Cal Newport's Deep Life Planning System
A program based on Cal Newport's three-part planning system, designed to organize life, manage stress, and achieve deep work. It focuses on core documents, productivity, and discipline.
Program Modules
Establish Core Documents 📝
Create and maintain the core documents that guide your life: a values document and strategic plans (career and personal).
Create Values Document
YearlyDocument your roles and values by which you try to live. The wording should be personal and meaningful to you, not perfectly polished.
“a document that as I say here uh describes my roles and values by which I try to live”
Create Strategic Plans
YearlyDevelop career and personal strategic plans that lay out your current thoughts, experimental systems, and plans for living true to your values.
“I have one plan for each of these two parts of my life that lays out my current thoughts experimental systems and plans for living uh true to my values”
Maintain Core Documents
DailyRegularly update your values document and strategic plans to ensure they remain relevant and aligned with your goals.
Optimize Productivity 🚀
Organize your time effectively through weekly and daily planning, clear work shutdowns, and full capture of tasks.
Weekly Planning
WeeklyBuild a weekly plan based on a review of your strategic plans, calendar, task list, and value plan.
“Each week I build a weekly plan based on a review of my strategic plans my calendar my task list and my value plan”
Daily Planning
DailyReview your weekly plan, value plan, and calendar each day. Create a time-block plan for weekdays and a looser plan for weekends.
“Each day I review my weekly plan I review my value plan I look at my calendar and if it's a weekday I make a time block plan”
Work Shutdown
DailyImplement clear work shutdowns with a complete ritual, including a rough plan for the rest of the day.
“Clear work shutdowns with a shutdown complete ritual so you gotta have a clear separation between work and non-work”
Full Capture
DailyCapture all tasks and process them into appropriate systems. Ensure everything is written down and will be seen/processed.
“Full capture of task make sure at the very least at the shutdown each day you process all the tasks that you've captured into the appropriate systems”
Cultivate Discipline 💪
Maintain strategic plans and an evolving list of core disciplines to lay a foundation for a deep life. Track these disciplines with metrics (if desired).
Define Core Disciplines
MonthlyIdentify and write down the hard disciplines you will strictly follow (e.g., exercise, deep work hours).
“Maintaining my strategic plans an evolving list of core disciplines this might be things about like exercise it might be things about the number of deep work hours you're going to do each day it might be something if you're in sales about the number of calls you make every day whatever but the point is they're disciplines that I try to strictly follow to lay a foundation for a deep life”
Track Disciplines
DailyTrack your core disciplines, often using metrics, to monitor your progress and stay accountable (optional - can take breaks).
“I often track these with metrics sometimes I don't so typically if it's during an academic semester I'll have a metric code for each of my disciplines where I can keep track of my time block planner in the metric planning space did I do this today did I do this today I'd like to actually see it”
What You'll Accomplish
- Understand and implement Cal Newport's three-part planning system.
- Create and maintain core documents that guide your life.
- Optimize your productivity through weekly and daily planning.
- Cultivate discipline to lay a foundation for a deep life.
- Manage stress and anxiety through effective planning and organization.
Full program access + updates