Book Notes: Deep Work

Here are my notes from the book Deep Work by Cal Newport which is about achieving deep work and flow state to produce significant results and enhance productivity in an increasingly distracted world:

– the ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at a time when it is becoming the most valuable to our society → the few who cultivate it can make a core working life

– Cal Newport was very committed to depth

– within 10 years of graduating

– published 4 books

– earned a PHD

– wrote reviewed papers at a high rate

– hired as a tenure track professor at Georgetown

– didn’t work past 5/6 on workweeks

– just 3-4 hours a day for 5 days a week produces lots of depth

– batch all the shallow work to do at the end of day

– in this economy 3 groups have an advantage

1. those that can work creatively with intelligent machines (work well with new technology/libraries/apis)

2. those that are the best in their field (superstars)

3. those that have capital (money to invest)

– 2 core abilities to thrive in economy:

– ability to quickly master hard things

– ability to produce at elite level in both quality and speed

– TO ACHIEVE THESE 2 ABILITIES DEPENDS ON YOUR ABILITY TO DO DEEP WORK!!! → deep work helps you master hard things quickly & perform things at elite level

– in this economy → if you don’t produce you wont thrive no matter how talented you are

– high quality work produced = time spent x intensity off focus

– big trends in business actively decreases people’s ability to do deep work (instant messaging/emailing), open space work culture

– a deep life is not just economically lucrative but a life well lived

– 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 Csiksgentmihalyi’s ESM studies reveal that 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*

– when measured empirically, people were happier at work and less happy relaxing than they suspected

– the more such flow experiences that occur in a given week, the higher the subject’s life satisfaction

– human beings, it seems, as at their best when immersed deeply in something challenging

– going deep *in itself* is very rewarding

– The connection between deep work and flow should be clear: Deep work is an activity well suited to generate a flow state (what generates flow includes notions of stretching your mind to its limits, concentrating, and losing yourself in an activity)

– Flow generates happiness

– The act of going deep orders the consciousness in a way that makes life worthwhile

– an individual should seek out challenging opportunities → build your working life around flow is key to a deeply satisfying life

– in a research study done, they found that → people fight desires all day long

– “desire turned out to be the norm, not the exception”

– people fought 5 desires everyday → eating sleeping, sex, surfing the web, listening to music, watching TV

– the **lure of internet & TV was strong** → people resisted only 1/2 of the time

– **you have a finite amount of willpower that becomes depleted as you use it**