Powers, William. Hamlet’s BlackBerry: Building a Good Life in a Digital Age. New York: Harper, 2010.
“Do what Thoreau did”: “Author Disconnects from Communication Devices to Reconnect with Life.” PBS NewsHour, August 16, 2010. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/science-july-dec10-hamlets_08-16/.
Work Like Teddy Roosevelt
The general information about Theodore Roosevelt’s Harvard habits comes from Edmund Morris’s fantastic biography: Morris, Edmund. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. New York: Random House, 2001. In particular, pages 61–65 include Morris’s catalog of Roosevelt’s collegiate activities and an excerpt from a letter from Roosevelt to his mother that outlines his work habits. The specific calculation that Roosevelt dedicates a quarter of his typical day to schoolwork comes from page 64.
“amazing array of interests”: from page 64 of Morris, Rise of Theodore Roosevelt.
The positive receipt of Roosevelt’s book by the Nuttall Bulletin comes from Morris’s endnotes: in particular, note 37 in the chapter titled “The Man with the Morning in His Face.”
“one of the most knowledgeable”: from page 67 of Morris, Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. I ascribed this assessment to Morris, though this is somewhat indirect, as Morris here is actually arguing that Roosevelt’s father, after the publication of The Summer Birds of the Adirondacks, must have felt this about his son.
“The amount of time he spent at his desk”: from page 64 of Morris, Rise of Theodore Roosevelt.
Memorize a Deck of Cards
Quotes from Daniel Kilov came from personal correspondence. Some background on his story was taken from his online biography, http://mentalathlete.wordpress.com/about/, and Lieu Thi Pham. “In Melbourne, Memory Athletes Open Up Shop.” ZDNet, August 21, 2013. http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/global-observer/in-melbourne-memory-athletes-open-up-shop/. More on Kilov’s scores (memory feats) from his two medal-winning championship bouts can be found on the World Memory Statistics website: http://www.world-memory-statistics.com/competitor.php?id=1102.
Foer, Joshua. Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything. New York: Penguin, 2011.
“We found that one of the biggest differences”: Carey, Benedict. “Remembering, as an Extreme Sport.” New York Times Well Blog, May 19, 2014.
For more interesting connections between memorization and general thought, see: The Art of Memory, by Frances A. Yates, which was first published in 1966. The most accessible version seems to be the handsome 2001 reprint by the University of Chicago Press.
Rule #3
“the most connected man in the world”; “I was burnt out”; “By the end of that first week”; “The end came too soon”; and general information about Baratunde Thurston’s experiment: from the Baratunde Thurston article “#UnPlug” that appeared in the July–August 2013 issue of Fast Company. http://www.fastcompany.com/3012521/unplug/baratunde-thurston-leaves-the-internet.
The reference to Thurston’s Twitter usage refers to the tweets on March 13, 2014, from the Twitter handle @Baratunde.
“Entertainment was my initial draw”; “[When] I first joined”; and “[I use] Facebook because”: drawn from comments sections of the following two blog posts I wrote in the fall of 2013:
? “Why I’m (Still) Not Going to Join Facebook: Four Arguments That Failed to Convince Me.” http://calnewport.com/blog/2013/10/03/why-im-still-not-going-to-join-facebook-four-arguments-that-failed-to-convince-me/.
? “Why I Never Joined Facebook.” http://calnewport.com/blog/2013/09/18/why-i-never-joined-facebook/.
For more on Forrest Pritchard and Smith Meadows Farms: http://smithmeadows.com/.
Apply the Law of the Vital Few to Your Internet Habits
“Who says my fans want to hear from me”: from a Malcolm Gladwell talk that took place at the International Digital Publishing Forum as part of the 2013 BookExpo America Convention, held in May 2013, in New York City. A summary of the talk, including the quotes excerpted in this chapter, and some video excerpts, can be found in “Malcolm Gladwell Attacks NYPL: ‘Luxury Condos Would Look Wonderful There,’” Huffington Post, May 29, 2013. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/29/malcolm-gladwell-attacks-_n_3355041.html.
“I don’t tweet” and “It’s amazing how overly accessible”: from the following Michael Lewis interview: Allan, Nicole. “Michael Lewis: What I Read.” The Wire, March 1, 2010. http://www.thewire.com/entertainment/2010/03/michael-lewis-what-i-read/20129/.
“And now, nearly a year later”: from “Why Twitter Will Endure,” by David Carr for the New York Times in January 2010: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/weekinreview/03carr.html.
“Twitter is crack for media addicts”: from an online opinion piece written for the New Yorker website: Packer, George. “Stop the World.” The New Yorker, January 29, 2010. http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/georgepacker/2010/01/stop-the-world.html.
The law of the vital few is discussed in many sources. Richard Koch’s 1998 book, The 80/20 Principle (New York: Crown, 1998), seems to have helped reintroduce the idea to a business market. Tim Ferriss’s 2007 mega-seller, The 4-Hour Workweek (New York: Crown, 2007), popularized it further, especially among the technology entrepreneur community. The Wikipedia page on the Pareto principle has a good summary of various places where this general idea applies (I drew many of my examples from here): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle.
Quit Social Media
“Everything’s more exciting when it’s a party” and general information on Ryan Nicodemus’s “packing party”: “Day 3: Packing Party.” The Minimalists. http://www.theminimalists.com/21days/day3/.
Average number of Twitter followers statistic comes from: “Average Twitter User Is an American Woman with an iPhone and 208 Followers.” Telegraph, October 11, 2012. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/9601327/Average-Twitter-user-is-an-an-American-woman-with-an-iPhone-and-208-followers.html.
Take this statistic with a grain of salt. A small number of Twitter users have such a large following that the average skews high. Presumably the median would be much lower. But then again, both statistics include users who signed up just to try out the service or read tweets, and who made no serious attempt to ever gain followers or write tweets. If we confined our attention to those who actually tweet and want followers, then the follower numbers would be higher.
Don’t Use the Internet to Entertain Yourself
“Take the case of a Londoner who works”; “great and profound mistake”; “during those sixteen hours he is free”; and “What? You say that full energy”: from Chapter 4 in Bennett, Arnold. How to Live on 24 Hours a Day. Originally published in 1910. Quotes are from the free version of the text maintained in HTML format at Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2274/2274-h/2274-h.htm.
Rule #4
“People should enjoy the weather in the summer” and general notes on Jason Fried’s decision to move 37signals (now Basecamp) to a four-day workweek: “Workplace Experiments: A Month to Yourself.” Signal v. Noise, May 31, 2012. https://signalvnoise.com/posts/3186-workplace-experiments-a-month-to-yourself.
“Packing 40 hours into four days”: from a Forbes.com critique of Fried: Weiss, Tara. “Why a Four-Day Work Week Doesn’t Work.” Forbes. August 18, 2008. www.forbes.com/2008/08/18/careers-leadership-work-leadership-cx_tw_0818workweek.html.
“The point of the 4-day work week is” and “Very few people work even 8 hours a day”: from Fried’s response on his company’s blog: “Forbes Misses the Point of the 4-Day Work Week.” Signal v. Noise, August 20, 2008. http://signalvnoise.com/posts/1209-forbes-misses-the-point-of-the-4-day-work-week.