Deep Work Book Cover

Deep Work

Rules of Focused Success in a Distracted World
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Book by: Cal Newport

Brief summary

In this book, Cal Newport explains how due to today’s work culture, a very effective and potent skill is fast disappearing – that of working with utmost focus and concentration, on something demanding. This is the skill of deep work, which is bound to provide you with outstanding results. Instead of complaining about the culture of distraction, Newport discusses at length about the power and benefits of deep work. In a world where most of us are trying to deal with social media addiction, and exhausting work schedules, this is a must-read for everyone!

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Lesson 1. What is deep work?

Deep work refers to a concentrated and immersive manner of doing work. It heightens your productivity, and makes you accomplish a lot more in a short span. 

It has several benefits. The quality of work you’ll be producing will be of a much higher quality, and you won’t have to work for longer hours. 

Deep work requires intense focus and concentration. You should get rid of all kinds of distractions if you want to enter this phase. 

However, you need practice and effort to master deep work. You won’t be able to achieve an absolute level of immersion at one go.

The work culture in today’s world is demanding. We are expected to devote a large chunk of our time to our work. We have to respond to emails and calls throughout the day, and in the midst of all that, we’ve to churn out satisfactory performances in our respective fields. 

This need for constant investment hardly leaves any room for deep work, which requires you to work in a focused manner for a short span. However, if you manage to practise it, the rewards will be aplenty. Your performance and quality of work will improve drastically.

Lesson 2. The perils of today’s work culture.

Today’s work culture is designed in such a way that you have to multitask all the time. You simply can’t devote your entire attention in one area of work. You have to reply to your boss’ emails even while you’re busy working, or else you might invite their ire. 

In fact, a 2012 study has found that the average office worker spends 60 percent of the workweek using online modes of communication and browsing the internet, while only 30 percent goes into actually reading and replying to emails. 

Employees are expected to perform multiple tasks at the same time, like replying to emails while creating a presentation. This culture of multitasking keeps them distracted all the time. On top of that, there is the additional menace of social media, which is specifically designed to distract you and get you hooked. 

Social media presence is another demand at workplaces nowadays. Facebook and Instagram have now become avenues for companies to build their brand image. Employees therefore have to tweet and post updates, alongside performing their regular work, in order to remain connected with consumers. 

Simply put, there is absolutely no scope for immersing yourself in a particular area of work, and getting it done with full concentration. Rather, what is encouraged is getting distracted

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Famous quotes from Deep Work

  1. If you don’t produce, you won’t thrive—no matter how skilled or talented you are.
    2. -Cal Newport
  2. Clarity about what matters provides clarity about what does not.
    3. -Cal Newport
  3. Who you are, what you think, feel, and do, what you love—is the sum of what you focus on.
    4. -Cal Newport
  4. What we choose to focus on and what we choose to ignore—plays in defining the quality of our life.
    5. -Cal Newport
  5. Two Core Abilities for Thriving in the New Economy: 1. The ability to quickly master hard things. 2. The ability to produce at an elite level, in terms of both quality and speed.
    6. -Cal Newport
  6. To simply wait and be bored has become a novel experience in modern life, but from the perspective of concentration training, it’s incredibly valuable.
    7. -Cal Newport
  7. If you can’t learn, you can’t thrive.
    8. -Cal Newport
  8. Efforts to deepen your focus will struggle if you don’t simultaneously wean your mind from a dependence on distraction.
    9. -Cal Newport
  9. Less mental clutter means more mental resources available for deep thinking.
    10. -Cal Newport
  10. Human beings, it seems, are at their best when immersed deeply in something challenging.
    11. -Cal Newport
  11. The task of a craftsman is not to generate meaning, but rather to cultivate in himself the skill of discerning the meanings that are already there.
    12. -Cal Newport
  12. Your will, in other words, is not a manifestation of your character that you can deploy without limit; it’s instead like a muscle that tires.
    13. -Cal Newport
  13. If you service low-impact activities, you’re taking away time you could be spending on higher-impact activities. It's a zero-sum game.
    14. -Cal Newport
  14. Think like artists but work like accountants.
    15. -Cal Newport
  15. 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.
    16. -Cal Newport
  16. Your goal is not to stick to a given schedule at all costs; it’s instead to maintain, at all times, a thoughtful say in what you’re doing with your time going forward.
    17. -Cal Newport
  17. To build your working life around the experience of flow produced by deep work is a proven path to deep satisfaction.
    18. -Cal Newport
  18. A side effect of memory training is an improvement in your general ability to concentrate. This ability can then be fruitfully applied to any task demanding deep work.
    19. -Cal Newport
  19. To remain valuable in our economy, you must master the art of quickly learning complicated things. This task requires deep work. If you don’t cultivate this ability, you’re likely to fall behind as technology advances.
    20. -Cal Newport
  20. To do it right, it is the most complicated thing I know how to make, Furrer explains. And it’s that challenge that drives me. I don’t need a sword. But I have to make them.
    21. -Cal Newport
  21. Feynman was adamant in avoiding administrative duties because he knew they would only decrease his ability to do the one thing that mattered most in his professional life: to do real good physics work.
    22. -Cal Newport
  22. The ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy.
    23. -Cal Newport
  23. The key to developing a deep work habit is to move beyond good intentions and add routines and rituals to your working life designed to minimize the amount of your limited willpower necessary to transition into and maintain a state of unbroken concentration.
    24. -Cal Newport
  24. 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.
    25. -Cal Newport
  25. Trying to squeeze a little more work out of your evenings might reduce your effectiveness the next day enough that you end up getting less done than if you had instead respected a shutdown.
    26. -Cal Newport
  26. Regularly resting your brain improves the quality of your deep work. When you work, work hard. When you’re done, be done.
    27. -Cal Newport
  27. A deep life is a good life.
    28. -Cal Newport
  28. Your work is craft, and if you hone your ability and apply it with respect and care, then like the skilled wheelwright you can generate meaning in the daily efforts of your professional life.
    29. -Cal Newport
  29. Be disciple of depth in shallow world.
    30. -Cal Newport
  30. Once you’re wired for distraction, you crave it.
    31. -Cal Newport
  31. Any pursuit—be it physical or cognitive—that supports high levels of skill can also generate a sense of sacredness.
    32. -Cal Newport
  32. Fitting in is one of the greatest barriers to belonging. Fitting in is about assessing a situation and becoming who you need to be in order to be accepted. Belonging, on the other hand, doesn’t require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are.
    33. -Cal Newport
  33. To succeed with deep work you must rewire your brain to be comfortable resisting distracting stimuli.
    34. -Cal Newport
  34. The more you try to do, the less you actually accomplish.
    35. -Cal Newport

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About the author

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Cal Newport

Cal Newport, Ph.D., is a writer and an assistant professor of computer science at Georgetown University. He is the author of SO GOOD THEY CAN’T IGNORE YOU and three books of unconventional student advice. He runs the popular website Study Hacks: Decod...

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Published Year: 2016
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Deep Work Book Cover
Chapter List
  • Lesson 1. What is deep work?
  • Lesson 2. The perils of today’s work culture.
  • Lesson 3. Benefit of deep work, and how it functions.
  • Lesson 4. A few approaches to deep work.
  • Lesson 5. Ways to increase concentration levels.
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FAQs

In the summary of Deep Work book, there are 5 key lessons. These lessons include:

  1. Lesson 1. What is deep work?
  2. Lesson 2. The perils of today’s work culture.
  3. Lesson 3. Benefit of deep work, and how it functions.
  4. Lesson 4. A few approaches to deep work.
  5. Lesson 5. Ways to increase concentration levels.

Deep Work by Cal Newport was published in 2016.

Once you've completed Deep Work book, We suggest reading out Born a Crime as a great follow-up read.

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