How To Work Less This Summer (And Still Get MORE Done)
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Today's episode is with somebody that I have been a fan of for a very, very, very long time. I have read many of his mega bestselling books over the years, and it was such an honor to get to sit down and ask him all of my most pressing questions. And it paid off already. I've used so many of the tactics that I learned in this interview to restructure my work days and how I run my business, and they have helped so much. Cal Newport is a professor at Georgetown University. He has written seven books, including multiple New York Times bestsellers like Deep Work, which sold over 1.5 million copies and took the world by storm, and Digital Minimalism. His newest book, Slow Productivity, The Lost Art of Accomplishment, was an instant New York Times bestseller.
This episode dives deep into how to work less and get way more done while feeling happier and calmer. So many of us are stuck in a cycle of answering emails all day, sitting on Zoom meetings all day, but never really moving the ball forward in our work or in our lives. And this episode is going to change that. Welcome to the Liz Moody Podcast, where we believe that there is always something that you can do to create a life that feels amazing. And we help you figure out how to find the lever to pull at any moment to actually do that. Cal Newport, welcome to the pod. Well, thanks for having me on. I'm so excited to have you here. Let's dive right into it. Can you define pseudo productivity and how it differs from actual productivity?
Pseudo productivity is my term for what we implicitly refer to when we think about what productivity means in knowledge work. So it's like what we implicitly rely on when we think about what does it mean to be productive? And I define it to be a heuristic that says we will use visible activity as a proxy for doing something useful. So it's an activity-based notion of productivity. The more I see you do things, the longer you do things, the more productive I'm going to assume you are. And that's basically the unwritten law of the land in knowledge work right now.
Can you define knowledge work just so we're all starting off with the same framework of terms?
Yeah, it's one of those squirrely sort of terms. You can't quite nail it down exactly. There's formal definitions such as a job in which your primary goal is to add value to information using your brain. I like to think about it more if you look at a computer for most of your day and or you get upset about email, you're probably a knowledge worker. So I think the informal definition probably captures a lot more detail than the formal ones.
Are there any metrics or maybe like a checklist that we can reference in our heads that we could use if we're trying to identify if something in our workday is actually pseudo productive or if it's real productive? It can be really hard to tell sometimes.
Part of the problem is that the actual things you're doing that produce value bring with them administrative overhead. So if I have a particular thing I'm doing, I'm producing a marketing white paper for my company. That white paper has value, right? Because we're going to put it out there. It's going to bring in customers. There's administrative overhead that goes with that project. So I have to send emails to people to sort of gather things to get approvals. There's some meetings that have to be scheduled to talk about what we want in it. That administrative overhead is not bad. It's necessary to get what you need to do the project. Where we get in the real problem with pseudo productivity, however, is when we allow too many of these projects to stack up, the administrative overhead begins to take over more and more of our day.
And then there's very little time left for the actual working on the project piece. And most of our day is doing email in between meetings. That's when we really see the ugly side of pseudo productivity raise its head.
I also find one of the big problems is the administrative stuff gives you that hit of I've accomplished something.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–6:59
2
What is pseudo‑productivity and how does it sabotage knowledge work?
6:59–12:36
3
How can you distinguish true productive work from administrative ‘busywork’?
12:36–42:53
4
Which strategies reduce interruptions and protect deep focus at work?
42:53–1:12:17
5
How can you time‑block and use rituals to rebuild your ability to concentrate?
1:12:17–1:20:43
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from The Liz Moody Podcast
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