7 ms·

Do yourself a favor and don't buy any books by Cal Newport. They're glorified blog posts with a bunch of overblown common sense rebranded with marketable termin

Do yourself a favor and don't buy any books by Cal Newport. They're glorified blog posts with a bunch of overblown common sense rebranded with marketable terminology. Read Flow by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi if you want something similar that has more substance.

Swizec 3y ago
> Read Flow by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi This is the book every productivity self-help book published in the last 20+ years reference. Including the one I self-published many moons ago. Mihaly is the only person who has done actual research and experiments on the subject. He basically worked on this his entire career from the mid 1960's onwards. Everything else is derivative. While you're there, do yourself another favor and read up on Fogg's Behavior Model. That's the other academic research that all the famous productivity books base their suggestions upon. The derivative pre-chewed content is fine, but get the underlying steak. It's worth it. The returns will compound your whole life/career.
3abiton 3y ago
Oof, that's a harsh take, what's your support?
- drlolz 3y ago
  https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/06/books/review/slow-productivity-cal-newport.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/06/books/review/slow-product...
  - gnicholas 3y ago
    > In his acknowledgments, he thanks his wife for “putting up with all the sacrifices involved in having a partner with a troubling addiction to writing books,” You'd think there'd be fewer sacrifices involved, given that he's mostly just writing one book, multiple times. /s
- tomdell 3y ago
  My support is first-hand experience and major disappointment buying and reading his most popular book - Deep Work. It was a borderline insulting read in its lukewarm repackaging of common sense wisdom and other people's original research.
victorbjorklund 3y ago
I found deep work like a totally okay book. But yea for sure no groundbreaking stuff or research there.

Swizec 3y ago

> Read Flow by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi This is the book every productivity self-help book published in the last 20+ years reference. Including the one I self-published many moons ago. Mihaly is the only person who has done actual research and experiments on the subject. He basically worked on this his entire career from the mid 1960's onwards. Everything else is derivative. While you're there, do yourself another favor and read up on Fogg's Behavior Model. That's the other academic research that all the famous productivity books base their suggestions upon. The derivative pre-chewed content is fine, but get the underlying steak. It's worth it. The returns will compound your whole life/career.

3abiton 3y ago

Oof, that's a harsh take, what's your support?

drlolz 3y ago
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/06/books/review/slow-productivity-cal-newport.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/06/books/review/slow-product...
- gnicholas 3y ago
  > In his acknowledgments, he thanks his wife for “putting up with all the sacrifices involved in having a partner with a troubling addiction to writing books,” You'd think there'd be fewer sacrifices involved, given that he's mostly just writing one book, multiple times. /s
tomdell 3y ago
My support is first-hand experience and major disappointment buying and reading his most popular book - Deep Work. It was a borderline insulting read in its lukewarm repackaging of common sense wisdom and other people's original research.

victorbjorklund 3y ago

I found deep work like a totally okay book. But yea for sure no groundbreaking stuff or research there.