Cal Newport's December 2021 reading list and deep work Q&A

Executive overview

Cal Newport reviews five books read in December 2021, ranging from a George Lucas biography to Wendell Berry's essays. The second half answers listener questions on dissertation writing, managing extra work time, habit formation, and academic rejection.

Reading widely and without overthinking it is the foundation of intellectual life — just get on the bar most days.

Books read in December 2021

1. How Star Wars Conquered the Universe — Chris Taylor. A George Lucas biography with pop-culture reporting on Star Wars. Lucas was considered the artistic hotshot in his USC circle (alongside Coppola, Scorsese, DePalma). His edge: relentless go-big ambition — he found ways to produce work that looked far larger than its budget. He and Spielberg invented the blockbuster format by arriving just as Hollywood was leaving the studio system.

2. In Praise of Slow — Carl Honoré. Background reading for a New Yorker piece introducing the concept of slow productivity. The four-day work week won't fix burnout; the real problem is excessive work volume, which creates a feedback spiral of stress. The fix is lower volume, not longer weekends.

3. When the Lion Feeds — Wilbur Smith (his debut novel, read to mark his death in December 2021). Intergenerational saga set in British colonial Africa; follows Sean Courtney from boyhood through gold-rush fortune-building and ivory hunting. Genre adventure fiction written in the 1960s — not up to modern political sensibility.

4. Hero on a Mission — Donald Miller. Straight self-help on how to make your life more meaningful. Notable detail: Miller and his wife bought 15 acres outside Nashville and are slowly cultivating it — orchards, gardens, shaped pear-tree fences — as a model of intentional land stewardship.

5. The World Ending Fire — Wendell Berry (essay collection). Berry grew up farming in Kentucky, went to New York to write, then returned to farm with horses and never used a tractor. His 1980s Harper's essay "Why I Didn't Buy a Computer" lays out a farmer's criteria for adopting technology: clear value, no better alternative. The letters published in response revealed a culture clash — Berry's yeoman-farmer home-economy worldview colliding with the emerging dual-income salaried world. The dialectic between essay and letters surfaced more cultural insight than either alone.

On dissertation writing

Stop making "writing" the only verb. 80% of dissertation work is thinking — figuring out what you want to say and making it worth saying. The remaining 20% is expressing it clearly. Hire an editor for grammar and clarity; spend your real energy on experiments, literature, and argument. You're not writing literary fiction.

On using extra time after becoming efficient

Take a phantom part-time job: treat recovered time as a scheduled second job that happens during the workday but isn't visible. Three options for what to do with it:

• Build a rare and valuable skill to expand options in your current work
• Work on a side hustle (writing, business, podcast)
• Invest deeply in a high-quality personal interest

The key: one focused thing, scheduled consistently, for months at a time.

On eye strain and computer use

Use productive meditation — walk with a notebook whenever you face a non-trivial thinking task. Draft strategy memos, work through hard problems, plan code architecture on foot. Coming back to the computer to transcribe already-completed thinking naturally builds in screen breaks and improves the quality of the thinking.

Managing long research projects

Use the two plus one rule:

• Two active projects at different stages simultaneously (one near completion, one early-stage)
• Plus one small item that ships every four to six months (a book review, short note, conference talk)

Shipping something regularly prevents the stagnation that drags out multi-year projects.

Handling academic paper rejection

• Rejections are structural: 10–15% acceptance rates mean most good work gets rejected
• After a hard rejection, tune the process — identify what's missing
• Put limited time into fewer papers rather than spreading effort thin (50% effort often means zero papers accepted, not half as many)
• Recognize there is genuine stochasticity — luck evens out over time
• Don't obsess; do the work, tune the process, accept the variance

Building habits that stick

The foundation is daily metric tracking: seven seconds at the end of each day, logging what you did or didn't do — including the zeros. Your mind knows it's being tracked and is less likely to quietly abandon commitments. Build up slowly: introduce one habit, wait for it to consistently show positive marks, then add the next. Give it a year.

Finding books to read

Don't overthink it. Read widely and without a system. Books are valuable almost by definition — someone spent serious effort organizing thought onto paper. Reading is calisthenics for understanding; don't worry about which grip you use, just get on the bar.

Fasting and cognitive performance

Jesse (producer) has eaten only dinner for four to five years. Reported effects: greater physical definition, and subjectively clearer thinking. Practical entry point: skip breakfast, eat within an eight-hour window. Avoid high-carb or processed food at any meal — it reliably crashes afternoon concentration.