deep work summary by Cal Newport - wip

December 01, 2021

Cal Newport defines “deep work” as focused, uninterrupted, undistracted work on a task that pushes your cognitive abilities to their limit.

over past decades, the economy has moved away from brute force labor to analyzing and applying information.

the ability to do deep work will determine how much you thrive in the information economy.

Idea 1 Deep work is important

Learn and master new skills
- technology and best practices become obsolete quickly in the information economy
- determine if your goal is attainable and ensure that the skill is relevant to your career.
- find a method that aligns with your learning style and allows you to take on the skill bit by bit, instead of all at once.
- rely on others, find a mentor who can coach you and help you reflect on your progress.
Apply the skills to increase your output
- high-quality work produced = time spent * intensity of focus
- what you do with your skill must be useful.
- efficient, productivity for the sake of increasing output that’s not necessarily useful or high-quality.)

Idea 2: Deep work is difficult

in three major ways that modern workplaces derail knowledge workers’ ability to engage in deep work.

open floor plans

continuously distracting environment, where every conversation is heard and one person can disrupt dozens of people.
pandemic highlighted the heightened risk of disease transmission in open shared spaces and accelerated their decision to leave the open floor plans behind.)

instant communication

with instant messaging tools like Slack and texting, people can interrupt your work on-demand. As a result, we stop being deep thinkers and become human network routers. We could use the platform’s features to notify senders that you won’t be responding immediately.

the new content you see always seems novel and productive, but it doesn’t move you closer to the major things you really care about. The addictive quality of social media is due to our attraction to variable rewards: rewards that happen at random times, rather than in a predictable pattern. You can’t predict which refresh of your newsfeed will reward you with interesting information or likes, so the action never loses its appeal.)

Idea 3 Deep work is fulfilling

deep work actually moves you meaningfully toward happiness and fulfillment. Deep work is when you’re most capable of tackling your thorniest problems. Because these problems often yield the largest rewards.
when people concentrate on a worthwhile task that pushes them to their cognitive limit, they experience a state of flow or a sense of contentment and purpose.

Practice 1: plan out time for deep work

it’s more effective to approach deep work with structure, habit, and discipline. In other words, to make deep work a practiced ritual. It becomes a habit, you no longer have to employ your willpower to overcome distractions.

Schedule Type 1: Seclusion

remove as many shallow work tasks from your life as possible. Spend nearly all your time on deep work. For example, some authors go off the grid and aren’t reachable by email or through social media. All correspondence comes in by postal mail or through their editor.
To avoid all shallow tasks, you will have to learn the essential skill of delegation. “Who can I delegate my shallow work to?”

Schedule Type 2: Periodic

carve out regular periods each week, month, or entire parts of the year to focus on deep work. The period should be at least one full day to reach the maximum intensity of deep work.
working from home at least one day per week, and planning to do your most mentally demanding tasks in this isolated, focused time.

Schedule Type 3: Daily

set aside a regular block of time each day to focus on deep work. For example, set aside the morning (such as 8-11 a.m.) for deep work, before jumping into shallow work.
the most productive part of your day is the hour right after you wake up because you’re re-charged and the world is relatively quiet and distraction-free.

Schedule Type 4: Ad hoc

find some time to do deep work whenever you can get it. For example, when on a trip with your family, carve out a few hours to do work before joining them for activities.
it requires the ability to switch on deep work instantaneously.
How much deep work should you try to fit into your day

there is a limit to how much deep work you’ll be able to accomplish per day.

experts who have extensive practice can expand to up to four hours, but rarely are able to exceed this.

plan out your days

technique #1: Schedule internet time

schedule in advance when you’ll use the internet. avoid it completely outside these times.
- keep a note bad nearby where you record the next time you’re scheduled to use the internet, and any ideas you need to revisit once you’re online again.
- plan your work so you don’t need the internet to make progress. If you get stuck by not being able to access the internet, then move on to another task.
- If you must use the internet all day, try using website blocking apps like forest/self-control to help remove the temptation to switch your attention away from deep work

technique #2: Plan out every minute of your day, and quantify the depth

plan your tasks
- plan out everything that you need to do throughout the day
- use podomoro
quantify depth
- if your day is full of shallow tasks, you should consider replacing those with deeper work
reflect on and tweak your schedule
- Review the accuracy of your time blocks at the end of each day.
- you may feel discouraged if you aren’t able to follow your schedule or give in to distraction
- this feeling is indistractable.
- it’s essential to think of your schedule as an evolving experiment that you probably won’t get right on the first try.
- Think of ways to build a schedule better aligned with your need

Technique #3: set ambitious deadlines

give yourself intense deadlines that will force you to concentrate to the limit of your ability. Then cut down the time drastically.
deadlines create a moderate amount of emotional arousal

Practice 2

Practice 3

Practice 4

Reference