Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

At the start of this year, while I was reading Time to Think, I was also reading this book. I had heard about this one in other productivity books. Time to Think championed the idea of teamwork and thinking deeply in meetings; this one was more about thinking deeply on your own by creating a lifestyle/environment that allowed deep work to happen.

Cal Newport thinks that to get ahead in this modern world, you need to quickly master hard things and be able to produce at an elite level. The only way to do that is to focus deeply without distraction or to do deep work. This might be more true than when this book was first written a decade ago. With the coming of AI, we will need people who already know their stuff to be able to work through the slop and hallucinations and make judgements about what is really needed, instead of lapping up every generated thought and line of code.

The problem people face is that, in most workplaces, the environment makes it hard to do deep work. Open-plan offices are distracting, email notifications are always on, and the background of social media all bring our thinking to the shallow surface of the distracted and mundane. What is needed is a way to master your time and environment, and not the other way round.

What you need to do is make space so that you can think on a task for long periods of time, without distractions and interruptions. Easier said than done, but ideally you can start from wherever you are and build a habit so that your mind can become accustomed to focusing on one thing, and reduce your habits of checking your phone or clearing notifications. Block out chunks of time for you to do your thinking, and build a consistent habit of when you will work and when you will end your work time.

"The key to developing a deep work habit is to move beyond good intentions and add routines and rituals to your working life designed to minimize the amount of your limited willpower necessary to transition into and maintain a state of unbroken concentration."

There were some good tips and interesting studies when it comes to dealing with mental load. He argues that at the end of your workday, you need to shut off your thinking about it till tomorrow. Having a hard end of the day can help, as it means you need to use your time wisely and may have to plan backwards in what you are going to achieve when the day's end approaches.

Incomplete tasks can take over our attention, so the best way to deal with them is to write them down. Put them in a list, and even give them a time in the future when you will deal with them. Once they are written out somewhere else, you don't have to hold them in your head.

There was a section about social media, which is probably a bigger distraction now than it was in 2016. He says

"the delusion that binds them to social media is the idea that people want to hear what you have to say, and that they might be disappointed if you suddenly leave them bereft of your commentary."

He suggests giving up social media for 30 days without announcing that you are, and to see if anyone notices and if your life is better for it. Endless distractions, notifications and the trivial things on social media suck us all into the shallow end of thinking. We should use these tools wisely, even setting up guard rails, as in the long run they might not be helping our minds think deeply.

In order to chunk out time for deep thinking, to scope out unfinished tasks, having a repeatable routine, and to end the day cleanly; all of these take organisation and planning. Each day should come with a bit of a plan, but also realistically knowing that it can change as the day changes.

"Your goal is not to stick to a given schedule at all costs; it’s instead to maintain, at all times, a thoughtful say in what you’re doing with your time going forward—even if these decisions are reworked again and again as the day unfolds."

I did appreciate his bit about email:

"No discussion of shallow work is complete without considering e-mail. This quintessential shallow activity is particularly insidious in its grip on most knowledge workers’ attention, as it delivers a steady stream of distractions addressed specifically to you."

However, personally, I must say that in my new job, it is nowhere near as bad for me as it was in my past two workplaces. (And over that time, I had been working on a few habits and routines with emails to get them under control).

Newport is an academic, and most of his examples on how he was able to produce a lot of high-quality work seemed to come with a luxury that some thinking jobs may not need. He was able to shut himself off from the world for periods of time, embracing solitude and avoiding meetings, which I think some other occupations wouldn't have this luxury. However, this was a good book to get you thinking about how you might be able to be more productive as you help schedule your time and build more habits.

Maybe because I read it before this book, I found Redeeming Your Time to be more practical. It overlaps (and really summarises large sections of this book) but also offers more concrete ways to implement a way to manage your day better. I still use some of the tips in that book today.