• Slow Productivity 📚
• by Cal Newport
• Publication date: 2024-03-05
• Read: Oct 19, 2025
• Link

I’ve read a couple of Newport’s books so far (see here and here) and I’ve generally liked them but also found them somewhat repetitive. As in the general idea of not frantically running from thing to thing and getting distracted by things that aren’t a priority in improving your goals are the recurring topic in slightly variated form in most of his writing. Still I find it helpful as periodic reminders to actually also follow this advice and breaking out of cycles of distraction and - in the case of this book - what he calls “pseudo productivity”. I think if you’re only interested in his steps for slow productivity it’s enough to watch one of his videos about it (e.g. this). But I can also recommend the book if you want to just spend some more time with Newport’s thoughts about this topic and some examples and anecdotes of famous people that have achieved great work in a manner that is compatible with the concept of “slow productivity”. It’s a pretty entertaining and short read as well. And the ideas resonate a lot with me, even if they don’t differ in spirit much from his previous books.