Andrew Shell's Weblog

Cal Newport's Deep Life Stack

This note is my attempt at synthesizing and combining Cal Newport's Deep Life Stack 2.0 and Planning System. The goal will be to continue tweaking it as I learn more from Cal. Links to his sources will be at the bottom under "References."

Stage One: Become a Capable Human Being

Discipline

Lay down a foundation of discipline.

When it comes to cultivating a different type of life, you have to first change your self-identification to be the type of person who can persist with difficult things at the moment in pursuit of a greater good down the line.

In Cal Newport's strategic plan(s), he maintains an evolving list of core disciplines (behaviors, habits, activities) that he follows as strictly as possible to lay a foundation for a deep life. Sometimes, he track my execution of these disciplines with metrics.

At this stage, you should have a habit in each of the following three buckets:

  • Body: Improve your health and fitness
  • Mind: Sharpen your mind
  • Heart: Interactions with other people

Control

You need to have control of your time and obligations. Multiscale planning, David Allen GTD, and time-block planning.

All your obligations are captured in a trusted system, not just in your head. You're time-block planning your days, they are based on a weekly plans, which are based on quarterly plans.

Cal Newport's Multi-Scale Planning Framework

  • Create strategic plans for your semester or quarter
  • Quarterly plan informs your weekly plan
    1. Choose a schedule of work hours that you think provides the ideal balance of effort and relaxation.
    2. Do whatever it takes to avoid violating this schedule.
  • Weekly plan informs your daily time-block plan

Craft

Practicing Getting Better

Plan a skill or hobby to practice getting better at. Learning how to do something really well teaches you how to know how to do things really well.

Appreciate Better

Being exposed to people doing really good work makes you want to do really good work. So build up an appreciation of some sort of craft.

Example: Film appreciation

Simplification

Prune your schedule to a degree that allows you flexibility and breathing room so you're ready to start thinking about bigger-picture changes.

Start slashing obligations and simplify your life. What tools do I really need?

Stage Two: Cultivate Depth

Coming soon...

Cal Newport's Multi-Scale Planning Framework

Seasonal/Quarterly Planning

Create or review strategic plans for your semester or quarter.

First review your values document, where you identify the roles and values by which you try to live. What's important in your work, family, etc. How do you want to show up?

What are the big things you're working on? What are your goals for this quarter? Orient yourself toward the big picture of your ideal lifestyle.

Weekly Template

Create a weekly template of what your ideal week looks like. These are a collection of guidelines you put in place at the beginning of a quarter that you consistantly use when you create your weekly plan.

Set aside protected time. For instance, not scheduling meetings for mornings so you can do deep work or blocking off time over lunch for working out. Can you set these on autopilot? Office hours?

Establish any daily themes. For example, certain days are for meetings and others are no-meetings days. Certain roles are assigned to different days like class days or writing days.

Decide on rules and limits. Making sure you schedule 15 minutes after each meeting or call for processing meeting notes and clearing your head. Or quotas like "one podcast per week."

Weekly Planning

Start with your weekly template and look at your quarterly plans and figure out a weekly plan.

Look at your calendar and your task capture system. Do you need to schedule or reschedule anything? What are your goals for the week? Schedule time to work on your big inititives.

Daily Time-Block Planning

Look at your weekly plan and schedule out every minute of your day. Give each minute a job. End with a clear shutdown ritual.

Full Capture System

  • Keep a master calendar and a master to-do list on your computer. It doesn't matter what software you use.
  • Buy a small spiral bound notebook that you carry in your pocket everywhere you go.
  • Whenever a task, date, or deadline pops into view — for example, a professor mentions a test date or you read an e-mail that requires action — jot it down in your notebook.
  • Every morning, do two things: (1) transfer new items from your notebook onto your computerized list and calendar; (2) review your lists and calendar.

Cal Newport’s Core Systems Documents

Values

The roles and the values by which you try to live. This will evolve over time. This gives you intention and direction in your life.

Career and Personal Strategic Plans

Create one plan for each part of your life that lays out your current thoughts, experimental systems, and plans for living them true to your values. Sometimes, these will also link to an extended plan when you have a big enough, long enough pursuit that it might need its own space.

Maintenance

  • Review your values once a week and create a weekly value plan with notes about what to emphasize and perhaps experimental habits/rules to try out that week to keep you closer to your values. Include best practices for mental health in the value plan.
  • Review your strategic plans (and extended plans) once a week, preferably when doing your weekly plan.) Tweak them any time, but give them a major overhaul roughly once a semester.
  • Maintain an idea notebook and digital idea storage system, keeping thoughts on values and strategic plans. At the very least, review this in detail when you make strategic plan updates.

References