BOOK REVIEW: DEEP WORK

Some books you read, and then forget. Others change a small part of your life. Then there are the rare
gems that fundamentally change the way you think, live, and work. Deep Work: Rules for Focused
Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport is one of the latter. As the world advances, three kinds of
people will survive and prosper: Owners of capital or people with access to it, those who can work with
intelligent machines and technology, Superstars in their field of work. Deep Work focuses on the third
type. To become one, you need to develop two skills: the ability to quickly master hard things and the
ability to produce at an elite level, in terms of both quality and speed. Deep Work is the concept that
interlinks these two skills. Hard things are complex and you need to give them all of your attention and
focus. The batching of hard but important intellectual work into long, uninterrupted stretches is key to
high productivity.
The new law of productivity is: High-Quality Work Produced = (Time Spent) x (Intensity of Focus)
So why aren’t we all performing Deep Work?
“Deep work is hard and shallow work is easier and in the absence of clear goals for your job, the
visible busyness that surrounds shallow work becomes self-preserving.”
Our goal is to systematically develop your personal ability to go deep - and by doing so, reap great
rewards.
Each task on your list can be divided into two main categories: deep work and shallow work. Cal
Newport defines deep work as: “Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free
concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value,
improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.”
On the other spectrum, we have 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.”
These are the rituals of the modern workplace, such as meetings, emails, and reports. While they are hard
to escape, you should make a conscious effort to diminish the time spent on them in order to maximize
the time you have for deep work activities.
The world is a distracting place and we are more distracted than ever. We constantly engage most of our
time on shallow work activities, thus reducing our capacity to perform deep work. As a result, this ability
is becoming increasingly rare and increasingly valuable in our economy. Only the few who cultivate this
skill and make it the core of their working life will thrive.
Deep Work is about working smarter, not harder. It is the superpower of the 21st century.
In order to make this guide easier to follow, I’ve broken it down into 5 simple steps:
1. Choose Your Deep Work Philosophy
2. Make Deep Work a Habit
3. Execute Like a Business
4. Remove Distractions
5. Use Downtime to Enhance
6. Deep Work Efforts Let’s get started!

In an environment and culture that makes Deep Work difficult, we have to add smart routines and rituals
to our working life. Design them to minimize the amount of our limited willpower necessary in
transitions and maintain unbroken concentration. There are four philosophies to integrate Deep Work into
your life on a sustained basis:
Monastic: maximize Deep Work by minimizing or removing shallow obligations. Isolate yourself for long
periods of time without distractions; no shallow work allowed
Bimodal: divide your time into some clearly defined stretches to deep pursuits and leave the rest open to
everything else. Reserve a few consecutive days when you will be working like a monastic. You need at
least one day a week
Rhythmic: the easiest way to consistently start deep work sessions is to transform them into a simple
regular habit. The rhythmic philosophy involves creating a routine where you define a specific time
period — ideally three to four hours every day - that you can devote to Deep Work
Journalistic: alternate your day between deep and shallow work as it fits your blocks of time. Not
recommended to try out first Decide on your philosophy and start designing your work accordingly.
Only you know what works best for you. A strategy that may work for one person can be a failure
for another.
After choosing your work philosophy, you must ruthlessly commit to scheduling Deep Work blocks into
your calendar and sticking to them. Scheduling in advance takes away the need to use willpower. “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.” To make the most out of each session, build
rituals and routines to minimize friction in your transition to depth:
1. Where: identify a location used only for depth, such as a conference room or a quiet library
2. How Long: set a specific time frame for each Deep Work session. Always have an end time rather than
keeping it open-ended
3. How: your ritual needs rules and processes to keep your efforts structured. Should you ban internet
during Deep Work sessions? Are there metrics like pages, words, etc. that you can use to measure your
work productivity?
4. Support: to maximize success, you need to support your efforts to go deep. For example, the ritual
might specify that you start with a cup of good coffee, or make sure you have access to enough food of
the right type to maintain energy.