Deep Work

Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

by Cal Newport

paperback, 304 pages

Published Sept. 1, 2020 by Grand Central Publishing.

ISBN:: 978-1-4555-8667-7

One of the most valuable skills in our economy is becoming increasingly rare. If you master this skill, you'll achieve extraordinary results.

Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It's a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. Deep work will make you better at what you do and provide the sense of true fulfillment that comes from craftsmanship. In short, deep work is like a super power in our increasingly competitive twenty-first century economy. And yet, most people have lost the ability to go deep-spending their days instead in a frantic blur of e-mail and social media, not even realizing there's a better way.

In DEEP WORK, author and professor Cal Newport flips the narrative on impact in a connected age. Instead of arguing distraction is bad, he instead celebrates the …

One of the most valuable skills in our economy is becoming increasingly rare. If you master this skill, you'll achieve extraordinary results.

In DEEP WORK, author and professor Cal Newport flips the narrative on impact in a connected age. Instead of arguing distraction is bad, he instead celebrates the power of its opposite. Dividing this book into two parts, he first makes the case that in almost any profession, cultivating a deep work ethic will produce massive benefits. He then presents a rigorous training regimen, presented as a series of four "rules," for transforming your mind and habits to support this skill.

A mix of cultural criticism and actionable advice, DEEP WORK takes the reader on a journey through memorable stories -- from Carl Jung building a stone tower in the woods to focus his mind, to a social media pioneer buying a round-trip business class ticket to Tokyo to write a book free from distraction in the air -- and no-nonsense advice, such as the claim that most serious professionals should quit social media and that you should practice being bored. DEEP WORK is an indispensable guide to anyone seeking focused success in a distracted world.

5 editions

dr4co reviewed Deep Work by Cal Newport

A plea for focused work - from a very privileged perspective

3 stars

I read this book because I wanted to learn more about making use of deeply focused work. This book delivered only partially. There are some interesting pointers on how to integrate more highly-focused work into your life and how to expand your mental capabilities... but a lot of them will be exponentially harder for neurodivergent people, and the suggestions for integrating more "deep work" are probably not feasible for people who have caretaker responsability or people in precarized work. Nearly all of his success stories are people who have a pretty high degree of privilege to begin with.

In the first part, I got annoyed with his sales pitch for deep work - I already knew it was something potentially beneficial and open-plan offices are horrible. Maybe he needed to make this sales pitch because corporate culture is so invested in inhumane, focus-destroying work practices?

I also don't …

I also don't get his abhorrence of email, but perhaps I'm just an outlier in that my email influx is manageable? And although I have come to loathe Facebook and mostly avoid Twitter and Instagram, his "social media is evil and you ought to quit" chapter doesn't convince me either.

Overall, there were a few concepts I might revisit at some point, but otherwise, this book was a disappointment, not because the concept of "deep work" is bad, but because the book is coming from such a privileged and limited perspective.

Soubhagya reviewed Deep Work by Cal Newport

Review of 'Deep Work' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Deep work by Cal Newport is a must read for all knowledge workers.
The author starts the book with defining deep work and contrasts it with shallow work. Then he goes on to establish that for most of the knowledge workers deep work is vital for success. Being a researcher he backs his conclusion with data points and explores the value of shallow work as well. After that the author provides a set of advice and techniques to pursue deep work.
Some books leave a lasting impact on you and Deep work is one such book for me. I have made up my mind to pursue deep work and avoid shallow work in my life.

jm3 reviewed Deep Work by Cal Newport

Review of 'Deep Work' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

I read the “hypercard summary” of the main ideas of this book using the iOS app Lucid and it was fine. It’s useful without being exactly earth shaking. I wouldn’t bother reading the actual book cover to cover, I was too busy doing deep work

tiff reviewed Deep Work by Cal Newport

Review of 'Deep Work' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Cal Newport lays out his arguments for "going deep" — uninterrupted, long, and intense periods of focusing on the work that is going to further your goals quite well in this book.

I rarely disagreed with him and when I did it was because I was guilty of so much of his arguments against shallow work — email, Twitter, Facebook — all those non-essential, non-urgent, and non-important tasks that cause the dreaded decrease in focus from task switching (multitasking) which the effects of have long been debated. We know it takes a period of time from when you're working on a computer program and you switch to Twitter to recover that intense focus. The more you task switch, the worse it gets.

The book made me uncomfortable because I realized how much time I was squandering; how much I wasn't learning or practicing a certain skill. How many hours I've spent mindlessly scrolling Facebook on my phone. I also know I really don't know how to stop.

Cal offers great suggestions and I have a few plugins and tools to make this easier. Being comfortable with being bored is difficult for many. Cal encourages his readers to force boredom on themselves and to stick with it. The more practice you have the easier it will get and the closer you'll come to performing "deep work".

The book made take a long hard look at myself and for me that's worth five stars.

gregorgross

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Aug. 27, 2020

btanaka

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March 28, 2021

Lesbenice

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Sept. 29, 2021

Anthony Burgess

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February 2