Cal Newport is a computer science professor at Georgetown University, who in addition to his academic research writes about the intersection of digital technology and culture:
"I’m particularly interested in our struggle to deploy these tools in ways that support instead of subvert the things we care about in both our personal and professional lives."
The overarching themes of his work can be summarised as:
Deep
work is the ability to perform activities in a state of
distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their
limit.
Deep Work is done without the constant autonomous checks that most of us do throughout our day: checking email; a quick look at the phone, and the too frequent indulgence of sneaking a peak at social media.
“We know from the research and experience that these quick checks actually significantly reduce your cognitive capacity…
Deep work is a trainable skill.
Most people think about intense concentration like a habit, like flossing their teeth, something they know how to do; they really just need to make some more time to do it.
The reality is it’s much more like a skill, like playing the guitar [i.e. …if you haven’t been practicing, you won’t be very good at it.]"
Cal Newport describes his formula for success as:
“You need to do less, and do what you do better...”
Outcome Achieved =
Time Spent x Intensity of Focus
He summarises his current ideas as:
The Deep Work Hypothesis
Cal Newport believes that the ability to focus intensely without interruption or distraction on a cognitively demanding task is increasingly rare. Yet, in his view, it is becoming increasingly valuable in the knowledge sector.
As a result, those individuals and organizations who put in the hard work to cultivate this skill will thrive.
Digital Minimalism
In Cal Newport's view:
"The services delivered through your devices have become so alluring and addictive that they can significantly erode the quality of your life and your sense of autonomy.
My solution is a philosophy I call digital minimalism,
which argues that you should radically reduce the time you spend online,
focusing on a small number of activities chosen because they support
things you deeply value, and then happily miss out on everything else
Attention Capital Theory [A World Without Email]
"In modern knowledge work, the primary capital resource is human brains; or, more specifically, these brains’ ability to create new value through sustained attention.
At the moment, most individuals and organizations are terrible at optimizing this resource, prioritizing instead the convenience and flexibility of persistent, unstructured messaging (e.g., email and IM).
I predict that as this sector evolves, we’ll get better at optimizing attention capital, and accordingly leave behind our current culture of communication overload."
Cal Newport has written 7 books:
...and a blog called: Study Hacks
Cal Newport is a millenial with a counter-cultural/counter-generational message:
We have discussed at length on this site the way in which Elon Musk and Charlie Munger advocate and use mental models and the full range of critical thinking skills.
Cal Newport's unique contribution is to add tools and resources to enable you to apply these thinking skills.
Truly inspirational people are those who breath life into something specific and in such a way that we are moved to take action on it.
By this criteria Cal Newport qualifies for inclusion on this site as an inspirational person.
Further Reading: Deep Work
Return to: Inspirational People
Return to: How To Think
Just Because You Have A Spectacular Failure Doesn’t Mean The Game Is Over. The thought that you could fail can really slow you down. But the problem is not the failure, the problem is your relationshi…
Are You Lost In Transition? To be in an alien North African city, late in the evening, in the dark, completely lost in transition from the main market square back to the obscure location of our Riad…
Do You Believe What You See Or Do You See What You Believe? Like the characters in "The Matrix" we are fooled by the illusion that what we see is how things really are. Why? Because this is the mind's…
What Impact Will You Leave In The Lives Of Others? If you knew you were going to die tonight and you were given a few minutes to reflect before that happened, what would you say was the meaning of yo…
If You Want Others To Be Happy, Practice Compassion. If You Want To Be Happy, Practice Compassion. Compassion is derived from the Latin words "com pati" meaning to suffer with. It has been defined as…
The Power Of Expectation Of An Outcome Regardless Of The Lack Of Any Substance To That Expectation. Traditionally, the placebo effect occurs when false, or dummy, treatments of inert substances [that…
This Is What Will Happen After You Take It.
"This is your last chance," rebel leader Morpheus tells Neo, holding a coloured pill in each hand. “You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in y…
This Has To Be One Of The Best Ways For Living The Best Life You Can Possibly Live. An online search on life hacks will invariably provide you with multiple links to ways of increasing your productivi…
The Blessing And The Curse Of Impermanence. There is a story of a king who sought wisdom. Eventually he heard of a man living in a remote part of the kingdom who had a reputation for great wisdom. The…
The Stories That We Tell Ourselves Are A Matter Of Choice. The stories we tell ourselves form the backcloth and the tapestry of our lives. These narratives shape and define our sense of self and how a…
Trust Is A Choice And It Creates Your Reality. Nothing in life is permanent and nothing lasts forever. Every relationship ends in tears. Somebody leaves or somebody dies. This is how things are. This…
Finding This Hidden Value Is The Key To A Huge Upside. Most of us spend our lives working to linear rules where there is an equal relationship between effort and result. Work hard you get a result. Wo…
How To Be There When Preparation Meets Opportunity. The growth mindset holds the core belief that your intelligence and personality is something you can develop and that you can expand and grow. The p…
If you can't think of the right thing to say, say nothing.
The concepts we employ, the categorizations we apply and the words we choose and use to articulate a direct experience put us in a double bi…
To Believe Or Not To Believe - That Is The Question. Nothing has inflicted more suffering on humanity than its beliefs and dogmas. The religious and cultural beliefs that sanction and allow or impose…
How To Stay Far From The Madding Crowd. Herd mentality describes how we make decisions based on what everyone else is thinking and doing. It is also known as a mob or crowd mentality. We follow the he…
We Suffer Every Time We Believe A Thought That Argues With What Is. When your mind is perfectly clear, what is, is what you want. If you want reality to be different than it is, you might as well try…
Slack Is The Capacity To Effect Change And The Resource To Deal With The Unexpected. Many organizations are obsessed with efficiency and try to ensure that every resource is fully utilized to its full…
Less and less do you need to force things, until you arrive at non-action. We are brought up to believe that we get what we want in life as a result of what we do, by the actions that we take, that ha…
Is It Helping You Or Hindering You? Your point of focus is the central point of your attention. Your point of focus is a binary choice and the result of that choice is critical to your happiness, your…
To accomplish any success in life, you must identify accurately what it is that you hunger for, thirst for and long for. The purpose of this article is to look at the foundation of the secret for succ…
Discover The Joy Of A Quiet Mind Can you stop thinking? According to Zen Buddhist priest Shunmyo Masuno the art of not thinking about anything is not easy to achieve. Even practising monks find it dif…
What Is Holding You Back From Pursuing Your Dreams? Your self confidence is based on ability. Your self confidence is all about your level of trust, faith and belief in your abilities [your power] and…
Learning how to overcome fear and perform powerfully is a skill that we all need to acquire as fear of failure affects most of us at some point in our lives. Whilst it is natural to feel a level of fe…
You are creating hell on earth when you are too subsumed within your underlying and deeply embedded negative energetic states. To counter your dissatisfactions and misery you initially go unconscious…
How you mentally characterize a situation has a profound impact on how you respond to it emotionally. There is a direct causal link between how you think about a situation, the words you use to articu…
What good is a universe without somebody around to look at it? What Conclusions Can We Draw About Living In A Participatory Universe? The inescapable conclusion is that the world and the universe (wit…
The journey home to the energy of life does not consist in arriving at a new destination it is a coming home to one’s self. [1] How are you feeling, what is your dominant emotion right now? [2] Where…
You have to be willing to suffer today in order to reap enormous rewards tomorrow. The long game is so hard to play because it involves taking a series of very small steps, that people rarely see, per…
How To Build Self Esteem In my early life and until my early twenties I suffered from a deep inferiority complex and low self esteem. Forty years later and, said in sincerity and with humility, I have…