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

Lex Fridman Podcast

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