Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

by Cal Newport

neurological foundation for why deliberate practice works.

Deep work is at a severe disadvantage in a technopoly because it builds on values like quality, craftsmanship, and mastery that are decidedly old-fashioned and nontechnological.

to support deep work often requires the rejection of much of what is new and high-tech.

deep life is not just economically lucrative, but also a life well lived.

skillful management of attention is the sine qua non of the good life and the key to improving virtually every aspect of your experience.

Csikszentmihalyi calls this mental state flow (a term he popularized with a 1990 book of the same title).

“jobs should be redesigned so that they resemble as closely as possible flow activities.”

The Enlightenment’s metaphysical embrace of the autonomous individual leads not just to a boring life,”

Dreyfus and Kelly worry; “it leads almost inevitably to a nearly unlivable one.”

we can connect this sacredness inherent in traditional craftsmanship to the world of knowledge work.

One hundred years from now, our engineering may seem as archaic as the techniques used by medieval cathedral builders seem to today’s civil engineers, while our craftsmanship will still be honored.

Whether you’re a writer, marketer, consultant, or lawyer: Your work is craft, and if you hone your ability and apply it with respect and care, then like the skilled wheelwright you can generate meaning in the daily efforts of your professional life.

You don’t need a rarified job; you need instead a rarified approach to your work.

You have a finite amount of willpower that becomes depleted as you use it.

This book, which was published in 1986, was well received by the right people.

the single best piece of advice I can offer to anyone trying to do creative work is to ignore inspiration.

There’s no one correct deep work ritual—the right fit depends on both the person and the type of project pursued.

By leveraging a radical change to your normal environment, coupled perhaps with a significant investment of effort or money, all dedicated toward supporting a deep work task, you increase the perceived importance of the task.

Sometimes to go deep, you must first go big.

Ericsson notes that for a novice, somewhere around an hour a day of intense concentration seems to be a limit,

your capacity for deep work in a given day is limited.

When you work, work hard. When you’re done, be done.

constant attention switching online has a lasting negative effect on your brain.

Deep work requires levels of concentration well beyond where most knowledge workers are comfortable.

The goal of productive meditation is to take a period in which you’re occupied physically but not mentally—walking, jogging, driving, showering—and focus your attention on a single well-defined professional problem. Depending on your profession, this

When you notice it, remark to yourself that you seem to be in a loop, then redirect your attention toward the next step.

To master the art of deep work, therefore, you must take back control of your time and attention from the many diversions that attempt to steal them.

I call it the craftsman approach to tool selection, a name that emphasizes that tools are ultimately aids to the larger goals of one’s craft.