Ep. 194: The Surprising Math of Doing Less

Cal has been writing about time management for a *long* time. In this episode, he returns to a chapter from a book he wrote twenty years ago that is titled “manage your time in 5 minutes a day.” He re...

14 Apr 20251h 22min

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 a...

7 Apr 20251h 9min

In last week’s episode, Cal discussed data that indicate that the rise of the smartphones is making humans measurably dumber. Here he discusses aggressive strategies for resisting this reality. He the...

31 Mar 20251h 10min

Multiple listeners recently sent in a Financial Times article that asks whether humans have passed “peak intelligence.” In this episode, Cal looks closer at the data in this article to try to understa...

24 Mar 20251h 8min

Modern knowledge work jobs should be cushy gigs. Fixed hours, air conditioning, no hard manual labor, flexibility. So why are we so often burnt out and what can we do about this reality? In this episo...

17 Mar 20251h 25min

One of the most commonly recurring themes on this show is the conflict between too much versus not enough productivity. In this episode, Cal attempts to find new clarity in this debate by identifying ...

10 Mar 20251h 30min

In this episode of IN-DEPTH, Cal is joined by the writers Brad Stulberg and Clay Skipper to talk about the topic of “greatness.” They attempt to pick apart the weird moment we are in where, on the one...

6 Mar 20251h 18min

How do escape a life of shallowness and distraction to cultivate something deeper and more meaningful? In this episode, Cal draws from both algorithm theory and the habits of a reclusive author to hig...

3 Mar 20251h 18min