# Ep. 343: A Minimal Protocol for Taking Control of Your LIfe  URL:: https://share.snipd.com/episode/f401b9f8-f42c-495a-a20f-d0f36750136a Author:: Deep Questions with Cal Newport  ## AI-Generated Summary None ## Highlights > **Minimalist Productivity** > - Use a calendar for time-specific tasks and deadlines. > - Keep a simple text file to jot down things you have to do. > Transcript: > Cal Newport > The bare bone way here is a text file and a calendar, right? You need a calendar. So stuff that is due on particular days or happens at particular times, just go straight on a calendar. It's a tool that we all use. It's a remarkably effective technology. It's probably one of the oldest productivity technologies. The oldest probably is actually what counting tablets, cuneiform tablets going back to the Sumerian days. But tracking things with time was another one of the early applications of technology. So have a calendar. And then have a text file where you're just like, I'm writing down things that I have to do. That's the simplest implementation. ([Time 0:14:21](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2555640f-4af8-4b66-855c-eb231dee28c6)) > **Pre-Schedule Commitments** > - Pre-schedule big commitments on your calendar to allocate actual hours to the agreement, not just abstractly add them to your workload. > - This helps you to realize when you're overbooked and gives you feedback on how crowded your schedule actually is. > Transcript: > Cal Newport > What about workload management? Well, here, look, you need some way of estimating your current workload. So what is on my plate? We sometimes use the phrase on this show, facing the productivity dragon, just facing directly. This is the full magnitude of what is on my plate of things I've agreed to do. You need some way of understanding what your personal maximum effective workload is. Like this is roughly how much I can do at once. That estimate may be broken down into different types of work. And so you should be able to compare those two things and have some sense where your actual workload is going beyond your estimated, like this is what I'm comfortably can handle. And the workload management needs some collection of rules and tools that you use to try to keep those two things balanced. That's what a workload management system needs. Now, how you do that, there's a million different ways. If we're going to go with just like minimum simple things you could do for workload management to satisfy those properties, a couple of simple ideas, and these come from my book, Slow Productivity. Pre-schedule big commitments on your calendar is a simple thing to do. All right, I'm going to agree to do this big thing. I'm going to go and actually find the time on my calendar at the point of agreement. I will go at that point and go find time on my calendar to schedule to work on this. If it takes 10 hours, I'll find three hours here, four hours here. I will find and protect that time. So now I'm actually allocating my actual hours to the agreement as opposed to just agreeing it. ([Time 0:17:22](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8b138c4a-bcba-4ab0-9913-71fd49af7ab7)) > **Workload Management** > - Pre-schedule big commitments by finding time on your calendar at the point of agreement. > - Use quotas to limit the amount of particular types of work to keep things manageable. > Transcript: > Cal Newport > Pre-schedule big commitments on your calendar is a simple thing to do. All right, I'm going to agree to do this big thing. I'm going to go and actually find the time on my calendar at the point of agreement. I will go at that point and go find time on my calendar to schedule to work on this. If it takes 10 hours, I'll find three hours here, four hours here. I will find and protect that time. So now I'm actually allocating my actual hours to the agreement as opposed to just agreeing it. And it's just abstractly added to my workload. And sometimes it gets nearer to do this. Like, where am I going to find the time to do it? You get a nice little reality check from having to pre-schedule time for major commitments, which is if you don't have that time available in the near future, you can't avoid that reality. Because you're trying to find, hey, I got to schedule the 10 hours for this hypothetical chore. And if I can't find those 10 hours in the next two weeks, I can't do it in the next two weeks. It gives you feedback on how crowded your schedule actually is. Or at first, you're easily finding time for things. But then as your schedule fills, you have to start looking out farther into the future to schedule things. And eventually, you have to tell people like, yeah, look, I'm scheduling a month out now. I've filled the next four weeks. If you're not pre-scheduling time and you're just saying yes to all of those things, it's still going to take up that much time. You just don't know it yet. You're going to have to pay that bill as those deadlines get due and the work is going to get done in a frenzy of stress. It's not going to get done that well. Another very simple thing you can do is have quotas for a particular type of work. Yes, I do these type of committees, but only one per quarter. Yes, I'm willing to do peer review, but I do four per semester. Once I hit my quota, I'm done. Yeah, I do calls. I think it's important in my role as an entrepreneur that I do calls, hop on calls with young entrepreneurs who want advice, but I can only do one per week. ([Time 0:18:23](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5a6c9aad-8895-431a-99ff-ae3efc8591bb)) > **Project Counts** > - Figure out how many major project types you can handle without stress. > - Limit yourself to that number and wait until completion before starting more. > Transcript: > Cal Newport > Another simple thing, if you're just doing bare bones here, would be project counts. You just figure out through experience, maybe through doing that pre-scheduling for a while, how many projects are the major types of projects you do in your job? How many can you usually handle before things become a little bit too stressful? And then you just have this very simple system. I only do three at a time. I'm at three. I got to wait till I finish something. It's this bare bone things you can do for workload management. ([Time 0:20:17](https://share.snipd.com/snip/23b30a3e-d0f5-4ddb-8813-e8df509e3081)) > **Morning Review** > - Implement a morning review to proactively control your day. Check your calendar and task list, choose key tasks, and schedule time for them. > Transcript: > Cal Newport > The final thing is time control. As I talked about before, our goal here is to have some sort of proactive control or intention in how your day unfolds. Even if you can't control it beat by beat, have some intention embedded in your day as opposed to just reacting. So here's an example, just like a bare minimum thing you could do here. Some sort of morning review. First thing in the morning, maybe I'm keeping my tasks in a legal pad like we talked about. I have a calendar. Look at the calendar. Look at your legal pad. What's on my plate? Maybe grab a couple things off that legal pad and say, okay, these are the things I want to try to get done today. Maybe kind of figure out here's the most important things I want to do. Why don't I do it? I see I have an open time on my calendar. Let me just start. That's when I'll do them. Make a few decisions. It's putting minimal intention into your day. ([Time 0:23:24](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5de78fb3-fe44-4513-9d68-0ed950b8fb3b)) > **Minimally Viable Productivity System** > - For a minimally viable productivity system, include task management, workload management, and time control components. > - These components save you from the worst deprivations of being unproductive, while also keeping you from over-optimization. > Transcript: > Cal Newport > But if you want just a minimally viable productivity system, that sort of bare bones that I think everyone in the modern knowledge economy needs to avoid stress or disillusionment Or burnout, you've got to have some sort of task management component. You need some sort of workload component. You need some sort of time control component. And even if they are super simple, you are going to save yourself from the worst deprivations of being not productive enough. And yet focusing on these three things, if you're reasonable about it, that also saves you from that sort of optimization ([Time 0:25:53](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c573590c-4dbd-435f-9b33-c4108c6d88c6))