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What’s your grand project?
I stumbled across this idea while reading a summary of Cal Newport’s How to Win At College. A primary piece of advice that Cal gives to students is to have a grand project.
Your grand project is something big. It’s something that runs to your core. And it likely relates to one of his other ideas: develop a skill you can be known for.
In these ideas, you can see inklings for his later book, So Good They Can’t Ignore You (which Cal miraculously published while a post-doc at MIT).
I’ll stop expressing my amazement at Cal, but I think that it’s in the interest of any knowledge worker or student to read one of his books (I just finished (and loved) Deep Work and also enjoyed Digital Minimalism).
Back to the grand project. I want to discuss why it matters and how to find your own.
Identity
A grand project is who you are. It’s something that you believe to be so important that you will work on every day (or at least every week). It plays a large role in the “tell me about yourself” question.
I’m really good at interviews, and I’ll tell you why: I’m in touch with my life narrative. A life narrative comes with a purpose — your why. Here’s the mindset shift that accompanies this:
