51 pages • 1 hour read
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
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Themes
The Relationship Between Deep Work and Productivity
Cal Newport’s primary claim in the book is that cultivating the skills and habits for deep work will lead one to become far more productive in a measurable and lasting way. This will also help a person become more sought after in the labor market. Newport spends much time in the book discussing some of the consequences of living in the communication and information age. He examines the impact that networking tools have on one’s attention span and their ability to perform deep work.
Newport says:
In aggregate, the rise of these tools, combined with ubiquitous access to them through smartphones and networked office computers, has fragmented most knowledge workers’ attention into slivers. A 2012 McKinsey study found that the average knowledge worker now spends more than 60 percent of the workweek engaged in electronic communication and Internet searching, with close to 30 percent of a worker’s time dedicated to reading and answering e-mail alone (5-6).
His point is that just because someone is using these kinds of network tools, this does not make them productive in any real sense. Instead, behavior gives the appearance of productivity.
Newport refers to this phenomenon as “Busyness as Proxy for Productivity,” which he defines as: “In the absence of clear indicators of what it means to be productive and valuable in their jobs, many knowledge workers turn back toward an industrial indicator of productivity: doing lots of stuff in a visible manner” (64). The tendency in the modern workplace is to multitask often, which may seem as though things are getting done, but in reality, it only looks that way. Newport refers to these kinds of work responsibilities as “shallow work.” He warns against shallow work by saying: “Spend enough time in a state of frenetic shallowness and you permanently reduce your capacity to perform deep work” (7).
Instead, Newport argues that for a person to really become productive, they should adopt the practice of deep work. He says: “To produce at your peak level you need to work for extended periods with full concentration on a single task free from distraction. Put another way, the type of work that optimizes your performance is deep work” (44). Optimization and efficiency are the key results of deep work. Newport provides many anecdotes in the book of professional and eminent people who eschew shallow work in favor of work that involves focus and concentration. Their productivity is impressive and generally, they are able to produce output in a more streamlined manner than those who are distracted.
While it may seem counterintuitive for some, especially in an age where multitasking is a valued skill, Newport insists that the ability to have singular focus is what leads to greater, measurable productivity.
The Importance of Attention and Concentration
Newport delves extensively into the nature of concentration and attention. He recognizes that people today live in an era where their attention is splintered by external stimuli, especially online and in media. Much of what drives Newport’s book is his sense of urgency and belief that concentration is still an important and vital skill. Multiple times, he reminds readers that focus is indeed a skill and needs to be practiced like any other.
As proof, Newport discusses research conducted by Stanford University psychologist Laura Carstensen. Using an fMRI scanner, or functional MRI, Carstensen was able to compare the brain images of young adults with those of the elderly. According to Newport:
She found that for young people, their amygdala (a center of emotion) fired with activity at both types of imagery. When she instead scanned the elderly, the amygdala fired only for the positive images. Carstensen hypothesizes that the elderly subjects had trained the prefrontal cortex to inhibit the amygdala in the presence of negative stimuli (78-79).
The findings illustrate that what people pay attention to can be controlled. It is not always a reflexive act. Newport says:
To learn hard things quickly, you must focus intensely without distraction. To learn, in other words, is an act of deep work. If you’re comfortable going deep, you’ll be comfortable mastering the increasingly complex systems and skills needed to thrive in our economy (37).
One can learn how to control what it is they pay attention to, and by extension, they can likewise learn how to develop their concentration skills.
Newport acknowledges the work of science writer Winifred Gallagher. Gallagher, a cancer survivor, wrote a book about her life after being diagnosed with cancer and her fight to survive it. Newport points to one of Gallagher’s discoveries in her book Rapt. Gallagher says: “Who you are, what you think, feel, and do, what you love—is the sum of what you focus on” (77). In other words, how people direct their attention in life has more impact on their self-concept than what happens to them externally. As Newport says: “Our brains instead construct our worldview based on what we pay attention to” (77).
Gallagher trained her mind to not focus exclusively on cancer. Instead, she went about her life, and focused on things that brought her peace and comfort. The result is that she does not recall her experience with cancer as a horrible time in her life. Newport adds: “If we give rapt attention to important things, and therefore also ignore shallow negative things, we’ll experience our working life as more important and positive” (85).
Newport uses Gallagher’s story to show the power available to people if they train their brains to pay attention to what matters to them rather than allow it to be overrun by distraction.
Work-Life Balance and Stimulating Free Time
Newport has much to say about the proper balance between work and personal life. One of the benefits of adopting a deep work mindset is that it requires a careful evaluation of how time is spent. Often, when people are performing shallow work continuously, the tendency is to lose track of time, and to overlap work with one’s personal and social life. Newport says that this is because shallow work is less demanding cognitively and can be performed while distracted. Generally, those who are able to work deeply are not as likely to bring their work home with them. They have efficiently achieved their goals for the day, and even if they have not, they understand that the quality of their deep work is eventually exhausted.
Newport mentions former American president Teddy Roosevelt as a model for how to appropriately handle obligations, hobbies, and social interactions. When Roosevelt was at Harvard, he gave full attention to his studies during a limited amount of time. He was able invest full energy into his work, and because he did so, he was able to pursue a whole range of hobbies in his free time. Newport recommends that those interested in deep work should follow this model.
Newport recognizes the pitfalls that the modern person faces when they finally have free time. What people do with their free time matters, and Newport urges people to take an inventory of how they spend this time. Newport is quick to point out that relaxation is not the same state of mind as being distracted. He encourages readers to plan their free time in similar ways as they do their work schedules. Newport says: “If you give your mind something meaningful to do throughout all your waking hours, you’ll end the day more fulfilled, and begin the next one more relaxed, than if you instead allow your mind to bathe for hours in semiconscious and unstructured Web surfing” (215). Internet surfing and spending too much time on social media are activities that one should pay special attention to, as these behaviors do not cultivate a mind that can resist tempting distractions. Newport also suggests that people keep their minds actively engaged, not passively receiving whatever is thrown at it.
Finally, Newport urges readers to participate in activities that stimulate the flow state where a person is fully absorbed into the activity. He says:
When measured empirically, people were happier at work and less happy relaxing than they suspected. And as the ESM studies confirmed, the more such flow experiences that occur in a given week, the higher the subject’s life satisfaction. Human beings, it seems, are at their best when immersed deeply in something challenging (84).
This advice is not the same as what Newport says about deep work. He recognizes that there are natural limits to concentration levels, even for those who are experts at focusing on the task at hand. However, he does believe that one should fill up their free time with challenges. This is what leads to a heightened sense of satisfaction, not spending hours perusing websites and social media, which in most cases, is not challenging.
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