Introduction:
• Deep work is undistracted focus on important / valuable work
• Isolation from everything is required
• social media, electronics, people, everything...
• work periods / time frames should be long and consecutive
• a typical knowledge worker spends 30% time w/ emails and 60% time w/ electronic communication & internet browsing
• Shallow work is cognitively undemanding and preformed while distracted
• To learn complex subjects requires uninterrupted and intense concentration
• To learn computer programming
• e.g: a man locked himself in a room w/ no computer, just textbooks, note cards, and a highlighter
• he used the technique of:
• highlight -> notecards -> practice
• made sure there was nothing in his room to distract him
• to be valuable, you must be able to learn complicated things fast
• deep work is becoming scarce and increasing in value
• Cal Newport constructs his days with chosen deep work and shallow activities, unavoidable, that are batched into smaller bursts
• lack of distraction helps remove nervous mental energy
Chapter 1: Deep Work is Valuable
• Highly Skilled worker: In our economy, those good with working with intelligent machines will thrive
• Superstars: As the talent market is more universal, those at the top will thrive
• Owners: With invested capital in intelligent machines, those will thrive
• Desired Attributes:
• quickly master difficult things
• produce with high quality and speed
• experts reflect a pursuit of effort in a particular field
• keep your attention focused on a specific field
• receive feedback to improve / change your approach to:
• keep your mindset where it has highest productivity
• myelin: a layer of fatty tissue around neurons
• allows cells to fire faster / cleaner
• check out the book: Give & Take by Grant
• High-Quality work Produces = (Time Spent) X (Intensity of Focus)
• Residue: when switching tasks, you attention doesn't immediately follow, there is residue
Chapter 2: Deep Work is Rare
• Other trends have become common place
• Rapid communication
• Active Social Media
• Open Collaboration
• Deep work's metrics are a " black hole"
• Contribution and business behavior are hard to quantify
• Principle of Least Resistance
• Without clear feedback, we trend towards the easiest behaviors
• Open-ended interrogative questions such as "Thoughts•" Is painfully frustrating
• This is time-sucking, but is easier from the sender's perspective
• Avoid administrative duties
• Feymman, to avoid administrative duties, he made a myth that he is irresponsible and uses this as a reason to get out of doing extra things
• Busyness is a proxy for productivity
• Doing lots of stuff in a visible manner to demonstrate value is misguided
• Trade-offs surrounding new tech is disregarded and assumed to be good
Chapter 3: Deep Work is Meaningful
• Deep work and a good life has a strong connection for master craftsmen
• Master craftsmen find great meaning in their work
• Depth destroying behaviors are praised in society
• Avoidance generates suspicion
• What we choose to focus on and ignore can define our quality of life
• Skillfully manage your attention!
• 'The idle mind is the devil's workshop'
• When focus is lost, your mind fixates on what is wrong instead of what is right
• Best moments occur when:
• Mind is stretched to its limits
• To accomplish a difficult and meaningful task
• Jobs are easier to enjoy than free time
• Built in goals, feedback, challenges
• Our minds like going deep regardless of the subject
• Deep work generates flow state, which includes:
• Stretching mind to its limits
• Loosing yourself in the work
• Flow generates happiness
• Seek out opportunities for flow
• Beautiful code is short and precise
• Meaning is uncovered through effort due to skill and appreciation of the craftsmanship
• Craftsman don't have rarified jobs
• A sword doesn't have to be special, the effort and skill of the craftsman who made it is
Rule #1: Work Deeply
• Dissertation: long essay on a particular subject
• Example strategies of deep work:
• Eliminate / minimize all other types of work
• Rhythmic strategy, doing deep work for the same hours every weekday
• Eudaimonia Machine by David Dewane
• 5 Rooms
• 1st Room: Gallery
• Demonstrates examples of deep work
• Designed to inspire users
• 2nd Room: Salon
• Coffee, Bar, couches, Wi-Fi
• Designed for curiosity and argumentation
• 3rd Room: library
• The hard drive, archive, or vault of your information
• Designed as a permanent record of all work produced
• 4th Room: Office Space
• Conferences, white boards, cubicles
• Designed for shallow efforts
• 5th Room: Deep Work Chambers
• Soundproof, Isolation
• Designed for total focus
• Ideal scenario:
• A process of spending 90 min inside, take a 90 min break, then repeat 2-3 times to reach peak of concentration for the day
• Main obstacle for going deep:
• Urge to turn your attention to something superficial
• Finite amount of will power that depletes as you use it
• Like a muscle that tires
• Add routines and rituals to your life to minimize limited willpower needed to transition into a focused state
• Setting a time, a quiet location, would allow you to use less willpower to start and keep going
• Bimodal philosophy for Deep Work
• Dedicates stretches of time, min 1 day, to deep tasks
• People will respect your inaccessibility if well-defined and advertised
• Seinfeld uses a chain method
• Marks calendar w/ a red 'X' when he writes a new joke for the day
• Once he starts getting chains, he try's no to break them
• Transforms this task into a habit
• 90-min stretches doesn't yield much productivity in an ad-hoc style
• Ad-hoc is something done for a particular purpose
• Committing time for depth in a rhythm, in big chunks, e.g 2.5 -> 3 hrs is effective
• It is a good idea to log hours in depth
• Journalistic approach doesn't come easy and is a skill obtained by their deadline driven nature
• Journalistic approach takes advantage of any free time that pops up
• Cal Newport's strategy is to map out when he will work deeply at the beginning of each week
• Then refines details later to save effort / energy
• Waiting for inspiration is a bad plan
• Instead ignoring is the better alternative
• Great creative minds think like artists but work like accountants
• Build rituals that are strict!
• Questions to ask yourself when trying to setup a deep work routine
• Where you will work, and for how long•
• Specify location, ideally a location for depth only
• Set a specific time frame, gives it a challenge
• No open endings
• How you'll work once you start to work•
• Structure the work to avoid wasted will power deciding
• How you'll support the work•
• Exercise, diet, walks, find what works!
• Structure this as well to avoid waste
• Radical environment change w/ significant investment of effort / money increases perceived importance
• Perceived importance can provide motivational energy and focus
• Psychology of strong commitment through setting up a good environment can unlock mental resources
• Architecture of isolated offices with common connected area
• Supports deep thinking and serendipitous encounters
• Expose oneself to new ideas / places / people, but have a place for your isolation
• White board effect: Some problems can be worked on side by side with another
• Each pushing each other to greater depths
• Carefully choose this type of engagement, it only applies to specific situations
• 4DX framework is to help get through the gap between what and how
• Focus on the wildly important
• "the more you try to do, the less you actually accomplish"
• Add some ambitious outcomes to pursue w/ deep work hours
• Focus on saying 'yes' to the subjects you are longing and let this crowd out everything else
• Action on the Lead Measures
• 2 metrics: lead and lag
• Lag: measures what you are trying to improve (past)
• e.g: getting a promotion, mastering a concept
• Lead: measures effectiveness of new behaviors (present)
• e.g: time spent in a state of deep work for you wildly important goal
• I can improve lead by tracking hours spent in deep work
• Keep a compelling Scoreboard
• Tracks tasks completed but more importantly the effort of each day
• Create a Cadence of Accountability
• Regular meetings to confront scoreboards
• Encourages execution
• With independent work, this can be effective with weekly reviews
• 4DX helps support a lifestyle of depth and its regularity, not necessarily the intensity
• Regularity > intensity
• "I am not busy. I am the laziest ambitious person I know"
• In this example, a man fled to a place w/ no Internet or TV
• Going online required biking to the library
• "Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body... paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done."
• To strategize and use this technique, it can be used as follows:
• Shutdown all work issues at the end of your workday
• No email, no mental replays, no scheming
• If you need more time, extend your workday and shutdown later
• Some decisions are better left for the unconscious mind to untangle
• Move on and don't dwell on certain things too long
• Decisions that require the application of strict rules are good conscious mind
• e.g: calculator
• Decisions that are vague, lots of info, conflictions, restraints, many variables... are well suited for the unconscious mind
• Conscious mind is like a computer / calculator
• Unconscious mind is like a data center, with complex algorithms to sift through unstructured data
• This can output ideas and solutions to complex problems
• Walking on a busy street, driving on a complex road, maneuvering around obstacles, drains will power / directed attention
• Walking through nature exposes you to fascinating stimuli, freed from challenges which helps recover willpower / directed attention
• The work that evening routines replaces is usually not that important
• It is common to reach your deep work capacity by the end of the workday
• Therefore, shallow work will take its place
• Implement a strict shutdown ritual
• Series of steps you always do, and a set phrase at the end
• e.g "Shutdown Complete"
• Without shutdown, issues will battle for you attention
• Capture items/ tasks to do before shutdown
• These items will be taken care of when appropriate and will not interfere w/ your ritual
• Regularly resting improves the quality of deep work
Rule #2: Embrace Boredom
• The ability to concentrate intensely is a skill that must be trained
• To focus deeper, one must distance their dependence on distractions
• Constant attention switching online has a lasting negative effect on the brain
• When a brain is used to distraction, it's hard to shake the addiction
• e.g. for every potential moment of boredom, you find yourself reaching for your phone
• People who multitask all the time are mental wrecks
• Deep work training consists of 2 main ideas
• Improving your ability to concentrate intensely
• Overcoming your desire for distraction
• You can use the Internet in a focused and deep way, but for a distraction addict, it's not possible
• Schedule in advance when you'll use the internet, and avoid it outside of these times
• This minimizes, the number of distractions that will occur and let your attention selecting muscles strength
• Schedule internet usage blocks at work to do the following things:
• Check emails, research content, etc.
• When blocked, you must be absolutely free from internet
• turn off notifications!
• Go airplane mode
• Turn off computer
• When stuck / blocked from lack of internet, switch to another offline activity or relax
• Remember the idea, take a break from deep work, and don't fill time off with shallow work
• If urgency is dire, at least add a gap (5 min) before you go online to separate the sensation and the reward
• Scheduling internet use at home as well as at work can further improve your concentration training
• Rewire your brain to eliminate the ability for distractions to hijack your attention
• Another strategy to increase intensity of deep work, estimate the time it takes to do something, then give yourself an aggressive deadline to complete it
• Try this experiment at most 1 time a week at first then increase
• Keep deadlines right at the edge of feasibility
• You should always beat the buzzer, but to do so will be very hard
• Deep work requires levels of concentration well beyond what most knowledge workers would find comfortable
• Use artificial deadlines to systematically increase the level you can regularly achieve
• Productive meditation: take a time frame where you are physically but not mentally occupied
• Focus your attention on a single well-defined professional problem
• Continue to bring your attention back to the problem at hand when it wanders or stalls
• The purpose of these is to rapid improve your ability to think deeply
• Your mind will rebel and try to switch topics to seemingly more interesting thoughts
• Remember you can return to that thought later, then redirect your attention
• Your mind will avoid diving deeper and begin to loop on information you already know
• Identify looping and distractions!
• Structure your deep thinking
• Start with a careful review of what variables you want to focus on
• Store these into your working memory
• After solving / addressing these variables, consolidate your gains
• Then repeat this process by identifying your new variables
• Humans can't internalize abstract information quickly
• Humans can remember scenes very well
• Ron White's Card memorization technique
• Cement the image of walking through 5 rooms in your home
• In each room, conjure a clear image of what you see
• Fix in your mind a collection of 10 items in each room
• These items should be large, like a desk
• Establish an order in which you look at each room
• Combined this is 50 items, so add 2 more
• Then associate a memorable person / thing with each card
• Then walk through your house and deck of cards together assigning the mental images you have for the card w/ the place
• e.g. king of diamonds = Donald trump, 1st item in 1st room is a mat, hence Donald trump wiping mud off his shoes on the map, is the image
• After completing a room, walk through it a couples times to retain info
• There is nothing special about this card memorization technique
• Any thought process rewiring to this level of attention can deepen and strength your ability to concentrate
• If card memorization is weird and not appropriate to you, then find a replacement
Rule #3: Quit Social Media
• Accept that these tools aren't designed to be evil
• Some can be vital to happiness and success
• BUT, reject the state of hyper connectedness
• Don't give these tools such regular access to your time and attention
• Use less
• Friendships online are lightweight, shouldn't be the center of the user's social life
• Don't justify the use of social media or anything just because it might have some benefit or from fear of missing out
• This would ignore all negatives that come along
• When adopting tools, keep a skeptic mind & approach
• This type of approach is obvious for craftsmen and skilled knowledge workers
• Craftsman Approach:
• Identify core factors that determine success and happiness
• Adopt a tool only if positives outweigh negatives
• Reduce complexity in deciding what matters to you
• Keep a list limited to what's most important
• Keep descriptions high-level
• Ex: being an effective teacher in the classroom, effective mentor to graduate students, being effective researcher
• Go through the list of tools you currently use, and identify its impact; substantially positive, substantially negative, or little impact
• Ex: Professional Goal: To craft well-written, narrative driven stories that change the way people understand the world
• Key activities supporting this goal:
• Research patiently and deeply
• Write carefully and with purpose
• Then apply the tools in comparison with these ideas / goals
• There are situations where Facebook and other tools should be used
• e.g: new college students who goals are to establish new friends by attending lots of events and socialize with lots of people
• Law of vital few: 80% of a given effect is due to 20% of the possible causes
• e.g: Out of 10-15 different activities you do, it•s the top 2 or 3 activities that make the most difference
• Don't service these lower impact activities just because they provide "some" benefit
• e.g: Instead of finding old friends on FB, take a good friend out to lunch
• Get more and do more of the activities you know will yield large benefits
• "packing party": pack up all your possessions, then only take out what you used / needed, after a while throw / get rid of the stuff you haven't used
• This can be used w/ tech too, ban everything and only use what gives you high/large benefits
• Notice the impact over a period of time, e.g: 30 days
• Don't announce this experiment
• Part of the delusion is that people actually want to hear what you have to say
• Gaining an audience is easier than ever before because of the idea of "you like my status update and I'll like yours"
• This is underserved agreements of attention
• For many activities, tools, commitments, you won't understand their value until you sample life without them
• Put more thought into your leisure time
• Don't default to whatever catches your attention in the moment
• Your 16 hours of full energy will increase the value of the 8 business hours
• Your mental reserves are capable of continuous hard activity and just require a change and of course sleep
• Doing this will perhaps teach what it means to live, and not just exist
Rule #4 Drain the Shallows:
• Most people don't work 8 hours a day
• Too many interruptions, web surfing, office politics, personal agendas
• With fewer hours allocated, you spend them more wisely
• Therefore more shallow time would be given up for deep work
• Import quote on productivity:
• "How can we afford to put our business on hold for a month to 'mess around' with new ideas•" • "How can we afford not to•"
• Don't pursue all your timed spent in depth
• Shallow work is needed in most jobs
• Tame shallow work's quantity and control over you
• Shallow work is bad when it drowns out your ~4 hours of deep work
• The most adept thinker can't spend more than 4 hours in depth
• Most spend their day on auto pilot, not giving thought about what they are doing w/ their time
• Adopt a habit of pursing before action and asking "what makes the most sense right now•"
• Divide the hours into blocks and assign activities to these blocks
• Not all of these blocks need to be work related
• Min length should be 30 min
• At first estimates will be wrong
• Interruptions and obligations break your schedule
• If your schedule is broken, pursue and resize your schedule
• Cross out and add to the side of it
• The goal isn't to stick to a given schedule no matter what, it's to have a thoughtful say in what you're doing and will be doing
• Make a goal to accurately predict the time tasks require
• Add overflow blocks incase previous time blocks get blocked
• e.g: If an import insight is discovered, it may be worth looking into
• Afterwards, rebuild schedule and dive back into it
• Remember the goal of a schedule isn't to force your behaviors into a rigid plan
• Continually ask yourself "What makes sense for me to do with the time that remains"
• Without structure, it's easy for your time to devolve into shallow
• When determining whether a task is deep or not, ask "how long would it take (in months) to train a smart recent college graduate w/ no specialized training in my field to complete this task"
• Tasks that tend to lever your expertise are deep
• Return more value per time spent and stretch your abilities, and enhance improvement
• It•s a waste of money to pay professionals to send emails and attend meetings all day
• Need to say no to somethings things, and streamline others
• Perhaps get an explicit approval ration on time spent on shallow work from boss
• Perhaps your boss will say yes to shallow work, which is useful because it highlights your job doesn't support deep work
• Deliberately... do specific things to preserve happiness
• Limit shallow endeavors
• For excuses, avoid providing enough details that allows the requester to defuse it
• Ex: "Sounds interesting, but I have schedule conflicts"
• Also resist the urge to offer consolation prizes
• A clean break is the best
• Choose behaviors that reorient your focus towards the deep
• Make people who send you email do more work
• Cal Newport uses a sender filter
• E.g: interesting@calnewport.com
• Only responds if they match schedule and interests
• You have the right to control your own incoming communication
• Expectation resets might earn you even more credit when you do respond
• The idea of all messages arriving in the same inbox, regardless of purpose and sender, is ridiculously unproductive
• Answer this question before answering vague, time consuming, and interrogative questions:
• "What is the project represented by this message, and what is the most efficient (in terms of messages generated) process for brining that project to a successful conclusion•"
• Minimize messages back and forth, and be very process oriented with your replies
• Many academics just don't respond
• They believe it's the sender's responsibility to convince the receiver that a reply is worth while
• Don't reply to an email if these rules apply to it
• Ambiguous, a reasonable response would be difficult
• It doesn't interest you
• No value
• People adjust to your communications, don't fret
Conclusion:
• Setting up early commitments and adding perceived value such as an expensive notebook can induce more careful thinking
• Obsessive focus can be sparked by:
• Feeling not good enough
• Having limited time
• Understand the value of the focus
• Work on problems in your head when the time is presented