Monday Dispatch – 2023/08/21

Cal Newport’s laws of less. How Ryan Holiday wins the day. Kevin Kelly’s productivity advice.

Based on a picture by Karl Chor

Welcome to Monday Dispatch, a bonus publication for premium subscribers with additional notes, deep dives, reading recommendations, and business updates.

In this installment, we dive into intentional productivity advice from some of the writers I admire. “Intentional productivity” is the working name for the kind of value-driven, focused, post-industrial productivity that we explore in this publication.

Before getting started, a reminder to submit your questions for our first premium subscribers AMA, which I aim to publish at the end of the month.

The laws of less

Long-time readers know how impactful Cal Newport’s work has been on my career and thinking. In a recent episode of his Deep Questions show, Cal enumerated five principles that explain the value of doing less but better.

1. Accomplishment is non-additive. You can’t sum up a lot of mediocre results into a single higher-quality outcome. For example, self-publishing three decent books counts less than publishing a single book with a major imprint that catches some attention. If you are looking for excellence, you’re better off reducing quantity in favor of quality.

2. Overhead destroys originality. Every project comes with communication and collaboration overhead. On top of being an easy-to-underestimate time sink, this overhead eats up mental bandwidth and calendar space, crucial resources for those pursuing excellent results in their knowledge endeavors.

The first two laws cover how less improves the fruits of your labor. The remaining laws highlight its impact on your quality of life while laboring.