Deep Work

✒️ Note-Making

🔗Connect

⬆️Topic:: Deep Work Topic:: workflows (MOC)

💡Clarify

🔈 Summary of main ideas

1. Deep work is essential - In today's economy, we need to be able to learn hard things and have extraordinary output, both are the result of deep work. This is in contrast with shallow work which is more about signaling that you are productive rather than actually being one. Deep work allows us to be in the zone, to feel meaning and make important contributions.
2. Protect your deep work sessions - Deep work is hard to preserve due to the busyness culture and the forces of social media. Treat your deep work sessions as sacred, isolate yourself physically and technologically. Give yourself as much time as possible, preferably 4 hour long sessions every day, or at least 90 minutes.

🗒️Relate

⛓ by following this method, what will happen? What is the goal of this book? We will be much more productive and with better positioning as a knowledge worker in our changing economy

🔍Critique

✅ relevant research, metaphors or examples that helps to convey the argument

1. Metric black hole -there's a thousand ways to measure fake productivity, but no way to measure the quality of deep work

❌ the logical jumps, holes or simply cases where it is wrong...

🧱 Implementations and limitations of it are... I know how not to do shallow work, for example by avoiding social media and using time blocking, but I don't know how to do deep work

🗨️Review

💭 my opinions on the book, the writers style...

Something about this book makes me dislike it. Sometimes it feels like he focuses on what he wants to say rather than what he needs to say, or on himself rather than building his argument.

Sometimes it feels like this is a collection of ideas around the theme of deep work, with a weak connection and a narrative like persuasion without a lot of depth.

Perhaps this book was revolutionary at the time, but now it's underwhelming. Spending half the book just claiming that deep work is important seems redundant.

🖼️Outline

📒 Notes

Introduction

Extraordinary results come from periods of interrupted, focused work, what he calls deep work. It is the only way to maximize our cognitive output and our mental capacity. It requires solitude, because one of the forces that has recently been increased is the Attention Economy that offers endless Distractions.

Deep work is in contrast with shallow work, which is a mindless activity like answering emails or doing routine work.

Nowadays, it's more rare, and therefore more valuable, to be proficient at doing deep work.

Introduction

• Deep Work: Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. (Location 59)
• To remain valuable in our economy, therefore, you must master the art of quickly learning complicated things. This task requires deep work. (Location 175)
• The Deep Work Hypothesis: The ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the core of their working life, will thrive. (Location 193)

The Idea

Deep Work is Valuable

Unless you have access to unlimited capital, to succeed Competitive Advantage in the new economy you must:

1. Know how to learn hard things - it requires a mindset of Lifelong Learning, and it's achieved through uninterrupted focused sessions of Deliberate Practice without distractions
2. Know how to produce quality output - the longer we spend on a given task without distractions, the higher the output. This is because quickly switching tasks hurts us due to Attention Residue

Natural talent is no longer enough.

Deep Work Is Valuable

• 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. (Location 332)
• If you can’t learn, you can’t thrive. (Location 360)
• To learn hard things quickly, you must focus intensely without distraction. (Location 419)

Deep Work is Rare

In our modern economy, doing deep work has become very rare. We have fallen for the temptation of "connectivity", that to be instantly available to all who's asking is a sign of value. It fails due to the McNamara Fallacy to notice the true costs of this connectivity. The costs are not visible, which makes them easier to accept. It's "easiest" to just reply to emails instead of diving into deep work.

We have replaced productivity with busyness, which serves as a shallow copy of it. We measure ourselves in message sent instead of quality work completed Goodhart’s Law, or at least use it for Signaling our productivity level. This is an old, production line mentality from the Industrial Revolution when people were not measured by qualitative output or thinking processes, but rather quantitative results.

Deep Work Is Rare

• Busyness as Proxy for Productivity: In the absence of clear indicators of what it means to be productive and valuable in their jobs, many knowledge workers turn back toward an industrial indicator of productivity: doing lots of stuff in a visible manner. (Location 713)

Deep Work is Meaningful

We are what we pay attention to. Focusing on shallow work makes us shallow, while focusing on deep work brings meaning.

Similarly, having deep work creates a sense of Flow which is useful not only for meaning but also for happiness.

The common theme is being a craftsperson, to combine yourself with a task so deeply that each supports the other, a connection that creates meaning and happiness in life.

Deep Work Is Meaningful

• “Who you are, what you think, feel, and do, what you love—is the sum of what you focus on.” (Location 859)
• Human beings, it seems, are at their best when immersed deeply in something challenging. (Location 937)
• To build your working life around the experience of flow produced by deep work is a proven path to deep satisfaction. (Location 953)

The Rules

Work Deeply

Deep work requires an effort, and since Willpower is Limited, we mustn't rely on willpower to shift our attention for shallow activities or distractions back to deep work, but rather build habits that will make deep work the default (or only) path. Like having a regular schedule where you unplug for deep work.

Methods of implementing deep work in your life:

1. full depth - become a "hermit", closing yourself off from the world, focusing only on deep work. Have no email, leave no time for distractions
2. seasonal - occasionally, have at least one full day focusing only on deep work, like a retreat where you go off the grid. The rest of the time you are "available" to the world
3. habitual - have a habit of deep work throughout your day, like blocking specific sessions.

Each method has it's advantages and disadvantages. While the full depth is perhaps the best way to do deep work, it's hardly an easy option for most people.

Regardless of your chosen strategy, you must make deep work sessions a habit. It can't be when "you feel like it". Things will try to overlap with your deep work sessions, make them fixed and protect them at all costs.

Finding out the right settings for you requires Experimentation.

Other misc suggestions:

1. Make a grand gesture - sometimes to enter a state of deep work, we need a Clean Slate, and the more expensive "the better". The monetary investment serves as a Commitment Devices. For example, renting a 1000$ per night hotel for writing "forces" you to use that time we'll
2. Mix with others - some creativity requires collaboration. Make sure that your space has both options, a hub (like open space) for random encounters, and a spoke for self deep work. When possible, work in pairs, they will serve as your Accountability partner.
3. Track lead measure - instead of focusing on the results, focus on the process. For example, track hours spent in deep work, not how much you've written. This will allow you to asses your situation better and correct if necessary, instead of waiting for the results to arrive
4. Don't forget to rest - aside from isolating yourself, it's also important to Rest, which allows your downtime brain to work on the problem in creative ways while you recharge your energy and ability to focus. Doing a Nature walk is a good example for a relaxing activity.
5. Do a shutdown ritual - in order to clear our mind so that we could dedicate ourselves to resting, it's important to make a clear distinction as to when the work day ends. You're not likely to be productive in the evening, so every desire to continue to work is a distraction that takes time off the important downtime. Go over your tasks, have a plan when you're going to complete them, have a plan for tomorrow, and log off work stuff like email.

Work Deeply

• Your conscious mind, according to this theory, is like a home computer on which you can run carefully written programs that return correct answers to limited problems, whereas your unconscious mind is like Google’s vast data centers, in which statistical algorithms sift through terabytes of unstructured information, teasing out surprising useful solutions to difficult questions. (Location 1609)
• once your workday shuts down, you cannot allow even the smallest incursion of professional concerns into your field of attention. (Location 1666)

Embrace Boredom

Concentration requires practice.

We have to Inverse how we think about distractions. It's not about setting time to focus as a break from distractions, it's about allowing to be distracted as a break from focus.

Meaning, our default is to be doing deep work, to train our ability to focus. The rest, either shallow work or distractions is the exception. Use Chunking to create specific "distraction" blocks where you do all the shallow work like checking email, while you stay offline the rest of the time.

Make yourself a shorter deadline on purpose to push you to stretch your limits. Often you will discover that you can finish tasks much sooner than expected due to the Parkinsons Law.

Do a productive meditation, which means being physically active like taking a walk or run while letting your mind continue to think about hard tasks.

Use memory enhancing techniques such as Memory Palace because it also enhances your ability to focus

Embrace Boredom

• Efforts to deepen your focus will struggle if you don’t simultaneously wean your mind from a dependence on distraction. (Location 1740)

Quit Social Media

We treat social media with a very soft rule, that if it gives us any value, then it's justified. However, as with any tool, the justification must take also the Alternative cost into account. What are we missing or not doing by spending time on social media?

The alternative cost should be measured compared to activities that are essential to progressing in your goals.

Think of it as a Pareto Principle. A vital few of your activities brings most of the benefits. So it's better to abandon the rest. Usually social media falls within that category.

That time should be replaced with a better alternative. Think of your 16 hours outside work as a brand new day, one that you can use for progress, growth and achievements. You will find out that not only that it doesn't drain your energy, the reverse is true, it will fill you with energy and transform you into a more productive and happy person

Quit Social Media

• The use of network tools can be harmful. If you don’t attempt to weigh pros against cons, but instead use any glimpse of some potential benefit as justification for unrestrained use of a tool, then you’re unwittingly crippling your ability to succeed in the world of knowledge work. (Location 2063)
• If you give your mind something meaningful to do throughout all your waking hours, you’ll end the day more fulfilled, and begin the next one more relaxed, than if you instead allow your mind to bathe for hours in semiconscious and unstructured Web surfing. (Location 2376)
• if you want to eliminate the addictive pull of entertainment sites on your time and attention, give your brain a quality alternative. (Location 2378)

Drain the Shallows

Shallow work can often be reduced without hurting our productivity. For example, a 4 day work week might just be as effective as 5. However, since shallow work is sometimes needed, and deep work is taxing, you would probably won't be able to do more than 4 hours a day of deep work, but try not to do less of it.

To maintain control over your schedule, use time blocking. Yes, unexpected things will happen and our planning might be wrong, if it happens, just replan, as many time as it takes.

Although, a better option is to treat your schedule as fixed. Let the interruptions get stressed about how will they fit in your schedule, not the other way around. Same for email messages, instead of dedicating a lot of time for each incoming mail that took seconds to write, declare that you will only respond to important mails, ones that have made clear why they are important to you.

Drain the Shallows

• We spend much of our day on autopilot—not giving much thought to what we’re doing with our time. This is a problem. (Location 2463)
• There are two common tropes bandied around when people discuss solutions to e-mail overload. One says that sending e-mails generates more e-mails, while the other says that wrestling with ambiguous or irrelevant e-mails is a major source of inbox-related stress. The approach suggested here responds aggressively to both issues—you send fewer e-mails and ignore those that aren’t easy to process—and by doing so will significantly weaken the grip your inbox maintains over your time and attention. (Location 2843)

Conclusion

Deep work is revolutionary