Top all-time · #86
Cal Newport
Personal blog · calnewport.com/blogproductivitycareer
Cal Newport's personal blog at calnewport.com covers productivity and career. Since 2007, 423 different Hacker News readers have linked it 812 times, most often “Intelligence is Irrelevant: An MIT Alum’s Advice to a Struggling Student”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Often recommended · 17 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link his blog and books on deep work, focus and career, which comments call highly recommended, invaluable and worth reading.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Intelligence is Irrelevant: An MIT Alum’s Advice to a Struggling Student25 people · 26 mentions · first linked 2011-04-01
- “Deep Work” by Cal Newport Is Available18 people · 18 mentions · first linked 2016-01-05
- Deep Habits: The Importance of Planning Every Minute of Your Work Day8 people · 9 mentions · first linked 2014-01-30
- If you're busy, you're doing something wrong (2011)7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2011-11-11
- /books/deep-work/6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2019-11-17
- How the Search for Your Life’s Work is Making Your Working Life Miserable6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2010-10-16
- Mastering Linear Algebra in 10 Days: Astounding Experiments in Ultra-Learning5 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2012-10-26
- AI Coding and Its Discontents: Cal Newport5 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2026-08-10
- Knowledge workers are bad at working – and what to do about it5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2012-12-19
- Beyond Passion: The Science of Loving What You Do4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2010-04-26
What Hacker News says?
There are lots of books that changed the way I think. An example that may be of special interest to the HN community is "So Good They Can't Ignore You" by Cal Newport ( http://calnewport.com/books/so-good/ ). I have spent lots of time finding the perfect career, until I learned from this book that you must stop finding the perfect career. Just do something that you like enough to spend lots of time on it. Everything…
Comment linking /books/so-good/
on “Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?”Submitted Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious as a story · 734 points
HN discussionThe Cal Newport book on Deep Work that this article is based on has inspired a push for the Eudaimonia Machine [0] (an updated version by Newport himself here [1]). It’s a concept for an office that is designed to promote effective deep and shallow work. It’s a wonderful idea, though discussions on HN about it have pointed out that it’s difficult in startups, especially during high growth: allocating space for deep…
Comment linking /blog/2016/10/19/the-opposite-of-the-open-office/
on “The Importance of Deep Work and the 30-Hour Method for Learning a New Skill”Submitted It's Time to Investigate the AI Labs as a story · 630 points
HN discussionI like Cal Newport's Deep Life framework here a bunch, highly recommend everyone check it out: https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2020/04/20/cultivating-a-dee... He has these alliterative buckets, like Craft, Community, Contemplation, and Constitution. Everyone's priority stack is different but generally speaking ... all humans need a bit of each. ONLY craft ('work') isn't enough for a deep life!
Comment linking /blog/2020/04/20/cultivating-a-deep-life/
on “How to Work Hard”Submitted If you're busy, you're doing something wrong (2011) as a story · 499 points
HN discussion"the ability to concentrate without distraction on hard tasks is becoming increasingly valuable in an increasingly complicated economy. Social media weakens this skill because it’s engineered to be addictive." Interesting viewpoint. Does the author really follow this? Has a webpage, blog and an archive that stretches for 91 pages ~ http://calnewport.com/blog/archive/ Not a good sign if the author thinks you should q…
Comment linking /blog/archive/
on “Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It”Submitted Advice on Getting Better from an Accomplished Piano Player (2011) as a story · 492 points
HN discussionVirtue ethics could be a useful framework for thinking about it. Alasdair MacIntyre in After Virtue talks about the concept of a tradition as forming a narrative backbone for a person's life and actions. Conversation is also crucial, and traditions can be seen as extended conversations. I suggest that Hacker News is a place where such a tradition is constructed and maintained. It gives rise to an "imagined community…
Comment linking /books/deep-work/
on “Life is Short”Submitted Is Facebook’s Massive Open Office Scaring Away Developers? as a story · 426 points
HN discussionHmm, it does babies and infants too. I was not expecting that. Other commentators mention that Ashley Madison, stock-photo companies, and other spammers will take this and run with it. Honestly, I suspect that has already happened for a while now and may explain the issues that FB and Twitter are having [0]. Though I can't find the thread, there was a discussion here on HN a while back about the 'Inversion' issue. B…
Comment linking /blog/
on “This person does not exist”Submitted TikTok’s Poison Pill as a story · 286 points
HN discussionI just finished this[1] book with tips about how to get back into that deep work routine, and whilst I'm not there yet - there have been some immediately tangible benefits. Like turning off work email push notifications, developing a routine (for my study after work - MSCS) and scheduling all parts of my day and sticking to them. It's not a long book, but I highly recommend it. [1] http://calnewport.com/books/deep-w…
Comment linking /books/deep-work/
on “How I got to 200 productive hours a month”Submitted Mastering Linear Algebra in 10 Days: Astounding Experiments in Ultra-Learning as a story · 280 points
HN discussionI prefer Call Newport's point o view: Beyond Passion: The Science of Loving What You Do https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2010/01/23/beyond-passion-th...
Comment linking /blog/2010/01/23/beyond-passion-the-science-of-loving-what-you-do/
on “Being OK with not being extraordinary”Submitted Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen as a story · 278 points
HN discussionIt seems that most commenters jumped in with a solution but I would ask, what are your goals? Lets say that your goals are to discover a wide range of topics and gain breadth. Then you seem to be on the right track. But if your goals are to master and deep learn specific topics (e.g. algorithms), then you may need to change your current habits, a much harder problem (and yet more meaningful to solve). In either case…
Comment linking /blog/2013/12/21/deep-habits-the-importance-of-planning-every-minute-of-your-work-day/
on “Ask HN: The “I want to do everything but end up doing nothing” dilemma”Submitted Our Brains Are Not Multi-Threaded as a story · 273 points
HN discussionStart spending some time reading Cal Newport's blog. You still have the problem of deciding which things are important to you, but just immersing yourself in how he approaches focus and deep habits, about how he prioritizes his work, will send you in the right direction. If you time block your available time as he does, you're forced to make choices--there is only so much time available, obviously--and the disciplin…
Comment linking /blog/2013/12/21/deep-habits-the-importance-of-planning-every-minute-of-your-work-day/
on “Ask HN: The “I want to do everything but end up doing nothing” dilemma”Submitted Two narratives about AI as a story · 266 points
HN discussionNot sure if you seek advice on self-development (programming skills) or general college/university studying advice. Very similar set of challenges either way IMO: Take Dr. Barbara Oakley's (free) learning how to learn course - I graduated 20 years ago (MSc) and found this very refreshing and insightful. Good interviews, too. https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn Cal Newport's book is full of studying/…
Comment linking /blog/2009/03/09/the-straight-a-method-how-to-ace-college-courses/
on “Ask HN: How do you manage self-study?”Submitted If You’re Busy, You’re Doing Something Wrong as a story · 259 points
HN discussionCal Newport addresses the tension between deep work and collaborative work in this blog post ( https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2014/10/15/how-to-win-a-nobe... ) and on some recent episodes of his podcast ( https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3B... ). The TL;DR is, Bell Labs was designed to balance casual, collaborative conversations with solo deep work. 1. Instead of having a computer science b…
Comment linking /blog/2014/10/15/how-to-win-a-nobel-prize-notes-from-richard-hammings-talk-on-doing-great-research/
on “Attention Is My Most Valuable Asset for Productivity as a Software Developer”Submitted Economists study what happens when people stop using Facebook as a story · 241 points
HN discussionOne of my favorite facts about Knuth is how rarely he checks email! https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2008/07/17/bonus-post-how-th...
Comment linking /blog/2008/07/17/bonus-post-how-the-worlds-most-famous-computer-scientist-checks-e-mail-only-once-every-three-months/
on “Donald Knuth on work habits, problem solving, and happiness (2020)”Submitted Quit Social Media (2016) as a story · 218 points
HN discussionIt sounds like you're already approaching this idea on your own, but if you haven't checked it out already you should have a look at Digital Minimalism [1]. It's a really well thought out analysis of exactly what you're describing. In theory, a few hours here and there shouldn't be an issue. However, the main problem with modern media (social and otherwise) is that it is very insidious. It's not just about the time…
Comment linking /books/digital-minimalism/
on “I'm an addict”Submitted The high modernism of social media companies as a story · 205 points
HN discussionHere's a few from my own quick searching that I found most interesting/foundational/helpful: http://calnewport.com/blog/2009/07/08/grit-grinds-and-living... http://calnewport.com/blog/2012/11/21/knowledge-workers-are-... http://calnewport.com/blog/2009/06/22/on-the-value-of-hard-f... http://calnewport.com/blog/2009/02/16/the-danger-of-deep-pro... http://calnewport.com/blog/2008/02/15/fixed-schedule-product... http:/…
Comment linking /blog/2011/08/11/the-career-craftsman-manifesto/
on “Disconnect. Offline only”Submitted How to Cure Deep Procrastination as a story · 200 points
HN discussion
