#166 – Cal Newport: Deep Work, Focus, Productivity, Email, and Social Media

Cal Newport is a computer scientist who also writes about productivity. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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EPISODE LINKS:
A World Without Email (book): https://amzn.to/3blXyjv
Deep Work (book): https://amzn.to/3c0npMM
Digital Minimalism (book): https://amzn.to/3kJPMmx
Cal’s Website: https://www.calnewport.com/
Deep Questions (podcast): https://www.calnewport.com/podcast/

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OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00)– Introduction
(08:24)– Deep work
(13:10)– Focus
(18:52)– Time blocking
(25:47)– Deadlines
(35:22)– Do less, do better, know why
(38:04)– Clubhouse
(52:07)– Burnout
(58:34)– Boredom
(1:06:19)– Quit social media for 30 days
(1:16:13)– Social media
(1:41:21)– How email destroyed our productivity at work
(1:51:07)– How we fix email
(1:58:09)– Over-optimization
(2:02:23)– When to use email and when not to
(2:10:06)– Podcasting
(2:14:42)– Alan Turing proving the impossible
(2:18:41)– Fragility of math in the face of randomness
(2:27:30)– Neural networks
(2:36:16)– What will the P=NP proof look like?
(2:39:55)– Is math discovered or invented?
(2:44:02)– Book publishing
(2:54:09)– Love
(2:57:30)– Death
(3:00:26)– Meaning of life