the Justin Brady Show

Deep Work boosted the quality of our work, but readers who were quick to rid themselves of distraction and do more deep work ran into a problem: workplace reliance on the “hive-mind.” Cal Newport discusses his newest books A World Without Email and Deep Work, and explains how to get your entire team and workplace on board. It’s not an easy task.

The workplace shuns accountability

Newport is a New York Times best-selling author, and we take a deep dive into the theme of Deep Work and A World Without Email. Both of these books uncover a core problem in the modern workplace: individuals and teams don’t want to be held responsible for their output. Those who have tried to convert their organization to be more organized and efficient quickly find opposition. The act of organization requires more work temporarily, but the bigger reason is that people resist accountability and transparency.

In this interview, you will hear about…

  • problems that result from an email-reliant organization
  • email being used as responsibility hot potato
  • how tools meant to organize the workplace can be implemented poorly, resulting in additional complexity
  • why you need to have fewer meetings, converting to fast, efficient “status” meetings to cut 90% of emails

 

Deep Work with kids?

I asked your listener questions about working deeply despite outside distractions like kids or in a school setting if you’re a teacher. I also asked if we can ever actually remove email entirely. I mean, I did reach out to Cal for this interview via… email. Special thanks to Dan Pink for the introduction to Cal. Get Dan’s book here or listen to my interview about The Power of Regret.

 

Connect with Cal Newport

 

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