Cultivating a Deep Life
https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2020/04/20/cultivating-a-deep-life/
| Craft | Community | Contemplation | Constitution | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amplify | Learn AirTable; produce application for inventory system. | Volunteer for local Meal on Wheels chapter. | Observe Shabbat. | Eat clean; 10,000 steps a day. |
| Reduce | Using meeting scheduling software to control ratio between deep and shallow work. | Take Instagram off of your phone; prune down accounts you follow to people you really care about or inspire you. | Eliminate negative tweeting. | Alcohol only on weekends. |
I’ve been writing off and on recently about the notion of the deep life, in which you focus with energetic intention on things that really matter, and avoid wasting too much attention on things that don’t.
We find ourselves now in a moment when many people are beginning to question the suboptimal aspects of their life that they had previously been tolerating through some combination of momentum and convenience. It is, in other words, a good time to explore various strategies for injecting more resilience and meaning into your existence.
With this in mind, I’ve been thinking about ways to evolve towards a deeper life. One observation that rings true from my experience is that you should resist the urge to try to build a master plan that, once implemented, will transform everything for the better in one dramatic moment. This optimism is quixotic. It’s much more realistic to experiment with smaller shifts, one after another, to discover what sticks and what ends up superfluous.
My recommendation is to think in increments of roughly one month. For a given 30-day period, attempt a limited number of changes to the four components of the deep life (craft, community, constitution, and contemplation). Focus on these changes and see what works and what doesn’t. Keep the former in place and abandon the latter. If you repeat this long enough you’ll notice a marked shift toward the deeper end of the spectrum.
To be more concrete, consider focusing on two things for each component of your life that you’re trying to improve:
- A high-impact habit that will significantly amplify the value you’re deriving from this component.
- A commitment for reducing sources of distraction or unnecessary effort diverting your attention within this component.
At the top of this post is an example table showing what a deep life plan of this type might look like for a hypothetical individual. The details here matter less than the general strategy: month after month, relentlessly look to amplify habits that matter while reducing behaviors that don’t. Stick with this approach long enough and the qualitative experience of your life will be significantly improved. You can’t control what happens to you — is there any period in recent history in which this axiom has been made more clear? — but you can control how you respond, and ultimately, this is what makes all the difference.