesting property of people that do remarkable things is a lot of them tend
not to be that busy. At least, in a sense of they always have things that are due, theyre
always doing things.
I talk about, on my blog, for example, Terrance Tao, this genius, Fields Medal-winning
mathematician who often will go through these periods where hes writing 3,000 to
5,000-word blog posts, once or twice a week. Hes not that busy.
It turns out that, heres what he does. Heres a guy who does hard core math, and when
hes doing that, his blog shuts down, and he does nothing else. When he comes up for air
from that, then he just has down time. Maybe he blogs, or does what he wants to do.
This is actually common among people who are really high performers, or high achieving.
They focus very intensely on a small number of things, and they want to do that really well.
They minimize from their life, shallow work, things, distractions, things that dont really
return much value. They work hard. Their mind is often brought to the brink of exhaustion,
but the raw number of things on their plate is small.
This is sort of a law of exceptional achievement. As the number of things you have on your
plate and do increases, the value of what youre producing will decrease. Really, value is
the domain of deep, consistent work on the same thing, over time.
Thats hard, but its not busy. Its not a lifestyle of doing a lot of things. Its not a lifestyle
where your smart phone plays a big role. People who do big things often have big, open
gaps in their schedule.
R

That makes a lot of sense. Its a bit counterintuitive, I think for a lot of people to think
about. The idea we have of a busy, important person, or remarkable person, is theyre
constantly running around.

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Theyve got two phones in their pocket. Actually, some of the people I know who are very
successful take a much more measured approach to the way they work. Ill give you an
example from my own life.
I had a guy who wrote me an email the other day. He goes, Hey, Ive been following your
stuff for a long time. Hes a long-time customer, too.
He said, Ive noticed that its really kicked up in the last six months, or so. A lot of new
courses. The copy is better than ever. Everything, its just at another level. He said,
Whats the secret? What have you been doing? Did you hire somebody?
I said, The truth is, my answer is really boring. Its just a lot of boring, hard work doing
the same things over and over, and becoming better at it every time. Now the public is
starting to see the results of that.
Its a kind of deeply unsatisfying answer for someone on the outside, because its just like,
Oh, theres no secret book you bought? Theres no secret person you hired that I can
replicate and do the same thing?
No, its just plodding along, boring work, doing the necessary hard work for years and
years at a time. All of a sudden, on the outside, people say, Wow. Thats an amazing song
that person wrote, or is singing.
Or, Thats an amazing course that person created. Or, What an amazing book, I cant
believe it. They dont see all the work that went into it, and was even discarded behind
the scenes.
C

Yeah. I think thats absolutely right. I think theres an easy, sort of economic way of
understanding this. The stuff that makes you feel busy is often a large collection of small,
relatively easy to accomplish individually tasks.
Its answering emails. Its doing social media maintenance. Its doing Google research. Its
introductions, and meetings, and having coffees with people. Things that are easy to
replicate. Right?
Theres no application of hard-won expertise in them. Economics tell us that if these tasks
are easily replicate-able, theres no way they could be producing that much value, because
theyre not rare. Right?
If they could produce a lot of value, and theyre easy to replicate, lots of people would do
it, and their value would fall. By definition, the things that make you busy cant produce
much value.
On the other hand, if you take every skill you have, every talent you have, and put your full
attention on something for 100 hours, thats hard to replicate. Right?
Someone actually has to put aside 100 hours and think very hard to try to replicate
that, so, by definition, its going to have more value. When you see things through this
economic terms, it seems clear to me that shallow work cannot create much new value,
and it take your time, attention and energy away from the stuff that does. So when I say

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remarkable people, you know, you can be remarkable or busy. I mean, I actually do think
that its a binary choice. I mean, a busy lifestyle makes it harder to do things that are
remarkable.
R

Okay, interesting. So that implies that probably most of us are working on some things
that are not lending themselves to us being remarkable?
Ive done this many times. Simple recurring example in my life is someone inviting me to
do something 3 months from now and I say sure, sure and that 3 months comes up and I
look at my calendar, its coming up in 3 days and Im like Oh, God, why did I say yes? And
learning how to say no and being very protective of my own time has been something that
Ive had to learn.
Ive also had to say no to things that I used to do and it was a big psychological barrier for
me because I was afraid of making people mad, you know. After you start doing things for
a long time, people start to expect it and when you say Im not going to be able to do this
anymore, you know, you can expect sometimes a bit of a negative reaction. Im curious if
you had this in your life and how youve gotten through that.
C

This is actually a sort of famous example or a famous thing that happens to people as
they aim to higher achievement. Theres an interview with Nobel prize winning physicist
Richard Feynman for example. You can find it on YouTube where at some point he says, I
had to pretend like I was terrible with students, it was very disorganized. Like if anyone
gave me something to do I would just do a terrible job of it. And eventually they stopped
asking me to do those. And he says, Why did I do that? Because I wanted to solve
physics, I wanted to do physics stuff and I couldnt do both. And I think thats actually a
pretty insightful answer because what youre saying is absolutely true and Ive had to do a
lot of this.
Let me give you some examples of it. So one thing I had to do for example, for people
that I dont know well like you, if they want to do some sort of interview with me, I only
do this on Fridays and I only do maybe one per week. So often someone will say, Hey,
Ive got this podcast and I just came up with this idea yesterday and Im going to make a
million dollars on it, Im sure. Can you do an interview? and often Ill say, Sure, 3 months
from now, you know. Friday on January 15th is the next Friday that is open, I have a slot or
something. But that system keeps my time protected.
Same thing if someone writes and says Can you do a podcast? or do something for my
blog, an interview? I just check the comments on their blog and if its not past a certain
threshold, I just dont reply because its not just going to be a big enough return and my
time is valuable.
Other things Ive done that have annoyed people I got rid of a public two-way email
address. There is no public email address out there that says heres Cal Newports email
address. If you want to reach me use this. My site now says essentially we like to spend a
limited time I have for writing, not emailing. So all I have is a one-way email address where
you can send interesting opportunities or offers but I only respond if it happens to be a
good match for me.

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That annoys people, let me say, when they ask me questions and send me things but I
have to protect my time. At work Ive been on a crusade recently to get rid of standing
meetings. That takes up too much of my time. I dont want a weekly meeting for a project.
In other words, I dont want my time to be used to help you manage your procrastination.
Like, oh, I have a meeting to get something done.
I say No, I dont want to have a standing meeting. Let me know when you make progress
and well go from there. That annoys people and so on. The fact that Ive never had a
Facebook, Google+ or LinkedIn or Twitter account annoys a lot of publicists I work with,
but it takes time and it takes distraction and Im trying to do deep things.
So I think this is absolutely true that if you want a deeper lifestyle, one that produces real
value and not busyness, you say no to most things, a lot of things that other people are
doing and in doing so people get temporarily annoyed and theres probably no way to
avoid that.
R

But over time, if you are doing the right things, youve chosen the right path, with a little
bit of luck if you become the best, basically all of those annoyances are forgiven. Because
people want to know the best and they want to work with the best. And you not having
a Facebook page in the grand scheme of things is the least of anyones concerns when
youre delivering massive value every day.
C

I think its absolutely true. Woody Allen, 23 Academy Award nominations, doesnt own
a computer. Doesnt want to be distracted. Higgs, just won the Nobel Prize in physics
for doing the foundational theoretical work for the Higgs boson camp, doesnt own a
computer, doesnt have an email address. Hes too busy doing work. The author Neal
Stephenson, you know, hes in a geeky topic so people want to do all sorts of connections
with him online and ask him all these questions.
His website says I have two options: I can write great books that a large number of people
will like, or I can spend time talking to a very small number of you and I think I can do
more good for the world with the former, I dont have an email address leave me alone.
And theres a lot of examples like that. Theyre completely forgiven because theyre doing
things the world values.
So, yeah, annoy people in the short-term because you wont do their podcast or you wont
have a two-hour meeting every other day so that they dont have to actually manage their
own time. That will annoy people. But as you say, when your book sells a lot of copies or
you publish papers in the right places or whatever, its forgiven.
R

Yeah, all right, as we wrap here, let me ask you two final questions. These are two of my
favorites. What do you read? What sites, what books, who do you listen to that keeps you
focused, keeps you challenged on building systems, on continuing to get things done?
Thats the first question.

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Well, I read a lot of books, both in the genre and outside. I read a lot of biography and I
read a lot of history, for example, because I pick up quite a lot of insight into how people
who accomplish things, what their lives are like and how they get that done.
I read a lot of books in themes. Like, right now, I just read three different books on
farming. I dont know, it seemed interesting to me. So, three different books on it, right?
The whole point was to try to understand, try to build expertise.
Online, this is a little bit heretical for me to say, I just dont read much online. And I know
thats weird because I run a website. I run a website that has a lot of readers but a long
time ago as part of my efforts to be more deep, I took myself out of the habit of web
surfing. And now Ive lost that habit, I actually dont really know how to do it well. If you
put a web browser in front of me and say, Entertain yourself I actually dont really know
what to do.
R

Interesting.
C

I dont really know what to do anymore. I dont have RSS feeds, I dont have any social
media accounts, I dont know what a Buzzfeed is. I spend a lot more time getting my
information from books. I read a paper newspaper which I know is a little old-fashioned. I
listen to a lot of radio. I essentially sound like a 1920s horse buggy driver, something like
that. But thats my life. So, I read a lot of books. A ton of books.
R

Whats the best biography youve read lately?

Okay, a couple biographies I liked was Lincolns Virtues was a fantastic look at Lincoln.
The recent Ron Chernow George Washington biography is sort of a fantastic study in
how people over time build up a reputation and then eventually fill that reputation for
doing great things. Taylor Branchs three-part series on Martin Luther King, a phenomenal
look at the sort of messiness and difficulty behind sort of grand, world-changing type
achievements. Those are things Ive read recently, for example, that have been pretty
influential for me.
R

Awesome. And then my final question for you is, Id like to ask you to suggest a seven-day
challenge for our students to help implement what they learned and practice getting
things done, becoming more focused. Your suggestions are very different than most
peoples. They involve deep work, they involve a huge time scale, they involve really being
remarkable and doing what it takes to be there. I know that a seven-day challenge is quite
short, but what can they do to take the first steps to following through in some of the
things you talked about.
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Take out a calendar, and for the next seven-day period, schedule like you would a meeting
or basically anything else thats untouchablelike I have to be there, its a doctors
appointment. Schedule two hours a day for seven days. And thats two hours thats put
aside for deep work.
So have one thing you want to work on and thats what you work on during those two
hours for seven days and the important twist is it cant involve an internet connection.
Right. You cant fill those two hours doing Internet research. If you need Internet research
to do this project do that outside of the two hours and have it printed and ready to go for
those two hours.
And the idea is to get used to what it feels like to spend time doing actual undistracted
deep work. Two hours that dont involve an Internet connection or text message or
anything else in any way. No inbound communication. Just you, thinking and trying to
apply your existing skills at their highest level.
If you do that for just seven days, you might get, first of all an appreciation for how hard
that is which might lead you to be a little bit more respectful about what distractions you
let into your life, but second, you might develop a taste for it. A taste for actual, real, hard,
value producing work and that could change the whole way you think about your job and
career.
R

Perfect. That is a huge challenge. Actually, its deceptively difficult so I appreciate you
making it. Cal, thank you so much for taking the time today.
C

Yeah, thank you, Ramit.

R

Have a good one.

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