Podcast: The Daily Stoic
Episode: Cal Newport: Take The Pressure Off Productivity
Here’s a list of all the books mentioned in this episode, complete with an Amazon buy link and quotes from the episode.
Two Books Are Better Than One!
Buy on Amazon"So early in grad school, I'm at MIT. I had published these two books about how to be a good student, right? And I had a blog."
Slow Productivity
Buy on Amazon"I think this book, Slow Productivity, is like the most of the books I've written where it's a question I have."
Deep Work
Buy on Amazon"I want to be better at like really something I'm really working at like when I wrote Deep Work, for example, it was, yeah, I came out of this environment, the theory group at MIT, in which like focus was the number one thing."
Slow Productivity
Buy on Amazon"And so I was like, I got to really—I really got to clean up my understanding of these intuitions and instincts I have about slowly working towards what matters because I've actually created a lot of things as I've gotten better and gotten more stature and the opportunities are everywhere. And I felt like I was in danger of impeding my own progress, so this Slow Productivity is probably the book I most had myself in mind as a reader."
Getting Things Done
Buy on Amazon"Yeah, you go back and read David Allen, what you get, what's his goal? Occasional moments of Zen-like peace, among the mind, like there's nothing to turn you into a processing machine and a survival process you, right?"
The Four Cardinal Virtues
Buy on Amazon"And then it's okay, we're going to do the four cardinal virtues books, we're going to, you know, really push the studio quality pod, you know, the plays. It was like you push chips in, right?"
The Obstacle Is the Way
Buy on Amazon"As you’ve mentioned, obstacles away sold a great number of copies, but you received a modest advance. The publisher’s hesitance reflected the dynamic values you expressed earlier; it may not feel fair on the surface initially, but building on smaller wins has its benefits."
The Obstacle Is the Way
Buy on Amazon"In your case, truly the obstacles away sold incredibly well over time, closing the loop on the early takes of its career and growth."
The Lean Startup
Buy on Amazon"And you can actually see this by looking at business advice literature like books like the popular books, right? So in the 80s and 90s, he was like, the big name is going to be Stephen Covey, right?"