Deep Work

Cal Newport

📚 GENRE: Personal Development

📃 PAGES: 304

✅ COMPLETED: August 5, 2024

🧐 RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Short Summary

Working with a high level of intensity and focus is a skill that has become increasingly rare in today’s distracted society. In Deep Work, Cal Newport delivers practical advice on overcoming distractions and working with complete concentration. 

Key Takeaways

1️⃣ Go Deep — Deep work is high-value, cognitively-demanding work that requires full concentration and focus. It’s the kind of work that delivers the highest return on investment of time and can lead to significant personal and professional breakthroughs. Deep work is a prerequisite for learning and elite productivity. Most studies indicate we have the capacity for roughly four hours of deep work per day. It’s important to be strategic with your schedule and organize it in a way that allows you to spend as much time as possible working on deep work projects, because these are the projects that will bring you the most success. Shallow work (e.g. email, meetings, moving projects around, etc.) is low-value work that keeps you busy but doesn’t accomplish a lot in the grand scheme of things. 

2️⃣ Schedule “Distraction Blocks” — Distractions like social media and texting are the No. 1 killer of deep work. It’s not necessarily the object of the distraction (e.g. the social media app or the texting conversation) that causes the problem; rather, it’s the constant switching back and forth between your work and the distracting activity that is so destructive. The flipping back and forth causes constant breaks in concentration and focus, and deep work requires full focus. One of the ways you can prevent distractions from ruining your deep work sessions is to schedule throughout your day “distraction blocks,” windows of 15-30 minutes where you allow yourself to engage in whatever is pulling at you. These sessions will encourage you to resist distractions until you get into your next distraction block, at which point you can go to town. 

3️⃣ Set Challenging Deadlines — One of the best ways to push yourself and work with a high level of intensity is to set challenging self-imposed deadlines. These deadlines should be far more difficult to hit than whatever deadline was given to you. When you set a tough artificial deadline, you force yourself to focus and concentrate. Distractions become a non-issue, because you simply don’t have time for them. Your overall productivity will skyrocket, and you’ll get things done much faster. 

Favorite Quote

“To produce at your peak level you need to work for extended periods with full concentration on a single task free from distraction.”

Book Notes 📑

Introduction

  • About the Author — Cal Newport is an author and professor of computer science at Georgetown University. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth and a master’s degree and PhD from MIT. 
  • About the Book — This book is about what the author calls “deep work,” which is essentially a way to describe work that is focused and concentrated, free of distractions. The author argues that this kind of work is becoming increasingly rare in a world where technology causes constant interruptions. The book offers practical advice on getting into, and maintaining, the deep work flow state. 
  • What Is Deep Work? — The exact definition of deep work, as the author describes it, is: “Professional 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.” When your attention is constantly interrupted, it becomes very difficult to get into a deep work state. The problem is that today’s technology has opened the floodgates to hundreds and hundreds of distractions. Many of us are overwhelmed by the allure of these distractions and spend most of our time engaging in non-productive activities like scrolling through Twitter, liking photos on Instagram, watching Netflix, and more. 
  • The Value of Deep Work — Because it is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid distractions, the skill of getting into a deep work state has become hard to find. People are just constantly distracted and can’t focus for more than a few minutes at a time. The fact that deep work is rare in today’s labor market opens up a lot of opportunity for those who know how to do it. There are two primary reasons why deep work is such a valuable skill today:
    • Learning — You have to be able to get into a deep work state of you want to learn anything. If you’re somebody who is able to sit down and focus for long periods of time, you’re going to learn a lot more, a lot faster, than everybody else. You’ll be able to develop new skills while everybody else remains stagnant. 
    • Productivity — People who can consistently get into a deep work state run laps around everyone else. They get much more accomplished. They maximize their days. Over long stretches of time, that little bit of extra productivity adds up. The overall quality of work produced by somebody working in a deep work state is also much higher than somebody who is constantly distracted. 
    • Quote (P. 15): “The 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.”
  • Chapter Takeaway — Deep work is the process of getting into a flow state, free of distractions. In today’s economy, there are only a small percentage of people who can get into this type of deep work state. As a result, these people tend to make for more productive, more valuable employees. 

Ch. 1: Deep Work Is Valuable

  • Why Deep Work Matters: Learning & Productivity — Building on the previous chapter, deep work is critical when (i) learning new things and (ii) producing as much output as possible. If you can’t work without being distracted and losing focus every few seconds or minutes, you are not going to be as effective as you could be. Training yourself to sit down and focus on your work without distraction is a skill.
    • Quote (P. 37): “To learn hard things quickly, you must focus intensely without distraction. To learn, in other words, is an act of deep work.”
  • Learning: Deliberate Practice — As other books have also discussed, the best kind of practice is deliberate practice. Deliberate practice involves practicing with purpose, rather than simply going through the motions and mindlessly repeating the same drills over and over. Deliberate practice involves setting specific targets, receiving feedback on performance, and making changes based on the results. It’s about coming into every practice session and working on certain weak areas that you want to improve. If you’re trying to learn Spanish, come into every practice session with specific vocabulary that you’re looking to memorize or certain verb conjugations you want to get better at. Your rate of growth will be far greater than if you simply repeat the same exercises day after day. 
  • Productivity: Batching — One of the most effective ways to improve your productivity is to batch similar tasks together. For example, batch your cognitively-difficult tasks together and work on them during segments of your day that are more likely to be free of distractions. Group smaller, easier, less cognitively-demanding tasks together and work on them during stretches of your day where it’s harder to concentrate and there are meetings that interrupt your flow. The idea here is to get the most out of your time. By being strategic, you are able to maximize every minute.
    • Quote (P. 39): “Though [Adam] Grant’s productivity depends on many factors, there’s one idea in particular that seems central to his method: the batching of hard but important intellectual work into long, uninterrupted stretches.”
  • Lock In! — The key to sinking into a period of deep work is deciding to work on one task with complete focus and without distraction. That means turning your phone to “Do Not Disturb.” That means turning off your TV, email, and Microsoft Teams application. You have to completely unplug and focus on one task, and on task alone. Do not switch back and forth between projects. If you try to do multiple things at once, your performance is going to suffer.
    • Quote (P. 43): “By working on a single hard task for a long time without switching, [Adam] Grant minimizes the negative impact of attention residue from his other obligations, allowing him to maximize performance on this one task.”
    • Quote (P. 44): “To produce at your peak level you need to work for extended periods with full concentration on a single task free from distraction.”
  • Chapter Takeaway — Deep work is the process of removing all distractions and locking in on one task, and one task only. Then you move to the next one. Deep work is essential for both learning and productivity; you can’t expect to deliver your best performance if you’re constantly distracted. 

Ch. 2: Deep Work Is Rare

  • The Decline of Deep Work — The author makes the case that the rise of the Internet and entertainment has made people lazy and, as a result, few of them are able to engage in deep work. In short, a lot of people don’t know how to work hard anymore. They take the easy route. They’re constantly distracted and have a hard time motivating themselves to sit down and do something somewhat cognitively demanding for a solid chunk of time. This opens up a lot of opportunity for people who do have a strong work ethic and are very efficient and productive. 

Ch. 3: Deep Work Is Meaningful

  • “Be Useful” — One of the maxims Arnold Schwarzenegger lives by is “Be Useful” (he also wrote a book using this title). It’s about constantly working toward goals and trying to improve yourself. It’s about getting 1% better every day. It’s about process and progress. It’s about staying busy. When you’re constantly busy and concentrating on getting better, your mind doesn’t have a lot of time to be anxious, depressed, sad, jealous, or anything else; it’s focused on one thing: getting better. This is a great way to live. It keeps you engaged, and it prevents so much negative “crap” from filling your head. It’s when you get bored and have too much time on your hands that your mental health can suffer. Keep your head down and stay busy.
    • Quote (P. 79): “Such concentration hijacks your attention apparatus, preventing you from noticing the many smaller and less pleasant things that unavoidably and persistently populate our lives. (The psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, whom we’ll learn more about in the next section, explicitly identifies this advantage when he emphasizes the advantage of cultivating ‘concentration so intense that there is no attention left over to think about anything irrelevant, or to worry about problems.’)”
  • Work > Retirement — There’s an argument to be made that work provides more fulfillment and happiness than lounging around doing nothing in retirement. When you’re working on something — whether it be at a job, while engaged in a hobby, or anything else — you’re typically progressing toward goals, overcoming challenges, and achieving triumphs. In retirement, you lose all of that. Life becomes unstructured and unmotivated. Building on the previous bullet, this is why it’s so important to stay busy, even in retirement. You should always be working on something. Progress and achievement lead to confidence, happiness, and excitement.
    • Quote (P. 84): “Most people assumed (and still do) that relaxation makes them happy. We want to work less and spend more time in the hammock. But the results from [Mihaly] Csikszentmihalyi’s ESM studies reveal that most people have this wrong: Ironically, jobs are actually easier to enjoy than free time, because like flow activities they have built-in goals, feedback rules, and challenges, all of which encourage one to become involved in one’s work, to concentrate and lose oneself in it. Free time, on the other hand, is unstructured, and requires much greater effort to be shaped into something that can be enjoyed.”
  • Chapter Takeaway — Always be working on something. When you’re constantly working toward goals and milestones, you keep yourself focused, busy, and disciplined. And only good things come from that. A life of deep work is a good life. 

Ch. 4: Rule No. 1 — Work Deeply

  • Distractions & Willpower — We are constantly distracted. We battle distractions, and urges to indulge in distractions, from start to finish every day. We fight those urges with willpower, but scientists have found that willpower is finite. In other words, we have a limited daily amount of it; it’s a muscle that tires the more you use it. This is why it gets progressively harder to stay disciplined and ignore distractions as the day goes on.
    • Quote (P. 100): “You have a finite amount of willpower that becomes depleted as you use it. Your will, in other words, is not a manifestation of your character that you can deploy without limit; it’s instead like a muscle that tires. This is why the subjects in the Hofmann and Baumeister study had such a hard time fighting desires — over time these distractions drained their finite pool of willpower until they could no longer resist.”
  • Deep Work: Building Routines & Habits — Because we are constantly distracted and have a limited amount of willpower to deny the urges that accompany them, we have to be strategic and set up routines and habits that make it easier for us to slip into a state of deep work. In other words, we have to reduce friction wherever possible. The remainder of this chapter will discuss a few of the strategies we can use to encourage a state of deep concentration and focus.
    • Quote (P. 100): “The key to developing a deep work habit is to move beyond good intentions and add routines and rituals to your working life designed to minimize the amount of your limited willpower necessary to transition into and maintain a state of unbroken concentration.”
  • Deep Work Strategy No. 1: Pick a Philosophy — The first key to deep work is selecting a philosophy. By philosophy, the author is referring to an approach to deep work that will best align with your schedule and profession. For example, if you have a job where you are responsible for one big project and not much else, it may make sense for you to use a “monastic” philosophy. This philosophy involves “going dark” and escaping into hibernation for very long periods of time (days, weeks, months) while you work intensely on the project. This approach works well for somebody who is writing papers or books, for example. Additional, more realistic, philosophies include:
    • The Bimodal Philosophy — This approach is probably the most feasible for most people. It involves “going dark” for a few hours during the day. During these periods, you go to a quiet place, you put your phone into ‘Do Not Disturb’, you turn your emails off, you lock your door, and you go to work on the task at hand. These sessions are devoted to high-focus, distraction-free deep work. You can reserve your “shallow work” (easier work) for the time slots outside of these deep work periods.
      • Quote (P. 108): “This 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 — seeking intense and uninterrupted concentration. During the shallow time, such focus is not prioritized.”
    • The Rhythmic Philosophy — This is essentially the same as the bimodal philosophy; it involves committing 90-120 minutes or more every day to “going dark” and engaging in deep work. What sets the rhythmic philosophy apart is that it involves actually scheduling the 90-120 minutes into your calendar so you don’t even have to think about it. When your deep work time slot comes up every day, you automatically go into hibernation mode and focus without distraction for the whole session. By scheduling time for deep work, it reduces the willpower you need to muster in order to get yourself to do the work — you don’t even have to think about it or “will yourself.” You just stick to your plan. This philosophy is all about forming a daily habit around deep work and having the discipline to follow through with it.
      • Quote (P. 111): “This philosophy argues that the easiest way to consistently start deep work sessions is to transform them into a simple regular habit. The goal, in other words, is to generate a rhythm for this work that removes the need for you to invest energy in deciding if and when you’re going to go deep.”
      • Quote (P. 111): “Another common way to implement the rhythmic philosophy is to replace the visual aid of the chain method with a set starting time that you use every day for deep work. In much the same way that maintaining visual indicators of your work progress can reduce the barrier to entry for going deep, eliminating even the simplest scheduling decisions, such as when during the day to do the work, also reduces this barrier.”
      • Quote (P. 113): “By supporting deep work with rock-solid routines that make sure a little bit gets done on a regular basis, the rhythmic scheduler will often log a larger total number of deep hours per year.”
    • The Journalist Philosophy — This philosophy involves squeezing in random chunks of time for deep work as your schedule allows. Oh, 20 minutes just became available? Let’s lock in and do some deep work. This is the most challenging philosophy to follow, because it requires the ability to lock in at a moment’s notice, and the sessions usually don’t last very long. Most people can’t do it very well. But with how wild everybody’s schedule is, this might be the most commonly-followed philosophy of the group. 
  • Deep Work Strategy No. 2: Ritualize — Ritualizing your deep work sessions involves making everything about the process as habitual and systemized as possible. The more of a system you can make these deep work sessions, the less willpower you will need to actually get yourself to participate in them. Remember, willpower is limited. The key is to reduce internal and external friction so you don’t drain too much of your willpower reserves. This means setting aside a specific amount of time every day for deep work. This means turning your phone to ‘Do Not Disturb’. This means picking a specific quiet room to do your deep work. This means turning off your email and Teams notifications. Again, it’s about turning the process into a system that you can repeat every day without needing to exert a lot of willpower and mental energy. It’s about creating a process that reduces distractions and friction.
    • Quote (P. 119): “This strategy [ritualization] suggests the following: To make the most out of your deep work sessions, build rituals of the same level of strictness and idiosyncrasy as the important thinkers mentioned previously [in this chapter] . . . Their rituals minimized the friction in this transition to depth, allowing them to go deep more easily and stay in the state longer.”
  • Deep Work Strategy No. 3: Make Grand Gestures — This strategy involves mixing up your routine in a big way once in a while in order to light a fire under your behind. Sometimes you need a spark. By changing up your environment, you can break through periods of severe procrastination. While writing the final Harry Potter book, for example, J.K. Rowling escaped from her home office to a hotel room at a fancy resort in Scotland to focus on her work. She initially did this one time to mix things up, but it was so effective that she kept returning to the hotel to write. Another author bought a plane ticket to Japan just to write. She wrote on the way there and the way back — 36 hours later, she had a completed first draft. Doing something very different than your normal routine can often provide the jolt you need. 
  • Deep Work Strategy No. 4: Execute Like a Business — This strategy is based on a book called The 4 Disciplines of Execution. Newport read this other book and found a way to apply the four disciplines to his approach to deep work. The four disciplines include:
    • Focus on the Wildly Important — Simplify what you’re trying to accomplish during your deep work sessions. Ideally, you should be focusing on one or two tasks, nothing more. By narrowing your focus to one or two projects, you reduce the internal clutter in your mind and prevent yourself from doing too much, which can hinder your performance. This is where the idea of “The Daily Highlight” (selecting one thing that you want to get done during the day, no matter what) can be valuable. 
    • Act on Lead Measures — Decide on a certain number of hours you want to be immersed in deep work every day, then have the discipline to put in those hours. The number of hours you decide on acts as a “lead measure” that you can manipulate to drive performance. If you want to be more productive, increase your number of deep work hours. Lagging measures, on the other hand, focus on outcomes that have already happened. The problem with these is that the behaviors that caused these outcomes have already happened and you can’t change them. By focusing on lead measures, you can alter your performance in the moment, which will then impact your lagging measures. 
    • Keep a Compelling Scoreboard — People play differently when they’re keeping score. Log the number of hours you spend doing deep work, and chart your time using some kind of visual. Having some kind of scoreboard will give you a visual representation of how many hours you are committing to deep work, motivate you to continue, and help hold you accountable for missing days. 
    • Create a Cadence of Accountability — Review your scoreboard regularly and adjust your schedule as needed to ensure you’re getting to your selected number of deep work hours. Also review the progress you’re making toward the goals you identified for your deep work sessions. If you’re not making the progress you want to make, you have to do things a little differently. That may mean increasing your number of deep work hours. The point of this final discipline is to review your progress and results regularly. 
  • Deep Work Strategy No. 5: Be Lazy — It’s important to shut down after work. When you work, work hard. When you’re done, be done. After you’ve logged off and left your desk, you need to leave work behind. Relax. Chill. Don’t think about anything work-related. Allow your mind to think about other things other than work. There are a few reasons as to why this is important. They are:
    • Downtime Leads to Insights — Several prominent studies have shown that some decisions are better handled by the unconscious mind. In other words, to actively try to work through these decisions will lead to a worse outcome than loading up the relevant information and then moving on to something else while letting the subconscious layers of your mind think things over. This discovery eventually led to the Unconscious Thought Theory (UTT), which proposes that decisions that require strict rules (e.g. math problems), require the conscious mind while decisions that involve a lot of vague, subjective information are better suited for the unconscious mind. This is likely because these regions of the brain have more neural bandwidth, allowing them to move around more information and sift through possible solutions than your conscious centers of thinking. Bottom line: valuable decisions and insights will come to you while your mind is relaxed and not focused on something. 
    • Downtime Recharges Energy — Just like we have a finite amount of daily willpower to draw on, we also have a limited budget of directed attention. We aren’t machines — we can’t be locked in 24/7. In fact, few people have the ability to concentrate for more than four full hours in a day. This is why you need to shut down after work. When you allow your mind to relax, you replenish your supply of directed attention and willpower. If you try to work around the clock, you’re not going to get the deep rest and recharge that you need to recover.
      • Quote (P. 148): “The core mechanism of this theory is the idea that you can restore your ability to direct your attention if you give this activity a rest. Walking in nature provides such a mental respite, but so, too, can any number of relaxing activities so long as they provide similar ‘inherently fascinating stimuli’ and freedom from directed concentration.”
      • Quote (P. 149): “Only the confidence that you’re done with work until the next day can convince your brain to downshift to the level where it can begin to recharge for the next day to follow.”
      • Quote (P. 154): “Decades of work from multiple different subfields within psychology all point toward the conclusion that regularly resting your brain improves the quality of your deep work. When you work, work hard. When you’re done, be done.”
    • Evening Work Usually Isn’t Important — The work you do at night tends not to be as important as what you’re doing during the day. This is more of an opinion than fact, but worth considering. 
  • The Shutdown Ritual — To help yourself successfully unwind after work, it can be helpful to have a “shutdown ritual.” This is a series of steps you take at the end of the day to prepare yourself for the next one. Examples of steps you can include in your shutdown ritual:
    • Project Checklist — List any open, unresolved projects on an index card or in some kind of spreadsheet. Doing this will take the project out of your mind and onto a checklist so you don’t have to think about it. When you log on the next day, you look at your checklist and get to work. By taking this extra step, you prevent any anxiety or stress that may pop up because you’re worried about “forgetting something.” Less stress and anxiety about open projects leads to a more relaxed mind after work.
      • Quote (P. 151): “In more detail, this [shutdown] ritual should ensure that every incomplete task, goal, or project has been reviewed and that for each you have confirmed that either (1) you have a plan you trust for its completion, or (2) it’s captured in a place where it will be revisited when the time is right.”
      • Quote (P. 143): “While it [shutdown ritual] doesn’t force you to explicitly identify a plan for every single task in your task list (a burdensome requirement), it does force you to capture every task in a common list, and then review these tasks before making a plan for the next day. This ritual ensures that no task will be forgotten: Each will be reviewed daily and tackled when the time is appropriate. Your mind, in other words, is released from its duty to keep track of these obligations at every moment — your shutdown ritual has taken over that responsibility.”
    • Email & Meetings Review — At the end of the day, take a few moments to review your emails and ensure that you didn’t miss something. Then take a look at the meetings you have coming up the next day.
    • Shutdown Phrase — When you’re done with your shutdown ritual, say to yourself something like “Shutdown complete.” This seems corny, but saying some kind of phrase out loud sort of acts like a line in the sand that signals the end of the work day. Your mind then has an easier time letting go and relaxing for the rest of the evening.
      • Quote (P. 151): “When you’re done, have a set phrase you say that indicates completion (to end my own ritual, I say, ‘Shut-down complete’). This final step sounds cheesy, but it provides a simple cue to your mind that it’s safe to release work related thoughts for the rest of the day.”
  • Chapter Takeaway — Make deep work a habit. To do this successfully, you need to select when, and for how long, you want to engage in deep work each day. By building deep work sessions into your schedule, you reduce the friction that sometimes prevents you from doing what you need to do. As with any habit, the key is to reduce as much friction as possible. Another takeaway: Unwind after work. When you work, work hard. When you’re done, be done. 

Ch. 5: Rule No. 2 — Embrace Boredom

  • Concentration Must Be Trained — Contrary to popular belief, you usually can’t just flip a switch and become laser-focused on a task. Concentration, instead, is a skill that has to be trained. If you want to improve your ability to focus, you have to commit to developing the skill. This can be difficult in today’s world, where distractions are everywhere. If you’re not careful, you can accidentally train your mind to favor distractions over focus. Many people today are wired like this because they spend all day scrolling social media, streaming shows, and watching TikTok. These bad habits lead to an unfocused mind that is constantly distracted, and once you’re there it’s hard to break the addiction. This is why a lot of people are lazy and unproductive.
    • Quote (P. 158): “Once your brain has become accustomed to on-demand distraction, Nass discovered, it’s hard to shake the addiction even when you want to concentrate.”
  • Training Your Mind — Building on the previous bullet, you have to train your mind correctly if you want to be somebody who can focus for long periods of time. There are two key areas you want to train: (i) improving your ability to focus intensely and (ii) overcoming your desire for distraction. The remainder of this chapter will discuss strategies for training your mind.
    • Quote (P. 159): “The strategies that follow are motivated by the key idea that getting the most out of your deep work habit requires training, and as clarified previously, this training must address two goals: improving your ability to concentrate intensely and overcoming your desire for distraction.”
  • Mind Training Strategy No. 1: Schedule Distraction Blocks — It’s not actually the distracting behaviors (e.g. social media, TikTok, television, etc.) that hurt you; it’s the breaking of concentration to scroll social media, for example, during periods of deep focus that are destructive. This is why scheduling “distraction blocks” can be a great approach. Your goal here is to be locked in and working hard the majority of the day, but schedule a few 15-30-minute blocks throughout that day where you allow yourself to scroll social media, answer texts, watch YouTube, stream a show, etc. Outside of these blocks, you have to resist at all costs engaging in these distracting activities. Put your phone on Do Not Disturb and put it in another room. Again, there’s nothing wrong with engaging in distracting activities; it’s the switching back and forth between focus and distraction that really hurts you. Every time you resist a distraction and put it off until one of your distraction blocks, you strengthen your mind’s ability to focus. And the more you resist, the easier it gets.
    • Quote (P. 161): “Instead of scheduling the occasional break from distraction so you can focus, you should instead schedule the occasional break from focus to give in to distraction.”
    • Quote (P. 162): “The idea motivating this strategy is that the use of a distracting service does not, by itself, reduce your brain’s ability to focus. It’s instead the constant switching from low-stimuli/high-value activities to high-stimuli/low-value activities, at the slightest hint of boredom or cognitive challenge, that teaches your mind to never tolerate an absence of novelty.”
    • Quote (P. 162): “By segregating Internet use (and therefore segregating distractions) you’re minimizing the number of times you give in to distraction, and by doing so you let these attention-selecting muscles strengthen. For example, if you’ve scheduled your next Internet block thirty minutes from the current moment, and you’re beginning to feel bored and crave distraction, the next thirty minutes of resistance become a session of concentration calisthenics.”
    • Quote (P. 165): “Outside of these pragmatic exceptions, however, when in an offline block, put your phone away, ignore texts, and refrain from Internet usage.”
    • Quote (P. 165): “To summarize, to succeed with deep work you must rewire your brain to be comfortable resisting distracting stimuli. This doesn’t mean that you have to eliminate distracting behaviors; it’s sufficient that you instead eliminate the ability of such behaviors to hijack your attention. The simple strategy proposed here of scheduling Internet blocks [distraction blocks] goes a long way toward helping you regain this attention autonomy.”
  • Mind Training Strategy No. 2: Work Like Teddy Roosevelt — While attending Harvard during the mid-late 1870s, Teddy Roosevelt was notorious for spending very little time on his schoolwork. But his grades were strong. His secret was the intensity he brought to his study sessions. Although they were brief, he worked with exceptional intensity. This deep work strategy is about adding a few “Roosevelt dashes” into your work routine. A “Roosevelt dash,” as the authors explain it, entails identifying a project, estimating a reasonable completion date, then giving yourself a significantly tougher deadline to meet. The abbreviated deadline forces you to work on the project with much more intensity and effort than you otherwise would. You can’t possibly engage in distractions if you’re going to meet your deadline.
    • Quote (P. 167): “This strategy asks you to inject the occasional dash of Rooseveltian intensity into your own workday. In particular, identify a deep task (that is, something that requires deep work to complete) that’s high on your priority list. Estimate how long you’d normally put aside for an obligation of this type, then give yourself a hard deadline that drastically reduces this time.”
    • Quote (P. 168): “At this point, there should be only one possible way to get the deep task done in time: working with great intensity — no e-mail breaks, no daydreaming, no Facebook browsing, no repeated trips to the coffee machine.”
    • Quote (P. 168): “An additional benefit is that these dashes are incompatible with distraction (there’s no way you can give in to distraction and still make your deadline).”
  • Mind Training Strategy No. 3: Meditate Productively — When the author was working at Cambridge University in New England, he walked to and from work. During these walks, rather than being present in nature (which certainly isn’t a bad approach!), he allowed his mind to work on certain projects or problems. In other words, he made the most of his time on these walks by being productive. This approach is about doing the same in your life. The gym is a perfect example. Rather than looking around aimlessly or scrolling through social media while resting between sets, make the most of the time by reading an article, working on an easy work/non-work task (e.g. card concepts), writing copy, replying to texts, etc. The point here is to maximize your time whenever possible. This can be done at the gym, on walks, on your commute, or during any other low-level activity where your mind isn’t strained.
    • Quote (P. 170): “The goal of productive meditation is to take a period in which you’re occupied physically but not mentally — walking, jogging, driving, showering — and focus your attention on a single well-defined professional problem. Depending on your profession, this problem might be outlining an article, writing a talk, making progress on a proof, or attempting to sharpen a business strategy.”
    • Quote (P. 171): “Fortunately, finding time for this strategy is easy, as it takes advantage of periods that would otherwise be wasted (such as walking the dog or commuting to work), and if done right, can actually increase your professional productivity instead of taking time away from your work. In fact, you might even consider scheduling a walk during your workday specifically for the purpose of applying productive meditation to your most pressing problem at the moment.”
  • Chapter Takeaway — Being able to focus intensely, a requirement of deep work, is not something you can simply turn on and off at a moment’s notice. It’s a skill. To develop the skill, you have to train your mind to concentrate and resist distractions. If you don’t, you risk becoming somebody who is unproductive and addicted to the dopamine hits associated with distractions like social media. The more you train your mind to concentrate, the easier it becomes. Scheduling “distraction blocks” into your day is a really good and practical idea. 

Ch. 6: Rule No. 3 — Quit Social Media

  • Quit Social Media — Social media apps are just not worth it. While they do come with some entertainment and educational benefits, they are engineered to be as addictive as possible. You can easily burn 30-45 minutes scrolling through the various apps, and the temptation to open them while you’re trying to work is strong. These apps have succeeded in finding the perfect recipe for triggering dopamine releases in the brain. If you’re serious about your personal and professional growth, it’s simply not worth having these on your phone. The cons far outweigh the pros.
    • Quote (P. 186): “These services are engineered to be addictive — robbing time and attention from activities that more directly support your professional and personal goals (such as deep work).”
  • Focus on Education — Rather than wasting time mindlessly scrolling through social media, choose instead to engage in educational activities that are going to stretch your mind, enhance your view and perspective on the world, and help you develop your skills. In other words, become a lifelong learner. Read books, learn a new language, pursue professional certifications, watch educational videos, listen to podcasts, etc. Use your time to improve yourself. Over a long period of time, the compounding effect of this approach will lead to results that will blow you away. 
  • Chapter Takeaway — Social media is addictive and completely destructive to your personal and professional goals. These apps interrupt concentration and prevent you from making strides. It’s best to eliminate social media from your life and instead put the time toward education and learning. Over a long period of time, the compounding effect of this approach will lead to results that will blow you away. 

Ch. 7: Rule No. 4 — Drain the Shallows

  • Deep Work vs. Shallow Work — Shallow work, by my definition, is low-value work that isn’t very cognitively demanding. This includes tasks like email, Teams messages, (most) meetings, moving projects around in Workamajig, tracking down information or data, talking to people at the office, and other simple projects. It also includes things that are a waste of time, like social media, television, Netflix, etc. Deep work, on the other hand, is high-value work that demands your full attention and focus. Writing award nominations, scripts for executives, landing page content, social media posts — these are examples of deep work projects. Thinking through difficult business problems is another example.
  • Trim the Fat (Shallow Work) — The fourth rule of deep work involves finding ways to reduce the amount of shallow work you engage in on a daily basis. Most studies indicate we only have capacity for about four hours of true deep work per day. This fourth rule is about being strategic with your time and deliberately cutting the amount of time you spend on shallow work. The rest of this chapter describes strategies for doing so.
    • Quote (P. 218): “For most businesses, if you eliminated significant amounts of this shallowness, their bottom line would likely remain unaffected. And as Jason Fried discovered, if you not only eliminate shallow work, but also replace this recovered time with more of the deep alternative, not only will the business continue to function; it can become more successful.”
    • Quote (P. 218): “The strategies that follow are designed to help you ruthlessly identify the shallowness in your current schedule, then cull it down to minimum levels — leaving more time for the deep efforts that ultimately matter most.”
    • Quote (P. 221): “This type of work [shallow work] is inevitable, but you must keep it confined to a point where it doesn’t impede your ability to take full advantage of the deeper efforts that ultimately determine your impact.”
  • Trim the Fat Strategy No. 1: Plan Every Minute of Your Day — The first strategy recommended by the author to reduce the amount of time you spend on shallow work is to schedule every minute of your day. The author recommends doing this on a sheet of paper and making revisions when unexpected interruptions and assignments begin to derail your day. I don’t believe this strategy would be helpful for me. You can come into the day with a gameplan, but that gameplan is often wrecked an hour or two into the workday. Constantly rewriting your schedule throughout the day seems like a waste of time. 
  • Trim the Fat Strategy No. 2: Finish Work by Five Thirty — Setting a strict cutoff time for your workday is the second strategy for reducing the amount of shallow work you do on a daily basis. The author proposes 5:30 PM. The idea here is that by setting a cutoff point for your day, you give yourself a pseudo deadline that creates an artificial sense of urgency. Because you know that your day will end at 5:30 PM on the dot, you will be less inclined to fart around taking unnecessary calls from co-workers (“quick chats”) and doing other unproductive work. You will have a greater sense of urgency about getting things done. This is similar to a tip from an earlier chapter about giving yourself strict deadlines; the idea is that the abbreviated deadline or log off time will cause you to be more efficient and cut out unnecessary, unproductive work and distractions during the day. 
  • Trim the Fat Strategy No. 3: Become Hard to Reach — Sending fewer emails and ignoring emails make up the third strategy for reducing the amount of shallow work you do on a daily basis. One of the major sources of shallow work is email. When you reduce the amount of emails you’re interacting with on a daily basis, you are able to spend more time on the high-value projects you actually want to work on. There are two ways to accomplish this:
    • Send Fewer Emails — The first way to do this is to send fewer emails. The idea here is to put a little more time into writing your initial email and/or your response to somebody else’s email so the other person has a clear understanding of what you’re asking/providing and the next steps for the project. Your goal is to make the email chain as short as possible by making things as easy as possible for the recipient. By providing a lot of high-quality, high-value information in your email, you reduce the odds of miscommunication and you give the other person a clear understanding of what to do next. This will require you to put a little more research, effort, and time into your emails, but it will pay off in the form of less hassle and fewer email exchanges with the recipient. 
    • Don’t Respond — Not every email needs a response. If an email is ambiguous or isn’t clear, ignore it. It isn’t the worst thing in the world to not respond to an email, especially if you have good reason not to (e.g. it’s not clear what is being asked of you or the project in question doesn’t really involve you). 
  • Chapter Takeaway — Find ways to reduce the amount of time you spend on shallow work. You have to be mindful of your time and strategic with your schedule in order to pull this off. The less time you spend on low-value shallow work, the more time you have for high-value deep work.