Working It

How to slow down but achieve more, with Cal Newport

May 14, 2024

Author and productivity expert, Cal Newport, discusses the inefficiency of looking busy at work, offering strategies for better workflow management, the importance of rest, and how AI can enhance productivity. Learn how to slow down but achieve more in your white-collar job.

22:58

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Episode guests

Cal Newport

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Quick takeaways

Slow productivity emphasizes quality over quantity in task completion for better results.

Questioning traditional productivity metrics highlights flaws in using visibility as a measure of efficiency in modern work environments.

Deep dives

Emphasizing the Benefits of Slow Productivity

Slow productivity emphasizes the importance of focusing on valuable tasks and completing them well. By working on fewer tasks at a time and giving yourself extra time to finish them, you can yield impressive results. The focus is on the quality of work produced, not just speed or immediate responses to messages.

Slow productivity leads to impressive results

00:37

Solving Email Overload Leads to Improved Collaboration

00:42

Slow down to increase productivity

00:47

Introduction

2min

Strategies for Slow Productivity

15min

Balancing Work Intensity and Leisure for Effectiveness

2min

Prioritizing Well-being and Structured Systems in Remote Work Environment

3min

Enhancing Productivity Through AI and Mindful Work Practices

2min

The modern employee is overloaded. Alongside various projects, the average office worker has to deal with a huge administrative burden, responding to emails and instant messages, attending meetings, and trying to figure out which of their seemingly endless tasks is the most urgent. Academic, author and productivity expert Cal Newport thinks there’s a better way. In this episode, he explains how white-collar jobs put an emphasis on looking busy, rather than getting stuff done – and how to fight back. Cal also gives practical tips for better managing your workflow, how to tell your boss your work will take twice as long, and why you should go to the cinema – on a workday.

Want more? Free links:

Slow Productivity by Cal Newport — when less means more

How Cal Newport rewrote the productivity gospel

Train yourself to concentrate with ‘pull-ups for the brain’

Credits:

Presented by Isabel Berwick, produced by Mischa Frankl-Duval, mixed by Simon Panayi. The executive producer is Manuela Saragosa. Cheryl Brumley is the FT’s global head of audio.

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Working It

How to slow down but achieve more, with Cal Newport

Episode guests

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

Deep dives

Emphasizing the Benefits of Slow Productivity

Challenging Traditional Notions of Productivity Measurement

Advocating for Structural Changes in Knowledge Work

Closing Remarks on the Benefits of Slow Productivity

Slow productivity leads to impressive results

Solving Email Overload Leads to Improved Collaboration

Slow down to increase productivity

Remember Everything You Learn from Podcasts