Deep Work - Supernormal Reads

Hardcover, 296 pages

English language

Published March 1, 2016 by Grand Central Publishing.

ISBN:: 978-1-4555-8669-1
Goodreads:: 25744928

(1 review)

One of the most valuable skills in our economy is becoming increasingly rare. If you master this skill, you'll achieve extraordinary results.

Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It's a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. Deep work will make you better at what you do and provide the sense of true fulfillment that comes from craftsmanship. In short, deep work is like a super power in our increasingly competitive twenty-first century economy. And yet, most people have lost the ability to go deep-spending their days instead in a frantic blur of e-mail and social media, not even realizing there's a better way.

In Deep Work, author and professor Cal Newport flips the narrative on impact in a connected age. Instead of arguing distraction is bad, he instead celebrates the power …

One of the most valuable skills in our economy is becoming increasingly rare. If you master this skill, you'll achieve extraordinary results.

Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It's a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. Deep work will make you better at what you do and provide the sense of true fulfillment that comes from craftsmanship. In short, deep work is like a super power in our increasingly competitive twenty-first century economy. And yet, most people have lost the ability to go deep-spending their days instead in a frantic blur of e-mail and social media, not even realizing there's a better way.

In Deep Work, author and professor Cal Newport flips the narrative on impact in a connected age. Instead of arguing distraction is bad, he instead celebrates the power of its opposite. Dividing this book into two parts, he first makes the case that in almost any profession, cultivating a deep work ethic will produce massive benefits. He then presents a rigorous training regimen, presented as a series of four "rules," for transforming your mind and habits to support this skill.

A mix of cultural criticism and actionable advice, Deep Work takes the reader on a journey through memorable stories-from Carl Jung building a stone tower in the woods to focus his mind, to a social media pioneer buying a round-trip business class ticket to Tokyo to write a book free from distraction in the air-and no-nonsense advice, such as the claim that most serious professionals should quit social media and that you should practice being bored. Deep Work is an indispensable guide to anyone seeking focused success in a distracted world

4 editions

ralentina reviewed Deep Work by Cal Newport

Poor old Cal has a point

3 stars

I don't why I find self-help book (so often written by straight white men) so reassuring - even if I can see they're flawed and politically dubious. Oh well.

Poor Cal sounds like a bit of nutter - it is not so much his super regimented mechanisms of self control and scheduling that grate, but his assurance that his way will benefit everyone. I made a list of the suggestions that I found relevant: - plan to work deeply in chunks, aiming for 3-4 hours a day. try to make your chunks reasonably long (60-90 minutes). - schedule these blocks in advance, working around shallow work you cannot avoid. Remember that deep work is more important, so call in sick if it needs be. - have rituals for opening and closing blocks of deep work, and for shutting down at the end of the day (something that tells your brain …

I don't why I find self-help book (so often written by straight white men) so reassuring - even if I can see they're flawed and politically dubious. Oh well.

Poor Cal sounds like a bit of nutter - it is not so much his super regimented mechanisms of self control and scheduling that grate, but his assurance that his way will benefit everyone. I made a list of the suggestions that I found relevant: - plan to work deeply in chunks, aiming for 3-4 hours a day. try to make your chunks reasonably long (60-90 minutes). - schedule these blocks in advance, working around shallow work you cannot avoid. Remember that deep work is more important, so call in sick if it needs be. - have rituals for opening and closing blocks of deep work, and for shutting down at the end of the day (something that tells your brain it needs to stop thinking about work). - the internet and social media are the biggest threat to concentration. don't mindlessly browse in your short breaks during sessions. schedule 'browsing times' rather than internet blocks. think very carefully about which social media you need to use, if any. - be mindful, purposeful and ambitious about what you CHOOSE to do in your free time. Don't let it slip past. - reframe time-planning as a way to be mindful, rather than controlling what happens in your day (it is OK to redraw the plan 6 times a day) - Make your progress visible, ideally on a board you see from your work station - Force yourself to finish at 5:30, with few exceptions - Don't take Cal too seriously