Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

Deep Work is the execution/tactical companion to Newport's last book, So Good They Can't Ignore You and it doesn't disappoint. These books should be taken together as a whole because they give you the WHAT, the WHY and the HOW for being an elite knowledge worker. So Good they Can't Ignore you shows you why building valuable and rare skills, which Newport calls "career capital" is the number one most important thing for finding a job you love (not "finding your passion"). Building that capital allows you to find a job where you can have creative control over your work and more control over your time, which allows you to do "deep work," aka deliberate practice (and the 10,000 hour rule for expertise, Gladwell, Ericsson and others). There are also 2 other factors, choosing a domain or mission or project where you will have a postive impact on the world, and choosing to work with people who you like being around, which aren't covered much but Newport assumes you should be able to figure out on your own. Summary of what you need to be So Good They Can't Ignore You 1. Rare and valuable skills (aka career capital) 2. Creative control over projects 3. Control over your time (which allows you to do deep work, virtuous cycle) 4. Work that has a positive impact on the world 5. Working with people you enjoy being with Here's the formula: -Use deep work to learn fast and build up rare and valuable skills. -Then apply these rare and valuable skills to the right projects so that you can build up career capital. -Then cash in the career capital to get more creative and time control over your job. -All the while, try to pick jobs and projects that have a positive impact and allow you to work with good people. -However, these are usually also things that you need to trade in your career capital (rare skills and experience using them) in order to maximize. -Don't try to save the world or have a big impact until you have the career capital to match. Otherwise you will probably fail. You have to earn all these perks via building career capital by using deep work. So Good They Can't Ignore You doesn't spend much time explaining how to actually implement deep work (deliberate practice) into you life. It tells you to focus deeply, stretch yourself cognitively and get constant high quality feedback on your work/output. That's where Deep Work comes in. Deep Work shows you exactly WHY deep work is so important (as opposed to Shallow Work), especially for modern knowledge workers, and why the way most people work, with constant interruptions from social media, email and their phones, is holding most knowledge workers back from being successful and competitive in today's job market. The first part of the book argues for why Deep Work is important. If you have already bought into the idea, you can skim this part, but I found the examples and people he featured to be very interesting so it's worth a read. Just don't expect a lot of tactics until part 2. Chapter 1 explains why deep work is VALUABLE. Our economy is changing, and the days of doing the same thing over and over for 40 years until you retire are over. Newport lays out an interesting theory for 3 types of workers, Superstars, Owners and High Skill Workers and makes a convincing and important argument for the importance in the future of being able to work at higher levels of abstraction and work with intelligent machines. In this chapter he also makes a case for the two critical skills for knowledge workers: 1. Learning Quickly 2. Producing at an Elite Level This conclusion informs the rest of the book. If you want to be good at these two skills, the most important thing to be good at is deep work. Chapter 2 focuses on why deep work is RARE. He shows how distractions are becoming more and more common for knowledge workers, and that attention is becoming more and more fractures. Newport makes a good case for how complex knowledge work is often hard to measure, so managers measure busyness instead of output that relates to bottom line results (KPIs). Busyness as a vanity metric. People end up optimizing for looking busy instead of getting real work done, and everybody plays along with this charade. Chapter 3 goes into why deep work is MEANINGFUL. Meaning is a key part of Newport's argument because the whole book links back to the Passion vs. Rare Skills debate…which is a better strategy for finding a job you love? If the job isn't meaningful, then deep work doesn't fully answer the question of how to best find a job you love. Newport give 3 theories on why deep work is meaningful, a psychological, neurological and a philosophical reason. That's it for part 1. In Part 2, Newport tells you how to implement deep work into your day to day life with 4 rules. Rule 1 gives you a bunch of strategies and examples of how to integrate deep work into your schedule. He offers different strategies depending on what kind of work you do. The Grand Gestures part of this chapter is really good, you learn about Bill Gates Think Week and same famous authors who go to secluded islands or build cabins to get a lot of deep work done when necessary. There is also a section here on execution using the 4 Disciplines from Clayton Christensen's work. The point on lead vs. lag measures is really good. Rule 2 covers the idea of embracing boredom. Newport gives a number of strategies for doing two important things: improving your ability to focus and eliminating your desire for distraction. At first these seem like the same thing but Newport explains why they are actually two different skills. For example, someone who is constantly switching between social media and infotainment sites can block off time for deep work but they won't be able to focus if they can't control their desire to always have instant gratification and constant stimulus. The point about making deep work your default, and scheduling shallow work in between is also a game changer. Rule 3 is about social media sites and infotainment sites. This rule isn't as strategic as the other ones, it's mostly about making a side argument that these networking sites aren't as important is you think they are. He gives some good strategies for measuring what sites and services you should include in your day to day life based on the total collection of all the positive and negative effects. This sort of critical thinking and measurement usually doesn't get applied to these kind of sites. Rule 4 is about draining the shallows, meaning going through the process of eliminating as much as possible shallow work from your daily schedule. This is more tactical chapter, (This and Rule 1 are the most useful of the 4) you learn how to plan out your day, how to stop from bringing your work home with you with an end of day ritual and how to manage your email so that you cut down on the amount of time you spend in your inbox each day. There is also a strategy for how to talk to your boss about deep work so you can get permission to re-arrange your schedule to be more productive. Overall Thoughts: This book, and Newport's previous book So Good They Can't Ignore You, are some of the most important books you will read on planning your career. Most people spend little to no time on these decisions, or just go with the flow or with how other people approach things, even though this planning process will affect the next 4 to 5 decades of their life. Most people's thinking is still stuck in the industrial economy way of thinking…it makes sense thought, our education system is also stuck in this way of thinking. Deep work gives you a solid, actionable plan and doesn't leave anything out that I can think of.

In 1995 the term “disruptive innovation” was coined by Harvard Professor, Clayton Christensen to describe how certain types of innovation change industries. But this is rare. Most innovation doesn’t amount to much, and fizzles out despite extensive quantitative research and Herculean advertising efforts. In this book, Christensen et al, offer a simple but profound insight which they call the ‘Theory of Jobs to Be Done.’ The purpose of this insight is to shed light on why people adopt an innovation in large enough numbers to make it a success, and how to identify innovations that will be adopted. ‘The job to be done’, they assert is the causal mechanism for successful innovation. Using this insight enables companies not only to create but also to predict new innovations that will succeed. Phrasing the innovation in this manner allows for a deep understanding of the customers’ need at a more profound level. To introduce this concept, the authors describe (among other examples,) the “job of a milkshake.” Why would someone “hire” a milkshake? What “job” is the milkshake expected to perform? “We all have jobs we need to do that arise in our day-to-day lives and when we do, we hire products or services to get these jobs done,” the authors explain. If you can answer this question, increasing sales is far more likely to be useful than doing taste tests, demographic surveys and purchase studies. When looking for an answer to this question (an actual case), the researchers were surprised to find that an oddly high number of milkshakes were sold before 9:00 a.m. to people who came to the fast-food restaurant alone. Doing taste tests, demographic surveys and purchase studies would not yield the quality of information that came from asking this question: “Excuse me, please, but I have to sort out this puzzle. What job were you trying to do for yourself that caused you to come here and hire that milkshake?” It turned out that they had long and boring rides to work and needed something to keep the commute interesting. Coffee doesn’t do the job well because it gets cold too quickly, eating bananas makes you feel too full, but hiring a milkshake does the job well. It is thick enough to sip, lasts long enough, and remains pleasurable through the journey. Approaching the study from the ‘job to be done’ perspective is quite different to fast-food restaurants asking a patron to give feedback in one of its customer surveys to the question: “How can we improve this milk shake so you buy more of them?” A single dad coming to a restaurant with his young son would answer the survey very differently to the same man when he buys a milkshake for his morning commute. The milkshake is hired for very different jobs, in two very different circumstances. So how can one identify innovative opportunities if compiling data-rich models only makes businesses “masters of description but failures at prediction”? “We believe Jobs Theory provides a powerful way of understanding the causal mechanism of customer behaviour, an understanding that, in turn, is the most fundamental driver of innovation success,” the authors explain. So how is Jobs Theory to be applied so that you create products that customers will not only want to buy, but will even be willing to pay premium prices for? Simply put, customers don’t buy products or services: they pull them into their lives to resolve highly important, unsatisfied jobs that arise. Jobs are never simply about the function of the service or product. The circumstance is central to their definition, not customer characteristics, product attributes, new technology, or trends. Just think of how you would hire a baby-sitter – who would you trust with your children? “It’s important to note that we don’t ‘create’ jobs, we discover them,” the authors explain. This is a 180 degree shift from viewing innovation as creating what no-one has ever seen before, and then trying to stimulate a need. Jobs can be discovered in many ways. One is just watching the customers you do—and don’t—already have, and looking for the job that they want done. Do many DIY customers in your hardware store need technical assistance? You can also learn much about a Job to Be Done from people who aren’t hiring any product or service to do the Job. Airbnb reports that 40% of their “guests” say they would not have made a trip at all, or would have stayed with family, if Airbnb didn’t exist. As such, Airbnb is not in competition with hotels. There may be an entirely new growth opportunity right in front of you. Are people creating ways of working around a problem or just compensating for it? Banking giant ING saw the segment no bank wants, low net-worth individuals, who want a simple, inexpensive banking facility. They were being chased away by high banking charges and other barriers. ING created ING Direct that has no deposit minimums, is fast, convenient, and secures your money. Of course, you won’t see workarounds if you’re not fully immersed in the context of the consumers’ struggle. There are probably more jobs people do not want to do than jobs they want to do. Negative jobs are often the best innovation opportunities. Because most people don’t want to go to the doctor if they don’t have to, there are now more than a thousand MinuteClinic locations inside CVS pharmacy stores in thirty-three states in America. Innovation can also be identified in the unusual use of products. NyQuil had been on the market for decades as a cold remedy, but some consumers were using it to help them sleep, even when they weren’t sick. This led to ZzzQuil, which offers a good night’s sleep without the other active ingredients consumers didn’t need. Growth can be found where none seems possible. It is dependent on knowing what to look for, and the question to be asked: What is the Job here? There are gems in this easy-to-read book, with many examples of every point they make. No matter your line of work, this is a clever way to look for new business, but it must be done carefully and slowly. Readability Light -+--- Serious Insights High +---- Low Practical High -+--- Low *Ian Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy and is the author of Strategy that Works. .

There are book reviews out there who likely will do their best to discredit this work, don’t let them. If you have an interest in making the most of your life both professionally and personally I definitely recommend this book. Worst case scenario, you have a bunch of things you have thought in your own head be brought to life by the words of another deep thinker. Best case scenario you transform the perspective on the work you do both personally and professionally towards a path that leads to a life worth living. It’s not an end all be all book but I have to admit this one is very very good and well worth your time.

I loved the book and found out that I naturally have a deep work habit. That said I was still able to find ways to improve my deep work habit.

I love Cal Newport's work, am a longtime reader of his blog and his previous book, "So Good They Can't Ignore You", and this book was no exception. I took copious notes throughout the book and highly recommend it to anyone in a technical field, or in any kind of creative endeavor whatsoever. Even if you think you're not working in a field that requires deep work, think again. Newport's convincing arguments for the value of deep work and its importance in our automation-leaning economy are compelling. Do you think you can't be outsourced or your work mechanized? In the coming years, as other authors have argued (cf. Dan Pink's book, Thinking on The Right Side of the Brain among others), the value of humans as employees will increasingly rely on our ability to come up with creative, deep insights that are still beyond the reach of machine intelligence or low-paid individuals in developing countries. And we will definitely not be paid for reading and responding to our email. Cal Newport shows the way to a better work environment where you are contributing results that can't easily be replicated without you. My only beef with the book, and one that I've struggled with in all of Newport's materials, is that his advice seems particularly suited for people who know what they want to achieve and what goals to set their sights on. It is less helpful for those of us who are "Renaissance Souls" (see The Renaissance Soul: How to Make Your Passions Your Life-A Creative and Practical Guide ) and wired more like Benjamin Franklin than Mozart. The irony is that even as Cal Newport strongly recommends picking one thing and focusing solely on it, he himself has been extremely successful in both his main focus - his academic career - and his "side interest", his business/blog/books. I found little advice on how to bring the concept of Deep Work to bear on multiple pursuits. That caveat aside, the final score is still definitely a 5 star rating. Highly recommended.

The book emphasizes the importance of the so-called deep work, meaning hyperfocused and uninterrupted work on some heavily demanding subject. This importance is stressed concerning practical, and economic reasons, and to more philosophical ones. After that, the book shares more or less general and practical advice on how to do deep work. As the author puts it in the first part of the book, “Deep work is valuable, rare, and meaningful”. He supports this claim by analyzing work habits of, both historical and contemporary, successful figures, and also with a couple of research studies. I must say, referring to the peculiar working styles of such characters as Carl Jung, is very inspiring for me. Although I am more prone to more philosophical arguments, I have to admit that devoting a larger portion of this part to more practical arguments, has its point. Being successful in professional life, when one is a knowledge worker, requires him to be able to master hard skills fast, and have a deep understanding of certain areas of knowledge. The author also feels obliged to crack down on some pathologies in working culture, such as open offices or forcing workers to use social media. I would say that I am very unfamiliar with such phenomena, and therefore I am not the one to judge how serious are those issues or how much the average reader of the book needs the analysis of those subjects. Let us move to the second part, in which we are given some practical hints and advice on how to work deeply. I would say the quality and applicability of the strategies differ a lot, and I am not sure whether the majority of knowledge workers can use them. I suppose that availability is a very controversial subject, and it would require a bit more detailed attention. I cannot however deny that the author sees the difficulties in stopping being available via email, and suggests some practical solutions. I am very sceptical about the chapter about social media. At least at the beginning, it sounds very pretentious, and I feel like the author just wanted to deal with some opinions that irked him. However, I almost do not use social media for a lot of time now, and therefore I might not see the whole picture. Concerning the rest of the content, when we overcome practical difficulties, then we gain a lot of very nice practical advice for transforming our work to be more valuable and meaningful. They form a pretty encouraging picture, which I believe is not just a non-realistic dream. I am a bit biased, as I am at the beginning of my academic journey, and my discipline is close to the author's discipline. I therefore like to read about an idealistic life in which I can work no more than if I had a full-time job, be successful, and still have some life beyond academia. The author claims that he has such a life, and I want to believe him. Because I share the profession with the author, even the most abstract methods he uses, such as meditation on some abstract problems, sound applicable to me. I will gladly try a lot of them. Overall, I think the book is very inspirational, and although I cannot verify its practicality for the average knowledge worker, I believe it can be practical for me.

I have been reading Cal's blog for quite some time and I like the concrete actionable advice he gives. This book is no different. I loved the rigor with which Cal presented his thesis points, how he draws on existing research, makes a hypothesis, lays down conjectures, and attempts to reasonably generalize his arguments. Immersing oneself into a given task and executing it with intense focus and concentration is an insanely valuable skill. This book presents some solid evidence of how it can be trained and honed. More importantly, the book talks about how one must do this regularly and make it a core part of their life. It was inspiring to read about how Cal prioritizes his deep work hours and how it directly resulted in his academic research output. He writes about the experiences of people from diverse work background and how they incorporate deep work in their schedule. This provided a lot of perspective. I really liked the macro analysis (or the "bigger picture") he does in the beginning of the book. His take on the Internet/Social Media culture was intriguing and I found his arguments against it to be analytically strong. I was quite surprised by the amount of research (quoting interesting arguments from different research papers, blog posts, news articles etc) he has done to support his viewpoint. Concrete practical advice coupled with his own philosophical (ish) and rigorous style of writing prevented the book from being dry and provided for an interesting read.

I enjoyed reading about the case for and necessity of deep work. I was able to make actionable changes to my behaviors after reading about half of the book, so much that I’ve been able to squeeze out a consistent minimum of 3 focused hours daily (currently studying software engineering). However towards the end of the book, it felt like a book more about managing email than it did about tuning into deep focus. I’m sure this content has its purpose for busy professionals, and I do believe it offers adequate value in that realm. I was just more interested in tuning into “the zone” for all things than I was about managing an email box or the expectations of others once established. No regrets about the read. Would recommend, though with some recommendations for omitting certain sections to people in my shoes.

A must read book for every aspiring and seasoned professional to take control of daily work flow.

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I really resonated with this book. I work in software, and even though my job requires a lot of hard thinking and problem solving, I find myself constantly distracted by a work culture which seems to think it's ok to be perpetually interrupted. This book has been my guiding light and adopting even half of what it recommends is challenging, but very worthwhile. If you read "So Good They Can't Ignore You" you might remember Cal Newport highlights the need to develop "career capital", that is, hard-earned rare and valuable skills, which enable you to get a meaningful / satisfying job. This book is a substantial part of the answer to the question of: "how do I get rare and valuable skills?". Newport starts the book by arguing quite convincingly that deep work is not only increasingly rare, but increasingly valuable. But let's rewind a bit, what is "deep" work? Deep work is defined as working in a very focused manner, free from distractions, intensely concentrating on something that hopefully yields a valuable outcome. The output need not be something physical, it could be an insight, an idea, or a skill. Think of straining your brain to solve a puzzle versus copy and pasting things while chatting to a colleague. The former is deep, the latter shallow. Deep work is becoming increasingly rare because of our work culture's obsession with "connectivity", open plan offices, and social media. Why are we destroying our ability to work deeply then? Some things stand out, like the fact that it is hard to get metrics for how these things make us less productive, how hard it is to quantify the productivity of a knowledge worker, and how we tend to jump on the latest tech without thinking about alternatives / downsides. The case is made for deep work becoming increasingly valuable partly because of these distractions: if you can do it, you will stand out. But it's also valuable because of what it leads to: mastery of hard skills, and valuable output. Apart from these extrinsic benefits deep work is also intrinsically meaningful. It can cultivate a sense of craftsmanship and can lead to the fulfilling "flow" state. After the "what" and the "why" the rest of the book focuses on the "how". Lots of useful ideas and techniques are explored here. The general theme is do what you can and be thoughtful about how you spend your day. For example identify how you can do deep work: is it possible for you to go to the woods for the weekend, or (like most busy people with jobs) do you have some morning/evening time to use well? Make good routines / rituals. Schedule distractions and make focus your default state. Quit (or reduce your time on) social media. Adopt tech with a more critical mindset. Be less available on email etc. To conclude, this book is a shining light in the fog of modern work practices. If you are an attention deprived knowledge worker, it will likely help you a lot. But I can see it benefitting a wider class of people, because our ability to focus is so important.

Excellent book to improve productivity

This is a well-considered, balanced and persuasive book with many insights. While the author is in the sciences, I recommend this book to anyone in the arts who is looking to nurture their creativity and production. This book provides a foundational concept for people who want to build a body of work that creates a meaningful difference. The idea is that we do our best (deep) work when we have the habits and conditions that support, encourage and build that capacity. It is not for everybody. If you want 'hacks' or shortcuts, this is not the book for you. This book goes beyond the "hustle and grind" approach of putting in time and effort - it presupposes that you're willing to do both of those things. It asks – what will differentiate you then? That is the core goal this book will help you with - to sustain creating and producing work that is the best quality you're capable of (or even better than you've been capable of in the past). Newport spends the first half of the book providing the research and context to back up the argument that deep, focussed work is what will generate these breakthroughs. The second half of the book steps through the how. Each of the four rules is given with guidance and ideas for implementation that refers to the examples and context given in the first half of the book. This book is not for everybody, that's okay, just consider your needs, your work/art. If you need time to think or plan or create before you do what you do, this book is aimed at you. I'm grateful to Cal Newport for this book. There are things I have already been able to use as I have made this first read through, and other aspects that will take me longer to try, and test for my own needs. It was absolutely worth reading.