Why You’re Always Tired, Anxious, and Unmotivated (Hint: It’s in Your Pocket) | Cal Newport

Cal Newport talks about the forgotten phone harms in Episode 347 of the Deep Questions podcast.

Buy Cal Newport's latest book, “Slow Productivity” at www.calnewport.com/slow

Phones have been receiving a lot of criticism recently, but what if these concerns are missing the mark? In this episode, Cal introduces the difference between primary and secondary phone harms, and argues how our obsession with the former hides the importance of the latter. He then answers reader questions and reviews the books he read in March, 2025.

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Links:
Buy Cal’s latest book, “Slow Productivity” at www.calnewport.com/slow
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0:00 The Forgotten Phone Harms
21:25 What do you do when you’re writing doesn’t quite feel right?
30:23 How should I prioritize responding to different types of communication
36:05 Should personal and work tasks be split into different Trello boards?
38:43 What is the difference between a two-status board and a reverse task list?
42:13 A student adopts the Tao of Cal
45:59 Structuring weekly templates
54:19 The 5 books Cal read in March, 2025

Connect with Cal Newport:

🔴Visit Cal's BLOG and website: calnewport.com/blog/
🔴Check out Cal's books: calnewport.com/writing/
🔴Check out The Deep Life: thedeeplife.com/

About Cal Newport:
Cal Newport is a computer science professor at Georgetown University. In addition to his academic research, he writes about the intersection of digital technology and culture. Cal's particularly interested in our struggle to deploy these tools in ways that support instead of subvert the things we care about in both our personal and professional lives.

Cal is a New York Times bestselling author of seven books, including, most recently, A World Without Email, Digital Minimalism, and Deep Work. He's also the creator of The Time-Block Planner.

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