Deep Work Book Summary

Book Summary

15 min

Audio available

Brief Summary

Distraction is an inevitability in our world today. Everywhere you look, there is something new demanding our full attention. In order to reach our most productive selves, we must find strategies that work for us personally and allow us to be the efficient and deep-thinking people we know we can be. Whether this is setting appropriate boundaries, finding a scheduling pattern that keeps us organized or taking a hiatus from social media, we each have a responsibility to ourselves to strike an appropriate balance between our personal lives and productivity, in spite of the many distractions around us.

About the Author

Cal Newport, Ph.D., is a professor of computer science at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and the author of six self-improvement books including Deep Work (2016). He was born on June 23, 1982. After graduating from Dartmouth College in 2004 and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2009, Newport completed a postdoctoral role in the MIT computer science department where his work focused on distributed algorithms and communication systems in nature. Other titles by Newport include How to Win at College (2005), How to Be a High-School Superstar (2010), and How to Become a Straight-A Student (2006). He also has a blog, Study Hacks, which he started in 2007. Currently, Newport resides in Tahoma Park, Maryland with his three sons. He has NEVER had a social media account.

Topics

Self Development Psychology

Deep Work Book Summary Preview

Deep Work--Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

Key Insights:

Deep Works--Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World examines the cognitive demands of productivity in an environment where technology is pulling us in many directions at once. Newport emphasizes the necessity of tuning out the ‘noise’ in order to focus deeply, an ability that is becoming increasingly rare in a society of constant multi-tasking. Through specific, action-based examples, Newport introduces readers to new strategies for engaging in deep work, ones that encourage high-level performance in a significantly shortened time frame.

An Argument Against Multitasking:

In the ten minutes, you spend reading this summary, count how many notifications you receive, whether that is emails, text messages, comments on Facebook, or likes on Instagram. Chances are, your total number of ‘interruptions’ will exceed ten. In recent years, it has become commonplace to be bombarded with notifications nearly every minute throughout the course of a day.

How can any of us be expected to focus on a single task when multiple outlets are vying for our attention all at once?

In Deep Works--Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, Cal Newport differentiates between two key forms of productivity: deep work and shallow work.

Shallow work primarily refers to administrative tasks that do not require a high level of critical thinking, such as checking your email, performing routine data entry, and filling out paperwork. Deep work, on the other hand, refers to a mentally stimulating, challenging task.

While shallow work can often be successfully completed while multi-tasking, deep work is negatively impacted by distractions that take-away from the overall result.

So, as you simultaneously balance your coffee mug, a toddler, and this article on your lap, you may wonder: how do we fix this?

First, adjust your perception of your productivity level.

A 2012 study from the consulting firm McKinsey discovered that the average employee spends more than 60 percent of his or her working hours using online social tools and only about 30 percent of their time is dedicated to job-related tasks.

And yet, workers feel that they are now working more than ever. Why?

In reality, more time is being spent on each task, because employees are taking more frequent breaks and distracting themselves with online and social content. Distraction is the antithesis to productivity.

Second, productivity is maximized when you focus on completing a single task from start to finish and minimizing distractions.

Consider the following experiment with Group A and Group B. Group A was asked to complete several word puzzles. Shortly after starting, participants in this group were interrupted and told that they needed to review resumes and make faux hiring decisions instead. Group B, whose participants had also been completing puzzles, was able to finish working on the current charge before moving on to the second task.

In between the two tasks, researcher Sophie Leroy from the University of Minnesota, tested each group to see how many words from the puzzles (Task 1) they...