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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Cal Newport
Read between
October 6 - October 14, 2025
If you visit the contact page on my author website, there’s no general-purpose e-mail address. Instead, I list different individuals you can contact for specific purposes: my literary agent for rights requests, for example, or my speaking agent for speaking requests. If you want to reach me, I offer only a special-purpose e-mail address that comes with conditions and a lowered expectation that I’ll respond: If you have an offer, opportunity, or introduction that might make my life more interesting, e-mail me at interesting [at] calnewport.com. For the reasons stated above, I’ll only respond to
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The default social convention surrounding e-mail is that unless you’re famous, if someone sends you something, you owe him or her a response.
(in general, those with a minor public presence, such as authors, overestimate how much people really care about their replies to their messages).
The notion that all messages, regardless of purpose or sender, arrive in the same undifferentiated inbox, and that there’s an expectation that every message deserves a (timely) response, is absurdly unproductive.
good process-centric message immediately “closes the loop” with respect to the project at hand.
By working through the whole process, adding to your task lists and calendar any relevant commitments on your part, and bringing the other party up to speed, your mind can reclaim the mental real estate the project once demanded. Less mental clutter means more mental resources available for deep thinking.
“Develop the habit of letting small bad things happen. If you don’t, you’ll never find time for the life-changing big things.”
the ability to concentrate is a skill that gets valuable things done.