Cal Newport
68 things Cal uses or recommends, from 34 episodes.
Cal's top picks
What Cal uses or recommends most, ranked by how often and how strongly. Paid ads are left out.
Field Notes
Productivity
Uses and recommends it · talked about in 3 episodes
"Field Notes is really a great way to go for portability. They're small, they're flexible, they're light, they can fit in a pocket, they can fit in the front pocket of your backpack, they can fit in a purse, they can fit inside a jacket. They're more portable than Moleskines. Also, you can buy these things in bulk — I buy them like 20 at a time — so you're not being precious."
Time blocking
+2 other experts
Uses and recommends it · talked about in 4 episodes
"Number one is time blocking. On the weekdays I time block plan the day. On the weekdays I do shutdowns — shutdown complete, I check the checkboxes after I've done my shutdown ritual, and I keep track of metrics when I do my shutdown. Run that system: your time block planning, weekly planning, 20 minutes a day in tasks, doing a shutdown routine, keeping track of metrics. That can power a life that's going to feel like you've got your act together."
Things
+1 other expert
Uses and recommends it · talked about in 3 episodes
"The first material is where am I storing my tasks this fall? Well, because I'm on sabbatical I am storing them all in a computer program called Things 3. The nice thing about Things, what I like about it, is the interface is very easy. It tries to simplify adding things, removing things, adding dates to things — it makes it as easy as possible, so very quick to capture, very little actual overhead."
Trello
+1 other expert
Uses and recommends it · talked about in 4 episodes
"I'm not right now. There are certain things I do where Trello is the right tool. In particular, if it's a complicated project with multiple people involved, Trello is the right tool."
Remarkable
Gear & hardware
Uses and recommends it · talked about in 2 episodes
"I still really like my remarkable. They gave me a new one and then the newer one, the Paper Pro is really good. I really love the writing surface. It has colors now. I'm a remarkable fan and I love the feel of the writing"
Thinking walks
Health & fitness
Uses and recommends it · talked about in 2 episodes
"I love thinking walks. Thinking walks in the woods are great. And to be able to walk into a trail system and do my thinking walks — that has been clutch."
What Cal warns against
Things Cal says to avoid or be careful with. Other experts don't always agree.
Claude
Riley Brown, Chris Koerner and 210 others
recommend it
"Back in April, Anthropic announced that their new large language model, which they called Claude Mythos, was so good at finding bugs in computer code that it was too dangerous to release to the public."
ChatGPT
John Coogan, Riley Brown and 139 others
recommend it
"Looking through his phone after his death, they stumbled upon extended conversations the teenager had had with ChatGPT. Those conversations revealed that their son had confided in the AI chatbot about his suicidal thoughts and plans. Not only did the chatbot discourage him to seek help from his parents, it even offered to write his suicide note."
Claude Code
Riley Brown, Liam Ottley and 89 others
recommend it
"Back in January, this listener had bothered me. He said, 'I think you're being too skeptical about agents. Claude Code changed my life as a programmer.' He wrote me again a month ago and said, 'I've had to completely change my relationship to Claude Code. I crashed our major consumer website twice with code that was produced with Claude Code.'"
All 68 of Cal's picks
- Field Notes Uses and recommends it 3 episodes "Field Notes is really a great way to go for portability. They're small, they're flexible, they're light, they can fit in a pocket, they can fit in the front pocket of your backpack, they can fit in a purse, they can fit inside a jacket. They're more portable than Moleskines. Also, you can buy these things in bulk — I buy them like 20 at a time — so you're not being precious." Only Cal
- Time blocking Uses and recommends it 4 episodes "Number one is time blocking. On the weekdays I time block plan the day. On the weekdays I do shutdowns — shutdown complete, I check the checkboxes after I've done my shutdown ritual, and I keep track of metrics when I do my shutdown. Run that system: your time block planning, weekly planning, 20 minutes a day in tasks, doing a shutdown routine, keeping track of metrics. That can power a life that's going to feel like you've got your act together." +2 others
- Things Uses and recommends it 3 episodes "The first material is where am I storing my tasks this fall? Well, because I'm on sabbatical I am storing them all in a computer program called Things 3. The nice thing about Things, what I like about it, is the interface is very easy. It tries to simplify adding things, removing things, adding dates to things — it makes it as easy as possible, so very quick to capture, very little actual overhead." +1 other
- Trello Uses and recommends it 4 episodes "I'm not right now. There are certain things I do where Trello is the right tool. In particular, if it's a complicated project with multiple people involved, Trello is the right tool." +1 other
- Remarkable Uses and recommends it 2 episodes "I still really like my remarkable. They gave me a new one and then the newer one, the Paper Pro is really good. I really love the writing surface. It has colors now. I'm a remarkable fan and I love the feel of the writing" Only Cal
- Thinking walks Uses and recommends it 2 episodes "I love thinking walks. Thinking walks in the woods are great. And to be able to walk into a trail system and do my thinking walks — that has been clutch." Only Cal
- NBA Jam Uses and recommends it 2 episodes "We got an NBA Jam video game cabinet as part of the slow. I like because I work here a lot, I like to have things I can go and like get 5 minutes of distraction." Only Cal
- Journey into Imagination Uses and recommends it "Steve Alcorn wrote a book called Journey into Imagination. And it is exactly what I actually wanted... it's all about the circuits and the software and how hard it is to debug those things... This book is for me... I loved it." Only Cal
- Time Block Planner Uses and recommends it "The next piece of material, the next tool I'm going to use is a time block planner. Obviously, I sell my own time block planner, so I have the advantage of using one that's planned by me. I get four uses out of mine: planning my day, capturing tasks when I'm away from a machine to write them down, shutdown routine justification — there's a shutdown box — and for tracking my metrics." Only Cal
- Vision Document Uses and recommends it "The final key tool that I have is a vision document. This is something I print out and is going to contain the core ideas for the season ahead. It becomes the root to your entire productivity system. Print it out, put it in your top drawer where your socks are, because you go there every day, and you're like, from this document I can get to everything else I'm doing to be organized." Only Cal
- Raspberry Pi Uses it 2 episodes "I can then download onto my Falcon player controller on a Raspberry Pi, which can then connect to a light controller." +4 others
- Grid-lined composition notebooks Uses and recommends it "I like to use grid-line composition notebooks, usually cheap ones like you would get for school, to extend my working memory when working on particular hard problems. Grid lining was the key to me — if I'm doing mathematical equations, drawing graphs and diagrams, grids let you line up things, put vertices in different boxes, line up symbols. The key thing is it's really hard to find the right level of brightness for your grid. If the grid is too defined, it clutters your writing. You want them blue and light." Only Cal
- reMarkable Paper Pro Uses and recommends it "I really like this digital notebook. I use it for longer term plans, strategic plans or visions. I don't want to carry a bunch of colored pencils and highlighters with me, but all of that is built into the reMarkable. Also, it's expensive, so I take it seriously, and that somehow makes me take the plans more seriously." Only Cal
- In Defense of Food Uses it 2 episodes "I finished last week my fifth book of the month, Jesse. I reread In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan because I have this idea for a book tentatively titled In Defense of Thinking." Only Cal
- More Everything Forever Recommends it 2 episodes "I also read More Everything Forever by Adam Becker, a fantastic 2025 book about the role of weird futurist philosophies in the rise of Silicon Valley and in particular the AI companies and figures like Elon Musk. I have an article in the works that draws heavily from this book and tries to make the case to a broader audience that don't sleep on the fact that a lot of the people at the head of the AI revolution right now are heavily involved in pretty weird futurist cult-like thinking." Only Cal
- Metric Tracking Uses and recommends it "For example, if you do metric tracking, which I do and I recommend as a way to sort of keep up on practices you want to do on a regular basis, you've got to write down somewhere these are the metrics I track every day." Only Cal
- A Brief History of Intelligence Uses and recommends it "I've been reading this book. This is Max Bennett's book, A Brief History of Intelligence, which is a really fascinating history of the evolution of the brain from the very first multicellular life through modern humans. And when I was reading this book, which gets really in the weeds of neuroscience, I came across an answer to our mystery." +1 other
- Uni-ball Micro Uses and recommends it "The paper is carefully selected to feel optimal with the type of pen I most often use, which is a Uni-ball Micro 0.5mm ballpoint. We have these all over the office. I have so many of these at home." Only Cal
- War Stories Uses and recommends it "We've been watching this Ars Technica channel called War Stories where they will do extended interviews with the developers of classic video games and they just walk through what were the challenges making this game? That's great content. That's better than most of the stuff that's going to be on cable." Only Cal
- The Last Kings of Hollywood Uses and recommends it "I read The Last Kings of Hollywood by Paul Fischer. This is a book that was basically like invented in a lab to be exactly what I want to read. The rise of Spielberg, Lucas, and Coppola. Obviously, I love this book." Only Cal
- Clearly label LLM-generated writing Recommends it "Do not let LLMs write on your behalf except in instances where it's clearly marked as LLM output... This means you're going to write more. And that is a key way to keep up cognitive fitness." Only Cal
- Floating Mountains Uses it "Earlier in September I read the book Floating Mountains by Joe Rohde... So he had a new memoir that came out in September. So I wanted to read it and I enjoyed it." Only Cal
- The Truman Show Recommends it "Put down the Skibidi Toilet video and without distraction, watch this 1998 classic because I think it captures a lot of what's going on now and a lot of what we actually probably need to do." Only Cal
- Google Calendar Uses it "The third tool I use is probably the most typical and boring, which is a calendar, but you need it. I use a Google Calendar. I actually have multiple Google Calendars and I can put them all on the same display. Maybe the most interesting tweak I do is that I have a calendar that's called Cal Logistics, separate from the normal calendar I use for appointments." +7 others
- Notability Uses it "You're really good at navigating Notability though. Well, I teach with it." Only Cal
- Productive Meditation Recommends it "Productive meditation — attempt to make progress on a personal or professional problem, working only in your head while walking. Keep redirecting your attention back to the problem. It's one of the most effective ways to increase your ability to contemplate. I always say that's pull-ups for your mind." Only Cal
- The Laws of Thought Uses it "I finished Tom Griffiths' book, The Laws of Thought. It's a popular science book about the various mathematical models we've developed over history for trying to understand thought. I thought it was very good." Only Cal
- This Is for Everyone Uses it "I read Tim Berners-Lee's memoir, This Is for Everyone. Tim Berners-Lee invented the worldwide web. That was a good book. The history of the web is interesting." Only Cal
- How to Live on 24 Hours a Day Recommends it "There's a cool book on this from the early 20th century — Arnold Bennett's How to Live on 24 Hours a Day. One of his arguments is even if you're exhausted from your work, if you switch over to unrelated high-quality leisure, your energy raises, not falls. Our brain, yes, needs rest, but it gets that rest in sleep. When our brain is active, it does not actually demand complete downtime." +1 other
- Disneyland and the Rise of Automation Recommends it "I read a book called Disneyland and the Rise of Automation by Roland Bethnenc, an academic book about the role of automation technology and the operation of Disneyland rides and how it supposedly helped acclimatize or normalize the idea of automation for the American public. I completely geeked out on that book. I don't know how many people are going to read it, but I loved it. I found it actually randomly at Politics and Pros — they had a bunch of copies face out and I was like, 'Yes, I'll buy that.'" Only Cal
- Who Wrote the Bible Recommends it "The first book I really recommend is called Who Wrote the Bible by Richard Elliott Friedman. This book is doing something that is incredibly hard to do well — a scholar who is an expert on a very complicated scholarly topic making it not only accessible but reads like a detective novel. Anytime I see a scholar taking an incredibly complicated topic and without diluting the complexity of the topic making it compelling and willing to read for the lay reader, I tip my cap because I know how hard it is." Only Cal
- xLights Uses it "I am now able to program, sequence, and xLights that I can then download onto my Falcon player controller on a Raspberry Pi." Only Cal
- Acquired Uses it "I stopped to go listen to the whole Acquired episode and then came back to it. I was like, this is interesting — they're very similar things. Long-form audio within a couple hours of each other. One they spend a couple months working on; the other is probably two or three years of effort." +3 others
- Immersive thinking Recommends it "You build out a mini excursion — something that might take anywhere between 1 to 4 hours — designed to leverage novel environments to help push your brain temporarily into a higher gear than you would normally be. Environment, warm-up, exercise. That is what you need for the immersive thinking strategy to work. I've actually done this on multiple occasions here in my hometown of Washington DC." Only Cal
- National Gallery of Art Uses it "The environment I used was the National Gallery of Art here in Washington DC down on the mall. I went to a particular gallery within the larger art museum — like here is a room that has Dutch still life paintings — I would read an article about either one of the artists featured in that gallery or the style in general and then consume the paintings." Only Cal
- Hit Makers Uses it "The book I brought with me here, which I'm enjoying is Derek Thompson's Hitmakers because I thought it'd be relevant when thinking about writing and podcasting." Only Cal
- All Systems Red Uses it "Then I just finished reading this morning Murderbot All Systems Red so it's the first of the Murderbot novels by Martha Wells which just got turned into a series on Netflix." Only Cal
- 1929 Uses it "But I read 1929, but actually that was pretty fast, though. I read that over a break." +1 other
- Rise and Fall of the Third Reich Uses it "Well, you read Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Yeah, that took me forever." Only Cal
- The Sevenstory Mountain Uses it "There's a famous book, for example. It's published back in 1948. It was called The Sevenstory Mountain. If you read this book, and I reread it recently, I have a first edition of it." Only Cal
- Mythbusters Uses it "I'm a fan of the show The MythBusters. I've watched basically all the episodes with my kids over the years." Only Cal
- FPP Falcon Controller Uses it "I am now moving over to running the open-source FPP Falcon controller software on a Raspberry Pi as my main controller." Only Cal
- Hobonichi Uses it "I bought a Hobonichi notebook. Not a Hobonichi Cousin, which is the planner she used because obviously I'm a big fan of my time block planner." Only Cal
- Apple Music Uses it "iPhone, Apple Music right there, constantly playing the songs. Like you get to a chapter like, 'Oh, I got to hear the song first.'" +1 other
- American Cinematography Magazine Recommends it "If I'm watching a classic, I always search to see if there's an article written about it for American Cinematography magazine. A lot of movies will have these articles where the cinematographer writes a long essay about how they shot the movie, what they were thinking about, the techniques they introduced." Only Cal
- Bonnie and Clyde Recommends it "You got to watch Bonnie and Clyde. Read about Bonnie and Clyde before you watch it. This introduced new Hollywood. This was bringing like a European style personal filmmaking to Hollywood." Only Cal
- Citizen Kane Recommends it "Watch Citizen Kane. I'm obsessed with this movie. Wells invented like all of these techniques that now we're used to from sophisticated movies. They weren't in the movies before it. He just innovated the cinematography." Only Cal
- iPad Uses it "I've been teaching with my iPad, so I'm used to this now" +5 others
- The Way of Excellence Recommends it "I think Brad's book, The Way of Excellence, gives you a good primer of what matters in life and what is degraded when you instead are just seeking out efficiency and quantity." Only Cal
- Phone Foyer Method Recommends it "Put that phone into the foyer. Phone foyer method. New year is a great time to do this. The phone is plugged in in my kitchen or the foyer. If I need it, I can go there to look something up, but it's not with me as a default. It's not with me at the couch. It's not with me at the dinner table. It's not with me, God forbid, in the bathroom. Now your brain gets some freedom." Only Cal
- Brad Stulberg's Substack Recommends it "Check out his Substack, which is where this essay came from. Just search for Brad Stulberg on Substack." Only Cal
- Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word Recommends it "I finally read Walter Ong's book Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. It's academic, but I found it to be very readable. Don't be afraid of its academicness. The details are fascinating — really getting into how words as a technology changed the way the mind actually operated and perceived the world. I really enjoyed it." Only Cal
- Dopamine Nation Recommends it "You should read her book Dopamine Nation for more on this, but in our interview she talked about the growing addiction-oriented versions of AA as a big thing, and professional therapy with addiction specialists can really help you walk through this." Only Cal
- Cal Newport Newsletter Recommends it "You can always subscribe to my newsletter at calnewport.com, where I send a dispatch from a distracted world every week. That'll ensure you're getting at least your daily dose of me trying to understand our current technological world and how we can push back and thrive within it." Only Cal
- What to Make of a Life Recommends it "I actually enjoyed the book itself. It's sort of in the vein of the deep life. I like Jim's approach. He'll take two people with similar paths and compare the different ways that they reacted to disruptions to help understand different ways to navigate cliffs in your life." Only Cal
- How Society Should Deal with Inequality Recommends it "I finished my fifth and final book of May. It was actually an early release version of a new book written by my dad that's called How Society Should Deal with Inequality. Um, I enjoyed that book." Only Cal
- Kindle Recommends it "Read real books either in paper or on Kindle, but not on a phone or tablet." +10 others
- Reader Come Home Recommends it "I finished two books. One was Maryanne Wolf's book, Reader Come Home. Fantastic book. Maryanne Wolf is like the reader the neuroscientist, cognitive scientist who studies reading in the brain." Only Cal
- What Do You Say Recommends it "I also finished a parenting book called What Do You Say by William Strixrud and Ned Johnson. God do we need this advice, Jesse. I have three kids, including the oldest is a teenager. He's 13. If you have like teenagers, it's a good parenting book." Only Cal
- The Shallows Recommends it "The best book on this would be The Shallows, Nick Carr's book, The Shallows." Only Cal
- Anora Recommends it "If you want something that's in the theaters now, the best thing I've seen recently is Anora. It's one of the Safdie Brothers. Fantastic kind of commentary on the American experience, on capitalism, on the tension between ambition and family." Only Cal
- Apocalypse Now Recommends it "You got to watch Apocalypse Now. There's such great beautiful remasterings of that movie. It's visually beautiful. That's a fantastic movie." +1 other
- Dunkirk Recommends it "Dunkirk I think is a masterpiece of writing and filmmaking." Only Cal
- Jaws Recommends it "You got to watch Jaws, arguably like the platonically perfect movie of the 20th century." Only Cal
- M (1931 film) Recommends it "Consider watching M, the German Fritz Lang movie. So atmospheric. It's kind of touches on German expressionism. So many innovations in it. It's actually a really good movie." Only Cal
- The Godfather Recommends it "Duvall Godfather one and two. It's out of favor to say that's good. It's a great movie and he's great in that." Only Cal
- The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Recommends it "You gotta watch The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly. I think that's my favorite Clint Eastwood from that period." Only Cal
- The Zone of Interest Recommends it "I think Zone of Interest is a masterpiece. There's a lot about that movie. It's so original the way that it was crafted and constructed. I saw it in the theater. I think it's fantastic." Only Cal