Dr. Cal Newport

under control and like have good productivity habits and like don't context switch too much and don't be too distracted, but still have your fixed scale of productivity, like end at 5.30 every day and time block and try to be reasonable with that time, limit the damage.

But if I'm doing the thing that ultimately really matters, I'm gonna be pretty happy with it.

So it's like moving the definition of, am I happy with what I'm producing away from a quantity metric

And to this more, am I aggregating the quality reps, you know?

And like, I think in weightlifting, this would make a lot more sense, right?

It's like, yeah, there's a certain number of like a certain amount of time under load each muscle group needs to be on.

And like, if I'm doing that, I'm happy if I'm, you know, weightlifting, right?

There's no notion of like, why can't I, why didn't I exercise five hours more of this or that?

And so I sometimes try to think about my core intellectual work that way.

Like if I'm getting in the core deep reps and the thing I care most about, which for me is almost always writing.

Then like the rest, I just want to, it's like damage control.

Like I want to like do the other stuff well and like not get too stressed out about it.

And, you know, there's the productivity habits then that are about doing the stuff that matters and protecting it.

And then there's the habits that are all just about, let's not let the other stuff get out of control.

You know, I find it a little bit easier.

You go easier on myself when I think about it that way.

Yeah.

You have to train even to get used to it, right?

I mean even to get used to music without lyrics, you got to get used to it.

I guess your brain is building the filters.