Rules For Deep Work — Updated for 2026 | Cal Newport

10 years ago, I published a book titled Deep Work. It argued that the ability to

Deep Work. It argued that the ability to focus without distraction, the activity that I call deep work, was becoming increasingly valuable at exactly the same time that it was becoming

increasingly rare due to distracting digital technologies like email and social media. Now the conclusion of my

social media. Now the conclusion of my book is that this presents a huge opportunity. If you are one of the few

opportunity. If you are one of the few individuals or organizations to prioritize depth, you will enjoy a big competitive advantage. Now, here's the

competitive advantage. Now, here's the thing. This book hit a nerve, became a

thing. This book hit a nerve, became a bit of a a word of mouth sensation. It

sold now more than 2 million copies in over 45 languages, and that number is still going up. Uh Jesse, earlier this month, we sold the new language rights for the Sinhala translation.

Nice.

That's of course the language spoken by the Sinhalles people of Sri Lanka.

There's more language out there than you might guess. Anyways, this is all great,

might guess. Anyways, this is all great, but this book is now a decade old, which motivates a natural follow-up question.

Do its ideas still hold in 2026.

This is what we're going to explore today. So, I brought my first edition

today. So, I brought my first edition copy of the book with me. I'm going to crack it open. We're going to reread its core ideas. I'm going to point out what

core ideas. I'm going to point out what remains true and what requires updates. Spoiler alert, I have a lot of

updates. Spoiler alert, I have a lot of new ideas to add. So, if you felt like you've been drowning in distractions and are unsure if there's any hope for

escaping, then this episode is for you.

As always, I'm Cal Newport and this is Deep Questions, the show for people seeking depth in a distracted world. and

we'll get started right after the music.

All right, so here's the game plan. Uh

the book Deep Work is divided into two parts. The first part makes my case for

parts. The first part makes my case for why depth is valuable and the second part offers four rules for getting better at depth in your professional life. So it's the second part that we

life. So it's the second part that we are going to revisit. Uh I want to go through each of those four rules from the original book one by one. I'll

summarize the 2016 advice and then answer the question, what would I change if I was rewriting that chapter today in 2026? All right, so let's get started

2026? All right, so let's get started with the first of the four rules from deep work, which is work deeply. Now I

open that chapter by discussing my friend David Dwayne's concept for the udeimmonium machine which was a theoretical plan for an office that was

centered on deep work as a primary activity. Now he described it as a a

activity. Now he described it as a a one-story rectangular building where each of the rooms is connected to the other. There's no exterior hallway. You

other. There's no exterior hallway. You

have to go from one room to the next.

And he said the first room when you enter the building is the gallery where you're exposed to interesting examples of work that other people have done. You

get your creative juices flowing. You

feel a little bit competitive. The next

room you would proceed into would be the salon. He said there'd be couches and

salon. He said there'd be couches and coffees and Wi-Fi. It was a place to like talk with people and brood and think and brainstorm. Uh if you continued into the unimon machine plan, you get to the office space. Now we have

cubicles and conference rooms and white spa whiteboards. You're sort of just

spa whiteboards. You're sort of just like doing the shallow work of work. And

then finally, if you kept moving into the building, you would get to what he called the deep work chambers, which he described as being 6x10 rooms protected by soundproof walls, and that's where the real uninterrupted focus would

happen. So, I I tell the story of this

happen. So, I I tell the story of this sort of theoretical plan for this building to open the chapter.

Interesting point, Jesse. I noticed on this reread a mistake that no one has flagged before.

What do we got? At the beginning of explaining the udeimmonia machine, I say Dwayne's plan calls for five rooms in sequence. And then I go on to to

sequence. And then I go on to to describe four rooms. I cut one of the rooms out. And I don't remember which

rooms out. And I don't remember which one it was, but I I I think there was David's going to correct me. He listens

to the show. Um, I think there was like an antichamber to the deep work chambers where like you took a shower like you a faced yourself like prepare your mind for deep work andor there might have been a room

outside of the deep work chambers where you would like reintegrate out of like deep work mode. I think there was an extra room like that that I cut out. No

one's no one's noticed that. Uh, there

you go. I noticed it. Anyways, um,

here's what I then wrote. Let me quote from the book. In an ideal world, one in which the true value of deep work is accepted and celebrated, we'd all have access to something like the udemonia

machine. Perhaps not David Dwayne's

machine. Perhaps not David Dwayne's exact design, but more generally speaking, a work environment and culture designed to help us extract as much value as possible from our brains.

Unfortunately, this vision is far from our current reality. We instead find ourselves in a distracting open offices where inboxes cannot be neglected and meetings are incessant. a settings where colleagues would rather you respond

quickly to their latest email than produce the best possible results. All

right. And then I I said this is the goal for this chapter is to simulate the effects of David Dwayne's theoretical udeimot machine in your actual concrete real life. And I go on to give a bunch

real life. And I go on to give a bunch of advice for how to put in place rituals and routines to make deep work a protected regular part of your professional life. All right. So that is

professional life. All right. So that is what I did in the work deeply chapter of deep work. What would I change or add in

deep work. What would I change or add in 2026?

Well, there's two major ideas that uh are relevant to exactly this question that have emerged in recent years of my work. And I if I was rewriting this

work. And I if I was rewriting this chapter today, I would add both of these two ideas. The first of these ideas is

two ideas. The first of these ideas is the notion of hybrid attention, a hybrid attention model of working. Uh I first introduced this in an article I wrote

for the Atlantic two years ago. And here

was the idea.

You have a hybrid schedule at your office, meaning some days are in the office and some days are remote. Okay?

You synchronize it so that the remote days, most people are doing the remote days on the same day. So that way um we have synchronization of when that's happening. And then, and this is the key

happening. And then, and this is the key part of the hybrid attention model, and I'm going to read this from my Atlantic article verbatim here, declare that the day spent working remotely will be

dedicated completely to actual uninterrupted work. No meetings, no

uninterrupted work. No meetings, no email, and no chat. Each team should follow the same schedule, saving conversations about work for when everyone is in the office together.

Right? So the idea is deep work days at home, shallow work days, meetings, conversations, office collaboration at the office. All right, let me go on and

the office. All right, let me go on and give my rationale. Again, I'm reading here from my Atlantic article. Given

multiple days each week to do nothing but make progress on tasks, you'll more easily contain your backlog of commitments. This model should also

commitments. This model should also reduce the total number of incoming tasks you're asked to handle, as the days without email or meetings are days in which your colleagues can't ask you to do more things. With less new work coming in and completed work going out

faster, you'll be more efficient and less overwhelmed. The ability to take

less overwhelmed. The ability to take breaks from the digital whirlwind will also make life more bearable regardless of its effect on your productivity. So,

I think this is a fantastic idea that can now be implemented at the team or office level that really would help you take advantage of the advantages of deep work in a simple to describe, implement,

and maintain plan. It's just when you're at home, I don't want to hear from you.

when you're in the office, you can tell me all that stuff you got done when you're at home. And that's when we could have meetings and emails. People would

adjust quickly. You're never more than one day away from being able to talk to someone. I think the rate at which high

someone. I think the rate at which high quality work would be completed in this model would be significantly uh larger.

And it's much easier than having to negotiate each individual norm or habit or system or rule that's distracting people throughout the day. It's one rule that would immediately give you some

pretty big deep work related benefits.

The second big idea, and this is something I've been talking about really just in the last year, that I would add to a 2026 version of this chapter, is the idea of having clear rules for how you use and don't use AI to help make

sure that these tools are not accidentally completely destabilizing your your ability to go deep. Here is

one example of an AI rule that I've been promoting uh really two different things I did in March. So, a a New York Times article I had last week, which we'll talk about in the final segment and in a

Chronicle of Higher Education interview I did, I propose a rule in the work environment. Don't let AI write for you.

environment. Don't let AI write for you.

Write your own emails, write your own memos, write your own reports, create your own slides, make them concise and informative.

Grappling with the blank screen to produce something that's clear uh and informative taxes your brain in a way that gives you

a better grasp over the material that you're dealing with and produces much better results.

Yes, you can take a lot of strain off your brain by letting Chat GPT create drafts and kind of edit the drafts or go back and forth with it or have it write it all together, but now you're missing

out on that key cognitive strain that keeps your brain really locked in on what your business is doing, which allows you to actually be better at your job. Um, it also avoids what's known in

job. Um, it also avoids what's known in the literature now as work slop, which is that written products produced with heavy use of AI might feel more efficient for the writer, but are often way less useful for the recipients. And

the total amount of work required to actually get to an actual highv value outcome is reduced. Now, that's just one rule among many that probably has many exceptions that you could add on to it.

But the bigger point here is AI is emerging as the biggest threat to deep work that we've seen probably since Slack.

And that is a big deal because unless AI can take over your job entirely, in which case we're all screwed. To have it kind of come in here and make deep work harder and take lop off more of the peak

strain of the deep work stuff you do, is just going to make you dumber and make the total output coming out of your team, company, or individual much worse.

So you need some sort of AI rules that push these tools, at least right now, much more towards automating the shallow than trying to make the deep easier. Be

very worried about any use of AI that's primarily just trying to make deep work feel like it's less of a cognitive strain. There be dragons in the

strain. There be dragons in the knowledge sector. Uh it's like using

knowledge sector. Uh it's like using polies to help you do pull-ups in military boot camp. You're missing the the forest to try to save a few trees.

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Rule number two from the book Deep Work was titled Embrace Boredom.

This chapter was about the need to train your brain to get better at focusing.

Don't just assume you're very good at concentrating without distraction. And

it's actually a skill you have to practice. Now, I open this chapter on

practice. Now, I open this chapter on the story of Adam Marlin, who's an Orthodox Jew with three Ivy League degrees, who in his 20s started practicing uh shara, sorry, I said the

Hebrew wrong, which is where you you study either Torah or Talamid with a partner. So, you you sit like at the

partner. So, you you sit like at the same desk and you're going back and forth trying to uh do interpretations, debate, and argue. It's intellectually

very intense. There's actually right about that later in deep work. I call it the whiteboard effect. It's true for like many intellectual fields. When

you're doing something synchronously with someone else, you get a lot more depth of focus out of it because you have to maintain your conver your focus in order to keep up with the other person and they push you on the edges.

So, actually working with a partner can be really mentally straining in a good way. Now, Marlin reports how he had

way. Now, Marlin reports how he had thought of himself, he had all these Ivy League degrees when he began the practice of Heruta. He thought of himself as a smart person. But when he began working with these people who had

been doing this uh other you know members of the shul who had been doing this since uh you know for years he said and I quote they could run intellectual circles around him and that's when he

realized they're smart in the sense of like I know a lot of stuff and then they're smart in the sense of I can apply my mental horsepower with incredible focus and that he was missing on that part. So he got really into the

study. He would do it every day 6:30 in

study. He would do it every day 6:30 in the morning because you would do it before work. And he re recognized that

before work. And he re recognized that over time he started to see a difference in his ability to do cognitive efforts in his job beyond this particular

practice. Let me uh read you a passage

practice. Let me uh read you a passage from this chapter here. After a while, Marlin began to notice positive changes in his own ability to think deeply. I've

recently been making more highly creative insights in my business life, he told me. I'm convinced it's related to that daily mental practice. This

consistent strain has built my mental muscles over years and years. This was

not the goal when I started, but it is the effect. And then I go on in that

the effect. And then I go on in that chapter to give a lot of other advice for how you might train your brain, such as the idea of you should think of yourself as taking breaks from focus to schedule some brief moments of

distraction as opposed to the opposite way around. And you should do things

way around. And you should do things like memorize a deck of cards, which is a shorthand for focus requiring activities to get you used to focusing.

All right. What would I change if I was rewriting rule two from deep work in 2026?

So over, you know, years of talking about focus training and training your brain, um, I have a whole extended toolkit of suggestions that, you know, were not in that original chapter, but I

would add today. I've picked out four.

These are four brain training things I've talked about pretty regularly in the last half decade that I would almost certainly add in an updated version of this chapter. All right. Number one,

this chapter. All right. Number one,

you've heard me say this a lot in the last year or so. When at home, you keep your phone plugged in in the kitchen. If

you need to use it, you go there to use it. If you have to check it on text

it. If you have to check it on text conversation, you go there to use it. If

you want to listen to a podcast while you do the dishes, you use wireless earphones.

This is really important because two things happen.

one, there's a lot of circumstances where you would be fighting the urge to pick up your phone and it would make it hard for you to lock in on something, but those circumstances are in uh

significantly made easier if the phone is not nearby, right? Because if the phone is nearby, there's pattern recognizing neuronal bundles in your short-term motivational systems like, "Oh, there's the phone." And then they fire and then they vote for let's pick

up the phone. If the phone is in the other room, then they're not firing as loud. So you

don't have as much of a clawing sort of distracting pull at your attention. So

you'll focus uh you're going to focus better. This over time is then going to

better. This over time is then going to give you like experience with like what it's like to be without your phone. You

sort of normalize and habituate to that.

And now think about all the things you do at home that if your phone was in the kitchen, you would now do with full focus.

Simple things like I'm having dinner with my family. You're just going to be there having dinner talking to them. Or

I'm watching a movie with my kids. like

you'll just be full out watching that movie. It's completely different

movie. It's completely different experience. Um over time, the positive

experience. Um over time, the positive long-term returns will help reprogram your long-term motivation system to be like, "Oh, I really like what it's like to watch a movie without distraction. I

don't even want the phone." Right? So,

there's all sorts of positive benefits.

All right. Number two, read real books either in paper or on Kindle, but not on a phone or tablet. So, not in a digital environment that you also associate with other types of distractions. If you're

reading non-fiction books, take notes in a notebook after every chapter to try to consolidate the big ideas so the information comes in in the reading. The

writing of the notes helps cement it in your brain. Reading real books triggers

your brain. Reading real books triggers all sorts of complicated processes in your brain. It helps you build up what

your brain. It helps you build up what the researcher Maryann Wolf calls deep reading processes where you build connections between parts of your brain that aren't normally connected. They

wouldn't have been in a preiterate age.

When these different parts of your brains are all connected together, it unlocks more sophisticated understanding and thoughts. It literally makes you

and thoughts. It literally makes you smarter. So reading, I mean this is like

smarter. So reading, I mean this is like basic cardiovascular exercise to your physical health. Reading is to your

physical health. Reading is to your mental health. Reading pages of books

mental health. Reading pages of books gives you a smarter brain than if you're not reading pages of books. And that

smarter brain is going to understand your world better, understand yourself better, understand complicated ideas better, produce more complicated ideas.

So that's absolutely important. Three, I

would say find a hobby that rewards focus and punishes distraction. So, you

just get used to being able to lock on something and get a reward feedback from it. There's a lot of sports to do this.

it. There's a lot of sports to do this.

Tennis does this. My wife is taking tennis lessons and was saying if her focus flags a little bit in tennis, you're done because you have to constantly be tracking what's going on and predicting what you're going to do uh next. Basketball is this field. Golf,

uh next. Basketball is this field. Golf,

I assume, Jesse, right? Like if you're not locked in, you know, like before your swing, it's Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. If Jesse doesn't lock in, his

for sure. If Jesse doesn't lock in, his typical like 69 might flare up to like a 72, 73. Is that Is that what happens?

72, 73. Is that Is that what happens?

I wish.

Am I using the right golf lingo?

Yeah, that was perfect.

Your birdies are going to become bogeies.

Double bogeies.

Double bogeies. There we go. Um, so,

okay, that makes them mad. You you will get used to locking in on focus. Final

thing I would say is self-reflection walks. I talk a lot about this. Walking

walks. I talk a lot about this. Walking

without distraction, thinking about yourself, your life, what's going on. Just get

used to the life of the mind. Get used

to the inner dialogue voices in your mind. Get used to having noisy,

mind. Get used to having noisy, clamoring, competing thoughts, picking out the important ones, sticking with it, making progress on it, finding insight on the other end. I call that

type of mental activity contemplation.

It's critical to a life well-lived. Best

way to practice it is to do it. And the

way you do it is you go for walks, be moving without a phone. Or if you have to have a phone for emergencies, put it on ring and in the back of a backpack so you can't grab it without digging through some things so that you can

think about what's going on.

All right, that was chapter two. Chapter

three, the third rule in deep work was titled quit social media. Now, back in 2016, that was a really sort of provocative way to name a chapter. Now,

a lot of people thought when they just skimmed through the book that what I was arguing back then is that people should stop using social media. It's kind of my stance now. Actually, what wasn't what I

stance now. Actually, what wasn't what I was arguing in that chapter, the quit social media title for that rule refers

to one of the specific strategies that I discuss, which is this idea of quit social media dot dot dot for 30 days to

get a better sense of what value it is or is not creating. So I had this suggestion of temporary breaks from multiple different social media platforms so that you better understood

what value they were bringing. Um and if you found it had no value then maybe you would quit permanently. Or if you found it did you might adjust your usage patterns to maintain that value but

maybe avoid some of the value that would be worse. That's an idea that I then

be worse. That's an idea that I then developed in my next book digital minimalism. But the general point of

minimalism. But the general point of that of the chapter was this idea of you need to adapt a more rational tool

mindset for digital tools. I was I was arguing for other types of tools we encounter in our life. We're not going to spend money to buy it or use it unless we have a clear use case. I talk

about a a farmer named Forest Pritchard who I I met here in the farmers market in Tacoma Park. He he wrote a book, cool memoir called Gaining Ground. And he

talked about he told me and I to I quote this in deep work about the complicated mental calculations farmers go through when deciding do I need to buy this piece of equipment like well here's how much it costs here's the benefit they

all have some benefit right here's the benefit it brings here's how much it cost is that benefit worth the cost they're always thinking that through and how to make that ratio more to their advantage you would never just like buy an expensive piece of farm equipment

like I'm sure we'll figure it out it's got some uses I don't want to miss out on so we're used to in other parts of our lives being really careful, critical about if and when we're going to spend money on a tool. And I said, when it comes to the world of the digital,

especially what I call network tools, things connected to the internet, we throw that out the window. We say it's it's not the the creator of the tools job to convince me that this is useful.

In fact, if there's any possible benefit, I'll invest huge amounts of my time and energy into using this tool.

And that was definitely still the mindset around that time. This was like the sort of uh Apple Watch period where you could launch a product like the Apple Watch and Apple literally was

like, "We don't know what this is for.

That's not our job. That's your job. All

right, Apple monkeys, go buy this." And

people were just like, "I guess we got to buy Apple watches." And literally people were trying to figure out the idea that people now use them for like fitness and stuff like that. That came

later. Like Apple was just like, "We built the watch and people are like, "Give it to me and then we'll figure out later what to do with it." So we were in this mindset where it came to digital tools. We were being like the suckers at

tools. We were being like the suckers at the county fair. Like I will use any tool if there's any benefit. So the main thing I was arguing in that chapter is no no

make a tool earn your attention.

Make it uh make the case that this is generating way more benefits than cost.

All right. Here's what I specifically wrote. The use of network tools can be

wrote. The use of network tools can be harmful if you don't attempt to weigh pros against cons, but instead use any glimpse of some potential benefit as justification for use of a tool. then

you're unwittingly crippling your ability to succeed in the world of knowledge work. I then su uh propose an

knowledge work. I then su uh propose an alternative approach which I call the craftsman approach to tool selection which I define as follows. Identify the core factors that determine success and

happiness in your professional and personal life. Adopt a tool only if its

personal life. Adopt a tool only if its positive impacts on these factors substantially outweighs its negative impact. So, I was saying be

a much more wary consumer of tools.

All right. So, what would I change if I rewrote this in 2026?

Well, when it comes to social media in particular, which was like a a big example through that chapter of a tool that you should really weigh its value versus cost. Our relationship with

versus cost. Our relationship with social media back when I was writing this book, which was really like 2014, 2015. Our relationship with social media

2015. Our relationship with social media back then is very different than it is today. and it would change the way that

today. and it would change the way that I talked about it. If you go back to that 2014 2015 period, which is when, by the way, I first began writing about skepticism around social media. My first

post about this came out in 2014.

If you went back then, people were thinking about tools like Facebook or Twitter through a lens of uh personal positive benefits. So, if you said, I

positive benefits. So, if you said, I don't know, I don't think you should use faceback Facebook, they would come back and say, here are like the benefits I'm getting, right? like I I'm keeping up

getting, right? like I I'm keeping up with my friends. It's how I find business contacts and um there's new sources I can't get elsewhere, right? Uh

Twitter, they would be like, "This is important for my professional brand. If

I don't have a voice online, I don't exist and it's going to be hard to get jobs." So, we really were still at the

jobs." So, we really were still at the tail end of seeing social media tools as being utilitarianly useful.

I don't want to give up on benefits. If

you go back and watch my uh TEDex talk, quit social media that went viral and it's at like 11 million views now. I

recorded that the summer after Deep Work came out, I believe. Go back even then, right? Watch that talk. I'm mainly

right? Watch that talk. I'm mainly

responding to people's uh objections to quitting social media based on the value they think they're getting. Right? So,

it's all responses to the types of things where people say, "I don't want to give up this value." And I would have to argue like that's not as valuable as you think and the the cost there is bigger than you think. Right? So, it was definitely like a utilitarian calculus

people were applying to social media back then, which is why I approached it with this like let's weigh pros and cons. It's kind of like a quiet push,

cons. It's kind of like a quiet push, quiet touch to get people to use less social media. Today, in 2026, that is

social media. Today, in 2026, that is not a relationship with social media. It

has completely morphed away from value propositions and has leaned into sort of pure addiction. Like, think about a tool

pure addiction. Like, think about a tool like Tik Tok and how different this is than like 2014 Facebook. Tik Tok no longer is like, "Hey, this is about people you know. You're not following

friends. You're not getting updates from

friends. You're not getting updates from people. You know, Tic Tac, unlike early

people. You know, Tic Tac, unlike early Instagram, is not about, okay, I have I have selected maybe like more well-known people who I'm very interested in and I want to hear their takes on things. So,

I'm following an artist I like and I'm following a writer who has like inspiring quotes. Tik Tok's like, "No,

inspiring quotes. Tik Tok's like, "No, no, you don't follow anybody. We're just

going to show you stuff, right? We're

just going to show you stuff that's engaging." So, you cannot tell yourself

engaging." So, you cannot tell yourself you're keeping up with people or you're trying to follow people that you think is interesting. The huge change here,

is interesting. The huge change here, and this is so big compared, we forget this, but such a big change. None of

these platforms are about posting anymore.

They were entirely about posting back then. It was about your stuff, you

then. It was about your stuff, you posted, you wanting to put stuff out into the world, right? One of the the original addiction hooks that uh Facebook introduced in their product was the like button. And I I write about

this in digital minimalism, which came out a few years later. This idea that I have an unpredictable indicator what people think about me. So, I put a post out there and there's going to be this number and if the number is low, that's

like people be mad at me. If that number is high, then people are loying me. And

that was like the most addictive piece of information you could imagine. Of

course, I have to go back to this device a lot. I have to see that number. The

a lot. I have to see that number. The

like button made mobile enabled social media incredibly addicting. Right? This

is what it was about. When I said in Deep War, quit social media for 30 days.

One of the big things I wrote about was you think people really care what you have to say, but you'll notice when you quit for 30 days that no one even noticed that you were gone, right? So

posting was a big part of social media.

Not today. You're on plat Tik Tok like most you're not there to to post your own videos. You're just there to

own videos. You're just there to consume. You're on X, like you're just

consume. You're on X, like you're just there to consume. You want to see the the circus. You want to see the people,

the circus. You want to see the people, you know, the gladiators fight. You're

on Instagram. You just want to consume.

You're no longer like posting photos of your vacations as much anymore. It's

just pure consumption that has been made to be as compelling as possible to keep you on the vice as much as possible. So,

no one argues anymore, oh, I I have so much value from this that I'm going to miss out on all these opportunities and keeping up with friends. No, they're

just like, I can't help myself. It numbs

me. It makes chemicals flow. life is

hard. This is my booze, basically. So,

it's a completely different relationship. So, if you're writing a

relationship. So, if you're writing a chapter now about trying to get rid of consistent sort of optional digital distractions, you would write it more like a how to get sober guide. Like,

that's where we are right now. We see it as something that is a little bit unsavory and we can't help ourselves.

It's like smokers in the early '9s.

You're like, "This is not good. We know

this is kind of on the way out. I'm

trying to stop and I can't and I could use some help." So, I would completely change the way I thought um I would think about it. And this is where I'd give my advice like you got to re retrain your brain. You have to have the phone away from you more so that you're

not firing those short-term circuits.

You got to retrain long-term motivation circuits to learn the deep reward of sticking with something without distraction is better than the short-term reward of looking at the phone. You got to take all the stuff off

phone. You got to take all the stuff off of your phone that's going to give you high reward signals. Anything where

people make money the more you look at it. Like, you really got to make that

it. Like, you really got to make that phone dumber. Look at my video from our

phone dumber. Look at my video from our episode from what was like a month ago, Jesse. Uh where we talked about how to

Jesse. Uh where we talked about how to simplify your phone and make it seem like a incredibly simple dumb phone while still having useful apps on it.

Like that's all the type of stuff I would talk about. This is no longer a argument about tool selection and pros versus cons. It's an argument about

versus cons. It's an argument about sobriety. So that chapter is one that I

sobriety. So that chapter is one that I think would change drastically. All

right. The final rule in part two of deep work was called drain the shallows.

This is the chapter where I tackled trying to contain the administrative and logistic tasks that if left unchecked make it really hard to find time for deep work or to remain focused during

deep work sessions. Here's what I specifically wrote. I'm uh reading here

specifically wrote. I'm uh reading here verbatim. The shallow work that

verbatim. The shallow work that increasingly dominates the time and attention of knowledge workers is less vital than it often seems in the moment.

For most businesses, if you eliminated significant amounts of the shallowess, their bottom line would likely remain unaffected. As Jason Freed discovered,

unaffected. As Jason Freed discovered, if you not only eliminate shallow work, but also replace this recovered time with more of the deep alternative, not only will the business continue to

function, it becomes more successful.

All right, so I was uh mentioning Jason Freed there. That's because the opening

Freed there. That's because the opening story of that chapter was about how Jason Freed with his company 37 Signals, now it's called Base Camp, uh, experimented with a 4-day work week for certain times of the year. And they

found that productivity went up. And

then I talked about this controversy that happened where a reporter wrote an article and was like, "Oh yeah, Jason Freed and his company are just making people jam five days of work into four days." Like great productivity, you

days." Like great productivity, you know, tip. And Jason Freed fired back.

know, tip. And Jason Freed fired back.

He's like, "No, they're not working more hours. they're just doing less of the

hours. they're just doing less of the nonsense. We just there's like less

nonsense. We just there's like less meetings. There's less back and forth.

meetings. There's less back and forth.

People are just a little bit more on task. They're not working more hours,

task. They're not working more hours, but more stuff is getting done. And the

point there was like we have a lot more shallow work in our schedules than we think. And it's a lot more removable or

think. And it's a lot more removable or optional than we think. So that was the motivation. All right. So I had a bunch

motivation. All right. So I had a bunch of strategies. I actually am going to go

of strategies. I actually am going to go through quickly the five particular strategies that I mention in this chapter. For each one, I'll give a

chapter. For each one, I'll give a thumbs up if like, yeah, that held up and a thumbs down if like, nah, that didn't really work out or we don't really do that anymore. And I'll do this real quick. All right, the first idea in

real quick. All right, the first idea in there was time blocking. That definitely

held up. I think time blocking is a continues to be really the only way to manage your time and attention if you have a busy knowledge workshop. The

second strategy, quantify the depth of every activity. He actually gave away if

every activity. He actually gave away if you a heruristic for how to actually numerically score activities so you could sort of see how much deep work

each requires and prioritize the deep did not hold up. No one did it. Uh that

that's something that no one ever did.

All right. The third idea, work with your supervisor or boss to establish an ideal deep to shallow work ratio in a typical work week. What ratio

my hours should be deep worth for shallow work? And then measure. And if

shallow work? And then measure. And if

you're falling short, talk to your boss about, hey, we had this target we thought would produce the most value for the company. We're falling short. How

the company. We're falling short. How

can we make changes? That really held up. I threw that in as an after effect.

up. I threw that in as an after effect.

And then I heard from a ton of people after the book came out that this was really successful. So, I really like

really successful. So, I really like that uh idea. I talked about shutdown routine routines 100% that really works out. Have a clear end of day, close the

out. Have a clear end of day, close the open loops, check a box, say a phrase, be done with your work when you're done.

Don't let it sort of bleed amorphously into the rest of your day.

The final uh strategy was becoming better at email. And I gave a bunch of different strategies in there. Um some

of those things work, some of them don't. I'm going to get into that in a

don't. I'm going to get into that in a second. One of the subsuggestions there

second. One of the subsuggestions there was the just don't reply more often.

That triggered Adam Grant to write an op-ed in the New York Times say like that's actually a bad idea. That's rude.

And we had a kind of we we ended up working this out Jesse on an episode of his podcast. Mhm.

his podcast. Mhm.

So, look at one of my appearances on work life podcast with Adam and we sort of in a good naturatured way um got into that. All right. So, what would I add if

that. All right. So, what would I add if I was rewriting this chapter in 2026?

There was two big ideas that showed up in subsequent books after Deep Work that should fit absolutely here. The first

idea is replacing the hyperactive hive mind. This showed up in my 2021 book, A

mind. This showed up in my 2021 book, A World Without Email, which was meant to be the immediate companion to deep work.

But then I I inserted digital minimalism between the two just because that book was more timely. But in a world without email, I said, "Okay, here's what I got wrong in deep work. Here's what I got

wrong in that strategy about becoming better at email." I was falling into the trap of imagining the key to improving the role of email in your life is that yourself to have more discipline and

better habits. and perhaps to to shift

better habits. and perhaps to to shift some norms in your organization like norms around response time and in the world without email I spent a couple years I looked deeply at the rise of email and its impact I was like oh that

won't solve it the problem with constant inbox checking in the professional setting has to do with collaboration strategies a lot of our projects we we coordinate with ad

hoc back and forth messaging through tools like email and then later Slack if that's how you're collaborating a strategy I call the hyperactive hive mind collaboration style. You have to check those inboxes and chat channels

all the time because ongoing back and forth conversations have to be serviced otherwise things ground to a halt. So

the real solution is not better habits yourself like I'm going to batch my email checks but replacing ad hoc back and forth messaging with other ways of collaborating that requires many fewer

inbox checks or many fewer chat checks.

even if those new modes of collaboration are more annoying and in the moment require more work, you want to minimize the need to have to keep checking channels. So that's an idea I did not

channels. So that's an idea I did not have in 2016 and by 2021 was a big part of my life. The second idea I would add here, and this is one I really laid out in my last book, Slow Productivity,

which came out 2024, workload matters. We need rules and

workload matters. We need rules and systems for explicitly managing workloads. If it's just informally

workloads. If it's just informally bouncing stuff back and forth and messages, hey, can you do this? Can you

do that? Will take on too much stuff.

And when we have too many things to work on at the same time, they each imminate their own overhead, their own sort of shallow work task to sort of keep the project going. That aggregates. It's

project going. That aggregates. It's

uncompressible. It's like water. So if

you you do 10 things and opposed to five things, you have twice as much of this administrative overhead that you have to service. And there's a there's a tipping

service. And there's a there's a tipping point at uh you go past where the amount of administrative overhead you require to service all the things you're working on basically fully takes over your schedule and then like you only can

really do work early in the morning on the weekends and you're in a state of extreme unproductivity and you're also miserable and burnt out.

It's just a terrible way to work. If you

instead have explicit rules for managing work workloads in a team or a company so that I'm only actively working on a small number of things at any one time, what happens?

The amount of concurrent administrative overhead drastically reduces. I have

more time for deep work. Those things

get done fast. They get done well. And

the overall rate at which I complete things goes up and the number of things I finish per quarter also goes up. Doing

fewer things now means I get more things done in the long term. And I'm less miserable. It's the the the the role of

miserable. It's the the the the role of overload in attacks on deep work and burnout and workplace misery is critical. So again,

my book Slow Productivity gets into that. I did not really have that

that. I did not really have that connection yet when I wrote deep work.

All right, so there we go. I think

Jesse, it holds up pretty well. I mean,

it's it's continuing to sell, but there's like a lot of updates that I think would make it better. Now, a lot of these updates are in my future books that follow deep work. A lot of these updates are here on this podcast. A lot

of these updates are in my writing I've done for the New Yorker on these type of issues. So, you can sort of think of a

issues. So, you can sort of think of a lot of my work going forward as like revised and updated editions of deep work. So that stuff is this stuff is

work. So that stuff is this stuff is largely out there. I eventually write it down anyways, but this was sort of the seed that started a lot of the thinking that I've since been trying to elaborate and expand ever since.

If you had to redesign the book cover, what would you do for a second edition?

Um uh pretty canonical, right? This is I remember so if you want the quick backstory um the this design philosophy actually came from the book that preceded this

which was So Good They Can't Ignore You.

Mhm. uh which is about don't follow your passions and career advice book. Um so

here we go. So we're working on we're working on so good they can't ignore you and we're getting back these like bad covers. There's one with like pencils on

covers. There's one with like pencils on it. Pencils like I I don't know what's

it. Pencils like I I don't know what's going on, right? Um and then the designer at some point gave us this like super big font textheavy and this was back in the day when like Barnes & Noble was a big deal and I was like yeah that

that stands out like be so good they can't ignore you and good and you um and that's where the design philosophy came from. same imprint. So, we did deep

from. same imprint. So, we did deep work. We're like, "Yeah, we're going all

work. We're like, "Yeah, we're going all in on big just boom, big lettering." It

kind of started a cover trend. Then a

bunch of books did this and now like the trend has kind of moved on. But there's

a period where like just being big and declarative uh was a cool way to do titles. So, I would either do this

titles. So, I would either do this and then slow productivity was more inspirational with like the picture.

I want Yes, this is me going a completely different way. So, with slow productivity, I was like, I want to do full bleed imagery. This is more of a thing from the fiction world. And I was like, let's bring this to non-fiction. I

want to induce a psychological state in the reader just seeing the cover that is congruent with what the book is going to be about. So you see the cabin up on a

be about. So you see the cabin up on a hill with a path leading to it and your mind already goes to a narrative place of a life that's slower and focused on producing important things and is meaningful. It puts you in that

meaningful. It puts you in that emotional state and then you're like what's this book about? And it's like hey how to do that? Put those two things together you're like boom I want to go.

So yeah. So we have to keep evolving.

Like I don't think this cover style is like the right style anymore.

Yeah, that's why I kind of asked.

Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of I was just cuz I know that you've been evolving.

If I really was going to redesign it, um I would either keep it there or basically just have the dinosaur from Jurassic Park, the that famous the

skeleton. It's a famous cover. Just play

skeleton. It's a famous cover. Just play

it back. No other explanation.

State has to give you those books for your new Map Maker Lab.

We got to reach out. I want first editions for the lab. I'm going to reach out. Maybe I'll have you reach out.

out. Maybe I'll have you reach out.

I mean, you're a huge fan.

Yeah, the Kiteon Foundation. I want

first edition books, Kiteon books for my for my lab. I'll send them a picture.

It'll be great.

Um, then you can write the um biography for Kiteon.

I know. I do want to write a Katon biography. There's I there's fewer words

biography. There's I there's fewer words I could say I guess beyond like the only thing that would probably make my agent even more nervous than me saying I want to write a biography would be like if I

wanted to write uh like a child's picture book like I don't the I don't know I don't know what would be worse from her perspective than be like I want to write a biography of someone that unless it was like you know what you

know what worlds have not come together like enough recently pornography and cookbooks.

You could probably do a good kids book on baseball.

See, she's in cold sweats now. If she's

hearing this, she's like, "Jesse, stop it. Do not plant these seeds in his

stop it. Do not plant these seeds in his mind." All right. Well, that's enough

mind." All right. Well, that's enough hearing from me. Um, now it's time to hear from you as where we move on to the inbox segment to hear your messages. Uh,

before we get there though, let's take a quick break to hear from some of our sponsors. Now, you all know that I'm a

sponsors. Now, you all know that I'm a big fan of Wayfair. It's the onestop shop to upgrade your spaces with quality pieces that work within your budget. In

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All right, so now let's get going and open up our inbox. Remember, if you have a question for me or a case study you want to share, maybe just like an interesting article you want to try to get me to do a rant, the right way to do it now is send an email to

podcast@calport.com.

podcast@calport.com.

All right, Jesse, what uh what's our first message today?

The first message comes from Shelly.

All right, Shelly, what we got here? All

right, Shelley says, "I'm a product manager in health tech, and I keep getting pressure from friends and family saying I should have AI write my documentation, market research, business

cases, etc. My position on this is that it will make me dumber. And if my job is to persuade people to do something, how can I do that live if I lose the ability to articulate it in writing and

understand it deeply?" All right, I've been hearing this a lot. I gotta say, Jesse, this this like let's let AI do our writing. Let's let AI let's

our writing. Let's let AI let's collaborate with AI to help like uh test our ideas and get our writing out. I

find the whole thing to be very depressing and like anxiety producing and depressing. It's it's like you know

and depressing. It's it's like you know you you spend years uncovering and realizing and clarifying the importance of cognition in the human experience and in the knowledge economy

and in science and in everything. And

then it's just like a lot of chirpy people out in Silicon Valley like yeah just kind of like let's not do that or just let computers do a lot of let's just do that worse. Won't that be fun?

And like of course people are like sure because this stuff is hard right? Like

look, if you are at Marine boot camp and someone comes around and is like, "Hey guys, I I I have this like little uh like carjack thing you put under you when you do uh push-ups and it like

gives you uh takes a lot of weight off of it." The pu you're like, "Yeah,

of it." The pu you're like, "Yeah, push-ups stink. I don't like doing all

push-ups stink. I don't like doing all these push-ups, but yeah, let's use that thing. This is great. This is I could do

thing. This is great. This is I could do like a thousand push-ups now." In the time and they would use AI talk in the time it used to take me to do 10 push-ups, I can now do 30 push-ups. You

know, but like guys, the whole point of doing the push-ups is it's discipline and strength because of like you're soldiers. I feel that way about AI. All

soldiers. I feel that way about AI. All

right, so I have two responses to Shel.

I mean, this whole thing is depressing, anxiety producing to me. Uh, point

number one, read, think, write is a cycle.

Take an information. You think about information, you write something based on that understanding. It is a fundamental cognition loop that helps you make your human brain

valuable and capable of producing valuable things, especially in like the the knowledge sector economically speaking. If you take one of those parts

speaking. If you take one of those parts out or diminish it, if you say like I'm not going to really do much of the writing or I'm going to do it in a sort of uh kind of like half a way where I'm like sort of writing but really just kind of like editing stuff the chat GPT

road like you're avoiding any type of strain. that loop breaks and your brain

strain. that loop breaks and your brain getting increasingly better at being able to produce valuable original thought gets worse. You get dumber, which is not what you want to do when half of our economy is based on advanced

knowledge sector types of companies.

Point number two, no one understands anything about productivity. I I mean this was what my

productivity. I I mean this was what my last book was about, the first part of my last book about the num school ways in which we how we define productivity and knowledge work. like anything being

easier or faster. We're like, I'm more productive. Are you though? Like is this

productive. Are you though? Like is this like does this directly actually make you more productive? Like let's let's be specific here. I talked about this two

specific here. I talked about this two weeks ago uh in my episode about AI making us worse at work. Let's look at like Shel's example.

Uh maybe you produce market research reports as she mentions. Maybe this is like a key part of your job. Is this the bottleneck? Is the literal time it takes

bottleneck? Is the literal time it takes you to write the market research report the main bottleneck on how much value you're producing for your company?

Almost certainly not. I mean, you're probably producing one of these reports like once a month.

So, like let's say in absolute terms, you're replacing like, hey, if I if I was prompting AI and not really doing the thinking myself, I could make this report in like 45 minutes. It otherwise

takes me five hours. In the course of a month, does that really matter? like is

that really unlocking a lot more value for the company? It's the time required to produce that marketing report was not the bottleneck. The bottleneck was

the bottleneck. The bottleneck was actually probably the sophistication, nuance and value of what you put in that marketing report. In fact, triple your

marketing report. In fact, triple your time might make you way more productive from the sense of like this report is containing more value. We often mistake ourselves. We think about efficiency

ourselves. We think about efficiency because we have assembly line thinking, but we're not doing one thing on an assembly line. And when you're not doing

assembly line. And when you're not doing one thing on an assembly line, raw efficiency on task execution time doesn't necessarily lead to more proverbial proverbial Model T's being

produced. Now, if Shel's job was

produced. Now, if Shel's job was literally producing marketing reports backtoback, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, that's all I do, which is like an absurd thing, but let's just use this

thought experiment. Then maybe and they

thought experiment. Then maybe and they got paid by just literally here's a report got produced. And someone's like, it looks like a report, here's some money. Like if that was the situation

money. Like if that was the situation then like oh increasing the speed at which a report is produced would produce more money but this is not the situation. I'm not I'm not writing

situation. I'm not I'm not writing marketing reports back to back to back to back. I mean I talked about this uh

to back. I mean I talked about this uh one of my newsletters as well recently whereas like there social science researchers are using like AI agents to

help um analyze data and produce plots.

It's nice because that can be annoying.

So it can make an annoying day less annoying. But as I argued, it's not the

annoying. But as I argued, it's not the bottleneck on producing academic papers.

Academic papers are not produced by I sit here all day long analyzing data and produce charts. That's it. I'm an

produce charts. That's it. I'm an

assembly line worker. That's my model T.

And if I could do that faster, I produce more papers. Like, well, no, you're

more papers. Like, well, no, you're writing one paper every three or four months. There's one day in there in

months. There's one day in there in which you're analyzing data. It's nice

if you could do that in a half day instead, but it's not going to produce more paper. So we we can't we need to

more paper. So we we can't we need to have the real definition of productivity which is the quality and quantity of the final thing that goes out in the world is actually worth money. Making

individual things faster does not necessarily increase that. So we have to focus on the things that really matter.

All right. Uh what we got next? We have

a note from Ailio about AI and education.

This is just going to make me more depressed, isn't it? I I don't even know what it is yet, but I can assume AI and education. The note is not going to be

education. The note is not going to be like going great and just with a thumbs up and then we move on to the next one.

All right. Feel like I should have like a bottle of bourbon with me.

That would be a fun show. Jesse, we take every time we read something to Price AI, take a shot of bourbon.

Ferris would do that at times back in the past with uh Kevin.

Yeah, they do wine.

Sometimes they do tequila.

I can talk to Tim.

But then I think they both quit and maybe they started again. I don't know.

Try to keep track.

They're old now. We're all old. All

right. Um, here we go. All right. I'm

sure this is going to be uplifting. The

effects of AI and education, the effects of AI and education are frankly depressing. Oh, see, right off the bat,

depressing. Oh, see, right off the bat, Jesse, he's he's previewing this is very depressing what I'm about to tell you.

All right, let's hammer on. Get my

bourbon ready. I remember how much I struggled to come up with ideas and convey them in an essay, for example, and the deep satisfaction that came with it. Well-written text used to be

it. Well-written text used to be admirable. Now I see my siblings and

admirable. Now I see my siblings and friends in university delegating almost all of their writing the chat GPT limiting themselves to curate text with prompts and they love it. Of course they love it. It's easier. People don't like

love it. It's easier. People don't like hard things. One of my peers proudly

hard things. One of my peers proudly said to me something like I never never ever write anything without AI be it a large report or an email. Look, I write terribly even with spelling mistakes and

just let chat GPT fix it for me. We have

to be thankful that we have these tools and take advantage of them. His senior

project was written in this way and he has got very good grades. He has

arranged a PhD position after graduation while most of us are struggling to get any income at all. I mean you might as well just buy an essay online, right? Like yeah

the here's the challenge education is not okay we've set up this obstacle course for you and if you do it the the obvious way it's going to be mentally hard. If you can minimize what we want

hard. If you can minimize what we want to see is how much can you minimize your mental strain? Well, in the end, like

mental strain? Well, in the end, like why not just like I hired someone else to write the paper for me, right? Like

that's kind of where we're rapidly going.

Writing is taking the information that you ingested through reading and conversation and uh taking that ideas and then outputting original information based on

those ideas. That act cements that

those ideas. That act cements that information in your mind. If you go back and read my second book, How to Become a Straight A Student, where I studied a bunch of straight A college students who

didn't seem like they were grinds, what was the number one thing that unified how they approached studying?

Active recall. Like, how do I learn something? I ingest it. I think about

something? I ingest it. I think about it, and then I write it out. So, from

scratch, it was all about producing answers from scratch without looking at your notes. There was no more effective

your notes. There was no more effective way to get prepared for a test because writing is a key key part of the the information intake loop. You have the information, it's in there, but it's not

necessarily super accessible. When you

write it, boom, those connections happen. It's how you get smarter. It's

happen. It's how you get smarter. It's

the entire point of education.

Yes, you can have a machine that has taken in like all of the writing on the internet.

So, it knows the structure of languages and topics. It's seen it all. And yes,

and topics. It's seen it all. And yes,

it can use all that information to write for you. You could also copy things out

for you. You could also copy things out of a book and hand it in. That's also

less strain. You can go on the internet and Google it and copy and paste things from articles. That would also be less

from articles. That would also be less strain. But it defeats the entire

strain. But it defeats the entire purpose of writing in an educational environment. Writing quality should be

environment. Writing quality should be something that you uh admire because the better writer you are, the more writing you've done, which probably means the smarter you are because that's more time that you've actually spent actually

cementing concepts in your head. Like

Jesse, I was surprised We'll talk about more about this soon, but like I had this big New York Times piece uh a couple weekends ago and one of the most consistent pieces of feedback I got from all sorts of messages, but one of the

most consistent things I noticed was how many people in their responses were surprised about, man, the writing was so good. And it wasn't even like this was

good. And it wasn't even like this was brilliant writing. It's just I care

brilliant writing. It's just I care about writing quality. It was a well-crafted essay because I care about that. And I think 10 years ago

that. And I think 10 years ago that wouldn't have caught anyone's attention. It would just have been the

attention. It would just have been the ideas. But today people are like, "Whoa,

ideas. But today people are like, "Whoa, what was going on there?" I mean, like this is just like, you know, it's essay craft 101. It's got structure, clarity,

craft 101. It's got structure, clarity, callbacks, like you know, it's a it's a active sentences, rhythm. Like there's

just clear things you do. We're just not used to writing quality anymore. So I'm

kind of going off in all sorts of directions here. But I do not like this

directions here. But I do not like this idea of using AI to to produce human text for consumption by humans. I think

this is a fundamentally human endeavor.

Like that's sort of the stance that I'm coming down on. I know people are going to be upset about that. I just think it's a fundamentally human endeavor. Go

back. Let's go back to, you know, uh go back to the the the Bible. Go let's

let's go to British. Let's go to Genesis, right? Like right off the bat,

Genesis, right? Like right off the bat, metaphorically, what is the thing that that like defines uh humans? The thing

that God gives humans right off the bat is like the ability to have language.

They name all the animals and plants, right? This is like a

right? This is like a metaphor for like really that development of the ability of language that humans developed about 50,000 years ago, right? Boom. We're capturing that

ago, right? Boom. We're capturing that in this sort of like ancient book. It is

like fundamental to the human condition.

And then the entire Abrahamic faves on which like all the ideas we have of everything from like liberal democracy to human values and modern ethics, morality all comes out of this based

around came out of writing. Writing

where do you get the where do you get the the the Hebrew Bible? Where do you get Torah? Like these protophenicians

get Torah? Like these protophenicians in the Eastern Mediterranean were one of the first alphabetic uh alphabet style languages emerges for writing that allows much more widespread literacy.

And in the ability to write all of these ideas come out of it. It is the human thing. There's some sort of like tower

thing. There's some sort of like tower of babel type of analogy here to like well what if we uh instead of making this a deeply human important thing we build like machines to try to like take this you know take this ability away

take it away from God or whatever. So

there's probably a religious argument here. I I just think there's going to be

here. I I just think there's going to be a resistance to this. I do not want to read stuff that a machine produced. If

you want to use a machine to help you communicate, have it produce charts or tables or machine language, right? But

English or whatever language like the written language, this is humans transmitting a cognitive reality to another human. I think it's a deeply

another human. I think it's a deeply human uh endeavor and it has all these practical benefits. So, I do not like

practical benefits. So, I do not like this like just lett me all the time.

That's not it's not a small thing to say. It's not a small thing to say. It's

say. It's not a small thing to say. It's

like you know, I make money by selling my organs. It's like there's a deeply

my organs. It's like there's a deeply humanistic thing here that I don't think we're recognizing yet, but hopefully we will.

All right. Do we have anything more cheerful here? Don't What do we have?

cheerful here? Don't What do we have?

We do.

All right.

Here's someone who successfully avoided social media with no real negative impacts.

All right. So, uh we'll say it's from anonymous because I don't know if they know they were sharing this as a case study. Um all right, here we go. Having

study. Um all right, here we go. Having

said that, I having said that I prescribe to what you write and talk about. I have no social media accounts

about. I have no social media accounts nor watch Tik Tok or YouTube and basically just keep a LinkedIn profile to keep my business partner content. My

standard excuse is that once I am able to return all emails, phone calls, and texts in a timely manner, I will then consider adding more forms of communication technology. In reality, I

communication technology. In reality, I have no need and see others constantly distracted by them, I keep an open mind on most items, and someday may may come when some form of these technologies make sense for me. In the meantime, I

will stay out of the matrix for as long as possible. All right, that's a that's

as possible. All right, that's a that's a nice note to end on. That's like

straight out of deep work.

Make the tool do the job of convincing yourself you need to use it. It's not

your job. You're not a beta tester.

You're not a quality assurance tester.

You're not a product reviewer. You don't

need to go use all these tools and then try to back justify why you have them.

If they haven't convinced you they're useful, you don't need them in your life. So, all right, that made me feel a

life. So, all right, that made me feel a little bit better. All right, let's move on to our final segment here where we check in on what I've been up to.

All right. So, I mentioned this New York Times article a couple times, and let me just bring it up briefly, Jesse. I

should talk about it briefly. All right.

So, I had a an article uh not yesterday, but the Sunday before.

Uh it had a bunch of different titles, including there's a good reason you can't concentrate. Um and it was an

can't concentrate. Um and it was an op-ed that basically made a call for, and this is a cool graphic. That's

Kristoff Neeman, who does I like that.

Yeah, he does a lot of New Yorker covers as well. He's a he's a he's a great

as well. He's a he's a he's a great graphic designer. Um, so it makes the

graphic designer. Um, so it makes the argument that we need a revolution in cognitive fitness like we had in physical fitness in the 20th century. We

need to be like what we consume digital information and exercising our brain should be things we care a lot about like we learn to care about what we eat and having to do exercise. So um it's like a manifesto. It's a long form

piece. It was my seventh oped I've

piece. It was my seventh oped I've written for the New York Times but this one Jesse was my first uh lead opinion piece. M

piece. M so this was the the lead Sunday opinion piece. It was the entire cover of the

piece. It was the entire cover of the Sunday opinion section that Sunday. Um

and got the the the feature in the opinion newsletter and their sort of full brunt of marketing. So that's

basically like the biggest audience left you can get now in American um like newspaper magazine writing. Like the

lead that's it. This is the last biggest thing you have is being lead opinion piece. So I was proud about that. I

piece. So I was proud about that. I

might I I I bought the paper because it's a whole, you know, big broad sheet of just this graphic of the brain lifting the whatever just like the the whole whole cover was that. So maybe

maybe we'll frame it for the HQ.

Yeah.

Um so it's good. So it's got a lot of good feedback about it. Really exciting.

Hopefully you read it. Hopefully you

liked it. It it it it's a call to revolution that I really believe in and hopefully uh other people believe in it as well and we get a little bit of

momentum here. Um, on the reading front,

momentum here. Um, on the reading front, finished the Sanderson book.

What' you think?

Finished it on March 30th, so I got my five in. Um, I liked it. It's a genre

five in. Um, I liked it. It's a genre book, genre fantasy. And the thing I hadn't done in a while, it's a long book, 650 pages, short for Chanderson, but long for me. Um, I hadn't actually

done that in a while. One of those type of books where the whole point, they do a lot of world building, and the whole point is just to get lost. you just sort of like want to get into this state where the you get lost in the world and

you're just in the world and stuff is happening. The movie is playing in your

happening. The movie is playing in your head. That's the appeal of uh especially

head. That's the appeal of uh especially genre novels in particular like you're just sort of like you get lost in these worlds. I read a lot of non-fiction

worlds. I read a lot of non-fiction which is much more you get lost in intellectual world. You have ideas and

intellectual world. You have ideas and you're playing with it. This is much more like empathetic, visual, action-based or whatever. Like oh that's fun. That's a good experience. So um

fun. That's a good experience. So um

I'll probably read another one. Not yet.

They take a long They take me a while because they're long. And

your kid read it too, right?

Yeah, he he read the I think the whole Misborn extended trilogy and now he's on the second of the the Stormlight, which So he must like it.

Those are beast books. Those are like a thousand plus pages. Yeah. Um he loves them. Yeah. Yeah. I told him we'll find

them. Yeah. Yeah. I told him we'll find a way to go meet Sanderson at some point and we'll bring a copy of Name of the Wind to get signed because you know you want signed copies are worth worth a lot. Remember, all complaints about

lot. Remember, all complaints about sci-fi references goes to Jesse. He

wants to hear it. Um, so there we go.

So, I got my five in just in time. Um, I

gotta figure out I I have to I finished last night, so I have to figure out my uh my March my April books.

I was thinking about getting you a book uh there's a new book about uh George Steinbrer that just came out by Mike Ficaro from the New York Post.

That could be interesting. I might read Mad Dog read it.

I might read that notebook book as well.

That came from a listener.

Mhm. the history of notebooks. Yeah.

Yeah. I should probably read a baseball book now that the season's going. Um,

which I should also warn everyone now that the Nationals are doing some interesting things. That'll be a we're

interesting things. That'll be a we're going to do a five episode arc.

Analytics uh lineup construction and uh hits hit strategy. I don't know.

Five episode arc. Let's go. Actually,

the episodes are going to be I think people want this is uh basically like live commentary. So, we just record you

live commentary. So, we just record you and I talking through the full two to three hour game and then like you go back and listen to us and like replay the replay the games, analyze the new ABS system.

Analyze ABS like we could do little fun aides about the technology and ABS or this or that. Uh, you know, if reading between the lines I think is what people

want is more extremely long for super rapid quantity baseball content. All

right, well that's all the time we have for this week. We'll have another AI reality check episode coming out on Thursday and then another advice episode next Monday. So, as always, till next

next Monday. So, as always, till next time, stay deep. Hey, if you like today's discussion of my book, Deep Work, and want to read some more, check out episode 384 where I answer the

question, what else should you read to have a deeper new year? Check it out. I

think you'll like it. So, we're going to do a deep dive on the question that I probably am asked the most by you, which is, "What should I