A concise read with actionable advice, supported by both research and concrete examples, which changed my day-to-day life! I read this book at a time when I was struggling to achieve a deep state of work and am extremely grateful to have come across it. The book provides various techniques to achieve deep work, allowing the reader to âbuild their ownâ solution based on their lifestyle and needs. Similar to âWhy We Sleepâ by Matthew Walker, I would classify this as a must read.
Though Iâve been a lot more organized and cognizant of my time in recent years, I do not believe Iâm as productive as I was when I was younger. There is a multitude of factors contributing to this, ranging from the need to always reply to messages or emails at work, the dopamine addiction to check my social media feed, the feeling of checking off tasks on my TODO list, etc⊠I was a much less experienced software engineer 10 years ago, but the lack of responsibilities, the lack of a smartphone, the lack of perfectionism, and the lack of a TODO list helped me concentrate on work in a much deeper fashion. It really saddens me to have lost that ability.
As an engineer at a large tech company, one of the things I find really frustrating is how shallow work is perceived as âbeing productiveâ. The author mentions Marissa Mayer who once told her employees that if youâre not responding or are not available, then youâre not working. Going to meetings, responding to emails or replying to messages in a timely manner may seem and feel productive, but it rewires the reward function in our brain to favor easy shallow work over difficult deep work. Real impact and change with measurable outcomes can only come out of deep work, and unless you are a high level executive whose responsibility it is to be shallow on many different things, one would simply be lying to themselves by saying theyâre productive.
Boredom is okay! I feel that most people, myself included, have grown accustomed to doing something (productive or not) with every passing minute of free time. This may involve replying to a message, checking social media, listening to a podcast or audibook, etc⊠However, as Newport mentions several times, complete mental downtime is actually conducive to concentration, generating original ideas, reducing stress, and letting the brain recharge for a future session of deep work. Paraphrasing one of his quotes: âAllowing the conscious mind to rest lets the unconscious mind make new ideas - downtime is important and diversified the thought purpose.â
Prior to reading this book, I was a big proponent of the âworld hard play hardâ idea, but skeptical of the â4-hour work weekâ concept. I now understand how much they go hand-in hand! Iâve grown accustomed to accept the fact that long hours and weekends are the only way to achieve good results. In reality, 3-4 hours of deep work is more than enough time to achieve good results, and it is difficult to sustain this effort more prolonged periods of time. It is the quality of how we spend our time, and not its quantity. With the exception of real immediate deadlines, 3-4 hour of deep work followed by 2-3 hours of shallow work a day should be more than enough for anyone to finish their job. This leaves a ton of time for hobbies, exercise, games, movies and other activities. The author reiterates this idea many times and highlights how important it is to truly shut down when you shut down, and to truly wire in the youâre working. This isnât new advice, but Cal Newport did a a great job at conveying this message.
Carl Newport discusses the difference between execution and ideation. When I was young and naive, I used to think that I should keep all my startup ideas to myself in case someone âsteals itâ. However, I later realized that ideas are a dime a dozen and that execution (combined with some timing and luck) is 1000x more important than the idea itself. In order to execute though, one needs to achieve a state of deep work. This relates to another idea that is implicitly mentioned throughout the book, which is the difference in between aptitude, productivity and output. Newport references a study showing that students who study less actually have better results. He also mentions Joshu Foer, author of Moonwalking with Einstein, as well as a journalist who became the memory champion of the world. In addition to being passionate about memory training, and having an intellectual inclination to it, his ability to stay cognitively concentrated and non-distracted while preparing was his leading indicator to success.
Cal Newport provided many anecdotal examples of various successful individuals through the book. The following are just a few that stood out to me:
Neil Stephenson, a famous sci-fi author, has famously admitted to being a bad correspondent (https://www.nealstephenson.com/why-i-am-a-bad-correspondent.html) by being non-responsive to email.
Don Knuth, a renowned Compute Scientist, has famously stopped using email since the early 1990s (https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/email.html).
J.K. Rowling, author of Harry Potter, forced herself to finish the last book by staying at a $1,000/hotel in London.
Peter Shankman, an entrepreneur and author, flew all the way to Tokyo and back just to grab an espresso in order to finish a draft for a book with a nearing deadline. https://fitproessentials.com/the-4000-round-trip-ticket-to-tokyo/
Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, is famous for being a young programming prodigy and a great businessman. However, one of this lesser known qualities is his ability to work intensively and concentrate on one task at time. In particular, he can read fast, retain a lot of that information, and is a big advocate of not multi-tasking.
Richard Feynman, a renowned physicist, avoided almost all administrative overhead as a professor just so he can concentrate on physics. His excuse is that he is simply not reliable or dependable.
Tim Ferris, a famous âself-improvement Guruâ talks a lot about how important it is to have a sense of urgency and how it is easier to just let bad things happen and move on rather than fixate on them.
There were many concepts and ideas introduced throughout the book, but the following stood out to me personally:
Artificial deadlines: If there is no external force setting a deadline (presentation, conference, boss, family, etcâŠ), you have to create artificial deadlines and disallow yourself from working outside specific time ranges (i.e. evenings, weekends, etcâŠ).
Fixed time productivity: Created allocated âwork slotsâ and do not allow yourself to continue working outside of that slow.
Consolidation: Consolidate related work into batches (day, weeks, etcâŠ) to avoid the cost of context switching.
Rhythmic Philosophy: Build chains and reward models (e.g. similar to streaks on Snapchat) thatâll reward deep work.
Offline blocks: If your brain has been re-wired to seek distracting stimuli, youâll most likely need to create dedicated offline blocks; both during and after work ours.
Key goals: Do not start a deep work session without very specific well-defined goals and rules. In order to avoid getting distracted, the tasks should be very well defined ahead of time, and the rules of whatâs allowed should be set; for example, whether using Google during that session is okay or not.
Looping: When youâre not making progress or looking for a distraction, one often starts looping: thinking and trying the same thing over and over even though theyâre not getting distracted by other things. It is important to make a note of this and simply move on.
Attention residue: Multitasking is a myth.
4DX: The 4 disciplines include: Focus, Leverage, Engagement and Accountability. A good comparison of OKR and 4DX can be found here: https://www.perdoo.com/resources/okr-vs-4dx
Since reading this book, the following actions have helped me see measurable results in my output:
Rather than feeling productive by starting my morning with cleaning my inbox, I try to be productive by completing a single difficult time consuming task.
I make a detailed list of tasks every morning and update it if/as plans change throughout the days. When I finish something, I look at my list and know exactly what to tackle next. It is very important that the tasks are extremely details with well defined outcomes. I also use this document to logs interesting ideas or concepts I came across throughout the day.
I installed a chrome extension that blocks distracting websites (news, twitter, Facebook, etcâŠ) between 8am and 6pm. Iâve found myself opening those websites on numerous occasions, only to see the blocked page.
I block out email for the first half of every day so Iâm not distracted by incoming messages. Leaving an inbox open, or glancing at it every once in a while can be a short but devastating distraction.
I block out a 4 hour DNS (Do Not Disturb) period on my work calendar every morning. This helps me avoid meetings from being scheduled over my DNS. I was originally worried other people may find it off-putting that I may not be available or responsive during certain hours, but everyone is very reasonable and understanding as long as you plan accordingly.
On Weekdays, I turn my phone off between 9am and 5pm.
Fun note: This book was written when Twitter was still running on Ruby on Rails, which really dated it.