Wisdom: Deep Life

Cal's key ideas for the uninitiated:

• Deep Life: Kind of like essentialism / minimalism: Be intentional & focus on results / remove what matters. Create 5 pillars for your life, and work fits into it: https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2020/04/20/cultivating-a-dee...

• Deep Work: do one thing at a time, in a focused way. Context switching is expensive on the brain and stressful / anxiety inducing

• Career Advice (So Good They Can't Ignore You book): become great at a skill or the intersection of multiple skills. When you become good, you'll learn to love it and you can trade in your expertise for more lifestyle traits (more pay or less hours or no boss)

‒ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32927033

Sustainable production of valuable work, however, requires a dash of selfishness. Elizabeth’s revised schedule was exactly right. No reasonable person would find her investment in a once-a-week babysitter, or request for weekend dad time, to be excessive. These acts of self-prioritization were, objectively speaking, small. But they made a large difference in Elizabeth’s ability to produce the tenure-caliber work she knew she had in her. Your work matters. It’s okay to fight for it in your schedule.

‒ https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2022/09/20/your-work-matters-build-your-schedule-accordingly/, discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32927033

“Yes, he’s one of those men that don’t know how to manage. Good situation. Regular income. Quite enough for luxuries as well as needs. Not really extravagant. And yet the fellow’s always in difficulties. Somehow he gets nothing out of his money. Excellent flat—half empty! Always looks as if he’d had the brokers in. New suit—old hat! Magnificent necktie—baggy trousers! Asks you to dinner: cut glass—bad mutton, or Turkish coffee—cracked cup! He can’t understand it. Explanation simply is that he fritters his income away. Wish I had the half of it! I’d show him—”

‒ https://www.artofmanliness.com/character/behavior/how-to-live-on-24-hours-a-day/