Dr. Cal Newport: How to Enhance Focus and Improve Productivity

welcome to the hubman Lab podcast where

we discuss science and science-based

tools for everyday

[Music]

life I'm Andrew huberman and I'm a

professor of neurobiology and

Opthalmology at Stanford School of

Medicine my guest today is Dr Cal

Newport Dr Cal Newport is a professor of

computer science at Georgetown

University he did his training at MIT

and he is currently both a professor and

the author of many best-selling books

focused on productiv

focus and how to access the specific

states of mind to bring out your best in

terms of cognitive performance and

indeed in terms of performance in all

Endeavors one of his more notable books

is entitled deep work rules for focused

success in a distracted World deep work

is a book that has had tremendous

positive influence on my work life and

indeed my life in general because it

spells out how exactly to go about doing

one's best possible work for me that's

in the context of Science and podcasting

But it includes tools that I and many

others have extended to other aspects of

their life as well and it's a book that

I highly highly recommend everybody read

Cal also has a new book out now it's one

that I'm currently reading entitled slow

productivity the Lost Art of

accomplishment without burnout and as

the title suggests it gets into specific

protocols to avoid burnout and to bring

about one's highest quality work over

the greatest amount of time today's

discussion starts off with extreme

practical steps that any and all of us

can use in order to enhance our level of

focus productivity and creativity Cal

shares much of his specific practices

and also offers some alternative

practices for those of you that perhaps

do not want to disengage with social

media or with smartphones or with email

to the extent that he does I found the

conversation to be extremely useful in

the sense that I indeed am on social

media I use email I use my phone and

texting quite often so I'm not somebody

who's willing to completely disengage

from those tools but I share in the

sentiment that those tools can often be

an impediment to doing one's best work

so today's discussion gets into not hard

and fast rules for enhancing focus and

productivity but a variety of different

tools that you can select from in sort

of a buffet to suit your particular

needs we also of course discuss the

specific research studies around focus

and distraction task switching and

context switching all of which support

the specific protocols that Cal offers

so whether you're someone who has issues

with attention and focus or whether

you're somebody that's just feeling

overly distracted by the number of

things in your email inbox or the number

of text or what's happening out in the

world by the end of today's episode I'm

confident that you will be armed with

the best science supported tools that is

protocols in order to access the states

of mind that will enable you to do your

best possible work before we begin I'd

like to emphasize that this podcast is

separate from my teaching and research

roles at Stanford it is however part of

my desire and effort to bring zero cost

to Consumer information about science

and science related tools to the general

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ju products and now for my discussion

with Dr Cal Newport Dr Cal Newport

welcome Dr huberman good to see you I'm

a huge fan I've been a huge fan ever

since I read deep work I can't say that

I've adopted all the principles but

that's on me not you you provide

incredible incentive for why one ought

to pursue deep work and slow

productivity in service to high quality

true productivity Etc um some of the

protocols as we'll call them are

incredibly easy to Implement others take

some discipline so I'd like to talk

about both sets today but the first

question I have is um do you own a

smartphone I do have a smartphone yeah

well here's the thing I don't use social

media so it turns out smartphones aren't

that interesting if you don't have any

social media apps on it yeah what's that

like so there's there's nothing if you

have nothing that is engineered to try

to grab your attention the smartphone

actually goes back to 2007 Steve Jobs

keynote address smartphone which is the

is a really nice phone and your music

you can listen to things on it and uh

the phone interface is really good and

look there's a Maps app and you can like

look at maps on it like it's actually a

useful piece of technology that you're

happy to have but uh you don't use it

that

much what about text messaging do you

text message and if so do you get into

conversations by text or is it more of a

a plan and meet type tool uh I try right

so so I try I do use text messaging I

mean this is how like my wife gets in

touch with

uh but I'm notorious somewhat among my

friends of my the ability to capture my

attention with text messages really hit

or miss because I'll go hours without

looking at my phone so it's not this

default appendage I think for a lot of

people if you know someone you can

basically assume like look if I text

them they're going to get right back to

me H my problem is I'll go to three four

hours you know without looking at my

phone and then there'll be text messages

on there from conversations that people

were trying to start and I typically

just have to declare text bankruptcy a

few times a day like look if they really

needed me I guess they would have called

so I do text but uh I'm not considered

to be very good at it a few other

questions about your phone practices

this makes me nervous um is your phone

in a drawer on on the desktop um while

you're working is it face down face up

is the ringer on is it off Oh you mean

if I'm writing or it's nowhere near me

yeah Ian it could be anywhere it's just

not going to be anywhere near me so I

have in my house uh two different

offices basically right so there's a

home office the pr is there the filing

cabinets are there like the nice big

monitors there you pay taxes that type

of thing and then I have a library and

there's no permanent technology in the

library no computer in there no monitor

no printers nothing like this I have

this sort of custombuilt desk I had made

by a company from Maine that makes desks

for college libraries like that's what

they do so I had this like custom fit

desk to fit into uh it's not that big of

a space that's where I go to write I'm

surrounded by books that I've really

carefully curated what's where each

shelf like what type of book it has on

it so I can look different ways for

different Inspirations I got a fireplace

so I can just turn on a fire if I need

it I'll bring my laptop in there to

write if I'm going to write on a

computer and my phone doesn't come in

there yeah you don't you don't look at

you don't look at a phone in that room

and it just helps me it's a ritual right

if I'm in there I'm thinking I'm

creating with the sort of same patterns

of cogitation that we would have been

using for hundreds of years when people

have been thinking professionally if I

want to be near a printer and I want to

go on to a web browser and pay my taxes

or whatever I have a different place for

that I'm curious about the fireplace I

have this Theory based on my

understanding of visual neuroscience and

the fact that when we're looking at

visual scenes that have some degree of

predictability to them yeah um we get

into a mode of anticipation our thinking

is at least somewhat linear um and so

forth when we are looking at say ocean

waves or um up in a skyscraper we're

staring down at the street of say New

York City and the cars are moving in

obviously not random fashion but at

least to our visual perception pseudo

random you're not tracking any one thing

that the the Mind goes into this sort of

um state where our thoughts become

nonlinear they're not anchored to any

kind of if then kind of what I call DPO

duration path outcome kind of trajectory

there not a lot of Neuroscience on this

but there's a little bit same thing

happens when you're looking at an

aquarium by the way um so I wonder

whether or not staring at the fire which

is something that humans have been doing

for many many many thousands of years um

because it has that uh random aspect to

it does it tend to spark creativity

linear thinking at what point in your

writing do you turn to the fire and

stare at it oh that's interesting

actually that there's a a neurological

explanation when I use to fire is

actually when I read right so chairs by

the fire but I think for exactly this

reason right because when I'm reading

I'm looking to spark ideas right like

okay what am I what's my takeaway from

this what's the connection you're making

between this thing you're reading here

and this idea over there that type of

connection making is a lot of my

brainstorming and I read by the fire

when the weather allows it uh I also

walk a lot so I wonder if there's

something similar going on like when I'm

trying to work through an idea for an

article or a math proof or something

like this almost always I'm going to do

that on foot and there might be

something similar going on there where

you're encountering it's not entirely

exotic stimuli right so it's not oh my

God you know my attention's being drawn

but it's you you don't you don't quite

know what you're going to see and you

also have that that circuit quieting

effect of the walking your motor neurons

are going you can tell me if I'm getting

this right or not abely the motor

neurons are going and you get some

inhibition going on in some of these

these key networks which allows you to

actually um maintain the the the

internal focus on a concept a little bit

better so I do a lot of my original

focused ideating on foot but a lot of my

serendipitous ideating will be with the

fire going right it's a win I read by

the fire and so when I read that I get a

lot of my original ideas I have this

theory that the

two opposite states of mind that both

facilitate creativity and

productivity look something like this

and you can tell me whether or not this

Maps anything that that you know one is

just as you described our body is in

motion um could be running

walking might be in the shower or

something of that sort uh but we aren't

trying to direct our mind toward a

specific linear trajectory or outcome

it's not it's not like working out an

equation or a theorem um the same way we

would if we were at a piece of paper or

writing out a sentence a structured

paragraph So it's body and motion mind

not channeled toward one specific Target

um the opposite extreme to me is body

still mind very active um which

resembles rapid eye movement sleep when

we learn a lot and neural rewiring

occurs and dreaming but uh for which

there's also a lot of examples of very

accomplished um creatives using that

sort of thing of meditative like um

approaches you know forcing oneself to

be still and thinking so it sounds like

you incorporate both um and I'm curious

as a computer scientist who writes code

does theorems does a lot of math where

you can't just kind of wing it yeah um

right and wrong answer uh involved what

is your mode for sitting down and

working through something that's linear

and hard yeah that it's interesting the

way you talk about it right because when

I'm walking uh and this is actually

something you can train you know and I

talked about this one of my books once

that you can actually train yourself to

uh maintain your internal eye of focus

more stably while you're walking right

so I called this productive meditation

in deep work actually uh and I I

practiced this in grad school right okay

so I'm going to work on a particular

problem while I walk and then you

actually practice bringing your

attention back to the central problem

and it I don't know exactly what's

happening but you get a little bit more

uh facility working with your working

memory a little bit more efficiency with

bringing stuff in and out of the working

memory and so I trained myself that I

could actually write a couple paragraphs

in my head maybe not word for but

basically word for word like figure out

how I'm going to do it or uh figure out

enough steps of a math proof to capture

a key Insight like okay I know I'm going

to get around this then you have to sit

down and actually formally capture that

and yeah for me that's still working

with notebooks though when I was coming

up in grad school and I was just

Excavating these thoughts recently we

were talking before the we recorded that

you know I just wrote this essay about

what I learned as a grad student that

impacted all my writing uh as a grad

student in the theory group at MIT which

was just purified concentration this is

where all the Deep work ideas come from

right I mean it was just worldclass

concentrators they're the method was

very still more than one person

whiteboard so if you have two or three

people staring at the same whiteboard

you're actually going to up the level of

concentration you achieve because if you

let your attention wander you disengage

that attention there's a social capital

cost because now I've fallen out of the

the Whiteboard effect discussion that's

going to be a problem so you actually

maintain your focus at a higher level

and then when someone else is making

their move okay you know what about this

and they're working math it's all math

on the board you're giving that the

highest attention you're capable of

because you want to keep up right you

don't want to fall behind so it was like

this Hack That was figured out in the

theory group that if you put two or

three people at the same whiteboard to

try to alchemize these insights into

actual mathematically precise proofs you

get a 20 30% boost in your concentration

level and and that could make all the

difference right if you're working on a

very hard proof 20 30% boost could be

the difference between solving it or not

in one of these situations where you're

at the white whiteboard or chalkboard

and their two other individuals facing

it are they interrupting you or is the

um etiquette uh in that scenario to just

let the person go until their natural

yeah uh inclination to raise a hand and

and scream help whoever has the marker

on the board they're the one's talking

so you go okay what about this you say

and now you're working you're writing

down equations or drawing your diagram

and everyone is just watching and then

when they're done everyone steps back

and looks at it then you can step

forward okay but what if we did this and

then and you still work on it so so when

I got uh built some offices or worked

out some offices near my house like one

of the first things we put in there was

a whiteboard so I could have computer

science collaborators come because we

can't work on Theory otherwise like it

is the thing we need is a whiteboard

right when I started grad school they

had just built this new $300 million

Frank Gary design building for the

computer science artificial intelligence

laboratory and uh Linguistics but half

of it was computer science I know those

buildings cuz the peow and the McGovern

Neuroscience C and those buildings are

very interesting people should check

them out if they're ever in Cambridge

Kendall Square stop the status Center

yeah right down the street from the K

sop yeah so the sixth floor was where

the theoreticians were this is where I

was uh so I you know they opened that

building the year I started my the

doctoral program and what did they want

to show me when they when they brought

me to this $300 million Building look at

our whiteboards that's what they were

proud of they had filled the common

space on the sixth floor the theory

floor with these uh freestanding

double-sided whiteboards it was like a

maze of whiteboards and this is what

everyone was so excited about was yeah

look at our whiteboard coverage

surrounded by a $300 million meal I Tred

I was trying to explain this to someone

recently uh having good whiteboards to

us as like an astronomer saying look we

got this great radio telescope like this

is going to allow us to get data to work

on that we wouldn't otherwise have

access to I think to a theoretician uh

that's why you see a whiteboard because

you know if you want to think at the

very highest level you need two or three

people staring at the same thing taking

turns with the marker or pushing each

other past where they're comfortable I I

love this because I often think about

visual maps that represent our internal

memory stores and plans etc for

productivity I've always relied heavily

on the on the Whiteboard I getting one

for home I have one here in the podcast

studio all of my podcast notes for my

solo episodes are distilled down to four

8 and 1 half by 11 notes which are

photographs of the the Whiteboard yeah

and um I don't use a teleprompter um

I've been accused of using one before I

don't even know how that would work um

but um it's extremely useful to use the

Whiteboard and I think because um ideas

are so easily put up there and removed

um there's something about uh writing on

things that are vertical as opposed to

on a flat surface I really because

that's actually the way our visual

perception casts things we don't cast

visual perception onto the ground we're

used we experience the visual world

mostly in front of us I think the

cognitive map and the visual map are

inextricably linked for at least for

cited folks um so I I think there's

really something there so um in the

absence of colleagues to sit there and

boost our attention by 25 to 30%

um what could one do do you have a you

said you have a whiteboard at home I

certainly use the Whiteboard do you um

work on it the same way you would in

those early days just with in the

absence of of colleagues looking on yeah

yeah so you work on it just like

someone's there uh the hack is using

really good notebooks that's always made

a big difference for me paper notebooks

paper notebooks yeah yeah though though

recently I've been messing around with a

remarkable which is one of these digital

notebooks where it's eink technology so

it's like a Kindle but you can write on

it h but you have endless pages on it so

I've been messing around with that

recently but I remembered when I was a

postto for example I found it recently I

went and bought a lab notebook because

those are expensive at least for a

postto right they're like $70 because a

lab note book has to have archival

quality paper it's bound it's bound yeah

people might not realize this lab

notebooks need to be kept for many years

yes you you uh you're not supposed to

tear Pages out of them and so they tend

to be bound so if you have terrible

handwriting like I do you just have to

deal with it yes you can't rip it out

and it's thick thick paper acidfree

archival paper big sturdy covers um but

I bought this because I thought okay

look I'm going to take it more seriously

because I think that's also part of what

goes on with the Whiteboard is your mind

thinks about writing on uh the big

vertical space as a a public

crystallization of thoughts I'm putting

this up for people to see even if

there's no one actually there to see it

and so you take it more seriously right

if I'm writing on a a whiteboard in

class I'm not just going to put up

nonsense like I'm GNA be very careful

about what I'm writing because you

imagine there's an audience this is

something for other people to see and so

you get a little bit of a similar effect

if you have a very nice notebook you

think look I don't want to waste pages

and somehow that helps with the thinking

so then I found this notebook because I

store my old notebooks in my closet so I

found it when I was working on a recent

book I found it I went through it right

and then I started ticking off uh this

turned into a paper this turned into a

grant this notebook I used it for maybe

two years only used maybe about half the

pages it's all very careful neat script

and diagrams I think I found seven

different peer-reviewed papers or funded

grants where the core ideas were in this

notebook so it's like that

$70 was a an incredible investment

because when I when I got to work in

that notebook it must have been

pushing my thinking to a new level

because it was an incredible

concentration of actual publishable

results were coming out of his Pages

yeah it seems like we would all do well

regardless of our field um to have some

very low Bar Method of capture where if

we just have an idea that spontaneously

comes to mind that we can capture that

in a voice memo or um dare I say in a a

phone uh notes segment but then

something as you're suggesting like a a

whiteboard um like a bound note notebook

where the moment we look at it it brings

about a level of seriousness yeah to our

to our thinking and to our actions like

this is different than just um texting

um I what we're really talking about our

our kind of layers of sophistication um

but not in a snobby way in terms of um

highest productivity and quality to kind

of um I don't know bubble gum wrapper on

on the floor type levels of quote

unquote productivity well I mean I

become a fan of this idea of of having

specialized capture for specific type of

work so for example I'm a big believer

in pretty quickly you want to capture

ideas in the tool you use to do that

work so when I have ideas for an article

or a book I'm going to go write the

scrier which is uh specialty this is

specialty software writers used to write

right I going to go right to a scrier

project and start putting these in the

research section of that scrier project

when I'm working on a math or computer

science thing I might work out proof

ideas on paper but I pretty quickly want

to get that into a latch document so so

the markup language that you use for

doing sort of like applied math papers

right the the the tool we use to

actually write papers I'm going to move

an idea into there as soon as I can I'm

going to move proofs out of a notebook

and into formally marked up like you

would for a paper you know as soon as I

would so this idea this just something

I've been leaning to more is capture the

notes in the tool you're going to use

take out the middleman in some sense

right so it's it's uh reducing friction

but also puts you in the right mind

space like okay this idea I'm going to

put it where I'm going to need it later

as opposed to a more elaborate

thirdparty system that you construct

that you then later pull everything out

of as needed uh this what I've been

doing more recently let's just get

straight to the tool I'm eventually

going to use with maybe a high quality

notebook intermediary if I'm actually

literally working out thoughts so math

you have to work out thoughts but I'll

get that into an actual paper format

pretty quickly tell me what you think of

um this what I always call protocol if I

want to learn something from a

manuscript I read or a book chapter yeah

I used to highlight things and I had a

very elaborate um extracted from my

University days system of stars and

exclamation marks and underline that

mean a lot to me that can yes bring me

back to a given segment within the

chapter but a few years ago I was

teaching a course in the biology

department at Stanford and for some

reason we had them read a study about

information retention

and um and I learned from that study

that one of the best things we can do is

read information um in whatever form a

magazine research article Etc book um

and then to take some time away from

that material maybe walk maybe close

one's eyes maybe leave them open doesn't

matter and just try and remember

specific elements how much does one

remember then go back to the material

and look at it and I've just been um

positively astonished at how much more

information I can learn

when I'm not simply going through motor

commands of just underlining things and

highlighting them but stepping away and

thinking okay yeah they I don't oh I

don't remember how many subjects there

were I'll go back and check that maybe

make a note and okay they did this then

they did that and then like and then

it's crystallized and and when as I say

this I realize of course this should

work this is the way that the brain

learns um but somehow that's not the way

we are taught to learn yeah well I'm

smiling because I when I was 22 uh I

wrote this book called how to become a

straight A student right and the whole

premise of the book was I'm going to

talk to actual college students who have

straight A's uh and who don't seem

completely ground out right like not

burnt out and I'm just going to

interview them right and the protocol

was uh how did you study for the last

test that you study for how did you take

notes for the life so I was just asking

them to walk through their methodology

the core idea of that book was active

recall that was the core idea that

replicating uh ideas way used to say is

replicating the information from scratch

as if teaching a class without looking

at your notes that is the only way to

learn and and the thing about it was

it's a tradeoff uh it doesn't take it's

efficient doesn't take much time but

it's incredibly mentally taxing right

this is why students often avoid it it

is difficult to sit there and try to

replicate and pull forth okay what did I

read here how did that work it's it's

mentally very taxing but it's very time

efficient right if you're willing to

essentially put up with that with that

pain um you learn very quickly and not

only do you learn very quickly you don't

forget it's almost like you have a

pseudo photographic memory when you

study this way you sit down to do a test

and you're you're replicating like whole

lines from like what you what you

studied I the ideas sort of come out

fully formed because it's such a

fantastic way to to actually learn um it

was my key like the whole premise that

got me writing that book is I went

through this this period as a college

student where where I came in freshman

year was like a fine student not a great

student but a fine student and uh I was

rowing crew and I was sort of like

excited to do that um and then I got

developed a heart condition and had to

stop congenital wiring in the heart

atrial flutter thing mean I couldn't R

crew anymore is a prolapse of some sort

it was a a a circuit a circuitry issue

that would lead to a extremely rapid

heartbeat it's like U really rapid like

tardia right you get two 250 beats a

minute just and it could be exercise

induced right which is not optimal um

you could take beta blockers which would

moderate the electrical timing but beta

blockers reduce your max heart rate and

if you're a athlete where the entire

thing that matters is your max heart

rate so you're doing something like a

2,000 meter rows your performance on

beta blockers just goes down it makes no

sense it's like being a basketball

player that wears weighted shoes it's

too frustrating right it also makes you

super mow I was pretty mellow guy but I

was a worse rower so um so I stopped

that I was like okay I want to get

serious about my my studies I I I can

get serious about my studies and writing

right that's when I actually made the

decisions that I didn't stuck with for

the next 25 years after that but one of

the things I did to get serious about my

studies is I said I'm going to

systematically experiment with how to

study for test and how to write papers

and I had I would try this how did it go

deconstruct experiment try this how did

it go deconstruct experiment and active

recall was the thing to turn me all

around and so I went from a pretty good

student to 40 every single quarter

sophomore year junior year senior year I

got one a minus between my sophomore

year through my senior year it was like

this miraculous transformation it was

active recall I rebuilt all of my

studying so if it was for a humanities

class I had a whole way of taking notes

it was all built around doing active

recall for math classes my main study

tool was a stack of white paper all

right do this proof white piece of paper

and just can I do it from scratch if I

could I know that technique if I don't

all right I'm gonna come back and try it

again later completely transformed you

know I did so well academically that's

why I ended up writing that book that

basically spread that message to other

people so I'm a huge advocate for active

recall it's really hard but it is the

way to learn new things I'd like to take

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very time efficient oh yeah yeah I mean

it was a problem it was a social problem

for me that I would have to pretend

during finals period that I was going to

the library to study because I would be

done studying this active recall it's

brutal but it's incredibly efficient you

sit down there I would have my cards I

would mark it okay I struggled with this

I'd put it in this pile I got it done

I'd put it in this pile and so then you

would just go back to the I struggled

with it pile uh and work on that and

then make a new I struggle with a pile

and these would exponentially Decay and

so in like a few hours you could really

Master you know with a few other tricks

that worked you could really Master the

material pretty quickly and then what am

I supposed to do I didn't do all

nighters like it wouldn't make any sense

like active recall is how you prepare

it's going to take four hours and it's

going to be tough so do it in the

morning when you have energy and then

you're done I love it I learned

essentially all of neuroanatomy looking

down the microscope at tissue samples

and then I would try and take

photographs with my eyes I do not have a

photographic memory but then I would get

home in the evening look through the

neuro Anatomy textbook lie down and try

and fly through the different circuits

in my mind and then if I arrived at a

structure in the brain that I couldn't

identify I would then go check my notes

and go back so I just so basically I

learned neur Anatomy which I you know um

I'm poor at a great many things in life

but neur Anatomy I'm I'm I'm solid at um

with and then some if I may say so and

it's because there's a mental map move

through it you know fly through it

dynamically um and that it's the same

process um not all things lend

themselves to that approach um I'm

guessing maybe we could think of a few

that don't um I guess if people were

learning music yeah um that might be

tricky maybe they need the sheet music

in front of them I don't know I'm not a

musician yeah I mean I studied a a

professional guitar player at one point

you were a professional guitar I studied

one oh so for for a book everything's

from some book I've written a lot of

books I wrote a book 10 years ago um

where I was trying to figure out as part

of it how to people get better at things

and so I spent time with a professional

guitar player that said I just wanted to

see how he practiced like what does this

actually look like and what I learned

from them is like what they do is yeah

they have the music in front of them but

for them it's all speed so they take a

piece he was working on licks for he was

a new acoustic style player and they had

these kind of blueg grassy type licks um

and he probably had it memorized and he

knew how fast he could comfortably play

it for them it's all about adding 20% to

what they're comfortably doing and then

that that that push passed where they're

comfortable and the thing I remember

writing about him was he was

concentrating so hard to try to hit this

lick 20% faster than he was used to it

is he'd forget to breathe so he'd be

like going going going and then just

gasp you know like because his body

would you know force them force them to

breathe so yeah there it seemed to be

all about uh deliberate practice so like

how do you they don't waste any time

professional musicians waste no time

doing things they're comfortable doing

every time they spend practicing and

this is also incredibly difficult uh but

every time they been practicing it's

almost entirely in a a state of I'm not

comfortable with this but if I focus as

hard as I can maybe I'm G to pull this

off like I'll pull off the Sonata at

this new speed I'm trying to do maybe

I'll pull it off it's like the maximal

growth stimulating State uh and so I

wrote in the in this chapter why was he

so much better at Guitar than I was at

the same age because I played a lot of

guitar when I was younger and was in

rock bands right and this kid was young

right right but really really good and I

said okay now I realize it I can

recognize me when I look back at my time

playing guitar at his age I played stuff

I knew how to play like that's what was

fun like yeah I want to like jam along

with the songs I knew or you know rip

some pentatonic scales you know to like

a jimmi Hendrick album uh it was fun and

he spent almost no time the pro spent no

time having fun practicing was your

brain had to be you know uncomfortable

so I learned a lot from that you know um

this actually led to a bit of a battle

because of my my readers there was this

uh a this battle that emerged where

people were trying to combine Andre

Ericson in deliberate practice with uh

Maley chmi and Flo and really they were

trying to make flow apply everywhere

like it's all about flow uh deliberate

practice is flow everything is flow the

whole thing is to get into a state of

flow and I remember Anders talking about

this at some point and say like no no no

like the state of practice that makes

you better it's the opposite of flow

right in flow you lose track of time

when you're practicing like that

professional guitar player you know

every second it passes by because it's

like incredibly difficult like what

you're doing your mind is rebelling it's

not natural you know it's not fun it's

not the skier going down the the hill

and it's all Instinct it's you it's all

you thinking about exactly what you're

trying to do and so you know I began to

push this point out here is like it's

not all about flow like actually getting

better at things is really painful

sometimes deliberate practice is not the

same as flow and there's a lot of fights

about this for a while I think there was

a lot of flow Advocates that just wanted

life to be flow all the time but I think

Anders was right because I watched these

professionals practice like that's what

it is it's not fun well everything we

know about neuroplasticity which of

course is the nervous system's ability

to change in response to experience says

that there needs to be some

neurochemical or electrical condition

that changes in the nervous system in

order to queue up plasticity and um to

my knowledge one of of the most um

robust of those is the release of the

so-called catac colomines dopamine

epinephrine norepinephrine um dopamine

because it's involved in so many things

uh can be a little bit of a distractor

so let's just say epinephrine

norepinephrine adrenaline nor adrenaline

it create in the body and mind to some

extent a state of alertness and often a

state of agitation but if you think

about it in the absence of some

neuromodulators like those yeah um that

change the conditions for wiring of

neurons you know everyone loves fire

together wire together yeah beautiful

statement by Carla shatz not Donald Hebb

Dr Carla shat said that not Donald Hebb

um but why would neurons need to change

their patterns of connectivity if you

can complete the operation the nervous

system needs to um it doesn't feel

discomfort it creates discomfort but the

nervous system needs a cue to that okay

this is different I'm failing and it's

the failures that actually trigger the

plasticity it's the discomfort that cues

that conditions are different different

now otherwise there's simply no reason

to devote energetic resources to

rewiring neurons and I feel like we

don't learn this when we're kids we um

and I think as kids we can learn so much

without that feeling of agitation we get

into these modes of looking for flow and

um I have respect for the the research

on Flow and the people Bal in but I'd

like to talk about flow a little bit the

only thing I really know about flow for

sure is that backwards it spells wolf so

um one of flow it's such an attractive

idea right it's like Star Wars like you

have the force and you're kind you're

doing things without thinking and um

awesome but I can't flow myself through

a paper Y and extract the critical data

I can't create a podcast in flow but

when it's done it feels great especially

if you nail the the key metrics so what

do you think about flow let's I'm not

trying to beat up on it I just want to

understand how how you place it in the

framework of learning and and deep work

if it belongs there at all it doesn't

have a big place in it in the Deep work

framework and and this was what the

controversy was for a while and and I I

knew mahaley a little bit like we we

corresponded some and I knew Andre a

little bit like we corresponded some so

I sort of felt like I was um you know

and and both of them actually tragically

have died in the last three or four

years I think oh that's very sad yeah I

think both recently um Flo doesn't play

a big role in the Deep the Deep work

framework right so so when I was trying

to justify deep work so why why focusing

without distraction was important I was

drawing a lot more for and's work right

because uh why is focusing without

distraction important well you have to

quiet the neural circuitry so you can

isolate the circuit that's actually

relevant to the thing that you're doing

right you're not going to get better at

something if you have noisy circuitry

this is and that requires uh really

intense concentration so is one of the

big advantages of deep work was if

you're used to that cognitive State

you're going to learn things faster and

I think it was all Anders to understand

why so if you're not distracted I'm

really focusing hard on what I'm doing

trying to learn this new thing

you're giving the right mental

conditions but it's not a flow State I

always used to say okay when your when

your deep work is not flow because of

this like a lot of deep work is you're

trying to do something that is beyond

your comfort zone and that's going to be

difficult that's a state of deliberate

practice and there's a famous paper

about this where Anders uh actually

explicitly says deliberate practice and

flow are very different and and I wrote

an essay years ago called the father of

deliberate practice disowns flow and

again people are really flow partisans

out there it's interesting I think

people just like the idea because it

feels good but I mean flow is the

feeling of performance is the way I

think about it like it's really hard to

train for certain sports but then when

you're actually performing you're in the

game you can fall in the flow right

because then everything is undo it's

really hard to train guitar but like

when you're performing in front of a big

crowd you probably maybe you fall in the

flow maybe you don't but you could right

but it's the performance State not the

practicing getting better state so you

know to Me Flo has like very little role

in how I think about what I do as a

cognitive professional it's just not

something that comes up that

often I agree um that we learn through

focused work and that uh flow does um

manifest itself during performance and

sometimes um so much so that people

exhibit virtuosity they're surprising

themselves even what what's in there and

that's kind of I always think of it's a

what is unskilled skilled Mastery

virtuosity virtuosity seems to

incorporate some sort random elements of

maybe even the performer has not done

that before and they surprise themselves

or something like that who knows these

are these are words for um for something

that uh isn't easily Quantified in the

first place but in terms of deep work

and getting um a little bit back to kind

of practical steps towards steep work I

also have to ask you because I didn't uh

earlier when you are on your laptop in

your library with your fireplace and

these books it's a beautiful image

actually that you've drawn for us in our

minds um is the Wi-Fi connection to your

computer activated or are you offline uh

it's connected um because it doesn't

really matter to me you know because

what what is what's drawing my attention

um I mean the most important decision I

think I made technically speaking to be

a cognitive worker is I the lack of

social media like I I I think we

underestimate the degree to which our

problem with digital distraction is not

the Internet it's not our phones it is

specific products and services that are

engineered at Great expense they pull

you back to them when you take that away

the internet's not that interesting like

I don't have a cycle of sites to go to

you know I can check my email but I

don't really know where else to go I

mean I could go to the New York Times I

guess but then you've seen the Articles

right they they change it once a day

there's just not much I've set things up

so there's not much that's that

interesting to

me we've all heard of fomo fear of

missing out I feel like there's the

other thing which is um fear of missing

something bad right sort of like an

anxiety a more primitive anxiety within

us that if we are not engaged on social

media or looking at our phone often or

texting often that it's not that we'll

miss the party um we'll miss the

emergency um you don't seem to suffer

from those kind of everyday ills yeah I

mean it doesn't happen that much I mean

I have a phone you know a a standard I

mean I have my phone I guess if I'm

working away from it yeah I guess it's

true if there was an

emergency uh but this was the case for

long time right we didn't have

smartphones till really relatively

recently this is you know 15 years ago

so we were just used to this until

yesterday essentially that there's just

periods of time where you're you're out

of touch like you're at a restaurant

with someone you're out of touch until

you get back to your office like we were

okay you know we weren't plagued by

emergencies that that uh led to

disastrous results because we couldn't

hear about it right then you go to the

movies like you're out of touch right

and be a couple hours till you're in

touch again and so I don't you know it's

not something that's affected me as much

so maybe I'm working without my phone

nearby a lot of people have this

response they begin sort of

catastrophizing like what if this

happens or this or that and I'm thinking

you know uh I survived before that my

parents survived without that my my

grandparents survived without that um I

don't worry about it as much you know

and and some of this maybe is just this

doesn't upset people as as much as it

used to the fact I don't use a lot of

these apps or have my phone um but it

really does upset people right there's

what about this what about that what

about this and I don't know how much of

this is just maybe I'm oblivious and how

much of this is people back sliding

explanation for why they do need their

phone why they do need to look at all

the time but I I get a lot of it yeah

well maybe they're upset and you don't

know because you're not looking at your

phone that's right hey I'll tell you

what that's a blessing not knowing how

upset people are at you yeah it's a

blessing as a semi-public figure I'll

tell you that uh yeah I can comment on

that but I won't um I am on social media

and um I do enjoy it as I've got started

posting on Instagram and then expanded

to other platforms including the the

podcast but there's a threshold Beyond

which it becomes counterproductive for

sure um I think there's information

there um that like questions that people

ask are often informative it's sort of

like ending a class and asking are there

any questions sometimes the comments

that people bring back are truly

informative towards both where they

might have some misunderstanding but

also sometimes some really terrific

ideas yeah um so there's that but I I

completely agree that this is a a very

uh precarious space um and I'll just

relay a quick anecdote years ago I gave

a quick lecture um down at Santa clar

University south of Stanford and I was

talking about this issue I recommended

your book and a student came up

afterwards and he said you don't get it

at that time I was in my early 40s he

said you don't get it you know you grew

up without social media and the phone

and so you've adopted it into your life

but we grew up with it and when my phone

he's speaking for himself in the first

person when my phone loses power I feel

a physical drain Within in my body and

when it comes back on I feel a lift

within my body so I I'd love your

thoughts on whether or not you think the

phone and perhaps social media as well

are in some ways an extension of our

brain it's almost like another cortical

area that contains all this information

it's sort it's a version of us this gets

into Notions of AI that we can talk

about as well I know you're involved in

in Ai and writing about AI but you know

to me the when the phone is used in that

way um it really is a almost like a

uh a piece of neural Machinery of sorts

yeah I mean there's two ways of looking

at it yeah so there is the the sort of

cyborg image I suppose right like you

are you're extending you're you're

plugging into this neosphere like you

have this sort of digital Network

extension of information and what's

going on there's also the much more

pessimistic view which is no no that

feeling is the feeling of a moderate

behavioral addiction right so you you

you'll hear the same thing from a a

gambler I really when I'm away from

being a ble to to play right to make my

bets or do whatever like I feel really

if I feel not myself and then when I'm

when I'm around it and I can play make

some bets play some poke or whatever it

is feeling of the chips I feel I feel

myself that chips right like they would

say so there it could be both of these

things could be true I think the

moderate behavioral addiction side is is

more true than than a lot of us want to

admit actually like it it does feel bad

because moderate behavioral addictions

build these these feedback response

loops and then you get the dopamine

system going when the anticipation

because what's on there is things that

have been engineered that you're going

to get this sort of Highly engaging

stimuli and then you see the Deliverance

of that stimuli right this really nice

piece of glass on a piece of metal I'm

going to press this sort of carefully uh

this icon whose colors have been chosen

because we know it's going to hit

various parts of our neural alert

systems to be as engaging as possible um

and I'm going to see something in there

that's going to generate some sort of

emotional response so of course when you

see that thing sitting there you want to

use it and when you can't it's a a

stying dopamine response you're like

this this is not good I'm uncomfortable

and I I think that's a big part of it as

well um because I've had this you know

I've had this argument with with some

people and I by the way I see both sides

of this like there there are great

advantages to what people are doing with

these tools it's just that it's all

mixed up with all these disadvantages

and it becomes very difficult it's like

the alcohol in the neighborhood bar is

too potent you know and and people are

going there to socialize and they're

coming home at 3 in the morning you know

uh passing out you know it's like the

balance is off not that there's not

something good there but the balance is

off so it becomes pretty difficult to

navigate so I think some of that's

what's going on especially with the

younger generation that was raised on it

which is why by the way I think the

cultural norms are going to change

around this I think we're going to think

about unrestricted internet usage not as

something that we just sort of bequeath

on youth as they become 10 years old but

something that we're actually much more

careful about uh probably something

that's going to be post pubescent is

going to make a lot more sense once

you've had more brain development once

you've had more uh social entrenchment

you sort of understand your identity Etc

because we recognize you know the the

flip side of plugging this thing into

your brain is yeah you have access to

more information but it also pumps that

into your brain so I don't know I I lean

a little bit heavier towards the

pessimistic read because I know too many

people because of my books um who've

really reduced the impact of these

things in their lives and they don't on

the far side of that transformation they

don't typically report a great

impoverishment and experence experience

they don't report

um I'm less mentally agile the

information at my fingertips is less I

I'm I'm missing out on life there's

typically this coming out of the fog on

the other side of it where they're like

oh this is fine so you know I'm a little

bit suspicious about exactly what this

mechanism is I think you're right about

the um moderate behavioral addiction

piece years ago when I was starting my

lab I had grants to write and I found

the phone to be pretty intrusive for

that process so I used to give the phone

to somebody in my lab and announc to

everyone in my lab that if I asked asked

for it back prior to 5:00 p.m. that day

I would give everyone in the lab I think

it was a $100 bill my lab was pretty big

at the time I was a junior Professor

they did not do not sorry uh academic

institutions not to be named um pay us

very much despite what people might

think and um and it was difficult

several times throughout the day or more

I was like I really want to look at that

thing but the end of the day um I'll

tell you that no one got paid I got my

phone back but it's wonderful the amount

of work that you can get done when that

thing is out of the room I mean it's my

it's my super hour right I don't work

that hard in the sense that I don't do

long hours like I'm not constitutionally

suited for long hours this was never my

thing uh my brain tires right I mean I'm

good for four four and a half good hours

a day of actually producing good stuff

with my brain probably Max but you know

I don't use my phone that much I don't

use the internet that much and I

prioritize it and a lot just gets done

it just sort of piles up over time you

know and there's this sense of like you

must be burning the midnight oil and you

have all these things going on uh but

again people I think underestimate and

it's not the uh they underestimate the

impact of this it's not just the the

accumulation of time you spend looking

on your phone it's also this network

switching cost right because like the

phone is very good at inducing a network

switch and that's an expensive timec

consuming energy consuming neuronal

operation task switching I'm going to

switch my focus of attention from this

to that like we can't do that in two

seconds right that's a hard process it

takes a while it's why when you sit down

to work on something really hard you

have that feeling of for the first 15

minutes this is terrible you know and

then after like 15 or 20 minutes you

sort of get into the groove I always

assumed part of what's going on is it

takes a while for your brain to really

start marshalling okay so what semantic

networks do we need to start activating

here oh we don't need this let's inhibit

this we're not doing that anymore it

takes a while um so what happens then

when you have a lot of these quick

checks to social media you're jumping in

on email back and forth is you have this

disaster catastrophic pile up of aborted

task switches happening right and so

it's not just the total time you're

looking at let's say email or social

media it's the 15minute window you have

to add around each of those checks in

which you have this cognitive disorder

that really adds up and then you realize

oh there was no time during my day in

which I was more than 15 minutes away

from looking at something that induced a

network switch the the data I like to

site which was looking at email and

slack checks and knowledge workers this

came from Rescue time the software

company the

median average interval between checks

was 5 minutes it's the median and the

mode was one minute in this data set so

it was like we are we are checking all

the time that means you were never in a

state then in your day where you don't

have a confused cognitive space where

you don't have partially you were

switching to this task but then you

switch back to this task before that

finish but before you could fully lock

in on this task you look back over here

and so you're spending your entire day

in the state of cognitive disorder which

is going to be reduced cognitive output

right so you get rid of that I mean I

always say like one of my advantages is

not that I'm doing anything smarter I'm

just avoiding sometimes the dumb thing

just holding slowing other people down

you get rid of that and you feel like

you're on the world's best uh

neurotropic or something like this like

oh I'm just doing this thing and I'm

doing it pretty well now I'm done you

why this didn't even take that long so I

mean I I think people underestimate

what's going on here I'd like to take a

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huberman yeah would like to drill into

the concept of context and task

switching a bit more uh I do think that

the brain has something akin to a

transmission system system where you

know for people that drive and have

driven you know the the amount of energy

that needs to be used in order to

accelerate a vehicle to get up to a you

know higher gear it's very different

than the um equal amount of increase in

speed at a given gear right so it's sort

of the this is you hear this if you're

not familiar with transmission say it

sounds

like it sounds as if there's it's more

fasile at at higher speeds well how

could it be that you're burning less

fuel at a higher speed it's not exactly

that way but but I think the brain has

these sort of transmission systems and

what you're describing with um people

switching back and forth and checking

email and phone Etc and back to the work

um that should be at hand is sort of

akin to going up and down the the gear

system constantly yeah trying to arrive

at a given destination and sure you

might arrive but you're going to burn

far more fuel it's the least efficient

way to go about it you want to get into

that deep Groove and I think when we

hear about flow I feel like at least for

me that's the sort of notion of flow

that I'm looking for or dropping into

that deep Groove even if there's some

friction within that groove of the the

challenge of the work that I'm doing

it's about not thinking about anything

else it's really about Focus yep right

and the word flow is just a wonderfully

attractive word um that I think gives us

the the false impression that we can

just drop into things like a square wave

function sit down pen and paper go and

there's no possible way that neural

circuits could work that way no we let's

let's invent the term and I'm you tell

me if the term makes sense I'm invent on

the fly but uh neuros semantic coherence

this is going to be my alternative term

for flow when you're working on

something hard um it's not that you're

in an actual Flow State where you lose

track of what you're doing you're

concentrating really hard but I'm why

I'm saying neuros semantic coherence is

you get to this place where the sort of

relevant semantic neural networks are

all um those that are activated are all

relevant to what you're doing and you've

uh over time inhibited most of the

unrelated networks that were fired up

before and so you get in this sense of

it's hard

maybe I'm not losing track of time but

like I'm all focused on this you know

I'm grappling with the the the bear here

the the math equation the book chapter

whatever it is um and so it's something

different than flow but it's also

different than Linda Stone had the term

partial continuous attention which is

what you're that cognitive disaster of

I'm constantly Network switching back

and forth so we'll call it neuros

semantic coherence I'm going to coin

that term um because it's uh you have

this coherence of the semantic neural

networks on what you're doing and that's

the feeling of I'm getting after this

hard problem and it might be really hard

to do I mean I know the feeling of

trying to solve a math proof for me for

example could be so difficult because I

mean what does it actually feel like in

your head when you're solving a math

proof it's a lot of you hold this here

and then you try to get to the next step

by doing this and it doesn't work but

you have to keep holding this here which

takes a lot of concentration okay let me

try this that didn't work either but

this looked promising okay so now I need

to go back and in my mind's eye update

this setup and now let me try this so

it's a lot of holding things in your

working memory um and keeping them

loaded while you try an extension and

then evaluating how that work without

and so it requires um just internal

concentration which isn't pleasant but

in neuros semantic coherence it's all

that's happening in your world you know

is that in that proof so maybe that's

what we should be pitching what people

should be looking for is yeah forget

flow but also remember like this default

where you're like the rescue time data

set participants checking email once

every 5 minutes that's cognitive

nonsense

that's crazy that's like you're trying

to you know play football and you're

covering over one of your eyes and

wearing like a 50 pound ruck sack on

you're just like handicapping your

abilities here for no reason right so

what's in between is this idea and that

requires Focus you know it requires deep

work yeah we're playing football and

then um every three Downs or so running

into the stands and having a

conversation trying to work out

something challenging with your spouse

or whatever then going back and trying a

totally different play set right um at

risk of throwing too different too many

analogies and and stories I'll just

briefly say I went and saw the the play

in New York with my sister this year I

think it was Harry Potter and the cursed

child or something like that um I didn't

really enjoy the play that much but the

set stuff was amazing and they had this

magic Library I think is very very

relevant here where essentially um the

book that you open um has a certain

topic I don't know maybe it's spells or

something as Harry Potter again uh fun

show but great set stuff didn't didn't

really resonate with me too much in any

event and then the book around it change

their topic that but are related to that

Central book interesting and then if you

look at one particular thing like maybe

it's potions or something I'm making

this up and then all of a sudden the

books the books around it change they

become either more specific there might

be a distant but related idea that could

lend itself to creativity so sort of

that's the way the brain works in

cognition is that we get into a frame of

of a certain discussion or a certain

theme and and the and the the books on

the Shelf change according to their

relatedness based on memory of past

what's going on now and plans for the

future I think anytime we look at uh we

change context and we look at you know a

raccoon video on Instagram or our

calendar and oh there's that thing the

books become very scattered so when we

return to it there's a lot more friction

uh a lot more work or neural neural

energy required to get back into that um

this uh narrow states of cognition does

that exactly explain sort of my

experience and the way I think about it

yeah yeah because you're it takes time

uh to to load up the these sort of

relevant these secondary and tertiary

semantic ideas and now they're there so

like you can pull from them and then as

you shift you have to sort of shift this

whole thing around that takes a lot of

concentration I mean I I wrote this this

article once that got me a little bit of

trouble not not trouble but mild trouble

uh but it was it was called was for the

Chronicle of Higher Education um and the

title they gave it was is email making

Professor stupid which wasn't my title

you basically called every every one of

your colleagues stupid we all check

email the dean at the time did call me

in for lunch but actually he was here's

the thing he was like hey this is real I

agree with this um um but what I was

arguing actually in that article

essentially was what do we do at a

university is is partially what we're

supposed to be doing is trying to teach

what the life of the mind is and how

that works and we've kind of forgotten

that so what we should maybe think about

like at universities we need to be

explicitly not just teaching how to

think but also modeling the life of the

mind at the at the highest level and so

this idea that we just allow the the

professor serot to to be drowned and um

emails and and uh tasks and being

distracted you know it's the main war

that every research Professor has is how

do I how do I fight the admin overload

until I become famous enough to get an

assistant right like this is the big

problem and I was making this proposal

of University should be the citadel's a

concentration I said if you want to get

the the best academics in the world to

your University just tell them uh here's

at the top of our contract you will not

be assigned an email address like you're

going to get Nobel laurates coming from

you know all over the country to come to

this place and so I was making this argu

argument um we should think a lot more

about thinking we should talk more about

it we should model it exactly the type

of things you're talking about um but we

don't it's much more content Focus but

really this should be something more

that we we get into specifically like

this is how you actually use the mind to

produce Innovative uh interesting high

value new cognitive artifacts this is a

very hard thing we're asking you to do

um but you can Apprentice here because

this is what we do and we've mastered

we're going to teach you how to do it uh

but we never have that sort of meta

conversation sort of metacognition

conversation I've always thought that'd

be important I think you'd have much

better outcomes if that's part of what

you learned at the University was how to

take the thing in your head and really

put it to work you know really extract

out of it his capabilities or even high

school or even Elementary School level I

agree you U you have kids yeah um do

they have smartphones no yeah how do

they feel about that well I mean they're

not they're not old enough yet that it's

a it's a real problem um but they're

they're not going to be having happy

with me probably soon hate me now love

me later as my mother used to say

basically because I you know I'm I'm

convinced having spent some time

thinking about this writing about this

doing some journalism on this talking to

a lot of the experts that like I think

where we're going to end up where all

the the arrows from the the relevant

social psych research which um I've been

following This research since you know

2017 this is 2017 is roughly when you

see the first warning signs going up

that we need to worry about the

potential mental health impact of these

tools especially social media and

smartphones on young people and I you

can track this right I have a talk I I

actually gave it my kids school not

happy about this where I tracked how

this research evolved and you know like

any literatures it's contentious at

first and then you see um you you begin

to see uh consilience between different

lines of evidence and I think where

where everything now in the last couple

years is starting to come together this

idea of we don't really know if this is

bad or not I think that's just an old

take the researchers mooved past that

and I think where we're we're landing on

is unrestricted internet use pre-puberty

is risky and like the new standard is

going to be uh post puberty is probably

the right time to be given a device that

gives you unrestricted access we're

talking like 16 is probably the

appropriate age so this does not make me

popular at the middle school where my

son's my oldest son's about to go um I

think in two or three years that's just

going to be common sense this is the

direction I see the research literature

and the advocacy going and I think

there's a solid ground for this

because you're a computer scientist I

can ask this question what about video

games I'm not a big consumer of video

games it's been years since I've played

one in fact um but video games are so

very different than smartphones and um

and other Technologies because they uh

seem to put at least the kids I've

observed playing them and adults um into

a very narrow uh trench of attention

yeah uh I mean there are definitely

issues with it I mean look I'm not a

social psychologist I just sort of play

one in my articles but but I've I've

looked into this literature a lot um

there's a bit of a a gendered breakdown

that has a lot of overlaps where when

they're looking at potential harms of

these Technologies uh young adolescence

right pre-adolescent young adolescence

you tenden see social media to be more a

signal for cognitive distress for young

women and girls and the video games to

actually be the bigger culprit for uh

young men and boys right there is a bit

of a difference here because with the

the social media impact the the content

of what's Happening matters in this

picture right so so um what I'm seeing

the engagement I'm having how this

impacts my social life this is part of

the mental distress with video games it

seems to be more uh an impact of just

disharmonious passion and Obsession just

the time it takes right because the

games can be incredibly addictive so the

problem that young men are having are

just they're playing it all the time

that I'm staying up late because I have

an iPad in my room and I'm 14 and I

going to play fortnite until 3: in the

morning morning because my brain cannot

handle like what you're what you're

giving me here right um so it's less of

a a Content concern than it is just a

Time concern right that seems more

solvable to me you know like my solution

with my own kids I don't mind video

games I'm a computer scientist but I

said nothing that'ss online right

nothing that was free because if it was

free that means uh their business model

involves getting you to play it all the

time so you can upch charge or whatever

uh they have Nintendo switches like I

like Nintendo okay Nintendo switch

here's a $60 Zelda game that someone

spent 5 years making or whatever you can

only play those games so long at a time

before you know you're tired you come

back to it um they don't have an

addictive response to it if they get an

iPad with a a game on it they'll just

like play that till their eyes bleed

because those are meant to be to be

addictive so I'm wary about video games

but there it's all just a usage game so

you stick away from the more addictive

games it's it's a much easier problem to

solve I think than the social media the

social media issue earlier you talked

about books um I still read um hard

cover and paperback books um what are

your thoughts on audiobooks and learning

by way of um audio book uh versus paper

in front of you flipping a physical

device or Kindles I don't know if

there's any real research on this I've

seen a little bit but I'm curious what

what you've encountered and what your

thoughts are as well you could speculate

yeah I mean I'll tell you personally I

can only do fiction in audiobooks right

because when I'm in a non-fiction

experience I'm just very used to

constantly looking for connections and

ideas you know and so I to be able to

slow down and then speed up and then go

back to something I just read um so I

really have a distressing experience

trying to listen to non-fiction

audiobooks Fiction's fine that's great

let put a thriller on you know audible

great I you know I'll listen through it

and I think some of this might be

particular to my my engagement with

books which is I'm you know I'm a writer

and a thinker so I'm constantly looking

for ideas and so I might have a

different engagement with a non-fiction

book than someone you know just

listening to one of my books but I can

only do fiction on audio that makes

sense thinking about what works for me

what doesn't I agree I I love stories

and fiction by by audiobook um you

ideally consumed on a long drive or a

hike um but non-fiction requires that I

take notes and see things in their kind

of um respective spatial layout and yeah

um in your most recent book um you

describ this concept of pseudo

productivity is pseudo productivity a

general term term to refer to some of

the things we've already talked about

this Tas switching context switching or

pseudo productivity something that uh

includes other categories of of limiting

ourselves as well I mean I think it's

more specific than that right so it to

me sud productivity was the answer that

we came up with a knowledge work to a

real dilemma which is that's a sector

you know using your brain primarily to

create value that's a sector that

emerged as a major part of the economy

in roughly the mid 20th centur

um when that emerged all the definitions

of productivity that we had were

inspired from Agriculture and Industry

right so so in agriculture we can have

ratios um bushels of corn per whatever

acres of land under cultivation and

Industrial manufactur we have ratios

modeles per input labor hour um so you

could just measure these things uh we

also had clearly defined systems of

production so you could then say if I

change this about the system of

production what happens to this number

and you could do gradient to Cent right

okay I do this that number goes down

let's not do that but I make this change

it goes up that's a better way of

building it like this was the dominant

way of thinking about productivity since

basically Adam Smith the knowledge work

arises that doesn't work right because

I'm working on whatever five different

things it's different than what you are

working on um how I'm managing my work

is entirely ausc right in knowledge work

uh organizational ideas is entirely left

up to the individual how you manage your

work and your workload and collaboration

that's like up to you that's all off you

skated there's no number to measure

there's no system to improve so I think

it was a real quandry my argument is

what essentially the management class

came up with is p productivity which is

okay in the absence of being able to be

quantitative about this we will use

visible activity as a proxy for useful

effort so that's it like we see you

doing things that's better than not the

more we see you doing the better I call

that pseudo productivity and I think

that's implicitly how we've been

organizing the management of knowledge

work labor since the

1950s and when you say ability at people

doing things this is the um conflating

of busyness with actual productivity yes

and so the problem came when we had this

uh General way of measuring

approximating productive effort which

wasn't very good but whatever right I

mean I want to see you're at the office

and you're doing things the problem was

the front office it Revolution right

because I'm I'm essentially a techn

Critic I see everything through the lens

of technology in my writing we got

computers we got networks we got email

pseudo productivity can't be be

sustainable in that context because now

with something like email and then later

tools like slack I can demonstrate

effort at a very fine grain right

because I can send an email respond to

this jump onto a slack conversation I

can now do that at a very fine grain

level um and essentially everywhere and

anywhere all throughout my day I can be

demonstrating labor at home I can be

demonstrating labor because we have

mobile Computing we get the smartphone

Revolution um so there there's now an

ability to constantly be demonstrating

effort at all points of our day and

that's where I think the wheels came off

the bus right and and led to this this

this point that got worse and worse

starting the early 2000s and hit ahead

in the pandemic of knowledge worker

burnout knowledge worker exhaustion and

nihilism of like what's going on with my

job like all I do is zoom all day what's

happening I think that pseudo

productivity plus front office it

Revolution they did not play nice

together and you can see this by the way

if you look even at productivity books

you see this huge shift that happens

early 90s versus early 2000s it's like a

completely shift in tone right early 90s

it's stepen cvy is very optimistic it's

like how are we going to self-actualize

and like carefully choose the most

meaningful activities to fulfill all of

our dreams for all of our roles early

2000s now we have email you have David

Allen that's like oh my God we're so

overwhelmed with task all we can hope

for is like these little moments of Zen

in the day if we can just automate how

we're just churning through these

widgets at least we can find some

cognitive pieace uh what happened in

those 10 years was to office it

Revolution and now we just felt like we

had to constantly be demonstrating that

visible effort so you know I think

that's where we got into the problem

pseudo productivity plus

technology recently my podcast team was

in Australia and um my producer and uh

close friend here uh Rob Moore uh

instructed all of us to get rid of

social media on our phones except one

guy who would post our weekly episodes

announcements um and it was pretty

brutal at first and then coming back to

social media has actually turned out to

be more challenging you really

experience the friction coming back the

other way and then one experiences the

the lack of friction and that's where it

gets scary it's it's so interesting the

way that the brain can adapt um the

friction leaving something behind um the

friction coming back to it um and I

think for people listening to this I I

raise this because I think of course

many people listening are you know have

work that they really need to focus on

they may be having issues with uh

productivity and burnout Etc I think a

lot of people use the phone in social

media because it fills their life you

know it provides some enrichment and

they aren't necessarily committed to

specific projects but I guess through

the lens of the the let's just call it

the Cal new poran lens one might argue

that those people uh almost certainly

have untapped creativity untapped

resources within them that um they don't

yet know about because they're

essentially using that energy elsewhere

yeah I mean I think for a lot of people

it's papering over the void right you

have this void in your life because

there's the unmet potential uh unmet

interest um living in misalignment with

the things you care about right I mean a

lot of people this is the classic sort

of catastrophe of life right social

media and there's before this it was

other things right there was other

intoxicants or other sorts of

distractions it's a way for some people

of essentially putting a screen over

that like gaping void and it like just

makes it bearable enough that you can

kind of go on with life and so it is

true if you just rip it out you see the

void and that's really difficult right I

mean because I I did this experiment for

one of my books I ran an experiment with

1600 people and they all turned off all

their social media for 30 days 30 days

30 days right these are young people old

people a whole mix okay a whole mix not

just University students I recruited

them from my my newsletter readership so

they weren't University students and it

wasn't formal research it was you know I

put out the call right so this is not

randomly sampled right but I put out the

call and I said here I'm going to walk

you walk you through this and then I got

a lot of information back so people

reported back how it went and this was

like the number one thing I heard was

it's really hard at first right and so

who are the people that succeeded for 30

days versus those who didn't the the

ones who didn't succeed it tended to

just try to White Knuckle it just be

like I don't like how much I'm using

social media I'm just going to stop

because it's bad and I don't want to do

a bad thing I'm just going to like you

know hold on the table White Knuckles

they wouldn't make it 30 days the people

who did succeed followed my advice to

incredibly aggressively pursue

Alternatives in those 30 days so it's

like go learn new hobbies join things

right away get like really structured

about your day um get into exercise

again learn how to knit again a lot of

people said oh I learned about I forgot

how fun libraries were like you can go

into this building and like all the

books are free and there's there you

could just grab whatever and it's okay

if you don't like the book because you

didn't have to pay for it uh I'm going

out with friends again I'm I'm okay

every week I'm going to have you know

we're going to have drinks with this

person and every Thursday morning I'm

going to go running with this person the

people who aggressively tried to put in

place a more positive alternative

through self-reflect experimentation

they lasted the 30 days and Beyond right

and so then I came to realize like oh I

see what's happening here is you have

these unmet needs these tools can give

you sort of a a simulacrum of meeting

them I need I'm a social being I need to

be connected to people well I'm texting

and like doing comments on social media

it sort of touches that a little bit

just enough that you don't feel

hopelessly lonely but it's not really

fulfilling that um I have a need to like

see my intentions made manifest

concretely in the world humans want to

do this well I'm you know posting these

things and people are responding it's

sort of this simulacrum of real creation

so it's like kind of satisfying that

just enough that it's not just

intolerable right um and so what happens

is if you remove that you have to

actually fill those things the right way

so now I'm not socializing on social

media but but I'm going out of my way to

sacrifice time and attention on behalf

of other people I'm feeling the social

void in the right way now I don't really

feel like I need to go back uh I'm

actually build making my intentions

manifest I'm learning skills and

Building Things now this sort of pseudo

construction and Collective attention

economy of social media I'll post this

and you'll like it I'll like this um I

don't need that anymore to fill that

void so it's like you have to fill the

void first so so you know five years ago

I wrote a book that was about reforming

this part of your life

and a lot of the book was had nothing to

do with technology but about how to

actually just rebuild parts of your life

and on my podcast honestly like one of

the big topics we talk about which is

crazy that I'm a technologist and I

write about trying to find focus in a

distractive world is this thing we call

the Deep life which is just straight up

building a meaningful life 101 and it's

like crazy that my podcast is talking

about it but on the other hand it's not

because my it's the podcast people go to

when they're fed up with the digital

world and it turns out if you don't get

the anal anog World working right for

you you need something to avoid staring

to that void and then the digital world

will do that well enough it's like just

good enough to keep life

tolerable there's a lot of discussion

nowadays about ADHD attention deficit

hyperactivity disorder sometimes U minus

the H minus the

hyperactivity uh a lot of kids have true

clinically diagnosed ad ADHD so we want

to be um sensitive to that it's a real

issue for a lot of people a lot of

adults true ADHD um but nowadays people

talk about ADHD the same way terms like

um depression trauma uh gas lighting and

um Etc are discussed in in non-clinical

territory OCD people use clinically as

well right right and um and I'm not

disparaging that it's just that we we

have sort of a dilution of deeper

understanding of what these things

really are and aren't um what are your

thoughts I realize you're not a

psychiatrist but what are your thoughts

on the idea that um many uh people that

think they perhaps have true attention

issues have either um built those

attention issues through neuroplasticity

um uh into their system meaning their

system probably work nervous system

probably worked pretty well to focus but

they engaged in enough task switching

that the circuits of the brain involved

in cognition became optimized for um

this very distributed cognition um as

opposed to um narrow focused attention

and what are your thoughts about um just

the amount of stimulant use on college

campuses and in in adult populations to

to try and overcome this I feel like

there's a lot of um attempts to use

pharmacology to match the level of

distraction to try and make that

distraction not seem like distraction um

but you know this is a this is an area I

hear a lot about given the nature of the

things I cover on the podcast I think a

lot of these issues are phone induced

right um and and I think the problem is

yeah not solvable as much you don't need

pills you need a different phone Rel

relationship my optimistic hypothesis is

again this uh

non-clinical uh difficulty with

maintaining attention like in your work

or if you're a college student or

whatever um it's not necessarily

representing sort of knock on wood like

a wholesale nural rewiring like that I

basically rewired my circuits on my

brain to be a sort of distributed

switching processor I think most of this

is is persisting um in that much more

malleable area that gets affected by

moderate behavioral addictions right so

the the we have parts of the brain that

are part of these like feedback reward

Loops that's meant to be malleable right

I mean this is supposed to be so we can

have really rapid learning about what's

happening in our environment and how

we're supposed to respond to it and and

this is what gets hijacked when you you

build up these behavioral addictions and

so it's it's very quick to change um but

that malleability means you can change

it back right so so I I I think this

this drive to I have to keep checking my

email or my phone is again you build up

a moderate behavioral addiction because

of like standard reward cues

and and that's a part of the brain that

you can't it's difficult but it's not

your whole brain is now a social media

brain and that's just the brain you have

because you're exposed to this um it's a

matter of you know getting the stimuli

out of your life doing the same type of

training you would do uh ex boredom

exposure like get used to the idea of

feeling that drive and not actually

doing it you can work with blocking apps

like there's stuff you can do this is

sort of like standard it's painful it

takes two months and then like you're

doing better on it so I do think we have

a a a large stratum of

subclinical attention issues that are

not representing wholesale neural

rewirings but are like absolutely sort

of expected outcomes of working with

malleable reward CU circuits in the

brain we can fix those just like we can

if you know you're you're uh you're

gambling too much or compulsively eating

the junk food or something we don't say

your whole brain got we red for junk

food it's like no you have this ex this

particular Q cycle that we have to work

on so maybe I'm being optimistic that

there and you know the brain better but

like it would be extraordinary if in

like a 10-year period right your entire

brain somehow got rewired in a way that

it couldn't sustain Focus anymore I

totally agree with that statement unless

uh you're a young person and you grew up

in a distracted world and your brain

optimized as the young brain does for

the conditions it's in and then I think

you have a real issue yeah um which is

not to say it can't be rescued through

the use of dis

tools protocols pharmacology nutrition

great sleep and if necessary

prescription drugs right because there

is a case for prescription drugs in

certain um instances for ADHD and and as

I understand it um you know anytime

people say wait aren't those drugs just

meth isn't it just speed y they are

amphetamines in most cases and the idea

is to increase the deployment of C

certain neuromodulators the ones I

mentioned before um as a means to induce

neuroplasticity so that the focus state

becomes more of a default State um so I

think that young people are in trouble I

think that we I do worry about young

people I think we' it's um it's akin to

putting them in a kind of a well we know

this in the visual system if you take an

animal or human and you put them into an

altered visual environment um the visual

system changes and your perception of

the visual world is becomes inaccurate

um and the way I think of this

cognitively with respect to attention

the analogy would be I think we've been

for the last 10 years or so 10 15 years

we've been raising kids in a sort of um

House of uh funh house mirror things

which is anything but fun where you look

at yourself and your legs are shorter

than and your torso is long and so

everywhere you turn you're getting a

distorted perception and trying to

navigate the world through that

distorted perception is very very

difficult you can do it but it's a lot

of extra work that's what I feel we've

done to young people I'm I'm very

concerned about that as well yeah yeah

and and I think I don't know what your

take on this but like do you think

at the undergraduate level that we have

just been not explicitly but just sort

of implicitly uh professors in general

we have been just sort of slowly

adapting the difficulty of what we're

teaching Etc because we maybe there's a

reduced cognitive Focus capacity which

is like the key skill for this sort of

very artificial thing of learning you

know complicated college level work I

think this would be an interesting

experiment to find out is have we been

implicitly having to sort of simplify

things to keep roughly speaking grade

distributions where normatively we feel

comfortable I mean do we see the signal

yet that's my interest do we see the

signal yet if we look back a generation

20 years ago versus now I don't know for

courses of the sort that I teach or

taught until very recently I still teach

but I was directing the neuron Anatomy

course and there's a laboratory module

so the students dissect brains they're

holding actual human brains um that's a

real physical contact that cannot be

recapitulated um um digitally you just

can't do you can try you use VR but it's

it ain't the same I mean how would you

like it if you're a neurosurgeon learned

um on a virtual brain and then it does

surgery on a real brain no not no such

thing should or uh happen I think that

um my experience with this is

perhaps most relevant with respect to

social media where I teach Neuroscience

yeah and I use a variety of duration of

Clips you know the 902 real the you know

seven minute thing the two and a half

hour podcast that you know we have

podcast solo podcast have four and a

half hours um I don't know how many

people listen start to finish but I

think having a variety of different

durations really helps um and I'm told

by my team I have a Tik Tok account

although I've never logged on there um

you know I think Tik Tok represents the

extreme of kind of bubble gum level um

information SL entertainment and they

really nailed some some circuit that can

handle information of about 30 to 60

seconds in a format that um tickles the

brain just right to keep swiping liking

commenting and sharing yeah um and I

don't think that's anything like a real

understanding or education yeah I mean

it's nothing like a real understanding

or education yeah I mean Tik Tok in

particular like I think something what

people get wrong about Tik Tok is they

think that there was a uh real

algorithmic Innovation which is not the

case like as far as I understand the the

machine learning algorithm underneath

Tik Tok is probably like a relatively

standard sort of multiarm bandant you

know uh intermittent feedback

reinforcements algorithm all they did is

they cleared out all the other noise so

you know if you're Facebook or something

like this uh you're trying to use

algorithms to curate things but you have

all these other Legacy structures you

also have to try to satisfy there's

friends and you know you want to show

stuff that your friends like more than

other people and there's groups you're

joining Tik Tok just got rid of all the

noise and so we're just going to all

we're doing is optimizing uh watch time

to we we think we don't know but we

think watch time is the main thing that

they're they're uh optimizing just want

to optimize it watch time and everything

all these videos all Just exist as

multi-dimensional points in this sort of

semantic cloud and all we're doing is

just showing you things and then you

swipe another thing swipe another thing

so when you get rid of all the noise

from a machine learning algorithm it

doesn't also have to satisfy that I

follow this person on Instagram or this

is my friend all I have to do is

optimize this one number how long did

they watched before they swiped it just

turns out like oh it's really easy like

you do that for a couple hours you're

going to hone in on these sub regions

and this massive multi-dimensional space

of stuff that just tickles this

particular person's brain you know and

it's very cybernetic because now I'm the

user of Tik Tok I'm the content creator

I'm getting immediate feedback what's

working what's not I really quickly find

these particularly Rich regions in this

sort of cybernetic space and so it's

like Tik Tok just purified something

that was simple basic machine learning

but just like purify what we're doing

here and and that turned out to be

enough to create what's like probably

the most addictive Force we've seen in

the digital world in a long time so Tik

Tok is optimized for dwell time yeah

that's the thought right because it's

not public so like we don't exactly know

how the algorithm works but people have

been studying it like a Skinner box you

know 100 phones and we we look at all

these accounts looking at the variables

it seems like that's largely what it's

optimizing for is uh how long did you

watch before you swiped right and that's

it so there I mean it's not this was

both uh what was smart about Tik Tok and

also why I've been arguing it's it's

destabilized the whole traditional

social media narrative is because the

traditional massive social media players

of the last decade had this uh first

mover advantage on these giant actual

social networks right so like Twitter

and Facebook and Instagram had these uh

massive networks of people's uh

preferences of I'm following this person

and this person I'm following uh and

they could leverage these actual social

graphs as a huge source of producing

interesting content right and this was a

huge first mover Advantage because you

can't it's hard to get a 100 million

people to use something now right Tik

Tok got rid of all that we don't want a

social graph you as a user don't have to

declare anything you don't have to

follow people or say who your friends

are will'll just start showing you

things and that was more compelling than

what you could generate with a social

graph but now there's no first mover

Advantage so as the big social media

players follow the Tik Tok model which

is much more Al rmic let's just try to

curate based on algorithms not who you

follow or who your friends are they're

now much more vulnerable because Tik Tok

could come along and do this without

having to spend five years getting

people to cleare their friends and now

if someone else could come along and do

this so I think the major players are

giving away their competitive Advantage

which is this uh the social graph IP

that no one will ever replicate again

they're giving away that advantage and

now it's a free-for-all playing field of

all sources of attention engagement so I

don't know I think Tik Tok accidentally

destabilized the social media decade

that had been defining until I think

just recently what I find so interesting

about social media platforms like Tik

Tok is that um sure it makes sense that

um kids and teens would use it they were

raised with it Snapchat Etc but when I

see my peers who you know we call

ourselves adults um people in their mid

to late 40s 50s essentially like playing

kids games or engaging through these

platforms that are and they're not

childlike necessarily but they they just

prove that the um or rather that their

adherence SL addiction to them just

proves that this is tapping into some

core neural circuit that exists in

everyone um so while it might be shaping

the uh young brain a lot this is adults

basically eating junk food all day um

which raises a question you know I think

um while there are many different ways

to eat and it's not a topic we want to

get into now um Lord knows that's a

great way to to create um a lot of

social media content debating which diet

on omore carav or vegan Etc um the

notion of intermittent

fasting um limiting one's portion of the

day where they eat to whatever 6 hours 4

hours 12 hours um is an interesting one

that maybe has some applicability here

um what are your thoughts about simply

not turning on the phone maybe even not

turning Wi-Fi on if people are are not

as disciplined as you are with the

laptop or tablet um for the first 2

hours of the day or 4 hours of the day

or for a portion of the day sort of like

you're taking a a social media fast that

isn't 30 days it's you know which I

think for a lot of people is going to

evoke um High cortisol release uh just

the idea of it yeah uh know this is an

idea I've written about before you know

in deep work I had this chapter called

Embrace boredom that was the entire idea

right so the idea was um boredom by

itself is not I think laudable right

there there's a reason why it feels

distressing when things feel distressing

that's usually an evolutionary signal

that there's something going on here but

what I was arguing in that chapter was

exactly what you're talking about you