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Deep Work v/s Shallow Work

Deep Work v/s Shallow Work

  • Deep Work: focused, distraction-free work that uses maximum cognitive capabilities, resulting in creation of value and improvement of skills.
  • Shallow Work: non-cognitively demanding replicable work that can be done in a distracted state and that creates no value.
  • The information economy requires us to master the art of quickly learning complicated things.
  • Knowledge workers are unable to perform deep work due to distractions from social media.

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Winning in the New Economy

Winning in the New Economy

Three groups of people will have a particular advantage in the new economy:

  1. High-skilled - those who can work well and creatively with intelligent machines.
  2. Superstars - those who are the best at what they do.
  3. Owners - those with access to capital to invest in new technologies driving the new economy.

Two core abilities to thrive 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.
  • If you can't learn, you won't thrive.
  • If you don't produce, you won't thrive- no matter how skilled or talented you are.

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Deliberate Practice

Deliberate Practice

Performing deliberate practice requires:

  1. Tightly focused attention on a skill you're trying to improve or an idea you're trying to master.
  2. Feedback to correct your approach and improve productivity.

Attention Residue: when you switch from Task A to another Task B, your attention doesn't immediately follow- a residue of your attention remains stuck thinking about the original task.

Therefore, batch hard/intellectual work into long, uninterrupted stretches.

High Quality Work = (Time Spent) x (Intensity of Focus)

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Productivity & Depth

Productivity & Depth

  • Clarity about what matters provides clarity about what does not.
  • Who you are, what you think, feel and do, what you love- is the sum of what you focus on.
  • Free time is unstructured and requires much greater effort to be shaped into something that can be enjoyed.
  • Knowledge workers do lots of stuff visibly to appear busy. However, this busyness is a proxy for productivity.
  • Deep work is an activity well-suited to generate a flow state.
  • You don't need a rarified job; you instead need a rarified approach to your work.

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Depth Philosophies

Depth Philosophies

  1. Monastic Philosophy - attempts to maximize deep efforts by eliminating shallow obligations.
  2. Bimodal Philosophy - divide your time, dedicating some clearly defined stretches to deep pursuits and leaving the rest open to everything else.
  3. Rhythmic Philosophy - generate a rhythm by transforming consistent deep work sessions into a simple regular habit.
  4. Journalistic Philosophy - switch into deep work mode any time you find some free time. This approach is not for beginners.

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Deep Work Ritual

Deep Work Ritual

  • Specify where you'll work and for how long.
  • Specify the rules and processes once you start to work.
  • Specify how you'll support your work (Ex: coffee, food, light exercise, etc.)
  • Sometimes to go deep, you must first go big. Make a grand gesture (go to a library, book/rent a room, etc.)
  • The Whiteboard Effect: for some types of problems, working with someone else can push you deeper than if you were working alone.
  • Focus on a few "wildly important goals".
  • Track your activities and perform a weekly review.

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Be Lazy

Be Lazy

  • Some decisions are better left to your unconscious mind to untangle.
  • Attention Restoration Theory: spending time in nature can help improve your ability to concentrate.
  • Don't try to squeeze a little more work out of your evenings. It can reduce your effectiveness the next day.
  • Your capacity to perform deep work on a given day is limited.
  • Schedule in advance when you'll use social media, and then avoid it altogether outside these times.
  • Put more thought into your leisure time. Don't default to whatever catches your attention at the moment.

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Use E-mail Mindfully

Use E-mail Mindfully

E-mails deliver a steady stream of distractions addressed specifically to you.

  1. Use a sender filter - "I'll only respond to those proposals that are a good match for my schedule and interests". Send this to everyone to set their expectations.
  2. It's the sender's responsibility to convince the receiver that a reply is worthwhile. Do not reply to e-mails if they are ambiguous, or uninteresting, or nothing really good would happen if you did respond and nothing really bad would happen if you didn't.

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TIM FERRISS

Develop the habit of letting small bad things happen. If you don't, you'll never find time for the life-changing big things.

TIM FERRISS

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Final Words

Final Words

Check out the following link for vocabularies from this book and more book summaries:

https://whealthlab.blogspot.com/2024/07/book-simplified-deep-work-by-cal-newport.html

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IDEAS CURATED BY

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CURATOR'S NOTE

Learn to focus and reduce distractions.

Curious about different takes? Check out our Deep Work Summary book page to explore multiple unique summaries written by Deepstash users.

Different Perspectives Curated by Others from Deep Work

Curious about different takes? Check out our book page to explore multiple unique summaries written by Deepstash curators:

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