Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

Straightforward and inspiring!

I didnt read the book yet, but i have to give 5 star for the physical quality, good packaging and no damage..

nice book quality is also good

One of the great books that anyone can read. Highlights practical issues we face in our daily lives and how to overcome the distractions and be more effective. I really enjoyed this book.

The author takes a long time and many references to say : 1) make deliberate choices to do things that require focus and concentration, 2) get organized to cut activities that do not (even if it means not replying to emails, or cutting social media), and 3) - since so many people are stuck on social media other attention wasters - you will do better with less hours. This is important and often neglected advice, but you probably do not need a whole book to understand this.

Book quality is too poor

I’m predisposed to like Cal and his approach. I’ve been reading his blog since 2009. It’s not an exaggeration to say that his perspective has been a game changer for me that came during a time where I could have easily drowned. I was once an academic (now lapsed) capable of consuming and summarizing 4 books a day while studying for comps and writing a dissertation. I then went to the private sector and discovered how things like weak corporate cultures and poor management offer few visible consequences of average behavior or rewards for being exceptional. The disruption in personal discipline is severe. Concentration suffers. Bars are lowered. A dozen years later (and later than I would have liked) I realized I was underperforming. I remember the day I was told by a mentor I was drowning and would be yanked out of the pool before I did the company any harm. I had to really knuckle down and focus. I started to search for help and found Cal’s blog. From there I started my own personal quest. Deep Work is the culmination of a very thorough and thought-through approach not just to productivity, but to living a life worth living. For those of us who read Cal’s blog regularly, it’s another remarkable milestone on a long journey. This book provides a sound framework on how to become more focused, where the goal is not the focus itself but the benefits of that focus. The obvious benefit is improved productivity, but this is about more than just work efficiency. Cal makes a compelling argument for focus in all aspects of life and the benefits it brings both personally and professionally. He presents a wealth of research on how our brains work, as well as practical guidelines that will help anyone build the foundation on which focus can be built. Just as importantly, he offers a number of real-world examples that show the value of focus and debunk myths about multitasking, the "importance" of shallow activities (like email, internet surfing, and social media obsessiveness), and the perception that being thoughtful about how you use your time somehow prevents serendipity. For me, Deep Work fills two meaningful gaps in Cal’s ideas. One of them relates to having the discipline to succeed and what’s at stake without it. Discipline is the unknown in each of our personal equations. It varies considerably and is difficult to change. Deep Work offers a number of methods to facilitate personal discipline. It is this aspect of the book that speaks most to me. Cal is steadfast in his own desire to think and rethink in search of improvement. His character is stubborn and resilient, but without the rough edges that often accompany these traits. I didn’t realize this until I joined his live webinar supporting this book. In it, close to the end, he effectively apologizes for being driven and ambitious. I found this a very genuine confession, a brief but telling glint of humility that leads me to conclude, correctly I believe, that he is a fundamentally a decent person. In the end this is his strong suit, and so much the better for those of us whom he has helped. The other gap he fills relates to how his ideas could be applied to the nonacademic lives that most of us live. For those chained to the oars of the slave ship bobbing through rough seas of office politics or weak managers or bad corporate cultures, the lessons are actually more relevant. They just require slightly different implementations. This aspect of the book was less eye-opening to me given that I had subscribed to Cal’s approach as a knowledge worker myself. In fact, I have used his approach to help some of my own employees (particularly first-time managers) reorient themselves and how they spend their time. The value of Cal’s message is equaled by the clarity of his writing. Cal’s argumentation is well-structured, well-researched, and tight as a drum in its logic. He expresses himself fully and convincingly, but without the complex or ponderous prose that I’m used to in academic texts. He writes cleanly and eloquently, with little opportunity for misunderstanding. I’m pretty sure that’s deliberate. Cal has obviously dedicated himself to this topic for a benefit beyond just being a professional guru. While I believe (and hope) he profits from it, I also believe this is a derivative product of his more fundamental goal to succeed in what he finds important in his own driven way. I am hopeful that he continues to write and share his observations as his story unfolds. In sum, this is a rich and worthwhile book that will continue to give readers something to think about regardless of where they are in life. There is no secret to his methods of productivity. There’s nothing to buy. There are techniques that work, make sense, and can be practiced by anyone. If you follow them even in part, you’ll have a big leg up on everyone else.

A must read book for every aspiring and seasoned professional to take control of daily work flow.

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I really resonated with this book. I work in software, and even though my job requires a lot of hard thinking and problem solving, I find myself constantly distracted by a work culture which seems to think it's ok to be perpetually interrupted. This book has been my guiding light and adopting even half of what it recommends is challenging, but very worthwhile. If you read "So Good They Can't Ignore You" you might remember Cal Newport highlights the need to develop "career capital", that is, hard-earned rare and valuable skills, which enable you to get a meaningful / satisfying job. This book is a substantial part of the answer to the question of: "how do I get rare and valuable skills?". Newport starts the book by arguing quite convincingly that deep work is not only increasingly rare, but increasingly valuable. But let's rewind a bit, what is "deep" work? Deep work is defined as working in a very focused manner, free from distractions, intensely concentrating on something that hopefully yields a valuable outcome. The output need not be something physical, it could be an insight, an idea, or a skill. Think of straining your brain to solve a puzzle versus copy and pasting things while chatting to a colleague. The former is deep, the latter shallow. Deep work is becoming increasingly rare because of our work culture's obsession with "connectivity", open plan offices, and social media. Why are we destroying our ability to work deeply then? Some things stand out, like the fact that it is hard to get metrics for how these things make us less productive, how hard it is to quantify the productivity of a knowledge worker, and how we tend to jump on the latest tech without thinking about alternatives / downsides. The case is made for deep work becoming increasingly valuable partly because of these distractions: if you can do it, you will stand out. But it's also valuable because of what it leads to: mastery of hard skills, and valuable output. Apart from these extrinsic benefits deep work is also intrinsically meaningful. It can cultivate a sense of craftsmanship and can lead to the fulfilling "flow" state. After the "what" and the "why" the rest of the book focuses on the "how". Lots of useful ideas and techniques are explored here. The general theme is do what you can and be thoughtful about how you spend your day. For example identify how you can do deep work: is it possible for you to go to the woods for the weekend, or (like most busy people with jobs) do you have some morning/evening time to use well? Make good routines / rituals. Schedule distractions and make focus your default state. Quit (or reduce your time on) social media. Adopt tech with a more critical mindset. Be less available on email etc. To conclude, this book is a shining light in the fog of modern work practices. If you are an attention deprived knowledge worker, it will likely help you a lot. But I can see it benefitting a wider class of people, because our ability to focus is so important.