Cal Newport

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About Cal Newport
Cal Newport is a computer science professor at Georgetown University, and a writer who explores the intersections of technology, work, and culture. He is the author of seven books, including, most recently, A World Without Email, Digital Minimalism, and Deep Work. These titles include multiple New York Times bestsellers and have been translated into over 40 languages. Newport is also a contributing writer for the New Yorker and the host of the Deep Questions podcast.
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Blog post
In my book Digital Minimalism, I emphasized the danger of a newly-emerged condition that I called “solitude deprivation.” As I wrote, the introduction of the smartphone caused our relationship with distraction to mutate into something new:
“At the slightest hint of boredom, you can now surreptitiously glance at any number of apps or mobile-adapted websites that have been optimized to provide you an immediate and satisfying dose of input from other minds. It’s now p1 week ago Read more -
Blog postJust a few months ago, it seemed that the biggest social media news of the year would be Elon Musk’s flirtations with buying Twitter (see, for example, my article from May). Recently, however, a new story has sucked up an increasing amount of oxygen from this space: TikTok’s challenge to the legacy social platforms.
Last February, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, released a quarterly report that revealed user growth had stalled. Analysts were quick to attribute this2 weeks ago Read more -
Blog postA reader named Peter recently sent me a perceptive note. He had just returned from a visit to Austin, where he had visited the LBJ Ranch, now operated as national historical site, located about 50 miles west of the city in the Texas Hill Country. As Peter recalled, during the tour, the guide emphasized that […]
The post LBJ’s Poolside Phone and the Connectivity Revolution first appeared on Cal Newport.1 month ago Read more -
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Blog postEarlier today, June Huh, a 39-year-old Princeton professor, was awarded the 2022 Fields Medal, one of the highest possible honors in mathematics, for his breakthrough work on geometric combinatorics.
As described in a recent profile of Huh, published in Quanta Magazine (and sent to me by several alert readers), Huh’s path to academic mathematics was meandering. He didn’t get serious about the subject until his final year at Seoul National University, when he enrolled in a class taught1 month ago Read more -
Blog postIn my previous essay, I wrote about how novelist Jack Carr rented a rustic cabin to help focus his attention on completing his latest James Reece thriller. This talk of writing retreats got me thinking again about what’s arguably my favorite example from this particular genre of aspirational day dreaming: Wendell Berry’s “camp” on the Kentucky River.
In February, Dorothy Wickenden, whose father Dan Wickenden was Berry’s original editor at Harcourt Brace, featured Berry’s camp in a len2 months ago Read more -
Blog postLast spring, I wrote an essay for The New Yorker about a notable habit common to professional authors: their tendency to write in strange places. Even when they have beautifully-appointed home offices, a lot of authors will retreat to eccentric locations near their homes to ply their trade.
In my piece, for example, I talked about Maya Angelou writing on legal pads while propped up on her elbow on the bed in anonymous hotel rooms. Peter Benchley left his bucolic carriage house on a ha2 months ago Read more -
Blog postSeveral readers have recently pointed me toward a productivity tool called Inbox Pause, which allows you to prevent messages from arriving in your email inbox for a set amount of time. You could, of course, simply decide not to check your inbox for this period, but as every knowledge worker who has ever used email has learned, it can be very, very difficult to resist a quick check when you know there are messages piling up, desperate for your response.
I like this tool. Among other be3 months ago Read more -
Blog postIn my writing on technology and culture I try to be judicious about citing scientific studies. The issues involved in our ongoing wrangling with digital innovations are subtle and often deeply human. Attempts to exactly quantify what we’re gaining and losing through our screens can at times feel disconcertedly sterile. All that being said, however, […]
The post Taking a Break from Social Media Makes you Happier and Less Anxious first appeared on Cal Newport.3 months ago Read more -
Blog postI recently posted a video about one of my oldest and most successful work strategies: fixed-schedule productivity. The idea is simple to describe:
Choose a schedule of work hours that you think provides the ideal balance of effort and relaxation. Do whatever it takes to avoid violating this schedule. These simple limits, however, can lead to complex productivity innovations. In my own life, the demands of fixed-schedule productivity helped me develop what became my time blocking and s3 months ago Read more -
Blog postNot long ago, I watched Aziz Ansari’s new Netflix special, Nightclub Comedian. I was pleasantly surprised when, early in the show, Ansari demonstrates his commitment to escaping tech-driven distraction by showing off his Nokia 2720 flip phone (see above). Soon after the special was released, Ansari elaborated on his personal brand of digital minimalism in a radio interview:
“Many years ago, I kind of started turning off the internet, and I deleted all social media and all this stuff,3 months ago Read more
Titles By Cal Newport
Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It's a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. Deep Work will make you better at what you do and provide the sense of true fulfillment that comes from craftsmanship. In short, deep work is like a super power in our increasingly competitive twenty-first century economy. And yet, most people have lost the ability to go deep-spending their days instead in a frantic blur of e-mail and social media, not even realizing there's a better way.
In Deep Work, author and professor Cal Newport flips the narrative on impact in a connected age. Instead of arguing distraction is bad, he instead celebrates the power of its opposite. Dividing this book into two parts, he first makes the case that in almost any profession, cultivating a deep work ethic will produce massive benefits. He then presents a rigorous training regimen, presented as a series of four "rules," for transforming your mind and habits to support this skill.
1. Work Deeply
2. Embrace Boredom
3. Quit Social Media
4. Drain the Shallows
A mix of cultural criticism and actionable advice, Deep Work takes the reader on a journey through memorable stories-from Carl Jung building a stone tower in the woods to focus his mind, to a social media pioneer buying a round-trip business class ticket to Tokyo to write a book free from distraction in the air-and no-nonsense advice, such as the claim that most serious professionals should quit social media and that you should practice being bored. Deep Work is an indispensable guide to anyone seeking focused success in a distracted world.
An Amazon Best Book of 2016 Pick in Business & Leadership
Wall Street Journal Business Bestseller
A Business Book of the Week at 800-CEO-READ
"Newport is making a bid to be the Marie Kondo of technology: someone with an actual plan for helping you realize the digital pursuits that do, and don't, bring value to your life."--Ezra Klein, Vox
Minimalism is the art of knowing how much is just enough. Digital minimalism applies this idea to our personal technology. It's the key to living a focused life in an increasingly noisy world.
In this timely and enlightening book, the bestselling author of Deep Work introduces a philosophy for technology use that has already improved countless lives.
Digital minimalists are all around us. They're the calm, happy people who can hold long conversations without furtive glances at their phones. They can get lost in a good book, a woodworking project, or a leisurely morning run. They can have fun with friends and family without the obsessive urge to document the experience. They stay informed about the news of the day, but don't feel overwhelmed by it. They don't experience "fear of missing out" because they already know which activities provide them meaning and satisfaction.
Now, Newport gives us a name for this quiet movement, and makes a persuasive case for its urgency in our tech-saturated world. Common sense tips, like turning off notifications, or occasional rituals like observing a digital sabbath, don't go far enough in helping us take back control of our technological lives, and attempts to unplug completely are complicated by the demands of family, friends and work. What we need instead is a thoughtful method to decide what tools to use, for what purposes, and under what conditions.
Drawing on a diverse array of real-life examples, from Amish farmers to harried parents to Silicon Valley programmers, Newport identifies the common practices of digital minimalists and the ideas that underpin them. He shows how digital minimalists are rethinking their relationship to social media, rediscovering the pleasures of the offline world, and reconnecting with their inner selves through regular periods of solitude. He then shares strategies for integrating these practices into your life, starting with a thirty-day "digital declutter" process that has already helped thousands feel less overwhelmed and more in control.
Technology is intrinsically neither good nor bad. The key is using it to support your goals and values, rather than letting it use you. This book shows the way.
Not only are pre-existing passions rare and have little to do with how most people end up loving their work, but a focus on passion over skill can be dangerous, leading to anxiety and chronic job hopping. Spending time with organic farmers, venture capitalists, screenwriters, freelance computer programmers, and others who admitted to deriving great satisfaction from their work, Newport uncovers the strategies they used and the pitfalls they avoided in developing their compelling careers.
Cal reveals that matching your job to a pre-existing passion does not matter. Passion comes after you put in the hard work to become excellent at something valuable, not before. In other words, what you do for a living is much less important than how you do it.
With a title taken from the comedian Steve Martin, who once said his advice for aspiring entertainers was to "be so good they can't ignore you," Cal Newport's clearly written manifesto is mandatory reading for anyone fretting about what to do with their life, or frustrated by their current job situation and eager to find a fresh new way to take control of their livelihood. He provides an evidence-based blueprint for creating work you love, and will change the way you think about careers, happiness, and the crafting of a remarkable life.
Most college students believe that straight A’s can be achieved only through cramming and painful all-nighters at the library. But Cal Newport knows that real straight-A students don’t study harder—they study smarter. A breakthrough approach to acing academic assignments, from quizzes and exams to essays and papers, How to Become a Straight-A Student reveals for the first time the proven study secrets of real straight-A students across the country and weaves them into a simple, practical system that anyone can master.
You will learn how to:
• Streamline and maximize your study time
• Conquer procrastination
• Absorb the material quickly and effectively
• Know which reading assignments are critical—and which are not
• Target the paper topics that wow professors
• Provide A+ answers on exams
• Write stellar prose without the agony
A strategic blueprint for success that promises more free time, more fun, and top-tier results, How to Become a Straight-A Student is the only study guide written by students for students—with the insider knowledge and real-world methods to help you master the college system and rise to the top of the class.
From New York Times bestselling author Cal Newport comes a bold vision for liberating workers from the tyranny of the inbox--and unleashing a new era of productivity.
Modern knowledge workers communicate constantly. Their days are defined by a relentless barrage of incoming messages and back-and-forth digital conversations--a state of constant, anxious chatter in which nobody can disconnect, and so nobody has the cognitive bandwidth to perform substantive work. There was a time when tools like email felt cutting edge, but a thorough review of current evidence reveals that the "hyperactive hive mind" workflow they helped create has become a productivity disaster, reducing profitability and perhaps even slowing overall economic growth. Equally worrisome, it makes us miserable. Humans are simply not wired for constant digital communication.
We have become so used to an inbox-driven workday that it's hard to imagine alternatives. But they do exist. Drawing on years of investigative reporting, author and computer science professor Cal Newport makes the case that our current approach to work is broken, then lays out a series of principles and concrete instructions for fixing it. In A World without Email, he argues for a workplace in which clear processes--not haphazard messaging--define how tasks are identified, assigned and reviewed. Each person works on fewer things (but does them better), and aggressive investment in support reduces the ever-increasing burden of administrative tasks. Above all else, important communication is streamlined, and inboxes and chat channels are no longer central to how work unfolds.
The knowledge sector's evolution beyond the hyperactive hive mind is inevitable. The question is not whether a world without email is coming (it is), but whether you'll be ahead of this trend. If you're a CEO seeking a competitive edge, an entrepreneur convinced your productivity could be higher, or an employee exhausted by your inbox, A World Without Email will convince you that the time has come for bold changes, and will walk you through exactly how to make them happen.
BEST SELLER INTERNACIONAL
El método infalible para ahorrar tiempo, ser más eficiente y tener éxito en un mundo disperso.
“Highly recommended because it is full of practical tips that will help high school grads take the next step in life.”—Money
How can you graduate with honors, choose exciting activities, build a head-turning resume, gain access to the best post-college opportunities, and still have a life? Based on interviews with star students at universities nationwide, from Harvard to the University of Arizona, How to Win at College presents seventy-five simple rules that will rocket you to the top of your class. These often surprising strategies include:
• Don’t do all your reading
• Drop classes every term
• Become a club president
• Care about your grades, Ignore your GPA
• Never pull an all-nighter
• Take three days to write a paper
• Always be working on a “grand project”
• Do one thing better than anyone else you know
Proving you can be successful and still have time for fun, How to Win at College is the must-have guide for making the most of these four important years—and getting and edge on life after graduation.
“This deliberately provocative book is a good way for a smart student to see how out-of-the-box thinking can lead to success in college.”—Seattle Times
What if getting into your reach schools didn’t require four years of excessive A.P. classes, overwhelming activity schedules, and constant stress?
In How to Be a High School Superstar, Cal Newport explores the world of relaxed superstars—students who scored spots at the nation’s top colleges by leading uncluttered, low stress, and authentic lives. Drawing from extensive interviews and cutting-edge science, Newport explains the surprising truths behind these superstars’ mixture of happiness and admissions success, including:
· Why doing less is the foundation for becoming more impressive.
· Why demonstrating passion is meaningless, but being interesting is crucial.
· Why accomplishments that are hard to explain are better than accomplishments that are hard to do.
These insights are accompanied by step-by-step instructions to help any student adopt the relaxed superstar lifestyle—proving that getting into college doesn’t have to be a chore to survive, but instead can be the reward for living a genuinely interesting life.
Los minimalistas digitales ya están entre nosotros. Son personas relajadas que pueden tener largas conversaciones, perderse en un buen libro, hacer manualidades o salir a correr sin que su mirada se escape constantemente hacia su teléfono móvil. Utilizando el sentido común y adoptando técnicas sutiles, Cal Newport nos enseñará cuándo usar la tecnología y cuándo prescindir de ella para disfrutar plenamente del mundo offline y reconectar con nosotros mismos. La tecnología no es mala o buena en sí misma, la clave está en usarla de acuerdo con nuestros valores y necesidades.
***New York Times Bestseller***
El autor bestseller del New York Times, Cal Newport, nos ofrece una propuesta audaz para liberar a los trabajadores de la dictadura de la bandeja de entrada y desencadenar una nueva era de productividad.
Los profesionales modernos se comunican constantemente. Sus días se definen por un incesante bombardeo de mensajes entrantes y conversaciones digitales de ida y vuelta, un estado de palabrería constante y estresante de la que nadie puede desconectar y, por tanto, no se dispone del ancho de banda cognitivo necesario para realizar un trabajo productivo.
Basándose en años de investigación, en Un mundo sin email, Cal Newport, escritor y profesor de ciencias de la computación, sostiene que nuestro enfoque actual del trabajo está equivocado y expone una serie de principios e instrucciones concretas para corregirlo.
• El autor aboga por un lugar de trabajo en el que procesos claros definan cómo se identifican, distribuyen y revisan las tareas. Cada persona trabaja en menos tareas y se reduce la creciente carga de tareas administrativas.
• Por encima de todo, la comunicación importante se optimiza, y las bandejas de entrada y los canales de chat dejan de ser el elemento central del proceso de ejecución del trabajo.
• Un mundo sin e-mail te convencerá de que ha llegado el momento de realizar cambios audaces y te mostrará exactamente cómo llevarlos a cabo.
गहन कार्य की सराहना
‘जिस तरह स्वचालन (ऑटोमेशन) और बाहरी स्रोत (आउटसोर्सिंग) हमारे कार्यक्षेत्र को एक नया रूप दे रही हैं, ऐसे में वे कौन से नए कौशल हैं, जिनकी हमें ज़रूरत हैं? कैल न्यूपोर्ट की यह दिलचस्प किताब न सिर्फ एक विचलन-रहित (डिस्ट्रैक्शन फ‘ी) वातावरण में गहन एकाग‘ता से हमारा परिचय कराती है बल्कि हमें उस तक पहुँचने का मार्ग भी दिखाती है। इस गहन एकाग‘ता के परिणामस्वरूप हमारे सीखने की गति तेज हो जाती है और हमारा प्रदर्शन सशक्त हो जाता है। इसे अपने मस्तिष्क के व्यायाम के रूप में देखें - और आज से ही यह व्यायाम शुरू करें।’
- डेनियल एच. पिंक, ड्राइव और टू सेल इज ह्यूमन के लेखक
‘यह किताब गहन एकाग‘ता की क्षमता विकसित करने के पक्ष में ठोस तर्क देती है और इसके लिए ऐसे कदम सुझा
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