tl;dr of Deep Work by Cal Newport

20 Jul, 2024

Total words: 5035

Estimated reading time: 25 mins

Shallow work - non-cognitively demanding, logistical work performed while distracted.

My goal is to become a deep worker. This goal was very vague before I read this book. It mostly comprised of being at the top of the chart in terms of my abilities.

I knew what I wanted to do and did not know how. The book also talks about this in the concept of 4 Disciplines of Execution.

The major reasons I have been so inspired by this book is because it talks about so many of the issues that I have. Mainly being my lack of attention or concentration and my bad memory. I have struggled with them for quite some time affecting different facets of my life. My goal is to work on them and get myself to the best form.

I have already read the book one time already, and this being the first book that I have finished after a long time. I am going through it again (though superficially) to create a quick guide for myself. I do not know who might end up being the target audience for this blog but I hope whoever stumbles upon this finds some value.

Major Ideas

Ability to do deep work is going to be very valuable in out knowledge driven economy.
There are three category of people who are really valuable and win/thrive in our new economy:
- The high-skilled worker - those who can work well and creatively with intelligent machines. Since, intelligent machines are going to be very important, people who can use these and interact with them in a way that is very different and important outcome producing is going to be very important.
- The superstars - the people who bring in so much value that they are damn near irreplaceable. They are the best in their own sector or niche.
- The owners - they own the resources. I will be one of them when I get into the first two categories and then use that to accumulate resources and then these resources can be leveraged.
Core abilities to thrive in the new economy:
- Ability to quickly master hard things -- I have a high rate of learning. One thing I struggle at is going through with hard things. I will work on it.
- The ability to produce at an high level both in terms of speed and quality -- I feel I am quick at producing things at a good enough level of quality (compared to the average person). I have to improve this and get into the habit of producing things. That is something that i severely lack currently. I do not produce anything unless there is a deadline approaching.
These abilities are increased when you do deep work.
Concept of deliberate practice:
- Attention has to be tightly focused on the things you are trying to master.
- Correct approach as you receive feedback.
- Deliberate practice cannot coexist with distraction.
High-quality work produced = (time spent) * (intensity of focus)
Seek isolation when working deep.
Where you do deep work is very important
You do not have to work very long hours to produce at a high level, you can just increase the focus that you work with.
Attention residue:
- When we are working on something and then we switch to some other task, there is still residue of our attention that is fixated on the previous task.
- This prevents us from giving our best on the current task.
- Work on a single hard task for a long time for the best results.
The metric black hole:
- The bottom-line impact of depth-destroying behaviour is hard to measure in a metric.
- This prevents us from really understanding the impact these behaviours have on our output.
Principle of least-resistance:
- Without the known impact of such behaviour on the bottom line, we tend to behaviour that are easiest at the moment.
- All the time connectivity i.e. email, social media use is an example.
- We keep using them too much because it is easier to do so than giving up.
Doing a lot of stuff in a visible manner does not mean being productive. It is just trying to feel and shown that you're busy.

The rules

Rule 1: Work deeply

Eudaimonia

Eudaimonia - Greek word meaning a state in which you're achieving your full human potential.
- Dewane's eudaimonia room:
  - deep work produced in the building - to inspire.
  - salon - for coffee and Wi-Fi to induce curiosity.
  - library - for all the research.
  - conference room - for low-intensity activities
  - deep work chamber - very thick walls for no distraction. total focus and uninterrupted work flow.
We are far from eudaimonia. We're filled with distractions.
Most people recognize the need but underestimate the efforts needed to do deep work. Thus they fail.
People fight desires to be distracted all the time but only succeed half of the times.
You have finite amount of will power that gets depleted as you use it
Will is like a muscle that gets tired. So you have to train it like that. You have to be smart about your habits.
Add routines and rituals to make sure you can do deep work regularly.

Deep work philosophy

The monastic philosophy
- radically minimize shallow obligations.
- totally cutoff and only do deep work. No shallow behaviors.
- difficult to do.
Bimodal philosophy
- Take long stretches of deep work where you disconnect from everything and focus.
- Like one month away in a far away place without any distraction and then normal life again. (disappear)
- Works for a fixed outcome in mind. Single goal that has to be achieved. e.g. writing a book.
- Rest of the time is used for shallow working as that also provides value. e.g.. Carl Jung practicing in a clinic.
Rhythmic philosophy
- Do deep work everyday. Create a chain and keep track of it. e.g. Seinfeld writing a joke everyday. Visual aid of crossing the date on calendar.
- Make it into a habit.
- Saves effort in deciding if and when to do this deep work.
- Or fix time everyday. maybe early morning, this removes the visual aid but achieves the same results.
Journalistic philosophy
- Anytime you find some free time, switch to deep work mode and do it. e.g. Walter Isaacson.
- Fit deep work into your schedule anytime.
- Needs very sharp focus and training. Can be difficult to switch so easily.
- A scheduling can be added so that time is saved in decision making for when to do deep work.

Ritualize

To make the most of deep work session, you have to follow rituals to make sure your brain goes into that mode quickly.
The rituals need to have the following:
1. Where and how you'll work.
  - Desk with door shut-off?
  - DND sign?
  - Keep specific time frame and not an open ended slog.
2. How you'll work
  - A ban on internet?
  - Maintain a metric like words per 20 mins to keep your focus fixed. Do not take these lightly.
3. How you'll support your work
  - Ensure brain gets the support it needs for the deep work.
  - Start with a cup of coffee?
  - The right type of food to keep energy
  - A brisk walk to clear head.

Make Grand Gestures

By leveraging a radical change to your normal environment with a significant investment of time or money, all dedicated towards supporting a deep work task, you increase the perceived importance of the task.
This reduces mind's instinct to procrastinate and increases motivation.
Like JK Rowling booking a 5 star hotel room to go and work in while finishing the book.

Do not work alone

Consider collaboration when appropriate
But do not seek it so much that it becomes a distraction in itself.

Execute like a business

I know what I need to do but I do not know how to do it.
It is straightforward to identify the strategy needed to achieve the goal but figuring out how to execute the strategy is difficult.
To bridge the gap between what and how, use the 4 Disciplines of Execution:

4 Disciplines of execution (4DX)

Focus on the wildly important things
- The more you try to do the less you accomplish.
- Execution should be aimed at small number of wildly important things.
- Focus the energy with sufficient intensity.
- Identify small number of ambitious outcomes to pursue.
- Let the ambitious goals drive your will.
- Say no to trivial things, that do not drive you towards these ambitious goals.
Act on the lead measures
- There is a need to measure the success on these ambitious goals.
- Usually we use Lag measures. The are closely related to the things we want to achieve. Example, The marks on the test for a subject that you're trying to ace.
- By the time we receive these, it's quite late. The performance that drove them is already past.
- We need to use Lead measures. These are new behaviors that will drive success in the Lag measures. Examples, solving more question per sitting for a test you're trying to ace.
- While using deep work, a good lead measure will be "time spent in deep work state towards the ambitious goal".
Keep a compelling scoreboard
- People play differently when they're keeping scores.
- Scoreboard creates competition that drives people to focus on the measures.
- The current number of deep work hours right in front of your desk is a way to keep scorecard.
- While keeping this scoreboard for each day/week, mark important milestones that are reached (e.g chapters finished), so that the correlation between deep work and the performance on the lead measures is apparent.
Create a cadence of accountability
- Keep a review of your scorecard every week.
- Take it seriously like you would to a performance review in your place of work.

Be Lazy

Be the laziest ambitious person.
Idleness is not vacation or a vice, it is vital for the brain. It keeps it refereshed and working in full capacity.
You need to recharge you will and get rid of the attention resiude.
At the end of the workday, shut down your considerations of the work issues until the next day. Do not check emails, do not think about it.
If you need more time someday to finish up your work, extend your work day, but do not let the work seep into your shutdown.

Why is it important?

Downtime aids insights
- Some decisions are better left for the unconscious mind to deliberate. And it is quite good at it.
- Trying to actively work through these decision will lead to a worse outome. Unconscious Thought Theory (UTT)
- Decision that require application of strict rules - conscious mind. Ex. Math calculation.
- Decision that require a large amount of information and multiple value (sometimes conflicting) constraints - Unconscious mind. Ex. figuring out what to wear tomorrow.
- Since the SC mind is always at work, when in shutdown you're not really reducing the them spent on deliberation.
Downtime helps recharge the energy needed to do deep work
- A brisk walk in calm nature can recharge your brain's energy.
- Attention Restoration Theory (ART) - spending time in nature can improve your ability to concentrate.
- To concentrate, you need directed attention. This resource is limited. Walking on a busy street requires attention, that leads to less directed attention residue left for actual work.
- Walking in nature allows the focused-attention mechanisms to replenish.
- Other activities that provide inherently fascinating stimuli can also work in similar manner to replenish attention. Eg. Having a conversation with friends, listenin to music while making dinner, going for a run, playing a game. Best done in the evening after enforcing the shutdown.
The work that evening downtime replaces is usually not that important
- for a novice, 1 hour of concentrated work a day is tough but for an expert 4 hours is the limit.
- Thus, capacity for deep work is limited, so you should already have exhausted that by the end of the work day, so no good thing is going to come out if you push that envelope into your shutdown time.

Implementation

Accept the commitment to the shutdown. Do not allow any incursion in the shutdown time.
Have a shutdown ritual
- Every incomplete task should be reviewed: either there should be a plan for it's completion or it is captured in a place where it will be revisited again.
- The process should have a series of steps that are followed.
- After these steps are finished: say the shutdown phrase like "SHUTDOWN COMPLETE" loudly to give clear indication to your brain.

Rule 2: Embrace Boredom

Jew Study Groups

Jews wake up early morning to discuss and decipher religious text everyday without fail.
The type of effort required to do this is quite large and that is what is to be learnt. The task may seem boring but doing it over and over build tenacity and the ability to focus on difficult task that the brain wants to skip.
The ability to concentrate intensely is a skill that must be trained. We all know it but we still struggle to do it.
It cannot happen overnight with just motivation to do so. Motivation is perishable.
A lot of focus and hours of practice is required to train the mental muscle which enables one to do all this.
COROLLARY: Your efforts to deepen your focus will struggle if you do not wean off your mind from the dependence on distraction.
You will struggle to achieve deep levels of concentration if you spend the rest of your time fleeing the slightest hint of boredom.

The Issue with Multitasking

People who regularly multitask are not good at filtering our irrelevancy.
Since, they are doing everything all at once all the time, they think everything is important.
There is a myth that people are able to focus when they want to. They just feel they're able to do it but not really.
If every moment of boredom (waiting in a line) is replaced by a look at the smartphone, the brain has been rewired to seek an easy way out when something boring (usually like mastering a skill) comes.

Don't take break from distraction. Take break from focus.

Once you're rewired for distraction, you crave it.
Digital detox is not a good idea to train your brain your brain to focus, since it gives you a break from distraction. If you do DD once a week, when you're back, you are again giving in to the distractions. So there is no rewiring that is happening.
If you eat healthy once a day, you're not doing it right. It has to be a commitment that permeates your lifestyle.
Instead of scheduling a break from distraction. Schedule a break from focus.
Taking example of Internet use as an distraction. You can schedule when you will use the internet, then avoid it during the rest of the times.
Keep a notepad for writing down things that you want to look up, and do them only in your scheduled internet use time.
Using internet is not the issue, but the constant switching from low-stimuli/high-value tasks to high-stimuli/low-value tasks at the slightest hint of boredom teaches your mind to never tolerate an absence of novelty (the thing that reels or X provides you constantly).

Point 1: This strategy works even if your job requires a lot of internet use

Just increase the number of internet use blocks. But make sure the integrity of your offline block remains intact.

Point 2: The time outside these blocks should be absolutely free from internet use

Say if you quickly want to look something up, then the temptation to use internet becomes very hard, and all the more so if the internet use block is quite far.
YOU MUST RESIST.
You can switch to another offline activity while you wait for the internet use block to start.
If the work is very important - You can push your internet use block a little early. But make sure it does not start immediately. Atleast a 5 minutes gap must be there.

Point 3: Scheduling internet use blocks even at home can further improve your training

Giving in to your distractions at home can impede growth.
Do not do doom scrolling after coming from office or on weekend.
You can have longer internet use blocks here. The idea is to give enough opportunity to yourself for resisting these distractions.

Work like Teddy Roosevelt

Do everything you want to do. But do the important things with very high intensity.
Identify a deep task that is high on your priority list.
Estimate how long you'll typically take for such a task.
Then give yourself a hard deadline that drastically reduces this time.
Commit publicly to the deadline. For example by telling the person who is expecting the finished project, when they will receive it and what should they expect.
You can keep a timer as well.
All this forces you to do deep work as that will be the only way of getting things done, on time.
Start doing this slowly and give your brain time to relax also.

Meditate productively

Take up an activity where you're occupied physically but not mentally - walking, jogging, driving, showering - and focus your attention on a well defined professional problem.
Could be anything, writing an algo, an article, thinking about topics for a talk, etc.
You must your attention back to the problem whenever it wanders.
You should do at least two or three sessions per week.
Finding time for this activity is easy.
You can even consider scheduling a walk during the work day to brainstorm a problem.
This improves your ability to think deeply.

Be wary of distractions and looping

Your mind in rebellion will offer other more interesting and easier thoughts to distract you initially. Gently remind yourself that you can return to that thought again later on, and then redirect your attention back.
Looping: to avoid energy expenditure, your brain will avoid you from going deeper into the topic by looping over and over what you already know.
Whenever looping happens remind yourself that your're looping and redirect your attention back to the problem.

Structure your deep thinking

Identify the relevant variables for solving the problem and store them in your memory. eg. main points you want to make in a book chapter.
Then define the next step question you need to answer using these variables. eg. How am I going to effectively open the chapter?
Consolidate your thoughts by reviewing the answer you identified.

Memorize a deck of cards

This is to do memory training (also impress people).
But the benefit of memory training is that it helps you improve your ability to concentrate.
You can replace card memorization with some other task with similar cognitive requirements.

The strategy

Create a mental image of walking through 5 rooms in your home (or some imaginary place).
Now fix your mind to 10 different objects in each room. These objects should be large and memorable. E.g a desk.
Establish an order in which you look at these object in each room.
Add two more object to make the total of 52 (same as the deck of cards).
Properly memorize each object and their order as you walk through each room.
Create an association of each card in the deck to a certain memorable person or thing. Keep a logical association between the card and the corresponding image. E.g A king of diamond - Donald Trump.
Now practice memorizing the cards by imagining the walk through of the house, as you encounter an object, pick a card and imagine the corresponding person or thing doing something memorable near that object. Donald trump wiping mud off his shoes on the mat.

The use of these sites/tools fragment our time and reduces are ability to concentrate.
The problem is more severe if you're trying to improve your ability to do deep work.
As mentioned, willpower is a limited resources and all the many tools you have seeking it's attnention, the more difficult it will become to muster up your will power when you actually need to perform some deepwork.
Take back control of your time and attention.
A drastic decision like internet sabbatical may seem like the go to response but it is not really practical. Because it is not systematic and does not help rewire you brain because after the sabbatical ends you'll be back to your old ways of the distracted self.
SOLUTION: accepting that these tools are not evil and can hold a lot of value (if used justifiably), but also keeping in mind that the use and giving your time to these tools should be stringent.

The any benefit approach to tool selection

This is how people currently justify the use of a social media site. If they can find any benefit of using the social media site, however minor, they use that as an excuse to use it, ignoring all the negative effects of the site usage.
This is bizzare, because the tools that you decide to use (give your time to) should be chosen with a lot of care and by weighing all the pros and cons.

Craftsman approach to tool selection

Identify the core factors that determine success and happiness in your professional life.
Adopt only the tools for which the positive impact far outweighs the negative impacts.

Apply the law of vital few to your internet habits

identify the main high level goals in your professional and personal life. Keep the list limited and the description of the goals fairly high level. eg. Writing better code rather than writing code with lesser number of for loops
Now list two or three most important activities that will help you satisfy the goal. This should not be two general but should not be a onetime outcome.
Now, consider the network of tools you use, and for each activity identify whether the tool has a postive, neutral or negative impact. - this will only be according to what you do and what your goals are.
Discard tools that do not have a positive impact. (Do not think of a future possibility of a positive impact.)

The law of the vital few

80% of the observed effects are due to just 20% of the possible causes.
Assuming you could probably list 10 to 15 potentially beneficial activities for each of your life goals, according to the law, only around 2 or 3 of these will determine whether you will succeed with your goal or not.
The other 80% activities are also important but their contribution is not that much to worry about them because the more activities you focus on the lesser the time you will have for all these activities to perform them properly. It is a zero sum game.

You will not miss out on anything vital.
People do not really want to hear what you have to say, spare yourself the time you would spend on putting your thoughts out and use it instead for building some skills. Having these skills may make you someone people would like to hear.
The activity you are getting right now is because of the unsaid "I'll pay attention to you if you pay attention to me". This is not value driven. You value is determined by how much attention you are willing to pay to others and your attention should not be that cheap.
Drop these activities and notice if too many people miss you. Most likely they will not.

Do not use internet to entertain yourself

These sites are very harmful after the work day where your freedom enables you to let these sites become the center of your time.
You train your brain to avoid any chances of boredom.
Put more thought in your leisure time.
For relaxation, do not default to whatever catches your attention.
Schedule your leisure time as you schedule your work day. Figure out in advance what you're going to do in your free time. Build structured hobbies.
It will actually make your more relaxed than doom scrolling.

Rule 4: Drain the Shallows

You can do more in less time (eg. 4 day work weeks), if you do longer stretches of uninterrupted deep work.
There should be a limit to the anti-shallow thinking - you cannot put all your time into deep work, there is also a cognitive capacity at play.
The capacity being 4 hours in a day for experts, after this your output starts to reduce.
The shallow work should just not impede your ability to do deep work, the rest is fine.

Schedule every minute of your day.

We spent much of our day in autopilot without even realizing how much time we give to certain activity.
People underestimate the time they spend on leisure activities and overestimate how much time they spend on deep work. And do so by quite a margin.
At the beginning of each workday, assign a work task to every half hour block.
Not every work tasks needs to be a block, club certain small tasks into a generic block.
Now, use this schedule to guide you throughout the day.
Two things can happen: your estimates are wrong and new thing comes up.
If your schedule is disrupted, you should at the next available moment adjust your schedule. It is okay if for some days you have to we write the whole day even multiple times. The idea is not to force a schedule but to do know what you will be doing every given minute.
Overestimate the time it will take you to finish a certain activity.
Use overflow conditional blocks. - if unsure how much time an activity will take, create a block after the expected time of say 30 minutes. This can be used if the activity overflows or if you finish the work on time, have an alternate extra activity to do in this block.
Be a little liberal with your use of task blocks - make many blocks with longer period than needed.
An moment of curiosity (reasonable and related to work) or important insight should be followed. Then once that loses steam, you can just rewrite the schedule for the rest of the day.
Allow spontaneity as this type of scheduling is about thoughtfulness and not constraints.

Quantify the depth of every activity

Advantage of Scheduling your day is that you can decide how much time you will spend on shallow activities.
To decide how shallow the activity is (cognitively demanding) ask this question: "How long would it take (in months) to train a smart recent college graduate with no specialized training in my field to complete this task?" If that number is not very big then safe to say that the activity is shallow.
Once you know where an activity falls on the deep-shallow scale, favor the deep activities.

Ask your boss about the shallow work budget

Basically how much time you can spend on shallow activities out of total working hours in a day.
If you work alone or trying to work on yourself (like me), you can ask yourself this question.
As a good rule of thumb the number should range between 30% to 50%.
What this will do is you will have to say no to unnecessary or unimportant things or projects so that you do not overshoot the budget as the budget must be respected.

Finish work by Five-Thirty

Fixed schedule productivity - fix the goal of not working past a certain time and then work backwards to plan your day so that the deadline is met.
People do it and it only makes you more effective at your job as you avoid any shallow endeavors.

Become hard to reach

Tip 1: Make people who send you an email do more work (same for any time of work communication) - the expectations out of this communication should be clear so that you can fulfil them.
Tip 2: Do more work when you send or reply to emails - you should all the information that is required is there in the email. It should list what you expect from them, what they should expect from you, and what are the next steps. Have a process centric response to every email.
Tip 3: Don't respond if there is no need to. How to filter:
- If its ambiguous or otherwise makes it hard for you to generate a reasonable response.
- It's not a question or a proposal that interests you.
- Nothing really good will happen if you respond or nothing really bad will happen if you do not.