# If You're Busy, You're Doing Something Wrong: The Surprisingly Relaxed Lives of Elite Achievers - Study Hacks - Cal Newport

<https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2011/11/11/if-youre-busy-youre-doing-something-wrong-the-surprisingly-relaxed-lives-of-elite-achievers/>

- Host: [calnewport.com](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/hosts/calnewport.com/)
- Saved: November 18, 2019 (2019-11-18T07:38:21Z)
- Record: https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/eb9330b61457/
- JSON: https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/eb9330b61457.json

## What Jamie wrote

Newport is taking a number of different threads here and putting them together well. The idea of deliberate practice was something I read about in [Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26312997-peak) and appreciated a lot.

> In fact, the more elite the player, the more pronounced the peaks. For the best of the best — the subset of the elites who the professors thought would go on to play in one of Germany’s two best professional orchestras — there was essentially no deviation from a rigid two-sessions a day schedule.

It’s not the total duration that matters as much as the duration times the focus. Lots of time spent messing around will not move you forward.

To me, this is one of the most sinister aspects of social media and mobile devices. The ever present attention economy flitters your time in a way that leaves you never relaxing, and never being deliberate. I've found myself in this space at times, having finished a busy day at the office and feeling like I need recovery time, and then sitting down to messing around on my phone and realizing that my brain and body isn't getting any recovery at all, and the value of what I’m doing is precisely zero.

## Facts

- Kind: [Page](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/kinds/page/)

## Appears in

- [WT127: Weekly Thing #127 / Nov 23, 2019](https://weekly.thingelstad.com/archive/127/), Featured Links 🏅

## Same host

- [The Atomic Minimalist: My Conversation with James Clear - Study Hacks - Cal Newport](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/e404cc853b04/) (calnewport.com, October 22, 2019)
- [On Digital Minimalism, Loneliness and the Joys of True Connection - Study Hacks - Cal Newport](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/9f8fd74a17c4/) (calnewport.com, November 5, 2019)
- [Top Economists Study What Happens When You Stop Using Facebook - Study Hacks - Cal Newport](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/5d9eb3ab858f/) (calnewport.com, March 2, 2020)
- [More Evidence of Facebook's Negative Impact - Study Hacks - Cal Newport](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/838d08c03f24/) (calnewport.com, March 12, 2020)
- [The Deep Life: Some Notes - Study Hacks - Cal Newport](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/ce32b09abf73/) (calnewport.com, March 19, 2020)

## Saved the same week

- [Andrew Levitt Recreates Catalina Wallpaper – 512 Pixels](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/cf7e2f05847d/) (512pixels.net, November 18, 2019)
- [A reflection on scaling Agile | LinkedIn](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/13ebaafb9001/) (linkedin.com, November 18, 2019)
- [I'm the Google whistleblower. The medical data of millions of Americans is at risk | Anonymous | Opinion | The Guardian](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/6eeefc4238bc/) (theguardian.com, November 18, 2019)
- [RoutineHub • A community for Siri Shortcuts](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/b906053eb236/) (routinehub.co, November 18, 2019)
- [Matthew Walker's "Why We Sleep" Is Riddled with Scientific and Factual Errors - Alexey Guzey](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/98c5bb8a7ac4/) (guzey.com, November 18, 2019)

## Elsewhere

- Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2011/11/11/if-youre-busy-youre-doing-something-wrong-the-surprisingly-relaxed-lives-of-elite-achievers/