Review and essentials from “Deep Work” by Cal Newport

Deep work is the work done with little or no distraction, which allows you to use your time more efficiently. The basic premise is that in knowledge work (i.e work done off and about ones’ knowledge rather than an actual product) more deep work could increase value output and general well being.

To do deep work one needs to limit all distractions. This is most easily done with a deep work ritual and a philosophy for ones deep work habit. The philosophy and the rituals following it could be totally individual, but Cal presents 4 different ones to get us started:

The monastic philosophy of deep work scheduling:

— The Monastics create as little distraction as they can for themselves when it comes to their daily lives, and they do it to an extent that might seem extreme. The author brings up one example where a man doesn’t have an e-mail adress which makes it virtually impossible to reach him. He has a regular mail adress, for post, where people can reach him. The monastic philosophy is for those who really feel their work important, and use all of their available time to pursue that work.

The bimodal philosophy of deep work:

— The Bimodals go monastic every now and then but see the importance, or find it important, to be connected every now and then. One example is the person who schedules a week in the woods every now and then, leaving their computer and cellphone behind. Another one is the professor who only gives lectures during the spring term in order to focus on his research during the summer and fall, where he’s a lot harder to reach. Having large chunks of time to be disconnected gives them the benefit of doing deep work at that time, whilst being in a system the rest of the time.

The Rhythmic philosophy of deep work:

— The Rhythmics schedule a chunk of time very regularly and most commonly a lot shorter than the bimodals. One example is scheduling an hour and a half for doing deep work early every morning, or one day per week.

The Journalistic philosophy of deep work:

— The author describes the journalist approach as “cramming as much depth in to a day as one can, whilst having other engagements”. The point here is for one to use every spare minute between meetings, when meetings are cancelled and so on to go deep. As journalists often need to be connected and at the same time need to get articles out in the world, they need the ability of going deep quickly and get use of the time that they can get.

My own preference of these philosophies is the rhythmic one, which I’ve kind of adapted since August. I wake up at 05:00, and sit down to read, write or study from 05:30 to 07:00, and that’s been really efficient for me. If I spend that time studying, I get my whole day of studying done in a sitting.

Another tangible tip in order to get deep work done that I found useful is to make rituals for your deep work. That especially goes for the Rhythmic and the Journalistic approaches. Mine is that I sit in one of two places, and I always play the same record in the mornings. I also don’t use social medias before or during deep work hours. The bullets that Cal suggests be in your ritual are these:

• Name a time frame and a place. Use the same space for deep work every time if possible.
• Name rules for your deep work. No internet can be one. Number of words written can be another.
• Set up what is needed for the work to be done. Food, exercise, nap usw.

All and all I think this book was helpful, but I didn’t find it super relevant to my own situation. There’s a lot of focus on corporate America workplaces and I’m not in one. The tips listed above were the most essential to me, and I don’t really think there’s anything new there. If you feel like you need motivation to focus more, and some tips on how to do it, this book might be for you though.