Deep Habits
No. 112: Cal Newport's suggestions for cultivating a deep life
Full disclosure: I’ve been a little obsessed lately with Cal Newport (Georgetown University professor and best-selling author of several books, including Deep Work and his latest, Slow Productivity). I suppose if one is to obsess over someone, there are worse choices. Oh, alright, there are also better ones. 😂
Given this bit of fixation, it’s no surprise that his podcast, Deep Questions, where he explores the deep life1, is always on the listening queue these days.
In a recent episode, Newport discussed eight small habits that can make a big difference in cultivating a deep life. Four of the eight were directly related to work-life. I took notes on the other half, which are more about cultivating a deeper life outside of work.
1. Use single-purpose notebooks.
Are you currently working on a complicated problem (personal or professional) that requires some brainpower? Newport suggests dedicating a single small notebook2, small enough to fit in our pockets or purses so that we can carry it all the time, to capture random thoughts about this problem.
Newport does not suggest scheduling a block of time to actively work on a complicated problem and try to solve it. Instead, he says we will likely get 5x more brain power by allowing ourselves to capture insights as they come to us.
Because you're tapping so much more of your brain in so many different more mind states, you're tapping so many more momentary insights and fresh starts and bursts of energy. It is an accelerant to the insight that your brain can generate when you have a notebook with you at all times, dedicated to a single problem. It's a powerful tool. I suggest it for making sense of your life or any other big problem you're facing.
2. Take thinking walks, preferably every day.
What we choose to think about while walking need not be anything profound. It could be something light and fun or something we’re excited about, a new hobby perhaps. We could also consider something a lot more serious during our walk. (“I’m upset about something; let me make sense of this. What about my life am I happy about? What am I unhappy about?”)
The key point here is going about the walk without any external input. We won’t be listening to music, a podcast, or an audiobook. We’re simply going to be with our thoughts.
It's about being alone with your thoughts and enjoying the company of your own thoughts. Do this walking, not sitting. Not in a car, not on a train. But actually out there, walking in nature.
This is how humans grow. This is how humans make sense of the messiness that is life. This is how humans find meaning and resilience among the hardness they have to grapple with the world within their own interiority. This requires thinking and walking is the best way to think.
3. Never post (on social media).
Newport is not a fan of social media, so this advice isn’t surprising. He differentiates between consuming and posting, and the following is what he has to say about why posting on social media platforms is one habit he absolutely avoids.
It’s in the posting that you get the deepest tendrils of the social-media-addiction-mind-warping-machine into your brain. It’s when you post that you begin to obsess over what these faceless digital denizens think about you and what you’re saying. It’s where you get the anxiety of, “Do they like this?”, the euphoria if they do, and the pain if they don't. […] It’s what begins to warp your understanding of the world, to be based off of the feedback you’re getting from this very artificial, algorithmically-amplified crowd. It will change what you believe to be true. It will change how you approach your life. It’s most likely going to create a digital cage of unhappiness. Just don't post.
Well, okay then! 😉
4. Do something hard.
Discipline is practiced. It's not a character trait. It's not a binary that you choose to be disciplined or not. It's more like a threshold. The more you practice discipline, the more comfortable you are doing hard things that aren't going to give you rewards in the moment, and the more comfortable you are sticking with hard things even when other distractions are pulling at you. The more disciplined you are, the more likely you are to keep reorienting your actions around the things you care about most, even if they don't lead to the easiest decisions at the moment.
The best way to practice discipline is to do something hard. Newport suggests a modest start — but choose something hard. It could be something physical (“I’m going to work out for 15 minutes every day.”) or intellectual (“I’m going to read this collection of great books.”). The key point is to come back to whatever hard thing we choose to do relentlessly and to prioritize it above all non-professional and non-family obligations.
Get in the habit of doing hard things that are not required. Your discipline threshold will grow. Your identity as a disciplined person will solidify. And this will be the fuel for almost anything else you want to do as part of the quest to cultivate a deeper life in a distracted world.
• • •
Small habits that aren’t necessarily easy, right? I tried the thinking walk this morning. I went for my morning walk sans the headphones and no podcaster voice in my head. I didn’t think about anything specific, actually; I mostly just let my mind wander. It was weird to walk without any voice talking to me in my head — just me and my thoughts. But I suppose that was Newport’s entire point. 🙂
What do you think about these suggestions?
🏷 A Fulfilling Life
💭 muse
“We can just decide to play more. It doesn’t mean you have to squeeze in juggling practice or a soccer league, although both of those things sound great. Our intentions have power, and just setting an intention to play more as we move through our days can be like amping up the saturation of your photographs. It’s not the activity. It’s the state of mind. We can do all the same things, but the color can be brighter.” —
🍹 reader shout-out
A huge shout-out to WAGO reader,
, who writes Living Forward on Substack. Julie writes about loss, about adjusting and adapting, and about starting over… and over… and over. She shares what she’s learning through all these experiences to build the life she loves.💬 last word
A good friend clued me into this online background noise app. Brilliant.
I hope you’re having a great summer. It’s almost over, too! ⛱
Here’s to an easeful week ahead.
Cool Beans
Lou Blaser
The deep life will be the subject of Newport’s next book (already in the works but won’t be available anytime soon). He says he’s taking the writing of his next book slower this time, slower than his regular cadence.
Although (or perhaps because?) Newport has a Ph.D. in Computer Science and teaches it at Georgetown, his suggestions are usually analog and rarely require digital tools.
Good suggestions and nice article. I do a lot of walking, well, strolling when I'm thinking. It works especially well in early mornings and late evenings.
I'm slowly turning off social media again. I was off it completely for five months. I felt much better. Cal Newport is spot on, the engagement can suck one down a rabbit hole for dopamine hits (the latter, my words, not Cal's) and make for a lot of wasted time and energy. Better to learn something hard, like Cal said.
I find my morning walks - by myself (now that I don't have a dog) - without earphones is one of the favorite parts of my day. There is something about the motion of walking and thinking - whether it's about a specific issue I'm trying to work through, or letting my mind wander - that is priceless! Thank you!