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.
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.
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 love Cals work but you are spot on! I would also say is very organization dependent, this frantic work model is prominent on large corps. I've worked for 2 mega large F500 corps and they pride on pseudo productivity.
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 agree with a lot of what you said. I think we've started to see a bifurcation in American society in more than one area. I think to me, the wealthy, those that can afford sabbaticals, nannies,etc...are able to apply these principles without issue. The rest of us have become slaves to this class. Unfortunately I can see this become more of a problem in the future as the wealthy continue to lobby dictate how we live by continuing to make it unaffordable for us. The paths being offered now are the one of the same. One is a cult who will continue to make the rich super rich and will do it in one term. The other path is still the same albeit more slowly. Neither path is really doing much to improve the middle class, the bread and butter of the economy.
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.
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.
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).
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
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.
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 love Cals work but you are spot on!
I would also say is very organization dependent, this frantic work model is prominent on large corps. I've worked for 2 mega large F500 corps and they pride on pseudo productivity.
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 agree with a lot of what you said. I think we've started to see a bifurcation in American society in more than one area. I think to me, the wealthy, those that can afford sabbaticals, nannies,etc...are able to apply these principles without issue. The rest of us have become slaves to this class. Unfortunately I can see this become more of a problem in the future as the wealthy continue to lobby dictate how we live by continuing to make it unaffordable for us. The paths being offered now are the one of the same. One is a cult who will continue to make the rich super rich and will do it in one term. The other path is still the same albeit more slowly. Neither path is really doing much to improve the middle class, the bread and butter of the economy.
i like that u used 2 rules to mesure the book .(the 3 and 4 stars )
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
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.
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.
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).