Cal Newport Quotes

He disabled notifications for 112 different apps on his iPhone. “It’s relatively easy to retake control,” he optimistically concludes.

the skillful management of attention is the sine qua non of the good life and the key to improving virtually every aspect of your experience.

All things being equal, workflows that minimize this never-ending stream of urgent communication are superior to those that instead amplify it. When you’re at home at night, or relaxing over the weekend, or on vacation, you shouldn’t feel like each moment away from work is a moment in which you’re accumulating deeper communication debt.

The world without email referenced in the title of this book, therefore, is not a place in which protocols like SMTP and POP3 are banished. It is, however, a place where you spend most of your day actually working on hard things instead of talking about this work, or endlessly bouncing small tasks back and forth in messages.

A job...is a way to pay the bills, a career is a path towards increasingly better work, and a calling is work that's an important part of your life and a vital part of your identity.

Spend enough time in a state of frenetic shallowness and you permanently reduce your capacity to perform deep work.

There’s a gravity and sense of importance inherent in deep work — whether you’re Ric Furrer smithing a sword or a computer programmer optimizing an algorithm. Gallagher’s theory, therefore, predicts that if you spend enough time in this state, your mind will understand your world as rich in meaning and importance.

Serve something you deeply value (offering some benefit is not enough). Be the best way to use technology to serve this value (if it’s not, replace it with something better). Have a role in your life that is constrained with a standard operating procedure that specifies when and how you use it.

No one owes you a great career, it argues; you

A workflow centered around ongoing conversation fueled by unstructured and unscheduled messages delivered through digital communication tools like email and instant messenger services. The hyperactive hive mind workflow has become ubiquitous in the knowledge sector.

Pushing past what is comfortable, however is only one part of the deliberate-practice story; the other part is embracing honest feedback — even if it destroys what you thought was good.

For many people, their compulsive phone use papers over a void created by a lack of a well-developed leisure life.

Optimize processes, he urged, not people.

While email use certainly saves people time and effort in communicating,” the authors of the 2016 study conclude, “it also comes at a cost.” Their recommendation? “[We] suggest that organizations make a concerted effort to cut down on email traffic.

The Law of Financial Viability When deciding whether to follow an appealing pursuit that will introduce more control into your work life, seek evidence of whether people are willing to pay for it. If you find this evidence, continue. If not, move on. When