Excellent review. You give a very good insight into the content, the principles and discuss those in a wider context. This is combined with great presentation. I only wonder, why you have not so many followers yet. Outstanding work. I am particularly glad to hear the issue of indivdual solutions for systemic problems. A general issue of all self-help books. I appreciate about Newport that he, in contrast to many other authors, doesn't propose magical solutions. Rather his books stem from years of tinkering on thoughts. Granted he writes about his situation as a college professor and successful author. This is fair. But one should stop and think whether one's own situation is similar to his and whether the principles discussed in his book are applicable. I am looking forward to your next videos.
Thank you! You highlighted and explained the important points so well. I found the Pull Workflow explanations particularly helpful, since I struggle with adding too many tasks to my to-do lists or jumping from one thing to the next. I feel like I'm drowning in tasks I need/want to do (my TH-cam "Watch Later" list is a disaster). Your approach to "pulling" items into your workflow only when you are ready is a helpful mindset for me. And I appreciate the "issues" you highlighted. I'm not always aware of why advice doesn't quite work for me and often wonder what I'm doing wrong. Even though I'm white, male, etc., I'm often in a caretaker role, which makes some of these principles difficult to apply. It can lead to frustration in my situation without realizing why it's happening (I read the advice, try but can't do it because of my responsibilities, get frustrated at myself and others, repeat). Elucidating these issues and making them concrete helps me frame this type of advice to my situation more clearly. TY!
As a working wife and mother, who is also a big fan of Cal Newport and his processes, I really appreciate your views on this. I hope he considers the burden of family responsibilities that productive women often face.
Cal Newport is only deep to shallow people. People aren’t burnt out because they thought overworking themselves was a super neat idea. Many of us aren’t given a choice. Our managers and employers enforce this frenetic pace and threaten us with discipline or joblessness otherwise. Organizations will literally cite tactics like what he recommends as pretexts for letting some one go. Maybe this works for a tenured professor or a freelancer with sufficient security to choose what projects they pursue, but he’s not marketing to that narrow a demographic, is he? Ultimately, he’s written another book for people like himself. Like so much of self help, this is a book about success management.
Great review! I really appreciated your balanced approach and you pointing out the weaknesses of this book in a way that is not confrontational but constructive (which is hard considering they are the tipical eyeroll issues found in most books written by privileged cis white men). Also the video production is very good! Which is particularly impressive considering how small the channel is. Will check your other videos out!
I'm a long fan of cal newport. I agree with everything you said. I like to see his interviews and podcast more than his book, because there he is confronted with these exact questions, and then he enters deep into these dark corners, not giving exact solutions, or simply saying, I don't have a solution other than you changing jobs. yet his views helped me a lot in my own life. specially if you are trying to build a business as I am. buy again, you are right. I was in the military for example when I met him. There if I say No to a task in my country, I can even get arrested for insubordination, so, I'm surrounded by politics, while trying to be the more honest as possible to my many bosses (the military has a lot of administration work too).
Can I ask questions about the Pull method that you were able to implement? I am actually a research scientist in academia. But I find our PIs always just want more be done and faster. I personally even have a hard time knowing what my capacity is and feels like all I do every day is to push very hard on myself.
Sure! The method Cal recommends (and what I do too) is to have all of the ideas you want placed into a visual queue, prioritized in order. Collaborate with your PIs on what order they want things prioritized! And then pick a few number of things to work on at the same time, and visually move things to the "done" queue. You can even mark how long you spend on each item. Once you see the pace that things can move from "backlog", to "in process", to "done" - you can set more benchmarks about how many items can be in the queue at once. It's a benefit to your PIs - less switching cost between things means that items get moved faster to "done".
My experience with employers was their attitude toward assignment was "Shut up and do it." They did not analyze how best to achieve the organization's goals. It was "I pay you, here's the work." That doesn't mean slow productivity isn't worth pursuing, but like anything, you have to modify to your circumstances.
To be fair to Newport, a lot of the criticisms here are the classic reviewer's critique that he didn't write the book that she would have written - which, of course, was never his intention. Is it fair, for example, to expect him to have addressed the problems of late-stage Capitalism or the power dynamics in large organizations? Or the problem of childcare support? He had his topic and his focus, and he covered those areas very well; no book can cover everything. Perhaps Lackey should write her own book to cover the other areas of modern life she considers important.
I appreciate the feedback! In the video, I highlighted another book (The Friction Project) that seemed to take the Slow Productivity principles and apply them in an organization-wide lens that does account for some of the dynamics I mentioned. But I appreciate the watch of the video and you sharing your feedback!
While I agree that no book can cover everything, the critique is still valid and is ubiquitous in self help books where little thought is given to the circumstances of normal people but seem to be written for an audience who can just implement directly without any repercussions. I think self help authors should understand the implications of implementation taking a generic person which typically has many other commitments and define this person implicitly or explicitly.
This is the point of a review! Much like a good scientific paper, it's useful to point out possible areas of expansion/gaps that weren't addressed by the experiment and suggestions for how to improve.
@@nathanielfarrugia Yeah and this book is for "knowledge workers". This is written by someone who taught in school and write books for a living. The ideas from this book came from the practices of people like Galilelo/Newton/Austen/etc. I doubt if they have really had an idea of how it is to work in an office with couple of managers above you. His other book ("So Good They Can’t Ignore You") is probably more relevant to people like me who's trying to get out this office rat race thing. But I still think the book has some good ideas that can be adapted to office setting.
Excellent review. You give a very good insight into the content, the principles and discuss those in a wider context. This is combined with great presentation. I only wonder, why you have not so many followers yet. Outstanding work. I
am particularly glad to hear the issue of indivdual solutions for systemic problems. A general issue of all self-help books. I appreciate about Newport that he, in contrast to many other authors, doesn't propose magical solutions. Rather his books stem from years of tinkering on thoughts. Granted he writes about his situation as a college professor and successful author. This is fair. But one should stop and think whether one's own situation is similar to his and whether the principles discussed in his book are applicable. I am looking forward to your next videos.
Thank you! You highlighted and explained the important points so well. I found the Pull Workflow explanations particularly helpful, since I struggle with adding too many tasks to my to-do lists or jumping from one thing to the next. I feel like I'm drowning in tasks I need/want to do (my TH-cam "Watch Later" list is a disaster).
Your approach to "pulling" items into your workflow only when you are ready is a helpful mindset for me.
And I appreciate the "issues" you highlighted. I'm not always aware of why advice doesn't quite work for me and often wonder what I'm doing wrong.
Even though I'm white, male, etc., I'm often in a caretaker role, which makes some of these principles difficult to apply. It can lead to frustration in my situation without realizing why it's happening (I read the advice, try but can't do it because of my responsibilities, get frustrated at myself and others, repeat).
Elucidating these issues and making them concrete helps me frame this type of advice to my situation more clearly. TY!
Thank you for watching and for leaving such a thoughtful comment!
As a working wife and mother, who is also a big fan of Cal Newport and his processes, I really appreciate your views on this. I hope he considers the burden of family responsibilities that productive women often face.
I really enjoyed your perspective. I dont always see the missing pieces that keep things from being the right solution until im trying it out myself
Cal Newport is only deep to shallow people. People aren’t burnt out because they thought overworking themselves was a super neat idea. Many of us aren’t given a choice. Our managers and employers enforce this frenetic pace and threaten us with discipline or joblessness otherwise. Organizations will literally cite tactics like what he recommends as pretexts for letting some one go. Maybe this works for a tenured professor or a freelancer with sufficient security to choose what projects they pursue, but he’s not marketing to that narrow a demographic, is he? Ultimately, he’s written another book for people like himself. Like so much of self help, this is a book about success management.
I have just subscribed and amazed that you don't have more followers. Excellent review, thank you.
Great review! I really appreciated your balanced approach and you pointing out the weaknesses of this book in a way that is not confrontational but constructive (which is hard considering they are the tipical eyeroll issues found in most books written by privileged cis white men).
Also the video production is very good! Which is particularly impressive considering how small the channel is.
Will check your other videos out!
Thank you Lyra, I'd love to know what else you think of other videos on the channel!
I'm a long fan of cal newport. I agree with everything you said.
I like to see his interviews and podcast more than his book, because there he is confronted with these exact questions, and then he enters deep into these dark corners, not giving exact solutions, or simply saying, I don't have a solution other than you changing jobs. yet his views helped me a lot in my own life. specially if you are trying to build a business as I am.
buy again, you are right. I was in the military for example when I met him. There if I say No to a task in my country, I can even get arrested for insubordination, so, I'm surrounded by politics, while trying to be the more honest as possible to my many bosses (the military has a lot of administration work too).
Can I ask questions about the Pull method that you were able to implement? I am actually a research scientist in academia. But I find our PIs always just want more be done and faster. I personally even have a hard time knowing what my capacity is and feels like all I do every day is to push very hard on myself.
Sure! The method Cal recommends (and what I do too) is to have all of the ideas you want placed into a visual queue, prioritized in order. Collaborate with your PIs on what order they want things prioritized! And then pick a few number of things to work on at the same time, and visually move things to the "done" queue. You can even mark how long you spend on each item. Once you see the pace that things can move from "backlog", to "in process", to "done" - you can set more benchmarks about how many items can be in the queue at once. It's a benefit to your PIs - less switching cost between things means that items get moved faster to "done".
My experience with employers was their attitude toward assignment was "Shut up and do it." They did not analyze how best to achieve the organization's goals. It was "I pay you, here's the work." That doesn't mean slow productivity isn't worth pursuing, but like anything, you have to modify to your circumstances.
Thanks.... By the way - you have very nice and clear voice.
wow thank you very for this review / VERY practical with most of our situation
i like that u used 2 rules to mesure the book .(the 3 and 4 stars )
To be fair to Newport, a lot of the criticisms here are the classic reviewer's critique that he didn't write the book that she would have written - which, of course, was never his intention. Is it fair, for example, to expect him to have addressed the problems of late-stage Capitalism or the power dynamics in large organizations? Or the problem of childcare support? He had his topic and his focus, and he covered those areas very well; no book can cover everything. Perhaps Lackey should write her own book to cover the other areas of modern life she considers important.
I appreciate the feedback! In the video, I highlighted another book (The Friction Project) that seemed to take the Slow Productivity principles and apply them in an organization-wide lens that does account for some of the dynamics I mentioned. But I appreciate the watch of the video and you sharing your feedback!
While I agree that no book can cover everything, the critique is still valid and is ubiquitous in self help books where little thought is given to the circumstances of normal people but seem to be written for an audience who can just implement directly without any repercussions. I think self help authors should understand the implications of implementation taking a generic person which typically has many other commitments and define this person implicitly or explicitly.
This is the point of a review! Much like a good scientific paper, it's useful to point out possible areas of expansion/gaps that weren't addressed by the experiment and suggestions for how to improve.
@@nathanielfarrugia Yeah and this book is for "knowledge workers". This is written by someone who taught in school and write books for a living. The ideas from this book came from the practices of people like Galilelo/Newton/Austen/etc. I doubt if they have really had an idea of how it is to work in an office with couple of managers above you.
His other book ("So Good They Can’t Ignore You") is probably more relevant to people like me who's trying to get out this office rat race thing.
But I still think the book has some good ideas that can be adapted to office setting.