by Cal Newport
Four common occurrences in the modern workday:
1. You have your to-do list for the day all organized but within the first 20 minutes you get a phone call or email and you don’t touch even the first item on that list before the day is done.
2. You spend the entire day just answering emails.
3. You wonder if you will ever get to the work you were hired to do because the amount of time you spend in either meetings or otherwise communicating with your colleagues.
4. You have one important task to do, just one, but you never seem to get time to finish it because you get interrupted by phone calls, questions, and new assignments.
Have you fallen prey to any of these? I have. I find it mentally exhausting and it calls into question the very meaning of my work.
The technology driven society that we live in today has many good attributes and we’ve been able to achieve levels of productivity never before realized. However, is there a price to be paid for all this productivity? What are we losing in the highly fragmented world of on-demand media and always-on communication?
If you resonate with these questions, check out the book “Deep Work” by Cal Newport.
The book points out that the pace and specialization of our work today has resulted in a significant loss in craftsmanship. Craftsmanship- the slow and deliberate process of creation: a piece of furniture, an academic paper, restoring a rusted fender, or mindful listening by a mental health practitioner. Part of what we have lost in our hyper-connected productivity frenzy is the slow but stimulating process of building something meaningful.
Clearing your inbox each day is satisfying, but not to the same depth as writing a new computer program, bringing a dead motorcycle back to life, or solving the irrigation problem on the back forty. Deep Work is a thoughtful primer if you’re starting to question the value of being endlessly busy.
Beyond restoring meaning to our work, the book argues that working deeply is the best way to stand out in a shallow work world. Deep workers are rare and their contributions stand out against a backdrop of fast but mediocre work.
You might have a concern that your investment in this book is wasted because the opportunity for deep work is only for world-class divas that can use money and past success to retreat into their sanctum of uninterrupted creativity. I had this concern too. The book does spend time describing the work habits of some highly elite practitioners but I can vouch that it also adapts Deep Work approaches to the more typical of us that have to answer to a boss each day.
The promise of the book is this: if you can find a way to practice deep work, you will increase the value of your output manyfold over your distracted peers.
My experience in life says this is true.
Thoughtful, well-reasoned, a little heavy and academic in parts, well researched, advanced and technical case studies
Book: Paperback, 304 page
Audiobook: 7 hours 44 minutes
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