Deep Work

By Cal Newport (2016)

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.

[Great creative minds] think like artists but work like accountants.

My Notes

High performance benefits you financially and is very satisfying professionally and personally. It requires:

• Fast learning
• Ability to produce at a high level

For both of these: deep focus.

Deep work requires levels of concentration well beyond where most knowledge workers are comfortable.

• You want your brain to connect the wires in the right places, you achieve this with focus
• Don’t train your brain to want distractions (e.g., checking email while waiting in a queue)

Tips:

• You’re fighting desires all day, your willpower reserves get used up
• Have a routine, and rituals (e.g., reward yourself)
• Figure out what you’re going to do before your free evenings, weekends
• Finish work by 17:30
• Become hard to reach. Try not responding. From Tim Ferris: “Develop a habit of letting bad things happen.”
• Try thinking through problems when walking, jogging, showering…
• Schedule downtime (this helps creativity too)

Multitaskers:

• Can’t filter out irrelevant things
• Can’t manage working memory
• Are chronically distracted, responding instead of initiating