Deep Work by Cal Newport
Part 1: The Idea
Chapter 1: Deep work is valuable
Benn & Deep Work
I like how the author shared an example with an individual called Benn. Sharing how he realized his work is easily replaceable and took the challenge of learning computer science by learning how to go deep first.
He locked himself in the room with no computer with textbooks, notecards and a highlighter. He would highlight parts of the textbook and transfer the ideas into notecarda and practice them. Progressively, he became better at concentrating and got to a point where he could concentrate 5 hours a day without distraction. Within two months, he read 18 textbooks on the topic. He went through a tumultuous dev BootCamp which he cited his preparation and new skill of concentrating aided him in not only competing the course but being the top student.
The deep work hypothesis
The ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in the economy. Hence, the few who cultivate this skill and make it core of their working life will thrive.
Three types of individuals that are more valuable
1. The High-skilled workers
Technologies such as data visualization, analytics, high-speed communications and rapid prototyping have led to more abstract and data-driven reasoning. Those who are able to work with complex machines will thrive.
2. The Superstars
Those that are really good at what they do.
3. The Owners
Those with capital to invest in new technologies. A good example given by the author was when capital should be deployed. He mentioned how postwar Europe was an example of how one should not be seating on a pile of cash. This was due to inflation and aggressive taxation.
With the rise of digitalisation, those who own intelligent machines are those that are valuable.
Two core abilities to thrive in the new economy
1. Ability to quickly master hard things
2. Ability to produce at an elite level in terms of speed and quality
- If one cannot learn, one cannot thrive
- Transform the learnt material into tangible results that will be of value for others
- If one does not produce, one will not thrive
“Let your mind become a lens, thanks to the converging rays of attention; let your soul be all intent on whatever it is that is established in your mind as a dominant, wholly absorbing idea.”Antonin-Dalmace Sertillanges
For one to further their understanding on a field, one must tackle the relevant topics systematically, allowing “converging rays of attention” to uncover truth in each.
It shows how intense concentration is the building block to learning hard skills. What differentiates expert performers and others are their life-long period of deliberate effort to improve performance in a specific domain.
Ingredients for deliberate practice
- Attention focused on a specific skill one is trying to improve or idea one is trying to master
- Receive feedback so that one can improve their approach
Myelin and skill
The author shares how one gets better at a skill when the individual’s myelin is more developed. This allows the circuit to fire more effortlessly and effectively. Hence, skills and activities that are well-myelinated are more commonly known as habits.
Why one has to focus on a task rather than multi-task has to do with the myelin. When one is trying to learn a complex skill while using social media, it is firing too many circuits which makes it hard to isolate the group of neurons that one is trying to strengthen.
Adam Grant’s deep work practice
He groups hard and important intellectual work into long uninterrupted stretches. He further groups his attention on a smaller time scale. He also segments his tasks into smaller discrete tasks. He breaks it down into three discrete tasks:
- Analyzing data
- Writing the draft
- Editing the draft into something publishable
Law of Productivity
High-quality work produced = (Time spent) x (Intensity of focus)
Maximizing one’s intensity maximizes the results one produces.
Attention Residue
One’s attention does not immediately follow. Instead, a residue of one’s attention remains stuck thinking about the original task. The residue thickens especially when the tasks are unbounded and low intensity.
Those that experience attention residue after switching tasks are likely to have poorer performance on the next task.
If one is not comfortable going deep by learning how to have high-intensity bouts of work done for extended periods of time, it will become difficult to get one’s performance to the peak level.
How about those who thrive without deep work?
This is pronounced seen in executives of large companies. Such individuals play a major role in those that strive without depth as their lifestyle is distracting.
A good executive is essentially a hard-to-automate decision engine. Through the experience gained and instincts of the industry and market, they make many decisions in a short span of time.
Scrum project management methodology
Instead of ad hoc messaging, it is replaced with regular and structured efficient status meetings.
Chapter 2: Deep work is rare
Trends that made deep work more rare
- Open space office
- Instant messaging
- Social media presence
Principle of least resistance
Without clear information and feedback on the impact of certain behaviors, people tend towards behaviors that are easiest at the present moment
Quote from Richard Feynman
“To do a real good physics work, you do need absolute solid lengths of time.. it needs a lot of concentration.. if you have a job administrating anything, you don’t have the time. So I have invented another myth for myself: that I’m irresponsible. I’m actively irresponsible. I tell everyone I don’t know anything. If anyone asks me to be on a committee for admissions, “no”, I tell them: I’m irresponsible.Richard Feynman
Physicist Richard Feynman avoided administrative duties as it reduces his time to do what really matters.
Business as proxy for productivity
Without clear indicators of what productive and valuable means for one’s job, many knowledge workers turn towards an industrial indicator of productivity: doing lots of stuff in a visible manner
Chapter 3: Deep Work is Meaningful
What we pay attention to is what our worldview is
Interestingly, our brains form our world view based one what we pay attention to. If one was to focus on their terminal illness, life will tend to become unhappy and dark. However, if one was to focus instead on the beauty in life, life tends to become more pleasant despite having the same conditions.
“Who you are what you think, feel and do, what you love – is the sum of what you focus on.”Winifred Gallagher, author of “Rapt”
Why elderly tend to be more positive
Stanford psychologist Laura Carstensen found that when elderly and young people were given both positive and negative imagery, young people’s amygdala (center of emotion) fired with activity for both imageries. The elderly on the other hand inhibits the amygdala in the presence of negative stimuli. The elderly tend to be happier as they were able to rewire their brains to get their brains to ignore negative and savor the positive.
Achieving “Flow”
The state of flow usually happens when an individuals’ mind or body are stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.
Being engaged is better than free time/doing nothing
Even though many may think that relaxation makes them happier. People have the urge to work less and spend more time doing nothing. However, studies show that jobs are more enjoyable than free time.
“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 encourages one to become involved in one’s work, to concentrate and lose oneself in in. Free time, on the other hand, is unstructured, and requires much greater effort to be shaped into something that can be enjoyed.”Csikszentmihalyi, author of the book “flow”
The author also mentioned how humans in general tend to be at their best when immersed deeply in something challenging. When we give attention to salient things, ignoring shallow things, we will find life more important and positive.
Philosophy and Deep work
Deep work mentioned by Dreyfus and Kelly are similar to craftsmanship. The task itself does not generate meaning but rather teaches one to cultivate the skill of discerning meaning that are already there.
How sacredness (deep work) applies from craftsmanship to knowledge work
Any pursuit – be it physical or cognitive – that supports high levels of skills can also generate a sense of sacredness. One’s work is a craft and by honing their ability and applying it with respect and care will eventually generate meaning in one’s daily efforts.
Counter against those that deem their work mundane
It is important to realize how such a frame of mind can be rather flawed. In modern society, there is a lot of emphasis placed on job description. The society’s obsession of “follow your passion” has led many to believe that what matters most of one’s career satisfaction is the specifics of the job one chooses. Such thinking makes most work seem to be soulless and bland. However, from a philosophical vantage point of Dreyfus and Kelly, it frees us from such a perception. Most of the craftsmen mentioned did not have rare jobs. The jobs were neither glamorous or well paying.
How master craftsmen uncover meaning is through efforts in honing their skills and appreciation there is inherently present in their craft rather than the outcome of the work.
In reality, one does not need a rarified job, one needs a rarified approach to their work.
Cultivating craftsmanship (hard skills) requires a commitment to deep work
Through deep work, it allows individuals to find meaning and joy in the work they do amidst the mundane and soulless work.
Part 2: The Rules
Rule 1: Work Deeply
Eudaimonia
“Eudaimonia” in Greek means a state in which one is achieving their full human potential. The author shared about his conversation with David Dewane who is an architecture professor. He shared about how David had a idea of having a Eudaimonia Machine. He imagined a process where one spends 90 minutes inside and takes a 90 minutes break and repeats this whole process 2-3 times. Altogether, that will be around 4.5 hours of intense concentration.
Fighting desire
In a study led by psychologists Wilhelm Hofmann and Roy Baumeister, they found that people fight desires constantly. The top desires are:
- Eating
- Sleeping
- Sex
- Taking a break from hardwork by checking email, social networking sites, surfing the internet, listening to music and watching television.
It is vital to understand how everyone has a finite amount of willpower that depletes throughout the day. As it depletes, it becomes harder to resist one’s desires.
Deep work has to go from intention to routine & ritual
At the starting phase, deep work has to be done through intent. However, has mentioned by this book and other books, making deep work into a habit through routine and ritualization allows willpower to be less important in the equation. As mentioned on how myelin becomes thicker as one fires the same neurons repeatedly – making it faster and easier to do the same tasks that uses the same neurons, deep work can become a routine and ritual through this concept. It is just like the example in the book “Molecule of More” by Daniel Lieberman on how the brain is like a jungle. The more one uses a certain pathway, it becomes easier to use that pathway as it becomes established. Hence, limited willpower will be necessary to transition into a state of unbroken concentration.
Deciding on one’s personal depth philosophy
Monostatic vs Bimodal vs Rhythmic vs Journalistic Deep work scheduling
Monostatic deep work: prioritizes deep work by eliminating/minimizing all other types of work. Monostatic deep work works best for those whose contributions/impact to the entity/world is discrete, clear and individualized.
Bimodal deep work: Seeking complete elimination of distraction when going on periods of deep work. Division of time where one dedicates clear defined stretches to deep pursuits and leave the rest of the time open to anything else. Dedicating a certain period of the month or year to deep work.
Rhythmic deep work: doing deep work at the same hour everyday. The focus for this method is for deep work to become a habit. It is to remove the need to decide that one shall do deep work at a certain time and date. What is important here is to make it a daily practice with a reinforcement and feedback (like the calendar with big red Xs). What is important for this method is to maintain visual indicator of one’s progress.
Journalistic deep work: Like journalists, the ability to shift into a writing mode on moment’s notice. Essentially, going into deep mode at will.
Give & Take by Adam Grant
An interesting insight by Adam Grant was the practice of giving time and attention to others without the expectation of something in return. This goes against the concept of reciprocity but is a key to career advancement.
Jerry Seinfield’s Rhythmic deep work approach
This was an advice that he give to Brad Isaac who is a writer and comic. He told him that he wrote everyday by keeping a calendar on his wall. Everyday where he wrote better jokes, he crosses out the date on the calendar with a big red X. He finds joy when the big red X becomes a chain and becomes longer with time.
Wake up early for deep work
When it comes to deep work, it requires one to have both willpower and intense concentration. As the day passes on, one’s willpower and intense concentration gets depleted. This makes early mornings the best time to do deep work. With constraints such as early work timings, the solution is to wake up even earlier. The author shared how a doctoral candidate would wake up and do deep work by 5:30am every morning till 7:30am.
Walter Isaacson and the Journalistic deep work scheduling
It was always amazing… he could retreat up to the bedroom for a while, when the rest of us were chilling on the patio or whatever, to work on his book… he’d go up for twenty minutes or an hour, we’d hear the typewriter pounding then he’d come down as relaxed as the rest of us… the work never seemed to faze him, he just happily went up to work when he had the spare time.John Paul’s account of Walter Isaacson
Walter Isaacson was able to switch into deep work mode during any time of the day.
Ritualize
“There is a popular notion that artists work from inspiration – that there is some strike or bolt or bubbling u of creative mojo from who knows where.. but I hope [my work] makes clear that waiting for inspiration to strike is a terrible, terrible plan. In fact, perhaps the single best piece of advice I can offer to anyone trying to do creative work is to ignore inspiration.”Mason Currey, author of “Daily Rituals”
“Great creative minds think like artists but work like accountants.”David Brooks
It is pivotal to understand that a ritual of high level of strictness and idiosyncrasy is built for deep work sessions.
Some general questions to create a ritual:
- Where one will work and for how long: specifying the location with doors closed, desk cleaned and all. Also, specify the time duration along with it.
- Location
- Priming the location through certain actions
- Time
- How one will work once one start to work: one’s ritual needs rules and processes to keep the efforts structured. Without structure, one will spending mental effort to define the work itself. Attempting to assess and get feedback if the work and effort is well done.
- To dos
- Bans
- Metrics
- How one will support their work: Ensuring that one’s mind and body is able to operate at a high level of depth. for example, starting with coffee.
- Reducing mental energy from figuring out what one needs at the moment
Make Grand Gestures
Sometimes, placing oneself in a whole different environment or taking extreme measures is vital for deep work. The psychology of committing is passed to another level that the brain will ensure that mental resources is focused towards the task.
Do not work alone
An interesting architecture is hub-and-spoke where the place has soundproofed space with large common areas. This facilitates both serendipitous encounter and isolated deep thinking.
1. Distraction remains the destroyer of depth
2. Working along someone pushes one towards deeper levels of depth
Execute like a business
Even though many can figure out the what, the real challenge is with the how. For example, when it comes to businesses, they realize what they need is a business strategy. However, the challenge is figuring out how to execute the business strategy.
4 Disciplines of Execution
In the book “4 disciplines of Execution” by Chris McChesney, Jim Huling and Sean Covey, there are total of four disciplines for one to develop deep work habit.
1. Focus on the Wildly Important
2. Act on the Lead Measures
3. Keep a Compelling Scoreboard
4. Create a Cadence of Accountability
1. Focus on the Wildly Important
The more one tries to do, the less one accomplishes. Simplify execution to the most important goals.
Individually, the aim is to focus deep work on a few ambitious outcomes and work towards that.
Let ambitious goals lead to ambitious actions.
2. Act on the Lead Measures
Once wildly important goals have been set, one must be able to measure success. Two key metrics to use:
a. Lag measures: Thing that one is ultimately trying to improve
b. Lead measures: the new actions that will drive success on the lag measures.
Lead measure for individuals that can be identified to be the time spent in a state of deep work dedicated toward wildly important goals.
Instead of tracking the number of pages or work done, the focus should be tracking on the number hours of deep work spent.
3. Keep a Compelling Scoreboard
What the author did for this was to take a piece of card stock and divide it into rows, one for each week of the current semester. He labeled each row with the dates of the week and taped it to the wall next to the computer monitor. As weeks progressed, it allows him to keep track of the hours spent in deep work that week with simply tallying tick marks in that week’s rows.
To maximize motivation, whenever the author reaches an important milestone, he would circle the tally mark to the number of hours taken to complete it. This allowed him to understand the number of hours of deep work necessary for tangible results and to calibrate his expectations of how many hours of deep work is necessary to yield results.
4. Create a Cadence of Accountability
The author advocated for a “rhythm of regular and frequent meetings of any team that owns a wildly important goal” which aids to maintain focus on lead measures.
During these meetings, the team members must confront their scoreboard, commit to specific actions which will help to improve the score before the next meeting.
For individuals, it comes through weekly reviews to look through the scoreboard to celebrate good weeks and find solutions/reflections on bad weeks.
The disciplines of execution shows how strategy is much easier than execution.
Be Lazy
Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets.. it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done.Tim Kreider, essayist and cartoonist
For deep work, the mind must be be regularly released from leisure. Being overly attached and used to leisure will make deep work feel too foreign and require high bouts of willpower.
Downtime is important
For deep work to be optimized, one has to have downtime.
1. Downtime aids insights
2. Downtime helps recharge the energy needed to work deeply
3. The work that evening downtime replaces is usually not that important
1. Downtime aids insights
For decisions that require applications of strict rules, it is necessary to consciously ruminate on it.
For decisions that involve large amounts of information and ambiguity, it is better to unconsciously ruminate on it.
2. Downtime helps recharge the energy needed to work deeply
Spending time in nature helps to improve one’s ability to concentrate.
In a day, everyone has limited direct attention. Similar to willpower, it is a finite resource.
When one walks through nature, it creates a stimuli which “invokes attention modestly, allowing focused-attention mechanisms a chance to replenish”. When walking through nature, it frees the mind from having to direct attention. When going through nature, it allows directed attention to replenish from a modern world that uses up directed attention. Just after 15 minutes of replenishment, people tend to enjoy a boost in concentration.
In short, the evening especially should not have direct attention as it will reduce one’s concentration the following day.
If one was to squeeze in some work in the evenings, it might reduce the overall effectiveness the next day that it hampers the quality and/or amount of work done as compared to doing activities that shuts down directed attention (walking in nature, listening to music, casual conversations, etc).
3. The work that evening downtime replaces is usually that important
In a seminal paper titled “The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance” by Anders Ericsson, he mentioned how for a novice, they tend to only have one hour of intense concentration as their limit. While for experts, they have up to 4 hours of intense concentration.
Hence, considering how intense concentration tend to be used up throughout the day, once people hit the evening, it tends to be challenging for them. They will tend to be confined to low-value shallow tasks.
Shutdown Ritual
For each task/project, there must be:
1. A plan one trust for its completion
2. Captured in a place where it will be revisited when the time is right. Done through a series of steps one always conduct, one after another. When one is done, one should have a set phrase one say that indicates completion. For the author it can be something like “shutdown complete”.
Zeignarnik Effect
From the psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik, it sheds light on how incomplete tasks takes up one’s attention.
Hence, when individuals commit to a specific plan for a goal helps to attain one’s goal while also freeing cognitive resources for other pursuits.
Rest one’s brain
By regularly resting one’s brain, it improves the quality of one’s deep work. When on work, work hard. When it is done, be done.
Rule 2: Embrace Boredom
Through daily studies, it was found that it had aided them in pushing their intellect higher. The ability to do deep work through intense concentration has to be trained.
A research done by Clifford Nass, late Stanford communications professor stated in his finding:
So we have scales that allow us to divide up people into people who multitask all the time and people who rarely do, and the differences are remarkable. People who multitask all the time can’t filter out irrelevancy. They can’t manage a working memory. They’re chronically distracted. They initiate much larger parts of their brain that are irrelevant to the task at hand… they’re pretty much mental wrecksClifford Naas
Do not take breaks from distractions. Instead take breaks from focus
The issue stems from constant switching from low-stimuli/high-value activities to high-stimuli/low-value activities. When there are slightest hint of boredom or cognitive challenges, it is essential to be comfortable with the absence of novelty.
The main notion behind this is through time blocking.
Main idea is to schedule internet blocking. Having dedicated time away from the internet will aid with one’s concentration and deep work.
When it comes to waiting, such as waiting in a queue, it is pivotal to persist through the boredom with the company of one’s thoughts. Being bored have become a novel experience in modernity. However, it serves as a good concentration training.
Teddy Roosevelt
When ex-president Teddy Roosevelt attended Harvard College, he spent no more than 25% of his typical day studying. He was not the top in his class but he earned honor grades for most of his courses. He first schedule his 8 hours from 8:30am to 4:30pm. He would deduct time from his classes and athletic training and lunch. The remaining fragmented time was dedicated to studying. Even though the amount of time might not be a lot, he only worked on school work within that time frame. He manages to do this through intense concentration.
His strategy requires individuals to adopt the intensity he had during his fragmented time. By identifying a deep task and setting the duration, it provides one with a hard deadline to adhere to. When it comes to boredom and resisting one’s urges, it gets better through practice. As illustrated to how our brain is a jungle and a muscle.
Productive meditation
It is to take a period where one is occupied physically but not mentally. Such as walking, jogging, driving, showering. By focusing one’s attention on a single task, it teaches one how to bring one’s attention to a single problem and focus.
By resisting distraction and mindfully returning to one’s attention to a well-defined problem allows one to strengthen their distraction-resisting muscles – pushing one’s intense concentration to new depths.
Suggestion 1: Be wary of distractions and looping: When one notices their attention slipping, gently shift one’s attention back to the problem at hand. Looping happens when one is faced with a tough problem, the mind loops over the same thoughts again to reduce one’s mind to go deeper.
What is important is noticing one is distracted by a different thought or is looping, one should gently redirect their attention.
Suggestion 2: Structure one’s deep thinking:
a. Review the relevant variables for solving the problem
b. Specify the next-step question to answer using the variables
c. Consolidate one’s gains by reviewing clearly the answers identified
Going through the cycle of reviewing and storing variables, identifying and tackling the next-step question, followed by consolidating gains is similar to an intense workout routine.
Memorize a deck of cards
The author found insights that what differentiates memory athletes and others are not their cognitive ability bur rather their attention.
The ability elucidated is “attention control” which measures an individual’s ability to maintain focus on essential information.
The technique used for card memorization is as stated below:
The brain is really good at remembering scenes. Retrospect to a recent memorable event in one’s life such as attending an opening session of a conference or meeting a friend someone has not seen in awhile. Next, try to picture the scene as clearly as possible. Most people in this scenario can recall quite vividly. If one was to systemically count the unique details in this memory, the total number of items would be quite a lot. It delineates how one’s mind can retain lots of detailed information if store in the correct way.
How to memorize through scenic memorization:
It is recommended that one begins by cementing in one’s mind
1. Mental image of one walking through five rooms in their home
2. When one comes through all the hallways and the room, try to recall a clear image of what one sees
3. Once the mental walkthrough is completed, fix 10 items in each rooms. It is best if the items are big and memorable. (Eg, toilet bowl instead of a floss)
4. Practice the mental exercise of walking through each room and looking at each item in each room in a set order.
5. Associate a memorable person or thing with each possible card. (if doing card memorization)
6. Try to maintain some logical association between the card and image
7. Begin a mental walk-through of one’s house and encounter each item and imagine the item/association with the card doing something beside the item.
8. Do this for all the items that have to be memorized
Eg, If the first item in one’s home is a pair of dirty shoes, and the card is the king of spades, one can associate Gordon Ramsey with the king of spades as he is the boss of Hell’s kitchen. One can imagine him putting his shoes right beside one’s dirty shoes.
Similar to card memorization that teaches individuals to focus their attention, studying bible verses and all have a similar effect. The main goal is to hone one’s ability to concentrate.
Rule 3: Quit Social Media
1. Social media fragments one’s time and reduces one’s ability to concentrate
The Any-Benefit Approach to Network Tool Selection
Justified in using a network tool if one can identify any possible benefit to its use, or anything you might possibly miss out on if one don’t use it.
The craftsman approach to tool selection
Identify the core factors that determine success and and happiness in one’s professional and personal life. Adopting a tool only if its positive impacts on these factors substantially outweigh its negative impacts.
1. Law of the Vital Few to your Internet Habits
a. Identify the main high level goals in both professional and personal life
b. List for each the two or three most important activities that help one satisfy the goals
c. Consider the network tools one currently use. For each tool, go through the key activities one identified and ask whether the use the tool has a substantially positive impact, substantially negative impact or little impact on one’s regular and successful participation in the activity.
d. Keep only those that are substantially positive
The law of the vital few
In many conditions, 80% of a given effect is due to just 20% of the possible causes
16 hours of time a day
Excluding the time needed for sleep, the typical man should instead use their time as an aristocrat would. Performing rigorous self-improvement activities.
Figuring how one uses their evening and weekends
Setting out a program of reading, where one spend regular time each night making progress on a series of deliberately chosen books, similar to exercising.
Wouldn’t creating structure for evenings and weekends make it unrelaxing?
“What? You say that full energy given to those sixteen hours will lessen the value of the business eight? Not so. On the contrary, it will assuredly increase the value of the business eight. One of the chief things which my typical man has to learn is that the mental faculties are capable of a continuous hard activity; they do not tire like an arm or a leg. All they want is change – not rest, except in sleep.”Arnold Bennet, author of “how to live on 24 hours a day”
If one provides themselves with meaningful activities throughout their waking hours, they will end the day feeling more fulfilled and begin the next one more relaxed.
Rule 4: Drain the Shallows
Limits of deep work
For those who is new to deliberate practice, it has been found that an hour a day is a reasonable limit. For those familiar with the rigor of the activities, limiting to 4 hours is the possible maximum.
Scheduling every minute.
The author shed light on how many are spending much of their day on autopilot where they are not giving much thought to what they are doing with their time. This makes it difficult to prevent trivialities from sipping into every corner of one’s daily schedule.
Shallow work: Non-cognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted. These efforts tend not to create much new value in the world and are easy to replicate
Simple question to gauge what is a higher order activity
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?
Conclusion
“The one trait that differentiated [Gates from Allen] was focus. Allen’s mind would flit between many ideas and passions, but Gates was a serial obsessor.”Walter Isaacson, in his book “The Innovators”
Throughout the book, it elucidates how the ability to concentrate is a skill that gets valuable things done. Deep work is highly essential as it enables people to make the seemingly impossible possible.
“Ill live the focused life because it’s the best kind there is”Winifred Gallagher
Key Points & Applications
- Three types of individuals that are valuable
- High-skilled worker (those that work with complex machines)
- Superstars
- Owners (those who own intelligent machines)
- Two core abilities to thrive
- Quickly master hard things
- Produce at an elite level in terms of speed and quality
- Myelin is linked to habits. Myelin is strengthened through constantly firing the same pathways
- Adam Grant deep work practice – segmenting tasks into smaller discrete tasks
- Law of productivity: High-quality work produced = (Time spent) x (Intensity of focus)
- Attention residue: Constantly switching tasks causes finite attention & willpower to be significantly reduced
- Who we think, feel and do and what we love is the sum of what one focus on
- Positivity is learning how to rewire the amygdala where it inhibits the amygdala from firing during presence of negative stimuli
- Flow is achieved through stretching of one’s mind and body in a voluntary effort
- Being engaged is better than free time/idleness
- One needs a rarified approach to work than than a rarified job
- Deep work has to become a routine & ritual (myelin)
- Choose one’s own personal depth philosophy:
- Monostatic deep work: prioritizes deep work by eliminating/minimizing all other types of work. Monostatic deep work works best for those whose contributions/impact to the entity/world is discrete, clear and individualized.
Bimodal deep work: Seeking complete elimination of distraction when going on periods of deep work. Division of time where one dedicates clear defined stretches to deep pursuits and leave the rest of the time open to anything else. Dedicating a certain period of the month or year to deep work.
Rhythmic deep work: doing deep work at the same hour everyday. The focus for this method is for deep work to become a habit. It is to remove the need to decide that one shall do deep work at a certain time and date. What is important here is to make it a daily practice with a reinforcement and feedback (like the calendar with big red Xs). What is important for this method is to maintain visual indicator of one’s progress.
Journalistic deep work: Like journalists, the ability to shift into a writing mode on moment’s notice. Essentially, going into deep mode at will.
- Monostatic deep work: prioritizes deep work by eliminating/minimizing all other types of work. Monostatic deep work works best for those whose contributions/impact to the entity/world is discrete, clear and individualized.
- Give & Take by Adam Grant: Making the habit of giving time and attention to others without the expectation of something in return
- Keep deep work in the early bouts of the day due to willpower being a finite resource
- Creating a ritual:
- Where one will work and for how long: specifying the location with doors closed, desk cleaned and all. Also, specify the time duration along with it.
- Location
- Priming the location through certain actions
- Time
- How one will work once one start to work: one’s ritual needs rules and processes to keep the efforts structured. Without structure, one will spending mental effort to define the work itself. Attempting to assess and get feedback if the work and effort is well done.
- To dos
- Bans
- Metrics
- How one will support their work: Ensuring that one’s mind and body is able to operate at a high level of depth. for example, starting with coffee.
- Reducing mental energy from figuring out what one needs at the moment
- Where one will work and for how long: specifying the location with doors closed, desk cleaned and all. Also, specify the time duration along with it.
- 4 Disciplines of Execution by Sean Covey
- 1. Focus on the Wildly Important
2. Act on the Lead Measures
3. Keep a Compelling Scoreboard
4. Create a Cadence of Accountability
- 1. Focus on the Wildly Important
- Factor in downtime after deep work and in the evenings
- Take breaks from focus rather breaks from distractions
- Productive meditation:
- Suggestion 1: Be wary of distractions and looping: When one notices their attention slipping, gently shift one’s attention back to the problem at hand. Looping happens when one is faced with a tough problem, the mind loops over the same thoughts again to reduce one’s mind to go deeper.
What is important is noticing one is distracted by a different thought or is looping, one should gently redirect their attention.
Suggestion 2: Structure one’s deep thinking:
a. Review the relevant variables for solving the problem
b. Specify the next-step question to answer using the variables
c. Consolidate one’s gains by reviewing clearly the answers identified
Going through the cycle of reviewing and storing variables, identifying and tackling the next-step question, followed by consolidating gains is similar to an intense workout routine.
- Suggestion 1: Be wary of distractions and looping: When one notices their attention slipping, gently shift one’s attention back to the problem at hand. Looping happens when one is faced with a tough problem, the mind loops over the same thoughts again to reduce one’s mind to go deeper.
- How people moonwalk with Einstein:
- How to memorize through scenic memorization:
It is recommended that one begins by cementing in one’s mind
1. Mental image of one walking through five rooms in their home
2. When one comes through all the hallways and the room, try to recall a clear image of what one sees
3. Once the mental walkthrough is completed, fix 10 items in each rooms. It is best if the items are big and memorable. (Eg, toilet bowl instead of a floss)
4. Practice the mental exercise of walking through each room and looking at each item in each room in a set order.
5. Associate a memorable person or thing with each possible card. (if doing card memorization)
6. Try to maintain some logical association between the card and image
7. Begin a mental walk-through of one’s house and encounter each item and imagine the item/association with the card doing something beside the item.
8. Do this for all the items that have to be memorized
- How to memorize through scenic memorization:
- Using the law of the vital few
- a. Identify the main high level goals in both professional and personal life
b. List for each the two or three most important activities that help one satisfy the goals
c. Consider the network tools one currently use. For each tool, go through the key activities one identified and ask whether the use the tool has a substantially positive impact, substantially negative impact or little impact on one’s regular and successful participation in the activity.
d. Keep only those that are substantially positive
- a. Identify the main high level goals in both professional and personal life
- Law of the vital few: 80% of a given effect is due to just 20% of the possible causes
- Work like a aristocrat in one’s 16 hours: self-improvement activities
- Structure one’s evenings and weekends
- How to determine what activity is of higher order activity:
- 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?
3 Salient Applications & Points
3 Salient Points
- Myelin can be further developed by reusing the same pathways – creating habits
- Deep work to become a routine & ritual
- Having a rarified approach to work rather than a rarified work
3 Salient Applications
- Four disciplines of execution:
- 1. Focus on the Wildly Important
2. Act on the Lead Measures
3. Keep a Compelling Scoreboard
4. Create a Cadence of Accountability
- 1. Focus on the Wildly Important
- How memory athlete memorize and focus:
- How to memorize through scenic memorization:
It is recommended that one begins by cementing in one’s mind
1. Mental image of one walking through five rooms in their home
2. When one comes through all the hallways and the room, try to recall a clear image of what one sees
3. Once the mental walkthrough is completed, fix 10 items in each rooms. It is best if the items are big and memorable. (Eg, toilet bowl instead of a floss)
4. Practice the mental exercise of walking through each room and looking at each item in each room in a set order.
5. Associate a memorable person or thing with each possible card. (if doing card memorization)
6. Try to maintain some logical association between the card and image
7. Begin a mental walk-through of one’s house and encounter each item and imagine the item/association with the card doing something beside the item.
8. Do this for all the items that have to be memorized
- How to memorize through scenic memorization:
- Creating a ritual:
- Where one will work and for how long: specifying the location with doors closed, desk cleaned and all. Also, specify the time duration along with it.
- Location
- Priming the location through certain actions
- Time
- How one will work once one start to work: one’s ritual needs rules and processes to keep the efforts structured. Without structure, one will spending mental effort to define the work itself. Attempting to assess and get feedback if the work and effort is well done.
- To dos
- Bans
- Metrics
- How one will support their work: Ensuring that one’s mind and body is able to operate at a high level of depth. for example, starting with coffee.
- Reducing mental energy from figuring out what one needs at the moment
- Where one will work and for how long: specifying the location with doors closed, desk cleaned and all. Also, specify the time duration along with it.
- [Bonus] Applying the law of the vital few
- a. Identify the main high level goals in both professional and personal life
b. List for each the two or three most important activities that help one satisfy the goals
c. Consider the network tools one currently use. For each tool, go through the key activities one identified and ask whether the use the tool has a substantially positive impact, substantially negative impact or little impact on one’s regular and successful participation in the activity.
d. Keep only those that are substantially positive
- a. Identify the main high level goals in both professional and personal life
Summary
Throughout the book, the author delineated on the importance of deep work and how it is the key skillset for the new economy. He shared how there are 3 key types of individuals that will thrive in the new economy which are the highly skilled workers (those that can work with complex machines), the superstars (best in whatever they do) and the owners (those who own intelligent machines). For individuals to be part of any of those three types, being able to do deep work is pivotal. To do deep work, one needs to learn how to focus and concentrate intensely.
He shared how one has to make deep work a routine and ritual. Everyone has myelin in their brains and he shared how developed individuals’ myelin are determines how well they form certain habits. For myelin to be further developed, it requires one to continuously use it without multitasking so that they brain is consciously aware, which pathways are being used.
If the book had to be streamlined to one key point, it will have to be how deep focus can be built through developing one’s myelin, creating rituals and learning how to execute (wildly important, lag and lead measure, scoreboard and accountability).