28/12/2017 Deep Work Summary | Cal Newport | PDF Download

Book
Deep Work
You don’t succeed by answering
Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World emails quickly. You succeed by
Cal Newport regularly practicing deep work.
Grand Central, 2016
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Rating  Recommendation

9
9 Applicability Professor Cal Newport presents a multipart argument for deep, concentrated work. He
8 Innovation explains that work that demands your full focus is intrinsically valuable and rewarding.
You need to be able to handle “deep work” to succeed in an information economy. Yet
9 Style
people face increasing distractions or social pressure that drive them toward shallow
work. Newport develops his ideas with a blend of formal research, stories and personal
accounts about the challenges and rewards of deep work. He provides tips for
arranging your life to support deep work, which he sees as valuable, productive and

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28/12/2017 Deep Work Summary | Cal Newport | PDF Download

rare. He makes his case persuasively and even poetically. getAbstract recommends his
guidance to knowledge workers and anyone else who is seeking flow, creativity or
focus.

In this summary, you will learn

• What constitutes “deep work,”
• Why deep work matters and
• What strategies you can use to organize your life to support your deep work.

Take-Aways
• “Deep work” is professional work that requires intense focus and concentration.
• Deep work is essential for and central to knowledge work.
• It is necessary for mastering complex topics more quickly.
• How much elite work you produce equals the time you spend on your task
multiplied by how intensely you focus.
• Obstacles and conflicting demands are increasing every day and they hinder deep
work.
• Deep work promotes a sense of flow, meaning and sacredness.
• Evaluate your habits and actions with the goal of structuring your time to protect
the attention you need for deep work.
• Some people integrate deep work into their lives in daily units.
• Others, like Bill Gates, withdraw from the world periodically for periods of
complete focus.
• To promote deep work, “embrace boredom,” “quit social media” and “drain the
shallows” of your life.

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28/12/2017 Deep Work Summary | Cal Newport | PDF Download

Summary
“Deep Work: Profes-
sional activities
performed in a state of
distraction-free concen- “Deep Work” and Why It Matters
tration that push your Deep work is professional work that requires complete focus and full concentration.
cognitive capacities to Deep work pushes your creative and analytical abilities to their limits. For real
their limit.” achievement in art, science, business or other fields, you must work deeply. To
understand deep work, compare it to ordinary, “shallow work.” Shallow work is work
you can do while you’re distracted. It doesn’t ask much of your mind, and contributes
little that’s new or valuable.
“Deep work is necessary
to wring every last drop Current trends push you – and the rest of the world – toward shallow work. This push
of value out of your to network, tweet, respond quickly and multitask can fill your days with shallow work.
current intellectual But, that’s dangerous. Often, people automate shallow work or skip it. Putting shallow
capacity.” work at the center of your professional activity puts your career at risk. Shallow work
has limited value; deep work offers profound value. Being able to do deep work is
becoming increasingly important.

“Shallow Work: Noncog- Technology places new demands on workers, and many struggle to keep up. Among
nitively demanding, lo- other challenges, technology is splintering and restructuring the economy. This
gistical-style tasks, often eliminates some jobs, but rewards others. Firms need “high-skilled workers” who can
performed while master complex technology.
distracted.”

Specialization
In the past, companies hired from their local labor pool or paid people to relocate. In
that environment, local experts reaped rewards. Now companies might ask specialists
“Without structure, it’s to telecommute. This displaces local workers while validating superstars. It pushes job
easy to allow your time
to devolve into the markets toward a “winner-take-all” model. In fact, information technology lets the
shallow – email, social “superstars” in a field multiply their influence and rewards. To earn a place in one of
media, web surfing.” the employment groups that the information economy rewards most highly, you need

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to master “hard things” and to learn complex material quickly. That requires deep
work. And you must “produce at an elite level.” For that, deep work is essential; it
“To succeed with deep focuses your attention and ability like a lens.
work you must rewire
your brain to be “Deliberate Practice”
comfortable resisting
Deep work involves periods of deliberate practice. At such times, you focus on the
distracting stimuli.”
specific skill you’re trying to develop and you don’t switch among tasks. Deliberate
practice calls for “uninterrupted concentration.” It forces specific neural circuits to fire
repeatedly, fixing these skills in place. Deep work helps you reach better results. How
much elite work you produce equals the time you spend on your task multiplied by how
“Instead of scheduling
intensely you focus. If you switch tasks often, you suffer “attention residue” – part of
the occasional break
from distraction so you your attention clings to a previous task, lowering your performance level. Get feedback
can focus, you should to correct your practice and make it more productive.
instead schedule the
occasional break from Deep work is uncommon, and many aspects of the modern business environment work
focus to give in to against it. People tend to do what is easiest at any given time. In today’s corporate
distraction.” world, that increasingly means staying connected and focusing on how fast you can
respond to messages, rather than evaluating the quality response or the best use of
your time. People now tend to spend less time prioritizing tasks and making sure
they’re doing what’s most important. They just plunge in, using “busyness as a proxy
“The type of work that for productivity.” This is understandable: You can measure speed and task completion,
optimizes your but you can’t measure depth. Measuring knowledge work can be ambiguous. Those
performance is deep seeking metrics might seize on factors, like speed, that their bosses can measure
work.” clearly.

“Cult of the Internet”

People act as if using the Internet and making the most of its connectivity equates to
“Those who use their doing revolutionary work. Today, firms whose service or products have nothing to do
minds to create valuable
things [are] rarely with the web invite people to like them on Facebook. Companies push knowledge
workers to use Twitter and other social media channels. This scatters their attention

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haphazard in their work instead of letting them put in the concentrated focus that is crucial to their real
habits.” contribution. Using Twitter pulls them away. This is unfortunate, because deep work
matters more than shallow work to society and to those doing it.

What You “Pay Attention To”

“When you’re done Studies of consciousness argue for the merits of deep work. Winifred Gallagher, a
scheduling your day, science writer, spent years studying how attention shapes the quality of life. She found
every minute should be
part of a block. You that the way you manage your attention is incredibly important for leading a good life –
have, in effect, given more important than your circumstances. Your brain creates your experience according
every minute of your to what you pay attention to; where you focus and how you approach experiences shape
workday a job.” your emotions and results, “down to the neurological level.” Accenting the positive
aspects of your reality trains your “prefrontal cortex” to keep your amygdala from firing
as strongly in response to “negative stimuli.” In deep work, you focus on topics that
matter. That reshapes your reality positively. The challenges of deep work and its
“Figure out in advance structured nature generate the psychological state known as “flow,” making deep work
what you’re going to do its own reward.
with your evenings and
weekends before they In their 2011 book All Things Shining, Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly make a
begin.” philosophical argument for deep work. They examine how meaning and sacredness
have changed over time. The sacred seems further away than it once did. They trace
this diminishing access back to the Enlightenment – to René Descartes, specifically –
and to the demand that individuals must determine what is meaningful for themselves.
“In a business setting Dreyfus and Kelly propose craftsmanship as one solution.
without clear feedback
on the impact of various Focus lets artists shift from having to create meaning to finding meaning in the objects
behaviors to the bottom they craft. Deep work allows knowledge workers to return to the sacred.
line, we will tend toward
behaviors that are Following four rules will help you embrace deep work:
easiest in the moment.”
1. “Work Deeply”

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“The ability to perform Make deep work a regular part of your life. Remove distractions and increase your level
deep work is becoming of focus. Many distractions come from within. Basic desires like food and sex can
increasingly rare at distract you. Other distractions are social and technological, like the desire to check
exactly the same time it your email or watch television. Developing a deep work routine helps you maintain
is becoming increasingly your focus. Some people follow a “monastic philosophy,” shutting themselves
valuable in our
completely off from the world. They disengage from email for blocks of time – perhaps
economy.”
permanently – and focus entirely on intellectual work.

Others find that this doesn’t work for them due to their professional obligations. They
follow a “bimodal philosophy” and alternate extended periods of deep work with
“Identify the core factors periods in which they focus elsewhere. Some academics, for example, cluster their
that determine success classes and focus on teaching for one semester and then turn their attention to research
and happiness in your
during the rest of the year.
personal and profes-
sional life. Adopt a tool
Other people find that a “rhythmic philosophy” works best: They schedule deep work at
only if its positive
impacts on these factors the same time daily. They apply a “chain method” in which they add a new link of deep
substantially outweighs work each day. People who lack control over their daily schedules or who easily “switch
its negative impacts.” into a deep work mode,” find the “journalistic philosophy” useful. These thinkers take
advantage of any breaks or gaps in their schedules to work deeply on their core
projects.

Once you find an approach that works for you, ritualize your choice to build habits that
support focus. Think about where you will do your deep work and how long you’ll
focus. Plan how “you’ll support your work.” Do you need to eat first? Take a walk? How
will you maintain focus while working, and how will you measure your results? Will
you outlaw the Internet until you’re done or track how many words you write? Making
“grand gestures” helps solidify focus. J.K. Rowling checked into a hotel to finish writing
the last Harry Potter book. Bill Gates took “Think Weeks” when he’d leave Microsoft
and go to a cabin to read and focus.

2. “Embrace Boredom”

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People in today’s world suffer an addiction to distraction. The focus that deep work
requires means that you must escape that addiction. Without distraction, however, you
will suffer boredom. When trying to concentrate intensely, you will yearn for
something to break the tedium. But if you stop fighting that boredom and recognize it
as proof of your focus, you can make focused concentration a “habit,” something you do
regularly because it is good for you.

3. “Quit Social Media”

Social media are entertaining, and keep you in touch with people. These benefits are
minor compared to what social media cost you. When considering the use of any social
media tool, identify which factors create “success and happiness in your professional
and personal life.” Use that tool only if it offers more benefits than negatives.

Think of this as “the law of the vital few,” or “the 80/20 rule” or “Pareto’s principle.”
Identify your top two or three goals in the personal and professional arenas. Name the
top two to three activities that contribute to reaching these goals. Review the network
tools you use now. Evaluate their impact on your pursuit of your goals. Use the Internet
for a substantive purpose, not entertainment.

4. “Drain the Shallows”

Shallow work crowds out more valuable deep work. Deep work is exhausting because it
pushes you to your limits. Most people have a maximum capacity of four hours of deep
work a day. They have to build up to that level. Starting with an hour isn’t uncommon.

Many people overestimate how much they work and underestimate how much
television they watch. Schedule literally “every minute” of your workday. Group
batches of related activities together. As you use this schedule, you’ll see that your time
estimates probably are off; you’re likely to underestimate how much time new activities
take. You’ll experience interruptions. When these things happen, make a new schedule.
Over time, you’ll get better at estimating your time use. Schedule “overflow conditional
blocks” of time after an activity. If the first activity runs over, continue focusing on it. If

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you finished by the original deadline, have a second activity planned. Leave time for
spontaneous inspiration. Rigidly adhering to a schedule isn’t the goal. Your objective is
to use your time intentionally.

Deep Work Tools

“Quantify the depth of every activity.” Estimate how many months it would take you to
train a smart new employee to complete this work. When you know how much effort a
job requires, place your work on a depth spectrum. Push yourself to move toward the
deeper end of the spectrum. Construct a “shallow work budget.” Determine how much
of your time you spend “on shallow work.” Most people need to spend 30% to 50% of
their time on shallow work: attending meetings, answering emails, filling out
paperwork, and the like. If shallow work makes up all or almost all of your job, plan
your transition to deeper work.

Apply the principle of “fixed-schedule productivity” to enhance your work. If you work
in a traditional office job, this means finishing all of your work by 5:30 p.m. This serves
as an antidote to the belief that you must work extra long hours and on the weekend to
succeed. Be more selective about what tasks you tackle and what meetings you attend.
Select work that shapes your “professional fate.”

Protect Your Time

Becoming harder to get in touch with can protect your deep work time and drain your
shallows. Because sending emails is easy, people do it casually. Many recipients feel a
compulsion to answer. Don’t. Respond selectively. Make the people who contact you
“do more work.” For example, rather than offering a general email address, use a
“sender filter”: a brief preface asking correspondents to contact you with specific
opportunities related to particular activities.

Do more work when you answer emails. Don’t answer quickly to express general
interest or agreement. Push forward with specifics. If someone asks to meet with you,
agree, list specific times you’re available and ask the person to agree to one of them. If

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you’ve received a request to help with a project, give that help and define the next step,
so you’re not sending emails back and forth. Don’t answer ambiguous, open-ended
emails, notes that don’t interest you, or emails that offer no benefit if you answer and
no penalty if you don’t.

About the Author

Cal Newport teaches in Georgetown University’s computer science department. He also wrote So Good They Can’t
Ignore You: How to Win at College.

This document is restricted to the personal use of ratnaroy2901@gmail.com

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