Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

by Cal Newport

give yourself a specific time frame to keep the session a discrete challenge

Your ritual needs rules and processes to keep your efforts structured.

Your ritual needs to ensure your brain gets the support it needs to keep operating

this support needs to be systematized

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.

For some types of problems, working with someone else at the proverbial shared whiteboard can push you deeper than if you were working alone.

Separate your pursuit of serendipitous encounters from your efforts to think deeply and build on these inspirations.

when it’s reasonable to leverage the whiteboard effect, do so.

this division between what and how is crucial

Focus on the Wildly Important

execution should be aimed at a small number of “wildly important goals.”

try to say ‘yes’ to the subject that arouses a terrifying longing,

Act on the Lead Measures

measure your success.

Lead measures, on the other hand, “measure the new behaviors that will drive success on the lag measures.”

lead measures turn your attention to improving the behaviors you directly control in the near future that will then have a positive impact on your long-term goals.

time spent in a state of deep work dedicated toward your wildly important goal.

Keep a Compelling Scoreboard

record and track their lead measures. This scoreboard creates a sense of competition that drives them to focus on these measures,

Create a Cadence of Accountability

need for regular accountability.

a weekly review to look over my scoreboard to celebrate good weeks, help understand what led to bad weeks, and most important, figure out how to ensure a good score for the days ahead.

execution is more difficult than strategizing.

injecting regular and substantial freedom from professional concerns into your day, providing you with the idleness paradoxically required to get (deep) work done.

At the end of the workday, shut down your consideration of work issues until the next morning—no

for decisions that involve large amounts of information and multiple vague, and perhaps even conflicting, constraints, your unconscious mind is well suited to tackle the issue.

when walking through nature, you’re freed from having to direct your attention,

allows your directed attention resources time to replenish.

you can restore your ability to direct your attention if you give this activity a rest.

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

accept the commitment that once your workday shuts down, you cannot allow even the smallest incursion of professional concerns into your field of attention.

shutting down with a strict shutdown ritual

every incomplete task, goal, or project has been reviewed and that for each you have confirmed that either (1) you have a plan you trust for its completion, or (2) it’s captured in a place where it will be revisited when the time is right.

have a set phrase you say that indicates completion

The ability to concentrate intensely is a skill that must be trained.

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

schedule the occasional break from focus to give in to distraction.

Schedule in advance when you’ll use the Internet, and then avoid it altogether outside these times.

constant switching can be understood analogously as weakening the mental muscles responsible for organizing the many sources vying for your attention.

This strategy works even if your job requires lots of Internet use and/or prompt e-mail replies.

The total number or duration of your Internet blocks doesn’t matter nearly as much as making sure that the integrity of your offline blocks remains intact.

you must keep the time outside these blocks absolutely free from Internet use.

don’t immediately abandon an offline block, even when stuck.

Scheduling Internet use at home as well as at work can further improve your concentration training.

when in an offline block, put your phone away, ignore texts, and refrain from Internet usage.

give yourself plenty of opportunities throughout your evening to resist switching

identify a deep task (that is, something that requires deep work to complete) that’s high on your priority list. Estimate how long you’d normally put aside for an obligation of this type, then give yourself a hard deadline that drastically reduces this time.

motivate yourself by setting a countdown timer on your phone and propping it up where you can’t avoid seeing it

there should be only one possible way to get the deep task done in time: working with great intensity—no