# Shortform-Deep Work
Author:: Cal Newport
## Highlights
> Newport outlines three foundational ideas to keep in mind as you learn to commit yourself to deep work:It’s important, and therefore necessary. It’s difficult, and therefore rare. It’s fulfilling, and therefore worth your time.
> Some may argue that Newport’s argument is a bit of an oversimplification—myriad skills besides deep work will become increasingly important in the future as more tasks are delegated to machines and AI. In 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, Yuval Noah Harari explores several skills that are crucial as we navigate the information economy, such as communication, collaboration, coping with change, critical thinking, and maintaining mental balance during uncertainty or instability.
> (Shortform note: This idea isn’t new—Peter Drucker’s The Effective Executive, published in 1966, discusses the rising “knowledge economy.” Drucker’s best practices for standing out in the knowledge economy align closely with several practices we’ll explore later in this guide, such as cutting out time-wasting activities, scheduling tasks into uninterrupted blocks of time, and focusing on one task at a time.)
> Shortform note: Newport discusses an early iteration of deep work and its transformational effect in his book So Good They Can’t Ignore You. He says that many people, when looking for work, make the mistake of looking for a job they love. While this may feel good in the short term, it won’t pan out into a career you love in the long term. He says that what really sets you apart and guarantees success is developing scarce, prized skills—which he calls “career capital”—that let you choose among scarce, prized careers. In Deep Work, he expands on this idea by giving readers the tools to engage in the type of deliberate practice that develops your skills and career capital.)
> While Newport focuses his argument on shutting out distractions and non-essentials, Eyal focuses his argument on working alongside distractions and non-essentials—a more useful approach to the majority of knowledge workers who can’t ignore their email or physically step back from distracting environments.
> In this guide, we’ve extended Newport’s ideas to fill the gaps that reviewers’ two main criticisms highlight—that the book’s ideas don’t apply to the majority of knowledge workers and that the ideas aren’t actionable enough.
> many reviewers point out apparent sexism in Newport’s examples—almost all of his examples of people excelling in deep work are men, and he seems to reserve female-centered examples for explanations of what not to do.
> Newport seems unaware of the unique privileges that allow him to do deep work, such as the flexibility of his academic job and a deep work activity that’s relatively accessible—all you need is a laptop. Thus, while Newport may do a good job laying out the importance of deep work and describing ideal conditions for it, critics say he falls short of giving actionable advice for typical knowledge workers, who have less control over their work and schedules than a professor has.
> Shortform note: You may want to add reflective time into your workday shutdown—research shows that employees who spend 15 minutes at the end of their workday reflecting on what they learned during the day perform about 23% better in their work than those who don’t take time for reflection.)
> Ritualize Your Workday Shutdown
> Newport warns that like most knowledge workers, you’ll face invitations to partake in various forms of shallow work, such as meetings, committees, and travel. He suggests saying no to this shallow work by providing a vague enough response that the requester cannot find a loophole that they could use to get you to say yes. For example, you might say, “Sounds interesting, but I can’t make it because of schedule conflicts,” or, “Thank you for inviting me, but I won’t be able to make it.”
> In contrast, a lagging metric would be how many papers you’ve published at the end of 2021—at that point, you can’t go back and change your behavior in order to publish more papers in the year.
> The most useful metrics in deep work are leading metrics, or metrics you can use in real-time to tweak what your result will be. For example, Newport suggests leading metrics like the number of pages you’ve written or the number of new ideas you’ve generated.
> Newport suggests a clear message such as, “Please only contact me via email if you have a speaking engagement, collaboration, or introduction that you think I may be interested in. Please know that I may not reply unless it’s a good fit for my schedule and interests.”
> Practice #2: Build Your Deep Work EnvironmentIn addition to scheduling time for deep work, Newport encourages you to build an environment that supports deep work by reducing distraction triggers.
> Technique #3: Set Ambitious Deadlines
> Technique #2: Plan Out Every Minute of Your Day, and Quantify DepthNext, plan out everything that you need to do throughout the day
> Technique #1: Schedule Internet Time
> In his book So Good They Can’t Ignore You, Newport elaborates on why having a strong sense of purpose is essential to doing your best work at an exceptional performance level.)
> Schedule Type 4: Ad HocFind some time to do deep work whenever you can get it.
> Schedule Type 3: DailySet aside a regular block of time each day to focus on deep work.
> Schedule Type 2: PeriodicCarve out regular periods each week, month, or entire parts of the year to focus on deep work. The book stresses that the period should be at least one full day to reach the maximum intensity of deep work.
> Schedule Type 1: SeclusionRemove as many shallow work tasks from your life as possible. Spend nearly all your time on deep work.
> Practice #1: Plan Out Time for Deep Work
> Newport explains that skills that succeed in the modern economy—like complex problem solving, data analysis, and computer programming—require deep work to learn and execute. He argues that your ability to do deep work will determine how much you thrive in the information economy
> Schedule Type 4: Ad HocStructure: Find some time to do deep work whenever you can get it.
> Schedule Type 3: DailyStructure: Set aside a regular block of time each day to focus on deep work.
> Schedule Type 2: PeriodicStructure: Carve out regular periods each week, month, or entire parts of the year to focus on deep work. The book stresses that the period should be at least one full day to reach the maximum intensity of deep work.
> Schedule Type 1: Seclusion
> Anders Ericsson, author of Peak, says that the “lack of willpower” mindset creates a self-fulfilling prophecy: You think you don’t have the willpower to improve a skill, so you don’t practice because there’s no use in trying, so you never improve. In Indistractable, Nir Eyal says that when you think of willpower as finite, you use this knowledge as an excuse to give up on overwhelming or cognitively demanding tasks in favor of low-effort activities like watching Netflix.
> Newport argues that you have a finite amount of willpower each day.
> He warns that it’s very difficult to simply will yourself to do deep work on demand. It’s much more effective to approach deep work with structure, habit, and discipline—in other words, to make deep work a practiced ritual.
> Newport has noted that the concept of deep work—and its importance in our increasingly distracted world—doesn’t only apply to what we traditionally think of as work. He says you might apply the idea of focusing without distraction to developing skills in a new hobby, spending time with your family, or hitting personal goals such as reading more books.
> deep work brings meaning to your tasks.
> Anders Ericsson touches on this idea in Peak—he argues that receiving positive feedback during deliberate practice (deep work) is crucial. Without it, the inherently difficult and tedious process of deep work can become boring and unmotivating.)
> In Drive, Daniel Pink explains that you usually can’t bribe yourself into doing creative work with external motivators like money—this is why the flow state and the intrinsic motivators (or behavior drivers) it creates are so vital to deep work.)
> In contrast, Newports admits that deep work can often feel directionless, for several reasons. First, complex problems require thinking time that can lead to multiple dead ends. Second, you produce fewer concrete results, and the results come unpredictably.
> Shallow work is deceptively bad because it feels productive and meaningful. Answering emails feels like you’re doing something. Staying on top of the office conversation in Slack makes you feel updated on what’s going on.
> Over the course of the pandemic, researchers found that employees attended 13% more meetings than before, and each meeting had 14% more attendees than normal.)
> Newport says that managers have developed superficial proxies, or indicators, of progress such as email response times or number of meetings conducted. The thinking is that as long as there’s a lot of motion, surely people are being productive. In contrast, deep work looks like slacking. Stepping away from email to think deep thoughts seems indulgent when everyone else is buzzing around the office.
> The addictive quality of social media is due to our attraction to variable rewards: rewards that happen at random times, rather than in a predictable pattern—so they always feel like a surprise.
> Superficially, we prefer instant communication as the easy path. If you don’t know something, you can just ask someone. You don’t need to do the hard work of planning ahead, studying what you do or don’t know, and scheduling meetings thoughtfully.
> (Shortform note: In an interview, Newport stressed the importance of understanding that “task switching” isn’t all that different from multitasking. He says that most people try to do one thing at a time because they know they shouldn’t multitask—the problem, he says, is that most people don’t realize that they shouldn’t be frequently switching between “things” either.)
> remote workers report that due to an inability to separate their work and home lives, working from home is more distracting than working in the office.
> As companies increasingly shift toward full-time remote work, your ability to do deep work won’t only help you stand out in your field—it will also help you maintain a healthy work/life balance and avoid the burnout that’s becoming more and more common among remote workers.
> In his book Peak, Ericsson explains that talent has little to do with it—research has repeatedly shown that people get to the top of their field through regular, focused practice. Ericsson calls this deliberate practice
---
Title: Shortform-Deep Work
Author: Cal Newport
Tags: readwise, books
date: 2024-01-30
---
# Shortform-Deep Work
Author:: Cal Newport
## AI-Generated Summary
None
## Highlights
> Newport outlines three foundational ideas to keep in mind as you learn to commit yourself to deep work:It’s important, and therefore necessary. It’s difficult, and therefore rare. It’s fulfilling, and therefore worth your time.
> Some may argue that Newport’s argument is a bit of an oversimplification—myriad skills besides deep work will become increasingly important in the future as more tasks are delegated to machines and AI. In 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, Yuval Noah Harari explores several skills that are crucial as we navigate the information economy, such as communication, collaboration, coping with change, critical thinking, and maintaining mental balance during uncertainty or instability.
> (Shortform note: This idea isn’t new—Peter Drucker’s The Effective Executive, published in 1966, discusses the rising “knowledge economy.” Drucker’s best practices for standing out in the knowledge economy align closely with several practices we’ll explore later in this guide, such as cutting out time-wasting activities, scheduling tasks into uninterrupted blocks of time, and focusing on one task at a time.)
> Shortform note: Newport discusses an early iteration of deep work and its transformational effect in his book So Good They Can’t Ignore You. He says that many people, when looking for work, make the mistake of looking for a job they love. While this may feel good in the short term, it won’t pan out into a career you love in the long term. He says that what really sets you apart and guarantees success is developing scarce, prized skills—which he calls “career capital”—that let you choose among scarce, prized careers. In Deep Work, he expands on this idea by giving readers the tools to engage in the type of deliberate practice that develops your skills and career capital.)
> While Newport focuses his argument on shutting out distractions and non-essentials, Eyal focuses his argument on working alongside distractions and non-essentials—a more useful approach to the majority of knowledge workers who can’t ignore their email or physically step back from distracting environments.
> In this guide, we’ve extended Newport’s ideas to fill the gaps that reviewers’ two main criticisms highlight—that the book’s ideas don’t apply to the majority of knowledge workers and that the ideas aren’t actionable enough.
> many reviewers point out apparent sexism in Newport’s examples—almost all of his examples of people excelling in deep work are men, and he seems to reserve female-centered examples for explanations of what not to do.
> Newport seems unaware of the unique privileges that allow him to do deep work, such as the flexibility of his academic job and a deep work activity that’s relatively accessible—all you need is a laptop. Thus, while Newport may do a good job laying out the importance of deep work and describing ideal conditions for it, critics say he falls short of giving actionable advice for typical knowledge workers, who have less control over their work and schedules than a professor has.
> Shortform note: You may want to add reflective time into your workday shutdown—research shows that employees who spend 15 minutes at the end of their workday reflecting on what they learned during the day perform about 23% better in their work than those who don’t take time for reflection.)
> Ritualize Your Workday Shutdown
> Newport warns that like most knowledge workers, you’ll face invitations to partake in various forms of shallow work, such as meetings, committees, and travel. He suggests saying no to this shallow work by providing a vague enough response that the requester cannot find a loophole that they could use to get you to say yes. For example, you might say, “Sounds interesting, but I can’t make it because of schedule conflicts,” or, “Thank you for inviting me, but I won’t be able to make it.”
> In contrast, a lagging metric would be how many papers you’ve published at the end of 2021—at that point, you can’t go back and change your behavior in order to publish more papers in the year.
> The most useful metrics in deep work are leading metrics, or metrics you can use in real-time to tweak what your result will be. For example, Newport suggests leading metrics like the number of pages you’ve written or the number of new ideas you’ve generated.
> Newport suggests a clear message such as, “Please only contact me via email if you have a speaking engagement, collaboration, or introduction that you think I may be interested in. Please know that I may not reply unless it’s a good fit for my schedule and interests.”
> Practice #2: Build Your Deep Work EnvironmentIn addition to scheduling time for deep work, Newport encourages you to build an environment that supports deep work by reducing distraction triggers.
> Technique #3: Set Ambitious Deadlines
> Technique #2: Plan Out Every Minute of Your Day, and Quantify DepthNext, plan out everything that you need to do throughout the day
> Technique #1: Schedule Internet Time
> In his book So Good They Can’t Ignore You, Newport elaborates on why having a strong sense of purpose is essential to doing your best work at an exceptional performance level.)
> Schedule Type 4: Ad HocFind some time to do deep work whenever you can get it.
> Schedule Type 3: DailySet aside a regular block of time each day to focus on deep work.
> Schedule Type 2: PeriodicCarve out regular periods each week, month, or entire parts of the year to focus on deep work. The book stresses that the period should be at least one full day to reach the maximum intensity of deep work.
> Schedule Type 1: SeclusionRemove as many shallow work tasks from your life as possible. Spend nearly all your time on deep work.
> Practice #1: Plan Out Time for Deep Work
> Newport explains that skills that succeed in the modern economy—like complex problem solving, data analysis, and computer programming—require deep work to learn and execute. He argues that your ability to do deep work will determine how much you thrive in the information economy
> Schedule Type 4: Ad HocStructure: Find some time to do deep work whenever you can get it.
> Schedule Type 3: DailyStructure: Set aside a regular block of time each day to focus on deep work.
> Schedule Type 2: PeriodicStructure: Carve out regular periods each week, month, or entire parts of the year to focus on deep work. The book stresses that the period should be at least one full day to reach the maximum intensity of deep work.
> Schedule Type 1: Seclusion
> Anders Ericsson, author of Peak, says that the “lack of willpower” mindset creates a self-fulfilling prophecy: You think you don’t have the willpower to improve a skill, so you don’t practice because there’s no use in trying, so you never improve. In Indistractable, Nir Eyal says that when you think of willpower as finite, you use this knowledge as an excuse to give up on overwhelming or cognitively demanding tasks in favor of low-effort activities like watching Netflix.
> Newport argues that you have a finite amount of willpower each day.
> He warns that it’s very difficult to simply will yourself to do deep work on demand. It’s much more effective to approach deep work with structure, habit, and discipline—in other words, to make deep work a practiced ritual.
> Newport has noted that the concept of deep work—and its importance in our increasingly distracted world—doesn’t only apply to what we traditionally think of as work. He says you might apply the idea of focusing without distraction to developing skills in a new hobby, spending time with your family, or hitting personal goals such as reading more books.
> deep work brings meaning to your tasks.
> Anders Ericsson touches on this idea in Peak—he argues that receiving positive feedback during deliberate practice (deep work) is crucial. Without it, the inherently difficult and tedious process of deep work can become boring and unmotivating.)
> In Drive, Daniel Pink explains that you usually can’t bribe yourself into doing creative work with external motivators like money—this is why the flow state and the intrinsic motivators (or behavior drivers) it creates are so vital to deep work.)
> In contrast, Newports admits that deep work can often feel directionless, for several reasons. First, complex problems require thinking time that can lead to multiple dead ends. Second, you produce fewer concrete results, and the results come unpredictably.
> Shallow work is deceptively bad because it feels productive and meaningful. Answering emails feels like you’re doing something. Staying on top of the office conversation in Slack makes you feel updated on what’s going on.
> Over the course of the pandemic, researchers found that employees attended 13% more meetings than before, and each meeting had 14% more attendees than normal.)
> Newport says that managers have developed superficial proxies, or indicators, of progress such as email response times or number of meetings conducted. The thinking is that as long as there’s a lot of motion, surely people are being productive. In contrast, deep work looks like slacking. Stepping away from email to think deep thoughts seems indulgent when everyone else is buzzing around the office.
> The addictive quality of social media is due to our attraction to variable rewards: rewards that happen at random times, rather than in a predictable pattern—so they always feel like a surprise.
> Superficially, we prefer instant communication as the easy path. If you don’t know something, you can just ask someone. You don’t need to do the hard work of planning ahead, studying what you do or don’t know, and scheduling meetings thoughtfully.
> (Shortform note: In an interview, Newport stressed the importance of understanding that “task switching” isn’t all that different from multitasking. He says that most people try to do one thing at a time because they know they shouldn’t multitask—the problem, he says, is that most people don’t realize that they shouldn’t be frequently switching between “things” either.)
> remote workers report that due to an inability to separate their work and home lives, working from home is more distracting than working in the office.
> As companies increasingly shift toward full-time remote work, your ability to do deep work won’t only help you stand out in your field—it will also help you maintain a healthy work/life balance and avoid the burnout that’s becoming more and more common among remote workers.
> In his book Peak, Ericsson explains that talent has little to do with it—research has repeatedly shown that people get to the top of their field through regular, focused practice. Ericsson calls this deliberate practice