I've been reading Cal Newport's work for around 10 years, and this might be his best book yet. 333 billion emails are sent every day. That's around 80 per person on average when you factor in how many people are using the internet. We are more connected, more online, more informed — but are we any happier for it? No. Study after study shows that we are busy, burned out, and ready for a change. Slow Productivity is that change. It's Cal's philosophy for a better, more sustainable approach to work, distilled from his last 3 bestsellers on deep work, email, and digital minimalism. His philosophy has 3 pillars, which we conveniently discuss in our 3 lessons of today's summary. This is a phenomenal book. If you want to achieve more by doing less, consistently deliver high-quality work, and learn to work at a sustainable pace without burning out, read this summary.
"This is what ultimately matters: where you end up, not the speed at which you get there, or the number of people you impress with your jittery busyness along the way."
— Cal Newport
The Big 3 From the Book
1. If you want to have time to do and achieve what matters most, you must reduce your obligations.
2. Your biggest goals both deserve and need time. Don't rush them.
3. Be obsessed with making high-quality work, and the rewards will eventually come.
A recent study done by RescueTime, a time-tracking tool, among 50,000 workers, showed that they check their email every 6 minutes on average. "Pseudo-productivity," is what Cal Newport calls it: "the use of visible activity as the primary means of approximating actual productive effort."
This is the world we live in today: It's more important to look busy than to do complete meaningful tasks. How can we break this toxic culture, stop pretending so much, and get back to doing deep, rewarding work? By doing less, taking our time, and insisting on delivering high-quality results, Cal says in Slow Productivity, his brand-new bestseller.
Every minute you spend reading is only as good as your reading skill. If you can't filter what you read, don't remember the details, or quickly forget everything altogether, then most of your reading is a waste of time.
This short, 20-page PDF contains everything you'll ever need to know about reading nonfiction. It is based on years of experience as a hardcore reader and habit coach to 300 people. More than 10,000 people have already benefitted from implementing this system.
Be able to tell which sources contain important information from those that don't;
Have a complete system you can use to move through, analyze and summarize every book or long text you read;
Remember what you learn from reading in more specific ways and for a much longer time than you currently do.
What will you learn?
How memories are created in your brain;
What the best way to save time on books is – by far;
The two questions you should always ask before you even read the first page of anything;
Why it matters how you breathe while you read (and what the best technique is);
How to take notes both during reading and afterward, thanks to two well-designed systems;
Which three components to include when condensing your notes;
What powerful memory hack you can use to remember an entire book's line of thought.
And the price? $10. Even if you take away just one single thing that forever changes how you read, it's the investment of a lifetime. Get it now, and let me know what you think when you're done!
If you've ever wondered why you constantly run out of self-discipline, why you can't bring yourself to do some of the hard but necessary things in life, and, let's face it, sometimes even the easy stuff, this is the book for you. Willpower is the quintessential read on the subject, how it works, and what we can do to improve it. Baumeister is a legend in psychology, and this one is a must-read for any nonfiction fan and self-help nerd. If you want to become a more disciplined person and understand exactly how willpower works in our brains, read this summary.
What's Einstein's thing about relativity again? "When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute and it's longer than any hour." Well, so is this! ⏳
That's it for now. Have a relaxing weekend!
Happy reading, -Nik
PS: If you want to forever improve your reading skill and get more out of anything you read, check out this guide »
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