Deep Work by Cal Newport

Those that win in the new economy are:
- High Skilled workers - those that play well with complicated machines
- Superstars - those who are at the very top of what they do
- Owners - those with access to capital
Core abilities to thrive:
- Ability to quickly master hard things
- Ability to produce at an elite level in terms of quality and speed
Learning hard things takes deliberate practice
- Attention focused on the skill to develop
- Receive feedback to keep attention on the most productive work
There are three ways to find meaning in deep work:
- Neurological - “management of attention is the most important thing for living a good life"
  - —> choose carefully and then give rapt attention: live a focused life
- Psychological - deep work generates flow, and we are happier when we are immersed in something challenging
- Philosophical - citing All Things Shining (and it’s observation that the enlightenment removed the sacredness from work), we need to refocus on the craftsmanship and sacredness of our work
  - the meaning uncovered is due to skill and appreciation of your work, not the outcome (the code is not noble, but the shaping can be)
Rule 1 - Work Deeply
- eudaimonia (Greek concept of the state where you achieve your full potential): eudaimonia machine is a conceptual building with 5 rooms, the last of which provides a protected place for deep work
- you have a finite amount of willpower that becomes depleted as you use it —> need to add routines and rituals to minimize the amount of willpower we need to deploy
- Decide on your Deep Work Philosophy
- 1) Monastic Philosophy - maximize depth by eliminating or radically minimizing shallowness
  - single, well-defined goal as measure of success
- 2) Bimodal Philosophy - divide your time into regular work, and dedicated (monastic-like) stretches of deep work
- 3) Rhythmic Philosophy - chain method (do it every day, make it a routine)
  - Define a time for your work and stick to it every day
  - Early wake up time to go your work for 1-2 hours before your real job
- 4) Journalistic Philosophy - get away for any small bit you are able
- Ritualize - where, how work, how support work (food/coffee)
- Make grand gestures - like Rowling renting hotel room to finish Harry Potter, a special setting can help put you in the right frame of mind; for me, old building or great library
- Don’t work alone - hub and spoke model: access to both collaboration and isolation is important
- Execute like a business - 4 Disciplines of Execution from Clayton Christensen
  - 1) Focus on what is wildly important - say yes to only the most important things
  - 2) Act on the lead measures - lead, not lag: hours of deep work
  - 3) Keep a compelling scoreboard - index card to track your hours of deep work
  - 4) Create a cadence of accountability - regular meetings to assess progress
- Be Lazy
  - 1) Downtime aids insights - allow your unconscious brain to mull
  - 2) Downtime helps recharge for deep work - go for a walk, and when you disconnect from work you need to fully disconnect
  - 3) The work that evening downtime replaces is not important -
    - develop a “shutdown ritual” - review all your tasks at end of day, plan the next day, then shut down
Rule 2 - Embrace Boredom
- 2 goals
  - improve ability to concentrate deeply
  - overcome desire for distraction
- Take breaks from focus rather than distraction
  - schedule when you use the internet, then avoid it completely when not in those times
  - 1) This works even if your job needs lots of internet/email
    - amount of use doesn’t matter as much as discipline in avoiding when not supposed to
    - 5 minutes for email/internet every 15 minutes
  - 2) You must keep non-internet blocks completely free regardless of how you schedule
    - if you get stuck, either
      - a) switch to another offline activity
      - b) re-schedule internet block or now and adjust remaining schedule accordingly
  - 3) Schedule internet use at home as well
    - waiting and being bored is increasingly rare and increasingly valuable
- Work like Teddy Roosevelt
  - Estimate time required, shorten the allowed duration, and work with high intensity to meet the objective
- Productive meditation - use physical/non-mental time (walk, run, etc.) to think about a work problem
  - 1) Be wary of distractions/looping
  - 2) Structure your deep thinking
    - a) define relevant variables of your problem
    - b) define the next-step question to answer with those variables
    - c) review the answer for future use
- Memorize a deck of cards
  - a side effect of memorizing is your ability to concentrate
  - a) walk through 5 room and remember 10 objects in each room
  - b) associate a memorable person/think with all types of cards
  - c) remember each person in each room to memorize a deck
Rule 3 - Quit Social Media
- need to evaluate both the benefits and the costs when choosing which tools to include in our lives
- The Craftsman Approach to Tool Selection: Identify the core factors that determine success and happiness in your professional and personal life. Adopt a tool only if its positive impacts on these factors substantially outweigh its negative impacts.
- Apply the Law of the Vital Few to your Internet Habits
  - a) Identify the main goals in your personal/professional life
  - b) List the 2-3 most important activities to achieve that goal
  - c) If a tool contributes to these, only then should you use it
  - The Law of the Vital Few: 80-20 rule
- Quit Social Media
  - ban yourself for 30 days - if still useful after that ban then reintroduce; otherwise delete
  - social media removes the connection between hard work producing content and people paying attention to you: I’ll pay attention to you if you pay attention to me even if neither of us really adds any value
- Don’t Use the Internet to Entertain Yourself
  - How to Live on 24 Hours a Day: see the time before/after work as a “day within a day"
  - put some thought into structuring your leisure time to give yourself a quality alternative to distraction during your leisure time
Rule 4 - Drain the Shallows
- Schedule Every Minute of Your Day
  - http://calnewport.com/blog/2013/12/21/deep-habits-the-importance-of-planning-every-minute-of-your-work-day/
- goal it not to stick to plan 100%, but to be thoughtful about how you spend your time
- Quantify the Depth of Each Activity
  - Shallow work: noncoygnitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted. These efforts tend not to create much new value in the world and are easy to replicate.
  - How long would it take to train a smart recent college grad with no specialized training in my field to complete this task?
- Ask Your Boss for a Shallow Work Budget
- Finish Your Work by 5:30
  - fixed-schedule productivity: set a limit of fight hours a week and work backward to determine what rules and habits were needed to satisfy that constraint
- Become Hard to Reach
  - Make people who send you email do more work
  - Do more work when you send or reply to emails
    - Determine the “project” represented by the email and find the most efficient process for concluding the project
  - Don’t respond
    - Tim Ferriss: “Develop the habit of letting small and things happen. If you don’t, you’ll never mind time for the life-changing big things."
Winifred Gallagher: “I’ll live the focused life, because it’s the best kind there is."

Created: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2022-02-24-Thu