Comments on: Best of Both Worlds podcast: Cal Newport on Slow Productivity

By: Anne Sjobeck

Anne Sjobeck — Wed, 17 Apr 2024 19:15:23 +0000

In reply to Grateful Kae. I felt the exact same way! I was super excited to see this title in my podcast player, thank you for getting Cal on! Also, I started using Feedly and it is amazing!

By: Janet

Janet — Mon, 08 Apr 2024 13:07:35 +0000

In reply to Laura Vanderkam. Oops...the book is titled "How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life" and it's still available on Amazon. Well worth a look. Love your work, too!

By: Laura Vanderkam

Laura Vanderkam — Mon, 08 Apr 2024 12:00:58 +0000

In reply to Janet.

@Janet- I actually haven’t read Lakein’s work! Something to check out. And yes I imagine teaching working adults has some upsides in that no one is forced to be there — people are making huge sacrifices to go to school, and that no doubt affects how seriously people take things…

By: Janet

Janet — Mon, 08 Apr 2024 11:55:10 +0000

I guess you could say I’m a long, longtime productivity devotee since the ‘80s when I discovered Alan Lakein’s , Take Control of Your Life and Your Time (his Swiss Cheese method is still one of my favorites ). I was working full time while attending college on the weekend and at night for a Bachelors and then a Masters degree. Productivity and time management methods became a favorite topic for me. I honestly don’t know how I would have accomplished what I did without them. It was an intense time in my life and lasted around fifteen years but I have no regrets. Not only did I get the degrees and a huge bump up in my profession but I never took out a single student loan. And many of the professors I had told our classes that they preferred teaching us because we really wanted to be there unlike the day students who weren’t given a choice.

By: Laura C

Laura C — Thu, 04 Apr 2024 18:41:34 +0000

This was so great! You all have such a conversational style. The reminder about a shutdown routine and having thinky hobbies outside of work for high achievers to stop work rumination was really helpful.
There is one bit that I don’t quite agree with when you both pressed him about people with more traditional jobs who don’t have as much power over their workload. We all are pretty far in our careers, but I remember managing a team in my late 20s/early 30s at a nonprofit with leadership that would not listen to my explanations and reports that they could not keep requesting us to make more products and more variations of products without scaling staffing on our team, even while they scaled staff in other areas like upper management and sales. We were just told to be “solutions-oriented” and work “smarter.” Because the staff was mostly either childless people or, in upper management, well-paid married men, the culture was to just work more, which was not sustainable – and lots of folks eventually left because of it. When you’re in that kind of culture, or if you’re in a position where you don’t have a lot of power or think you don’t have a lot of power, and managers don’t listen to your explanation that there is no room for additional tasks, I worry that advice like that kind of puts the blame on the victim a bit? Like “if you have too much on your plate, it’s your own fault.” And it struck me that we are all kind of the same age right now, with similar-ish aged children… it made me think of how you’ve noted before, Laura, that people like to say older kids are harder, but they’re just different – people forget the lack of sleep and the achy back from picking up the kids and the tantrums of the younger years. It can be easier to forget what it’s like in the earlier years of a career, too, when you don’t have the same kind of power.
Thank you for the podcast! Thse are such helpful reminders. Especially that saying yes to one thing means no to another, so take a minute to think. I needed that right now as committee assignments come up!

By: Laura Vanderkam

Laura Vanderkam — Thu, 04 Apr 2024 14:10:04 +0000

In reply to Adrienne.

@Adrienne – Thanks for listening! I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about whether I could simply create a time frame for work (e.g. I only work between 9 and 5) – the problem is I do wind up managing a lot of home stuff during work hours. So I do work stuff during home hours too. It is fine – different people like different separations, but it’s an interesting thought process…

By: Adrienne

Adrienne — Thu, 04 Apr 2024 12:09:36 +0000

This was a really interesting episode. I really think you and Sarah do a better job of addressing “both worlds.” You asked a few different ways, but I still don’t really know how Cal’s household handles like, laundry, dishes, running their home, etc. (the stuff that takes up an inordinate amount of space in my brain ;))
I did appreciate Cal’s shutdown routine/focus on how to be present when it’s family time and I loved his perspective about putting some parameters on endeavors as a way to enforce prioritization.

By: Allison

Allison — Tue, 02 Apr 2024 18:36:48 +0000

Just finished the book yesterday- perfect timing for this!

By: Laura Vanderkam

Laura Vanderkam — Tue, 02 Apr 2024 16:02:35 +0000

In reply to Grateful Kae. @Kae- we aim to please!

By: Grateful Kae

Grateful Kae — Tue, 02 Apr 2024 16:01:30 +0000

Eek, can't wait to listen! My 3 favorite podcasters all in one episode?!