In his book deep work, Cal Newport begins with an interesting story.<\/p>\n
The author recounts how the psychiatrist Carl Jung once built a retreat in the Swiss canton of St. Gallen, in a village named Bollingen.<\/p>\n
In 1922, Jung wanted to revolutionize the field of psychiatry and \u201cthis goal required deeper, more careful thought than he could manage amid his hectic city lifestyle\u201d<\/p>\n
In Deep work we can see how Jung for example would wake up at seven a.m. then spend two hours of intense focus, undistracted writing in his office. And in the afternoon, he would mostly do nothing but meditation or long walks in the countryside.<\/p>\n
Carl Jung practiced what the author calls Deep work: \u201cProfessional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.”<\/p>\n
The author takes not only Carl Jung\u2019s example but also other prominent figures in several fields such as Michel de Montaigne, Mark Twain or recently, J.K. Rowling or Woody Allen.<\/p>\n
All of these successful people committed to deep work. \u201cThe sixteenth-century essayist Michel de Montaigne, for example, prefigured Jung by working in a private library he built in the southern tower guarding the stone walls of his French ch\u00e2teau, while Mark Twain wrote much of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in a shed on the property of the Quarry Farm in New York, where he was spending the summer. Twain\u2019s study was so isolated from the main house that his family took to blowing a horn to attract his attention for meals.\u201d<\/p>\n
Woody Allen for example worked without a computer and completed all his writing using a manual typewriter. \u201c<\/p>\n
J.K. Rowling, on the other hand, does use a computer, but was famously absent from social media during the writing of her Harry Potter novels\u201d<\/p>\n
And finally \u201cMicrosoft CEO Bill Gates famously conducted \u201cThink Weeks\u201d twice a year, during which he would isolate himself (often in a lakeside cottage) to do nothing but read and think big thoughts.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"deep](\"https:\/\/www.sitrakaratsimba.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/111-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
<\/h3>\nA contrast: shallow work<\/strong><\/h3>\nWhile the successful people mentioned above all practiced deep work, what do we observe at the workplace? Most modern knowledge workers rarely go deep; they have fragmented attention and can\u2019t fully focus on the task at hand.<\/p>\n
Our culture shifts toward the shallow and most people practice what is opposed to deep work; shallow work.<\/p>\n
Shallow Work by definition relates to \u201cNon Cognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted. These efforts tend to not create much new value in the world and are easy to replicate.\u201d<\/p>\n
The example of Jason Benn<\/strong><\/h3>\nJason Benn left his job as a financial consultant to become a successful computer developer. The problem was that Jason didn\u2019t know how to write code. He didn\u2019t want to spend four years in college either as he didn\u2019t have time. The problem then arose: How to learn a hard skill and do it fast?<\/p>\n
\u201cLearning something complex like computer programming requires intense uninterrupted concentration on cognitively demanding concepts\u2014the type of concentration that drove Carl Jung to the woods surrounding Lake Zurich. This task, in other words, is an act of deep work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jason adopted drastic methods such as locking himself in a room with no computer, just textbooks, notecards and a highlighter.<\/p>\n
If it was hard for him at first to concentrate, he learned to focus overtime. He even regularly clocked five or more disconnected hours per day in the room, focused without distraction on learning how to program computers.<\/p>\n
He adopted this strategy for two months before enrolling at a Dev. Bootcamp where he would have a hundred-hour-a-week crash course in web application.<\/p>\n
Surprisingly, Benn excelled and ended up not only graduating on time, but also becoming the top student in his class.<\/p>\n
Hard and deep work earned him success because \u201cwhen Benn quit his job as a financial consultant, only half a year earlier, he was making $40,000 a year. His new job as a computer developer paid $100,000\u2014an amount that can continue to grow, essentially without limit in the Silicon Valley market, along with his skill level.\u201d<\/p>\n
Deep work<\/strong><\/h3>\nDeep work is a skill that has great value today. We live in an information economy which requires rapid skill acquisition and long-life learning. The job that existed yesterday might disappear tomorrow and a full department now can be automated with a simple program.<\/p>\n
The author therefore advances the deep work hypothesis: \u201cThe ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the core of their working life, will thrive.\u201d<\/p>\n
The goals of this book are twofold:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first, tackled in Part 1 is to convince you that the deep work hypothesis is true.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe second, tackled in Part 2, is to teach you how to take advantage of this reality by training your brain and transforming your work habits to place deep work at the core of your professional life.\u201d<\/p>\n
DEEP WORK BY CAL NEWPORT: PART 1: The Idea<\/strong><\/p>\nChapter One: Deep Work Is Valuable<\/strong><\/h2>\nIn Deep work, Cal Newport highlights a great restructuration of the world economy. Millions of people will lose their job because \u201c\u201cOur technologies are racing ahead but many of our skills and organizations are lagging behind.\u201d The rise of digital technology is transforming the labor markets in unexpected ways. Employers are becoming increasingly likely to hire new machines instead of \u201cnew people\u201d.<\/p>\n
In their book \u201cRace against the Machine\u201d, a pair of MIT economists, Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee emphasize that \u201cthis Great Restructuring is not driving down all jobs but is instead dividing them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThough an increasing number of people will lose in this new economy as their skill becomes automatable or easily outsourced, there are others who will not only survive, but thrive\u2014becoming more valued\u201d<\/p>\n
Three groups<\/strong><\/h3>\n\u201cThree specific groups will fall on the lucrative side of this divide and reap a disproportionate amount of the benefits of the Intelligent Machine Age\u201d: the high-skilled workers, the superstars and the owners.<\/p>\n
The high-skilled workers are the people who are good at working with intelligent machines.<\/p>\n
The superstars are the ones who became stars in their field. Think about people like Usain Bolt or Tiger Woods. Their performance slightly differs from their peers but they still earn all the attention and all the credits in their field, those are superstars.<\/p>\n
The owners are those with capital to invest in the new technologies that are driving the Great Restructuring. A venture capitalist for example funded Instagram who merely employed 13 people at the beginning but was sold for a billion dollars (and now evaluated at more than 50 billion dollars).<\/p>\n
The current economy thinking argues that \u201cthe unprecedented growth and impact of technology are creating a massive restructuring of our economy. In this new economy, three groups will have a particular advantage: those who can work well and creatively with intelligent machines, those who are the best at what they do, and those with access to capital.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 3 groups mentioned above cannot solely explain the entire economic trend. Indeed, other groups exist. The point here is that by joining any of these groups, we can do well. It\u2019s possible to join another group but our position will be more precarious in the long run.<\/p>\n
An important question<\/strong><\/h3>\nIn Deep work, Cal Newport then asks a fundamental question: \u201cHow does one join these winners?\u201d He admits that most of us are unlikely to quickly amass capital overnight. What we can do however is to get access to the two others groups: those who can work well with intelligent machines and those who are the best at what they do.<\/p>\n
How to Become a Winner in the New Economy<\/strong><\/h3>\nTo answer that important question \u201chow does one join these winners\u201d, Cal Newport highlights two crucial core abilities for thriving in the new economy:<\/p>\n
\n- The ability to quickly master hard things.<\/li>\n
- The ability to produce at an elite level, in terms of both quality and speed.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
So now, what\u2019s the link between the book \u201cDeep work\u201d and these two core abilities you might ask? The author argues that the two core abilities depend on your ability to perform deep work.<\/p>\n
If you want to cultivate these core abilities, you must first master deep work, a foundational skill which will help you learn hard things or produce at an elite level.<\/p>\n
On one hand, technologies change rapidly and the process of mastering hard things never ends. We must be able to do it quickly, again and again.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, \u201cif you want to become a superstar, mastering the relevant skills is necessary, but not sufficient. You must then transform that latent potential into tangible results that people value [\u2026] if you don\u2019t produce, you won\u2019t thrive\u2014no matter how skilled or talented you are\u201d.<\/p>\n
Deep work helps you quickly learn hard things<\/strong><\/h3>\nTo acquire a new skill, Cal Newport coined the expression \u201cdeliberate practice\u201d.<\/p>\n
In the book \u201cTalent Code\u201d, deliberate practice can be defined as a process in which we work on a technique, seek constant critical feedback and focus ruthlessly on shoring up weaknesses.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat deliberate practice actually requires. Its core components are usually identified as follows: (1) your attention is focused tightly on a specific skill you\u2019re trying to improve or an idea you\u2019re trying to master; (2) you receive feedback so you can correct your approach to keep your attention exactly where it\u2019s most productive.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDeliberate practice cannot exist alongside distraction, and it instead requires uninterrupted concentration.\u201d<\/p>\n
A scientific explanation<\/strong><\/h3>\nWe then might ask, \u201cWhy does deliberate practice work?\u201d<\/p>\n
Acquiring a new skill involves a deeper reality, a neurological process. In his book \u201cThe talent code\u201d Daniel Coyle claims that \u201cEvery human skill, whether it’s playing baseball or playing Bach, is created by chains of nerve fibers carrying a tiny electrical impulse\u2014basically, a signal traveling through a circuit. \u201cMyelin’s vital role is to wrap those nerve fibers the same way that rubber insulation wraps a copper wire, making the signal stronger and faster by preventing the electrical impulses from leaking out.\u201d Neurologists call it \u201cthe holy grail of acquiring skill\u201d.<\/p>\n
As we develop a new skill, an accurate practice gets the myelin thicker. The thicker the myelin, the better it insulates.<\/p>\n
To make it simple, look at it this way: A person with a thicker myelin would have her firing speed like a 5G network at 500GO\/s while a beginner will have it only at 128kbps. You would understand that there\u2019s no latency but rather accurate and precise control from the professionals.<\/p>\n
An expert in any field has practiced long enough, deep enough and deliberately enough to have their myelin thicker. This results in faster, stronger and more accurate movements from their parts. For example, Serena Williams or Kobe Bryant has thicker myelin that accurately controls their movements. On the contrary, a beginner has a sluggish and approximate movement because he\u2019s got his myelin thinner.<\/p>\n
This highlights why it takes time to build a skill. It is a natural process because the myelin isn\u2019t grown overnight and it requires constant practices.<\/p>\n
Once the myelin \u201cwraps, it doesn\u2019t unwrap\u201d. Once we learn how to read Chinese characters, it is unlikely that we lose it, just when we learn to ride a bicycle.<\/p>\n
The more we put time and energy in a specific activity, the more myelin we earn which in return gets us more skilled. And the more deliberate practice we need, the more relevant deep work will be.<\/p>\n
In Deep work, Cal Newport underlines \u201cThis new science of performance argues that you get better at a skill as you develop more myelin around the relevant neurons, allowing the corresponding circuit to fire more effortlessly and effectively. To be great at something is to be well myelinated.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo learn hard things quickly, you must focus intensely without distraction. To learn, in other words, is an act of deep work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read my article “Develop a skill: how to be extremely good at something<\/a>“<\/strong><\/p>\nDeep Work Helps You Produce at an Elite Level<\/strong><\/h3>\nIn Deep work, Cal Newport talks about Adam Grant<\/strong><\/a>, well known for his bestseller book \u201cGive and take\u201d was also the youngest professor to be awarded tenure at the Wharton School of Business at Penn in 2013. He\u2019s also the youngest full professor at Wharton. Adam Grant produces at an elite level. As Cal Newport<\/a><\/strong> explains; in 2012 he published seven articles, in 2013 he published Give and Take while publishing other five excellent articles in major journals.<\/p>\nIf there\u2019s one secret to his productivity, it would be \u201cthe batching of hard but important intellectual work into long, uninterrupted stretches.\u201d He\u2019s been doing that on multiple levels. For example, he stacks his teaching into the fall semester so that Grant \u201ccan turn his attention fully to research in the spring and summer, and tackle this work with less distraction.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGrant also batches his attention on a smaller time scale. Within a semester dedicated to research, he alternates between periods where his door is open to students and colleagues, and periods where he isolates himself to focus completely and without distraction on a single research task.\u201d<\/p>\n
Attention residue<\/strong><\/h4>\nIn Eat that Frog<\/strong><\/a>, Brian Tracy shares the main problem with interruption. A simple internet disruption takes about seventeen minutes for us to shift our total attention back to our task.<\/p>\nIn Deep work, Cal Newport calls it attention residue and he emphasizes \u201cWhen you switch from some Task A to another Task B, your attention doesn\u2019t immediately follow\u2014a residue of your attention remains stuck thinking about the original task\u201d<\/p>\n
We then come to this formula for high quality work:<\/p>\n
High-Quality Work Produced = (Time Spent) x (Intensity of Focus)<\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cTo produce at your peak level you need to work for extended periods with full concentration on a single task free from distraction. Put another way, the type of work that optimizes your performance is deep work.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c\u201cPeople experiencing attention residue after switching tasks are likely to demonstrate poor performance on that next task,\u201d and the more intense the residue, the worse the performance.\u201d<\/p>\n
The formula also explains why Adam Grant produces at an elite level.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy working on a single hard task for a long time without switching, Grant minimizes the negative impact of attention residue from his other obligations, allowing him to maximize performance on this one task. When Grant is working for days in isolation on a paper, in other words, he\u2019s doing so at a higher level of effectiveness than the standard professor following a more distracted strategy in which the work is repeatedly interrupted by residue-slathering interruptions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chapter Two: Deep Work Is Rare<\/strong><\/h2>\nIn Deep Work, Cal Newport highlights three business trends that go against the deep work principles.<\/p>\n
These are:<\/p>\n
\n- \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 The open office concept that inspires collaboration<\/li>\n
- \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Also the rise of instant messaging that encourages rapid communication<\/li>\n
- \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 And the push for content producers of all types to maintain social media presence<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
These trends became more and more common and turned out to be the new normal. Cal Newport emphasizes a paradox because we\u2019ve just seen how valuable deep work is in our shifting economy. The reality in most companies however is completely different.<\/p>\n
Open offices, for example, might create more opportunities for collaboration,* but they do so at the cost of \u201cmassive distraction,\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cForcing content producers onto social media also has negative effects on the ability to go deep.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo summarize, big trends in business today actively decrease people\u2019s ability to perform deep work\u201d<\/p>\n
Being busy doesn\u2019t necessarily mean being productive<\/strong><\/h3>\nIf you push against the Eiffel Tower the whole day, you will be very busy but not productive at all. Most of the time, we assume that when someone is busy, it\u2019s that he\u2019s being productive. It\u2019s rarely the case.<\/p>\n
Tim Ferriss jokingly says \u201cIn fact, if you want to move up the ladder in most of corporate America, and assuming they don\u2019t really check what you are doing (let\u2019s be honest), just run around the office holding a cell phone to your head and carrying papers. Now, that is one busy employee! Give them a raise.\u201d<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s the problem. In some situations, for a researcher for example, the indicator of productivity is clear because it\u2019s calculated by the number of published papers. A content creator will be evaluated by the number of his posts; but in most corporate jobs, we don\u2019t have these metrics.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the absence of clear indicators of what it means to be productive and valuable in their jobs, many knowledge workers turn back toward an industrial indicator of productivity: doing lots of stuff in a visible manner.\u201d<\/p>\n
Deep work is undervalued<\/strong><\/h3>\n\u201cWe live in an era where anything Internet related is understood by default to be innovative and necessary. Depth-destroying behaviors such as immediate email responses and an active social media presence are lauded, while avoidance of these trends generates suspicion\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDeep work should be a priority in today\u2019s business climate. But it\u2019s not.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chapter Three – Deep Work Is Meaningful<\/strong><\/h2>\n\u201cA deep life is a good life, any way you look at it.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is a connection between deep work and a good life. In Deep work, Cal Newport shares Ric Furrer\u2019s story. Ric is a blacksmith and he specializes in ancient and medieval metalworking practices. If his work seems brutish, we can feel Ric Furrer\u2019s passion for what he\u2019s doing. Ric has found full meaning in his profession.<\/p>\n
\u201cRic Furrer is a master craftsman whose work requires him to spend most of his day in a state of depth\u2014even a small slip in concentration can ruin dozens of hours of effort. He\u2019s also someone who clearly finds great meaning in his profession.\u201d<\/p>\n
The author argues that by embracing depth over shallowness, you can tap the same veins of meaning that drive craftsmen like Ric Furrer.<\/p>\n
A Neurological argument for depth<\/strong><\/h3>\nAs our brain is a survival mechanism, it always focuses on the negative rather than the positive.<\/p>\n
As the author highlights \u201cWhen you lose focus, your mind tends to fix on what could be wrong with your life instead of what\u2019s right.\u201d A workday driven by the shallow, from a neurological perspective, is likely to be a draining and upsetting day, even if most of the shallow things that capture your attention seem harmless or fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo increase the time you spend in a state of depth is to leverage the complex machinery of the human brain in a way that for several different neurological reasons maximizes the meaning and satisfaction you\u2019ll associate with your working life.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Psychological Argument for Depth<\/strong><\/h3>\nThe feeling of going deep in itself is rewarding. The author describes a state where you\u2019re in the zone.\u00a0 Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, one of the world\u2019s best-known psychologists, calls this mental state flow.<\/p>\n
In their research, Mihaly discovered that \u201cThe best moments usually occur when a person\u2019s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.\u201d<\/p>\n
They also discovered that \u201cWhen measured empirically, people were happier at work and less happy relaxing than they suspected [\u2026] the more such flow experiences that occur in a given week, the higher the subject\u2019s life satisfaction. Human beings, it seems, are at their best when immersed deeply in something challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is then a great connection between deep work and flow because the first induces the second: \u201cDeep work is an activity well suited to generate a flow state\u201d.<\/p>\n
To put it simply, the more you practice deep work, the more likely you\u2019ll experience flow state and the happier and more satisfied of your life you\u2019ll become.<\/p>\n
All of the previous chapters argued how important deep work was. They answered the questions \u201cwhy?\u201d \u201cWhy is deep work important?\u201d. Now comes the best parts, \u201chow?\u201d , what are the rules, the practical methods and tips that will help you create a deep work environment?<\/p>\n
DEEP WORK BY CAL NEWPORT: PART 2: The Rules<\/strong><\/p>\nRule #1: Work Deeply<\/strong><\/h2>\nDecide on Your Depth Philosophy<\/strong><\/h3>\nThere are many different ways to integrate deep work into your schedule, and it\u2019s therefore worth taking the time to find an approach that makes sense for you.<\/p>\n
The Monastic Philosophy of Deep Work Scheduling<\/strong> \u201cwhich consists of maximizing deep efforts by eliminating or radically minimizing shallow obligations (some adepts of this philosophy would for example no longer have an email address). They completely eliminate distraction and shallowness from their professional lives.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Bimodal Philosophy of Deep Work Scheduling:<\/strong> \u201cThis philosophy asks that you divide your time; dedicating some clearly defined stretches to deep pursuits and leaving the rest open to everything else. During the deep time, the bimodal worker will act monastically\u2014seeking intense and uninterrupted concentration. During the shallow time, such focus is not prioritized.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Rhythmic Philosophy of Deep Work Scheduling<\/strong>: \u201cThis philosophy argues that the easiest way to consistently start deep work sessions is to transform them into a simple regular habit.\u201c<\/p>\nThe Journalistic Philosophy of Deep Work Scheduling: <\/strong>You switch into deep work any time you have free time.<\/p>\nConcretely, how can we create a work environment designed \u201cto help us extract as much value as possible from our brains?\u201c<\/p>\n
Ritualize<\/strong><\/h3>\n\u201cThe 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\u201d<\/p>\n
The goal here is to create a system that will encourage deep work. You\u2019ll need to create rituals and habits that will minimize the friction when you transition to deep work. Simply waiting for an inspiration rarely works and you won\u2019t produce at an elite level otherwise.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s better to define and stick to where you\u2019ll work and for how long, how\u2019ll you work once you start to work (for example cut the internet), and how you\u2019ll support your work (for example have light breakfast, setting a rewarding system to encourage the behavior etc.)<\/p>\n
\u00a0Make Grand Gestures<\/strong><\/h3>\n\u201cThe concept is simple: By leveraging a radical change to your normal environment, coupled perhaps with a significant investment of effort or money, all dedicated toward supporting a deep work task, you increase the perceived importance of the task. This boost in importance reduces your mind\u2019s instinct to procrastinate and delivers an injection of motivation and energy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Renting a coworking space for example is a grand gesture because you invest money in it. You also change your environment and this will motivate you to go into a deep work mode.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t Work Alone<\/strong><\/h3>\nWhile open space offices encourage creativity, they can also distract us from deep work. Collaboration is crucial as you\u2019ll benefit from these exchanges in terms of ideas, creativity and efficiency. But when it\u2019s time to go into deep work mode, it\u2019s better to find an appropriate space.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can, therefore, still dismiss the depth-destroying open office concept without dismissing the innovation-producing theory of serendipitous creativity. The key is to maintain both in a hub-and-spoke-style arrangement: Expose yourself to ideas in hubs on a regular basis, but maintain a spoke in which to work deeply on what you encounter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Execute Like a Business<\/strong><\/h3>\nOnce a company has defined a strategy, they often adopt what Cal Newport calls \u201cthe 4 disciplines of Execution\u201d abbreviated 4DX. Those are four disciplines that help companies successfully implement high-level strategies.<\/p>\n
While the successful people mentioned above all practiced deep work, what do we observe at the workplace? Most modern knowledge workers rarely go deep; they have fragmented attention and can\u2019t fully focus on the task at hand.<\/p>\n
Our culture shifts toward the shallow and most people practice what is opposed to deep work; shallow work.<\/p>\n
Shallow Work by definition relates to \u201cNon Cognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted. These efforts tend to not create much new value in the world and are easy to replicate.\u201d<\/p>\n
The example of Jason Benn<\/strong><\/h3>\nJason Benn left his job as a financial consultant to become a successful computer developer. The problem was that Jason didn\u2019t know how to write code. He didn\u2019t want to spend four years in college either as he didn\u2019t have time. The problem then arose: How to learn a hard skill and do it fast?<\/p>\n
\u201cLearning something complex like computer programming requires intense uninterrupted concentration on cognitively demanding concepts\u2014the type of concentration that drove Carl Jung to the woods surrounding Lake Zurich. This task, in other words, is an act of deep work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jason adopted drastic methods such as locking himself in a room with no computer, just textbooks, notecards and a highlighter.<\/p>\n
If it was hard for him at first to concentrate, he learned to focus overtime. He even regularly clocked five or more disconnected hours per day in the room, focused without distraction on learning how to program computers.<\/p>\n
He adopted this strategy for two months before enrolling at a Dev. Bootcamp where he would have a hundred-hour-a-week crash course in web application.<\/p>\n
Surprisingly, Benn excelled and ended up not only graduating on time, but also becoming the top student in his class.<\/p>\n
Hard and deep work earned him success because \u201cwhen Benn quit his job as a financial consultant, only half a year earlier, he was making $40,000 a year. His new job as a computer developer paid $100,000\u2014an amount that can continue to grow, essentially without limit in the Silicon Valley market, along with his skill level.\u201d<\/p>\n
Deep work<\/strong><\/h3>\nDeep work is a skill that has great value today. We live in an information economy which requires rapid skill acquisition and long-life learning. The job that existed yesterday might disappear tomorrow and a full department now can be automated with a simple program.<\/p>\n
The author therefore advances the deep work hypothesis: \u201cThe ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the core of their working life, will thrive.\u201d<\/p>\n
The goals of this book are twofold:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first, tackled in Part 1 is to convince you that the deep work hypothesis is true.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe second, tackled in Part 2, is to teach you how to take advantage of this reality by training your brain and transforming your work habits to place deep work at the core of your professional life.\u201d<\/p>\n
DEEP WORK BY CAL NEWPORT: PART 1: The Idea<\/strong><\/p>\nChapter One: Deep Work Is Valuable<\/strong><\/h2>\nIn Deep work, Cal Newport highlights a great restructuration of the world economy. Millions of people will lose their job because \u201c\u201cOur technologies are racing ahead but many of our skills and organizations are lagging behind.\u201d The rise of digital technology is transforming the labor markets in unexpected ways. Employers are becoming increasingly likely to hire new machines instead of \u201cnew people\u201d.<\/p>\n
In their book \u201cRace against the Machine\u201d, a pair of MIT economists, Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee emphasize that \u201cthis Great Restructuring is not driving down all jobs but is instead dividing them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThough an increasing number of people will lose in this new economy as their skill becomes automatable or easily outsourced, there are others who will not only survive, but thrive\u2014becoming more valued\u201d<\/p>\n
Three groups<\/strong><\/h3>\n\u201cThree specific groups will fall on the lucrative side of this divide and reap a disproportionate amount of the benefits of the Intelligent Machine Age\u201d: the high-skilled workers, the superstars and the owners.<\/p>\n
The high-skilled workers are the people who are good at working with intelligent machines.<\/p>\n
The superstars are the ones who became stars in their field. Think about people like Usain Bolt or Tiger Woods. Their performance slightly differs from their peers but they still earn all the attention and all the credits in their field, those are superstars.<\/p>\n
The owners are those with capital to invest in the new technologies that are driving the Great Restructuring. A venture capitalist for example funded Instagram who merely employed 13 people at the beginning but was sold for a billion dollars (and now evaluated at more than 50 billion dollars).<\/p>\n
The current economy thinking argues that \u201cthe unprecedented growth and impact of technology are creating a massive restructuring of our economy. In this new economy, three groups will have a particular advantage: those who can work well and creatively with intelligent machines, those who are the best at what they do, and those with access to capital.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 3 groups mentioned above cannot solely explain the entire economic trend. Indeed, other groups exist. The point here is that by joining any of these groups, we can do well. It\u2019s possible to join another group but our position will be more precarious in the long run.<\/p>\n
An important question<\/strong><\/h3>\nIn Deep work, Cal Newport then asks a fundamental question: \u201cHow does one join these winners?\u201d He admits that most of us are unlikely to quickly amass capital overnight. What we can do however is to get access to the two others groups: those who can work well with intelligent machines and those who are the best at what they do.<\/p>\n
How to Become a Winner in the New Economy<\/strong><\/h3>\nTo answer that important question \u201chow does one join these winners\u201d, Cal Newport highlights two crucial core abilities for thriving in the new economy:<\/p>\n
\n- The ability to quickly master hard things.<\/li>\n
- The ability to produce at an elite level, in terms of both quality and speed.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
So now, what\u2019s the link between the book \u201cDeep work\u201d and these two core abilities you might ask? The author argues that the two core abilities depend on your ability to perform deep work.<\/p>\n
If you want to cultivate these core abilities, you must first master deep work, a foundational skill which will help you learn hard things or produce at an elite level.<\/p>\n
On one hand, technologies change rapidly and the process of mastering hard things never ends. We must be able to do it quickly, again and again.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, \u201cif you want to become a superstar, mastering the relevant skills is necessary, but not sufficient. You must then transform that latent potential into tangible results that people value [\u2026] if you don\u2019t produce, you won\u2019t thrive\u2014no matter how skilled or talented you are\u201d.<\/p>\n
Deep work helps you quickly learn hard things<\/strong><\/h3>\nTo acquire a new skill, Cal Newport coined the expression \u201cdeliberate practice\u201d.<\/p>\n
In the book \u201cTalent Code\u201d, deliberate practice can be defined as a process in which we work on a technique, seek constant critical feedback and focus ruthlessly on shoring up weaknesses.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat deliberate practice actually requires. Its core components are usually identified as follows: (1) your attention is focused tightly on a specific skill you\u2019re trying to improve or an idea you\u2019re trying to master; (2) you receive feedback so you can correct your approach to keep your attention exactly where it\u2019s most productive.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDeliberate practice cannot exist alongside distraction, and it instead requires uninterrupted concentration.\u201d<\/p>\n
A scientific explanation<\/strong><\/h3>\nWe then might ask, \u201cWhy does deliberate practice work?\u201d<\/p>\n
Acquiring a new skill involves a deeper reality, a neurological process. In his book \u201cThe talent code\u201d Daniel Coyle claims that \u201cEvery human skill, whether it’s playing baseball or playing Bach, is created by chains of nerve fibers carrying a tiny electrical impulse\u2014basically, a signal traveling through a circuit. \u201cMyelin’s vital role is to wrap those nerve fibers the same way that rubber insulation wraps a copper wire, making the signal stronger and faster by preventing the electrical impulses from leaking out.\u201d Neurologists call it \u201cthe holy grail of acquiring skill\u201d.<\/p>\n
As we develop a new skill, an accurate practice gets the myelin thicker. The thicker the myelin, the better it insulates.<\/p>\n
To make it simple, look at it this way: A person with a thicker myelin would have her firing speed like a 5G network at 500GO\/s while a beginner will have it only at 128kbps. You would understand that there\u2019s no latency but rather accurate and precise control from the professionals.<\/p>\n
An expert in any field has practiced long enough, deep enough and deliberately enough to have their myelin thicker. This results in faster, stronger and more accurate movements from their parts. For example, Serena Williams or Kobe Bryant has thicker myelin that accurately controls their movements. On the contrary, a beginner has a sluggish and approximate movement because he\u2019s got his myelin thinner.<\/p>\n
This highlights why it takes time to build a skill. It is a natural process because the myelin isn\u2019t grown overnight and it requires constant practices.<\/p>\n
Once the myelin \u201cwraps, it doesn\u2019t unwrap\u201d. Once we learn how to read Chinese characters, it is unlikely that we lose it, just when we learn to ride a bicycle.<\/p>\n
The more we put time and energy in a specific activity, the more myelin we earn which in return gets us more skilled. And the more deliberate practice we need, the more relevant deep work will be.<\/p>\n
In Deep work, Cal Newport underlines \u201cThis new science of performance argues that you get better at a skill as you develop more myelin around the relevant neurons, allowing the corresponding circuit to fire more effortlessly and effectively. To be great at something is to be well myelinated.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo learn hard things quickly, you must focus intensely without distraction. To learn, in other words, is an act of deep work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read my article “Develop a skill: how to be extremely good at something<\/a>“<\/strong><\/p>\nDeep Work Helps You Produce at an Elite Level<\/strong><\/h3>\nIn Deep work, Cal Newport talks about Adam Grant<\/strong><\/a>, well known for his bestseller book \u201cGive and take\u201d was also the youngest professor to be awarded tenure at the Wharton School of Business at Penn in 2013. He\u2019s also the youngest full professor at Wharton. Adam Grant produces at an elite level. As Cal Newport<\/a><\/strong> explains; in 2012 he published seven articles, in 2013 he published Give and Take while publishing other five excellent articles in major journals.<\/p>\nIf there\u2019s one secret to his productivity, it would be \u201cthe batching of hard but important intellectual work into long, uninterrupted stretches.\u201d He\u2019s been doing that on multiple levels. For example, he stacks his teaching into the fall semester so that Grant \u201ccan turn his attention fully to research in the spring and summer, and tackle this work with less distraction.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGrant also batches his attention on a smaller time scale. Within a semester dedicated to research, he alternates between periods where his door is open to students and colleagues, and periods where he isolates himself to focus completely and without distraction on a single research task.\u201d<\/p>\n
Attention residue<\/strong><\/h4>\nIn Eat that Frog<\/strong><\/a>, Brian Tracy shares the main problem with interruption. A simple internet disruption takes about seventeen minutes for us to shift our total attention back to our task.<\/p>\nIn Deep work, Cal Newport calls it attention residue and he emphasizes \u201cWhen you switch from some Task A to another Task B, your attention doesn\u2019t immediately follow\u2014a residue of your attention remains stuck thinking about the original task\u201d<\/p>\n
We then come to this formula for high quality work:<\/p>\n
High-Quality Work Produced = (Time Spent) x (Intensity of Focus)<\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cTo produce at your peak level you need to work for extended periods with full concentration on a single task free from distraction. Put another way, the type of work that optimizes your performance is deep work.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c\u201cPeople experiencing attention residue after switching tasks are likely to demonstrate poor performance on that next task,\u201d and the more intense the residue, the worse the performance.\u201d<\/p>\n
The formula also explains why Adam Grant produces at an elite level.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy working on a single hard task for a long time without switching, Grant minimizes the negative impact of attention residue from his other obligations, allowing him to maximize performance on this one task. When Grant is working for days in isolation on a paper, in other words, he\u2019s doing so at a higher level of effectiveness than the standard professor following a more distracted strategy in which the work is repeatedly interrupted by residue-slathering interruptions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chapter Two: Deep Work Is Rare<\/strong><\/h2>\nIn Deep Work, Cal Newport highlights three business trends that go against the deep work principles.<\/p>\n
These are:<\/p>\n
\n- \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 The open office concept that inspires collaboration<\/li>\n
- \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Also the rise of instant messaging that encourages rapid communication<\/li>\n
- \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 And the push for content producers of all types to maintain social media presence<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
These trends became more and more common and turned out to be the new normal. Cal Newport emphasizes a paradox because we\u2019ve just seen how valuable deep work is in our shifting economy. The reality in most companies however is completely different.<\/p>\n
Open offices, for example, might create more opportunities for collaboration,* but they do so at the cost of \u201cmassive distraction,\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cForcing content producers onto social media also has negative effects on the ability to go deep.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo summarize, big trends in business today actively decrease people\u2019s ability to perform deep work\u201d<\/p>\n
Being busy doesn\u2019t necessarily mean being productive<\/strong><\/h3>\nIf you push against the Eiffel Tower the whole day, you will be very busy but not productive at all. Most of the time, we assume that when someone is busy, it\u2019s that he\u2019s being productive. It\u2019s rarely the case.<\/p>\n
Tim Ferriss jokingly says \u201cIn fact, if you want to move up the ladder in most of corporate America, and assuming they don\u2019t really check what you are doing (let\u2019s be honest), just run around the office holding a cell phone to your head and carrying papers. Now, that is one busy employee! Give them a raise.\u201d<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s the problem. In some situations, for a researcher for example, the indicator of productivity is clear because it\u2019s calculated by the number of published papers. A content creator will be evaluated by the number of his posts; but in most corporate jobs, we don\u2019t have these metrics.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the absence of clear indicators of what it means to be productive and valuable in their jobs, many knowledge workers turn back toward an industrial indicator of productivity: doing lots of stuff in a visible manner.\u201d<\/p>\n
Deep work is undervalued<\/strong><\/h3>\n\u201cWe live in an era where anything Internet related is understood by default to be innovative and necessary. Depth-destroying behaviors such as immediate email responses and an active social media presence are lauded, while avoidance of these trends generates suspicion\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDeep work should be a priority in today\u2019s business climate. But it\u2019s not.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chapter Three – Deep Work Is Meaningful<\/strong><\/h2>\n\u201cA deep life is a good life, any way you look at it.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is a connection between deep work and a good life. In Deep work, Cal Newport shares Ric Furrer\u2019s story. Ric is a blacksmith and he specializes in ancient and medieval metalworking practices. If his work seems brutish, we can feel Ric Furrer\u2019s passion for what he\u2019s doing. Ric has found full meaning in his profession.<\/p>\n
\u201cRic Furrer is a master craftsman whose work requires him to spend most of his day in a state of depth\u2014even a small slip in concentration can ruin dozens of hours of effort. He\u2019s also someone who clearly finds great meaning in his profession.\u201d<\/p>\n
The author argues that by embracing depth over shallowness, you can tap the same veins of meaning that drive craftsmen like Ric Furrer.<\/p>\n
A Neurological argument for depth<\/strong><\/h3>\nAs our brain is a survival mechanism, it always focuses on the negative rather than the positive.<\/p>\n
As the author highlights \u201cWhen you lose focus, your mind tends to fix on what could be wrong with your life instead of what\u2019s right.\u201d A workday driven by the shallow, from a neurological perspective, is likely to be a draining and upsetting day, even if most of the shallow things that capture your attention seem harmless or fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo increase the time you spend in a state of depth is to leverage the complex machinery of the human brain in a way that for several different neurological reasons maximizes the meaning and satisfaction you\u2019ll associate with your working life.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Psychological Argument for Depth<\/strong><\/h3>\nThe feeling of going deep in itself is rewarding. The author describes a state where you\u2019re in the zone.\u00a0 Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, one of the world\u2019s best-known psychologists, calls this mental state flow.<\/p>\n
In their research, Mihaly discovered that \u201cThe best moments usually occur when a person\u2019s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.\u201d<\/p>\n
They also discovered that \u201cWhen measured empirically, people were happier at work and less happy relaxing than they suspected [\u2026] the more such flow experiences that occur in a given week, the higher the subject\u2019s life satisfaction. Human beings, it seems, are at their best when immersed deeply in something challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is then a great connection between deep work and flow because the first induces the second: \u201cDeep work is an activity well suited to generate a flow state\u201d.<\/p>\n
To put it simply, the more you practice deep work, the more likely you\u2019ll experience flow state and the happier and more satisfied of your life you\u2019ll become.<\/p>\n
All of the previous chapters argued how important deep work was. They answered the questions \u201cwhy?\u201d \u201cWhy is deep work important?\u201d. Now comes the best parts, \u201chow?\u201d , what are the rules, the practical methods and tips that will help you create a deep work environment?<\/p>\n
DEEP WORK BY CAL NEWPORT: PART 2: The Rules<\/strong><\/p>\nRule #1: Work Deeply<\/strong><\/h2>\nDecide on Your Depth Philosophy<\/strong><\/h3>\nThere are many different ways to integrate deep work into your schedule, and it\u2019s therefore worth taking the time to find an approach that makes sense for you.<\/p>\n
The Monastic Philosophy of Deep Work Scheduling<\/strong> \u201cwhich consists of maximizing deep efforts by eliminating or radically minimizing shallow obligations (some adepts of this philosophy would for example no longer have an email address). They completely eliminate distraction and shallowness from their professional lives.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Bimodal Philosophy of Deep Work Scheduling:<\/strong> \u201cThis philosophy asks that you divide your time; dedicating some clearly defined stretches to deep pursuits and leaving the rest open to everything else. During the deep time, the bimodal worker will act monastically\u2014seeking intense and uninterrupted concentration. During the shallow time, such focus is not prioritized.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Rhythmic Philosophy of Deep Work Scheduling<\/strong>: \u201cThis philosophy argues that the easiest way to consistently start deep work sessions is to transform them into a simple regular habit.\u201c<\/p>\nThe Journalistic Philosophy of Deep Work Scheduling: <\/strong>You switch into deep work any time you have free time.<\/p>\nConcretely, how can we create a work environment designed \u201cto help us extract as much value as possible from our brains?\u201c<\/p>\n
Ritualize<\/strong><\/h3>\n\u201cThe 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\u201d<\/p>\n
The goal here is to create a system that will encourage deep work. You\u2019ll need to create rituals and habits that will minimize the friction when you transition to deep work. Simply waiting for an inspiration rarely works and you won\u2019t produce at an elite level otherwise.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s better to define and stick to where you\u2019ll work and for how long, how\u2019ll you work once you start to work (for example cut the internet), and how you\u2019ll support your work (for example have light breakfast, setting a rewarding system to encourage the behavior etc.)<\/p>\n
\u00a0Make Grand Gestures<\/strong><\/h3>\n\u201cThe concept is simple: By leveraging a radical change to your normal environment, coupled perhaps with a significant investment of effort or money, all dedicated toward supporting a deep work task, you increase the perceived importance of the task. This boost in importance reduces your mind\u2019s instinct to procrastinate and delivers an injection of motivation and energy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Renting a coworking space for example is a grand gesture because you invest money in it. You also change your environment and this will motivate you to go into a deep work mode.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t Work Alone<\/strong><\/h3>\nWhile open space offices encourage creativity, they can also distract us from deep work. Collaboration is crucial as you\u2019ll benefit from these exchanges in terms of ideas, creativity and efficiency. But when it\u2019s time to go into deep work mode, it\u2019s better to find an appropriate space.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can, therefore, still dismiss the depth-destroying open office concept without dismissing the innovation-producing theory of serendipitous creativity. The key is to maintain both in a hub-and-spoke-style arrangement: Expose yourself to ideas in hubs on a regular basis, but maintain a spoke in which to work deeply on what you encounter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Execute Like a Business<\/strong><\/h3>\nOnce a company has defined a strategy, they often adopt what Cal Newport calls \u201cthe 4 disciplines of Execution\u201d abbreviated 4DX. Those are four disciplines that help companies successfully implement high-level strategies.<\/p>\n
Deep work is a skill that has great value today. We live in an information economy which requires rapid skill acquisition and long-life learning. The job that existed yesterday might disappear tomorrow and a full department now can be automated with a simple program.<\/p>\n
The author therefore advances the deep work hypothesis: \u201cThe ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the core of their working life, will thrive.\u201d<\/p>\n
The goals of this book are twofold:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first, tackled in Part 1 is to convince you that the deep work hypothesis is true.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe second, tackled in Part 2, is to teach you how to take advantage of this reality by training your brain and transforming your work habits to place deep work at the core of your professional life.\u201d<\/p>\n
DEEP WORK BY CAL NEWPORT: PART 1: The Idea<\/strong><\/p>\n In Deep work, Cal Newport highlights a great restructuration of the world economy. Millions of people will lose their job because \u201c\u201cOur technologies are racing ahead but many of our skills and organizations are lagging behind.\u201d The rise of digital technology is transforming the labor markets in unexpected ways. Employers are becoming increasingly likely to hire new machines instead of \u201cnew people\u201d.<\/p>\n In their book \u201cRace against the Machine\u201d, a pair of MIT economists, Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee emphasize that \u201cthis Great Restructuring is not driving down all jobs but is instead dividing them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThough an increasing number of people will lose in this new economy as their skill becomes automatable or easily outsourced, there are others who will not only survive, but thrive\u2014becoming more valued\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThree specific groups will fall on the lucrative side of this divide and reap a disproportionate amount of the benefits of the Intelligent Machine Age\u201d: the high-skilled workers, the superstars and the owners.<\/p>\n The high-skilled workers are the people who are good at working with intelligent machines.<\/p>\n The superstars are the ones who became stars in their field. Think about people like Usain Bolt or Tiger Woods. Their performance slightly differs from their peers but they still earn all the attention and all the credits in their field, those are superstars.<\/p>\n The owners are those with capital to invest in the new technologies that are driving the Great Restructuring. A venture capitalist for example funded Instagram who merely employed 13 people at the beginning but was sold for a billion dollars (and now evaluated at more than 50 billion dollars).<\/p>\n The current economy thinking argues that \u201cthe unprecedented growth and impact of technology are creating a massive restructuring of our economy. In this new economy, three groups will have a particular advantage: those who can work well and creatively with intelligent machines, those who are the best at what they do, and those with access to capital.\u201d<\/p>\n The 3 groups mentioned above cannot solely explain the entire economic trend. Indeed, other groups exist. The point here is that by joining any of these groups, we can do well. It\u2019s possible to join another group but our position will be more precarious in the long run.<\/p>\n In Deep work, Cal Newport then asks a fundamental question: \u201cHow does one join these winners?\u201d He admits that most of us are unlikely to quickly amass capital overnight. What we can do however is to get access to the two others groups: those who can work well with intelligent machines and those who are the best at what they do.<\/p>\n To answer that important question \u201chow does one join these winners\u201d, Cal Newport highlights two crucial core abilities for thriving in the new economy:<\/p>\n So now, what\u2019s the link between the book \u201cDeep work\u201d and these two core abilities you might ask? The author argues that the two core abilities depend on your ability to perform deep work.<\/p>\n If you want to cultivate these core abilities, you must first master deep work, a foundational skill which will help you learn hard things or produce at an elite level.<\/p>\n On one hand, technologies change rapidly and the process of mastering hard things never ends. We must be able to do it quickly, again and again.<\/p>\n On the other hand, \u201cif you want to become a superstar, mastering the relevant skills is necessary, but not sufficient. You must then transform that latent potential into tangible results that people value [\u2026] if you don\u2019t produce, you won\u2019t thrive\u2014no matter how skilled or talented you are\u201d.<\/p>\n To acquire a new skill, Cal Newport coined the expression \u201cdeliberate practice\u201d.<\/p>\n In the book \u201cTalent Code\u201d, deliberate practice can be defined as a process in which we work on a technique, seek constant critical feedback and focus ruthlessly on shoring up weaknesses.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat deliberate practice actually requires. Its core components are usually identified as follows: (1) your attention is focused tightly on a specific skill you\u2019re trying to improve or an idea you\u2019re trying to master; (2) you receive feedback so you can correct your approach to keep your attention exactly where it\u2019s most productive.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDeliberate practice cannot exist alongside distraction, and it instead requires uninterrupted concentration.\u201d<\/p>\n We then might ask, \u201cWhy does deliberate practice work?\u201d<\/p>\n Acquiring a new skill involves a deeper reality, a neurological process. In his book \u201cThe talent code\u201d Daniel Coyle claims that \u201cEvery human skill, whether it’s playing baseball or playing Bach, is created by chains of nerve fibers carrying a tiny electrical impulse\u2014basically, a signal traveling through a circuit. \u201cMyelin’s vital role is to wrap those nerve fibers the same way that rubber insulation wraps a copper wire, making the signal stronger and faster by preventing the electrical impulses from leaking out.\u201d Neurologists call it \u201cthe holy grail of acquiring skill\u201d.<\/p>\n As we develop a new skill, an accurate practice gets the myelin thicker. The thicker the myelin, the better it insulates.<\/p>\n To make it simple, look at it this way: A person with a thicker myelin would have her firing speed like a 5G network at 500GO\/s while a beginner will have it only at 128kbps. You would understand that there\u2019s no latency but rather accurate and precise control from the professionals.<\/p>\n An expert in any field has practiced long enough, deep enough and deliberately enough to have their myelin thicker. This results in faster, stronger and more accurate movements from their parts. For example, Serena Williams or Kobe Bryant has thicker myelin that accurately controls their movements. On the contrary, a beginner has a sluggish and approximate movement because he\u2019s got his myelin thinner.<\/p>\n This highlights why it takes time to build a skill. It is a natural process because the myelin isn\u2019t grown overnight and it requires constant practices.<\/p>\n Once the myelin \u201cwraps, it doesn\u2019t unwrap\u201d. Once we learn how to read Chinese characters, it is unlikely that we lose it, just when we learn to ride a bicycle.<\/p>\n The more we put time and energy in a specific activity, the more myelin we earn which in return gets us more skilled. And the more deliberate practice we need, the more relevant deep work will be.<\/p>\n In Deep work, Cal Newport underlines \u201cThis new science of performance argues that you get better at a skill as you develop more myelin around the relevant neurons, allowing the corresponding circuit to fire more effortlessly and effectively. To be great at something is to be well myelinated.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTo learn hard things quickly, you must focus intensely without distraction. To learn, in other words, is an act of deep work.\u201d<\/p>\n Read my article “Develop a skill: how to be extremely good at something<\/a>“<\/strong><\/p>\n In Deep work, Cal Newport talks about Adam Grant<\/strong><\/a>, well known for his bestseller book \u201cGive and take\u201d was also the youngest professor to be awarded tenure at the Wharton School of Business at Penn in 2013. He\u2019s also the youngest full professor at Wharton. Adam Grant produces at an elite level. As Cal Newport<\/a><\/strong> explains; in 2012 he published seven articles, in 2013 he published Give and Take while publishing other five excellent articles in major journals.<\/p>\n If there\u2019s one secret to his productivity, it would be \u201cthe batching of hard but important intellectual work into long, uninterrupted stretches.\u201d He\u2019s been doing that on multiple levels. For example, he stacks his teaching into the fall semester so that Grant \u201ccan turn his attention fully to research in the spring and summer, and tackle this work with less distraction.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGrant also batches his attention on a smaller time scale. Within a semester dedicated to research, he alternates between periods where his door is open to students and colleagues, and periods where he isolates himself to focus completely and without distraction on a single research task.\u201d<\/p>\n In Eat that Frog<\/strong><\/a>, Brian Tracy shares the main problem with interruption. A simple internet disruption takes about seventeen minutes for us to shift our total attention back to our task.<\/p>\n In Deep work, Cal Newport calls it attention residue and he emphasizes \u201cWhen you switch from some Task A to another Task B, your attention doesn\u2019t immediately follow\u2014a residue of your attention remains stuck thinking about the original task\u201d<\/p>\n We then come to this formula for high quality work:<\/p>\n High-Quality Work Produced = (Time Spent) x (Intensity of Focus)<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cTo produce at your peak level you need to work for extended periods with full concentration on a single task free from distraction. Put another way, the type of work that optimizes your performance is deep work.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c\u201cPeople experiencing attention residue after switching tasks are likely to demonstrate poor performance on that next task,\u201d and the more intense the residue, the worse the performance.\u201d<\/p>\n The formula also explains why Adam Grant produces at an elite level.<\/p>\n \u201cBy working on a single hard task for a long time without switching, Grant minimizes the negative impact of attention residue from his other obligations, allowing him to maximize performance on this one task. When Grant is working for days in isolation on a paper, in other words, he\u2019s doing so at a higher level of effectiveness than the standard professor following a more distracted strategy in which the work is repeatedly interrupted by residue-slathering interruptions.\u201d<\/p>\n In Deep Work, Cal Newport highlights three business trends that go against the deep work principles.<\/p>\n These are:<\/p>\n These trends became more and more common and turned out to be the new normal. Cal Newport emphasizes a paradox because we\u2019ve just seen how valuable deep work is in our shifting economy. The reality in most companies however is completely different.<\/p>\n Open offices, for example, might create more opportunities for collaboration,* but they do so at the cost of \u201cmassive distraction,\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cForcing content producers onto social media also has negative effects on the ability to go deep.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTo summarize, big trends in business today actively decrease people\u2019s ability to perform deep work\u201d<\/p>\n If you push against the Eiffel Tower the whole day, you will be very busy but not productive at all. Most of the time, we assume that when someone is busy, it\u2019s that he\u2019s being productive. It\u2019s rarely the case.<\/p>\n Tim Ferriss jokingly says \u201cIn fact, if you want to move up the ladder in most of corporate America, and assuming they don\u2019t really check what you are doing (let\u2019s be honest), just run around the office holding a cell phone to your head and carrying papers. Now, that is one busy employee! Give them a raise.\u201d<\/p>\n And that\u2019s the problem. In some situations, for a researcher for example, the indicator of productivity is clear because it\u2019s calculated by the number of published papers. A content creator will be evaluated by the number of his posts; but in most corporate jobs, we don\u2019t have these metrics.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the absence of clear indicators of what it means to be productive and valuable in their jobs, many knowledge workers turn back toward an industrial indicator of productivity: doing lots of stuff in a visible manner.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe live in an era where anything Internet related is understood by default to be innovative and necessary. Depth-destroying behaviors such as immediate email responses and an active social media presence are lauded, while avoidance of these trends generates suspicion\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDeep work should be a priority in today\u2019s business climate. But it\u2019s not.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA deep life is a good life, any way you look at it.\u201d<\/p>\n There is a connection between deep work and a good life. In Deep work, Cal Newport shares Ric Furrer\u2019s story. Ric is a blacksmith and he specializes in ancient and medieval metalworking practices. If his work seems brutish, we can feel Ric Furrer\u2019s passion for what he\u2019s doing. Ric has found full meaning in his profession.<\/p>\n \u201cRic Furrer is a master craftsman whose work requires him to spend most of his day in a state of depth\u2014even a small slip in concentration can ruin dozens of hours of effort. He\u2019s also someone who clearly finds great meaning in his profession.\u201d<\/p>\n The author argues that by embracing depth over shallowness, you can tap the same veins of meaning that drive craftsmen like Ric Furrer.<\/p>\n As our brain is a survival mechanism, it always focuses on the negative rather than the positive.<\/p>\n As the author highlights \u201cWhen you lose focus, your mind tends to fix on what could be wrong with your life instead of what\u2019s right.\u201d A workday driven by the shallow, from a neurological perspective, is likely to be a draining and upsetting day, even if most of the shallow things that capture your attention seem harmless or fun.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTo increase the time you spend in a state of depth is to leverage the complex machinery of the human brain in a way that for several different neurological reasons maximizes the meaning and satisfaction you\u2019ll associate with your working life.\u201d<\/p>\n The feeling of going deep in itself is rewarding. The author describes a state where you\u2019re in the zone.\u00a0 Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, one of the world\u2019s best-known psychologists, calls this mental state flow.<\/p>\n In their research, Mihaly discovered that \u201cThe best moments usually occur when a person\u2019s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.\u201d<\/p>\n They also discovered that \u201cWhen measured empirically, people were happier at work and less happy relaxing than they suspected [\u2026] the more such flow experiences that occur in a given week, the higher the subject\u2019s life satisfaction. Human beings, it seems, are at their best when immersed deeply in something challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n There is then a great connection between deep work and flow because the first induces the second: \u201cDeep work is an activity well suited to generate a flow state\u201d.<\/p>\n To put it simply, the more you practice deep work, the more likely you\u2019ll experience flow state and the happier and more satisfied of your life you\u2019ll become.<\/p>\n All of the previous chapters argued how important deep work was. They answered the questions \u201cwhy?\u201d \u201cWhy is deep work important?\u201d. Now comes the best parts, \u201chow?\u201d , what are the rules, the practical methods and tips that will help you create a deep work environment?<\/p>\n DEEP WORK BY CAL NEWPORT: PART 2: The Rules<\/strong><\/p>\n There are many different ways to integrate deep work into your schedule, and it\u2019s therefore worth taking the time to find an approach that makes sense for you.<\/p>\n The Monastic Philosophy of Deep Work Scheduling<\/strong> \u201cwhich consists of maximizing deep efforts by eliminating or radically minimizing shallow obligations (some adepts of this philosophy would for example no longer have an email address). They completely eliminate distraction and shallowness from their professional lives.\u201d<\/p>\n The Bimodal Philosophy of Deep Work Scheduling:<\/strong> \u201cThis philosophy asks that you divide your time; dedicating some clearly defined stretches to deep pursuits and leaving the rest open to everything else. During the deep time, the bimodal worker will act monastically\u2014seeking intense and uninterrupted concentration. During the shallow time, such focus is not prioritized.\u201d<\/p>\n The Rhythmic Philosophy of Deep Work Scheduling<\/strong>: \u201cThis philosophy argues that the easiest way to consistently start deep work sessions is to transform them into a simple regular habit.\u201c<\/p>\n The Journalistic Philosophy of Deep Work Scheduling: <\/strong>You switch into deep work any time you have free time.<\/p>\n Concretely, how can we create a work environment designed \u201cto help us extract as much value as possible from our brains?\u201c<\/p>\n \u201cThe 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\u201d<\/p>\n The goal here is to create a system that will encourage deep work. You\u2019ll need to create rituals and habits that will minimize the friction when you transition to deep work. Simply waiting for an inspiration rarely works and you won\u2019t produce at an elite level otherwise.<\/p>\n It\u2019s better to define and stick to where you\u2019ll work and for how long, how\u2019ll you work once you start to work (for example cut the internet), and how you\u2019ll support your work (for example have light breakfast, setting a rewarding system to encourage the behavior etc.)<\/p>\n \u201cThe concept is simple: By leveraging a radical change to your normal environment, coupled perhaps with a significant investment of effort or money, all dedicated toward supporting a deep work task, you increase the perceived importance of the task. This boost in importance reduces your mind\u2019s instinct to procrastinate and delivers an injection of motivation and energy.\u201d<\/p>\n Renting a coworking space for example is a grand gesture because you invest money in it. You also change your environment and this will motivate you to go into a deep work mode.<\/p>\n While open space offices encourage creativity, they can also distract us from deep work. Collaboration is crucial as you\u2019ll benefit from these exchanges in terms of ideas, creativity and efficiency. But when it\u2019s time to go into deep work mode, it\u2019s better to find an appropriate space.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can, therefore, still dismiss the depth-destroying open office concept without dismissing the innovation-producing theory of serendipitous creativity. The key is to maintain both in a hub-and-spoke-style arrangement: Expose yourself to ideas in hubs on a regular basis, but maintain a spoke in which to work deeply on what you encounter.\u201d<\/p>\n Once a company has defined a strategy, they often adopt what Cal Newport calls \u201cthe 4 disciplines of Execution\u201d abbreviated 4DX. Those are four disciplines that help companies successfully implement high-level strategies.<\/p>\nChapter One: Deep Work Is Valuable<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Three groups<\/strong><\/h3>\n
An important question<\/strong><\/h3>\n
How to Become a Winner in the New Economy<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Deep work helps you quickly learn hard things<\/strong><\/h3>\n
A scientific explanation<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Deep Work Helps You Produce at an Elite Level<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Attention residue<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Chapter Two: Deep Work Is Rare<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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Being busy doesn\u2019t necessarily mean being productive<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Deep work is undervalued<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Chapter Three – Deep Work Is Meaningful<\/strong><\/h2>\n
A Neurological argument for depth<\/strong><\/h3>\n
A Psychological Argument for Depth<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Rule #1: Work Deeply<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Decide on Your Depth Philosophy<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Ritualize<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\u00a0Make Grand Gestures<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Don\u2019t Work Alone<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Execute Like a Business<\/strong><\/h3>\n