Deep Work [Book Review]

You might’ve noticed by now that I’m super into books about productivity and human behavior. I’ve got some pretty severe ADHD lurking up in my skull, and I figured out pretty early in life that the key to my personal productivity was almost entirely dependent on my ability to create habits, routines, and systems that focused my otherwise scattered attention.

So I was pretty jazzed when I came across Deep Work by Cal Newport. This book is rife with both theory and practical advice. I found this book so incredibly useful, in fact, that I’ll save you the time and energy of scrolling to the end of this post to see my final verdict. I’ll just tell you now: If you want to improve the quality and consistency of your work, grab a copy of this book today!

To name a thing is to know a thing

Let’s start at the beginning. Newport distinguishes between two types of work: Deep and Shallow.

Deep work he defines as:

Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate. Example: writing a story.

By contrast, shallow work is defines as:

Non-cognitively demanding logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted. They tend not to create much value and are easy to replicate. Example: answering emails.

You’ve maybe never thought of your work in these terms, but now that you are, I’m sure you can think back to your typical work day and find the areas where shallow work dominates and your deep work suffers.

The reason for this is because deep work is by its very nature cognitively demanding. It’s hard and doesn’t always have a lot to show for it in the short term. Shallow work, on the other hand, is cognitively easy AND comes with the added perk of being easy to complete.

With shallow work we run the risk of using busyness as a proxy for productivity. This is a slippery slope because it fills us with a sense of doing.

This feeds into what is called The Principle of Least Resistance. This means that when given the choice between two tasks (one difficult and the other easy), we inevitably gravitate towards the easier task which is by definition shallow. It is only through conscious choice that we break these habits.

Sometimes it’s just easier to lay down and give up.

To make this pertinent for any writers out there, think about how much easier it is to dive into Wikipedia for a research session, than it is to bang out a first draft. How much easier is it to get on Twitter and engage with fans in the name of building a platform than it is to sit down and write a first draft?

We all fall into this trap. But perhaps through awareness we can begin to change our behaviors.

Designing Our Workplace

Open floor workspaces are all the rage, these days. They are built on the idea that mass collaboration coupled with easy accessibility leads to increased serendipitous creativity.

The problem is, the research show this doesn’t work. Our productivity is greatly hindered by the proximity of others, and the ease in which they might disrupt our work at any moment. This makes the process of engaging in deep work all but impossible.

To understand why this is so, let’s talk about multi-tasking.

First, no matter whether you’re a man, woman, child, dog, parakeet, whatever… You Suck At Multi-Tasking. I know, I know, you’re thinking: Nah, I’m the exception.

But you’re not. I promise. It may feel like you’re an excellent multi-tasker, but the research overwhelmingly confirms that this is simply not the case. The reason is a little thing called Attention Residue.

Every time you switch between tasks (let’s say you going from writing a story to glancing at your phone) you disrupt the flow state your brain had established for its current task and force it to pivot entirely in a new direction. Now, it doesn’t matter if you only glance over for half a second, the damage is done. Your attention is now divided between whatever it was focused on and whatever it is now focused on.

Unfortunately our brains suck when it comes to this sort of rapid attention diverting and you carry a bit of residue from the previous task into the new task, which means you do not have the full capacity of your attention to deliver into this new task. Now, let’s say you immediately switch back to the first task, well, now you have double attention residue piled up from the previous two switches.

Example: You’re working on a report and an email comes in. You glance over just to see who it’s from in case it’s something important. Look, it’s Jane from Accounting. That’s probably not important, so you dive back into your report. But part of your mind lingers on Jane and the fact that you forgot you were supposed to call her about such and such that morning. Now you’re combating those thoughts and no matter how hard you try, a piece of Jane is gonna stick in your brain inhibiting your ability to work deeply on the report.

Now think of an open floor workspace and how many opportunities there are for distraction. Yeah, it’s a nightmare. Studies indicate that workers in an open floor workspace are 1/3 as productive as their counterparts working in a hub and spoke layout.

Don’t know what a hub and spoke layout is? Check out Deep Work.

Styles of Deep Work

Newport offers a couple different way you might introduce a Deep Work Ritual into your work: Monastic, Bimodal, and Rhythmic.

Monastic

This is probably impossible for most average people, but this requires completely disconnecting yourself from the outside world. Cloistering yourself off from all external sources of distraction so you may focus 100% of your energy on a task.

Bimodal

Utilizes a similar principle to seclusion as the monastic approach, however, in the bimodal structure this is only a semi-permanent state of affairs. The individual takes “retreats” during which they cut themselves off from the outside world in an attempt to maximize their production of deep work.

Rhythmic

This is the one I, and most working professionals, employ. It revolves around setting aside specific periods of time each day during which you tackle deep work. For myself, I do my deep work early in the morning between 5-9am. Then I’ll typically schedule a second deep work session later in the day. This works well for a lot of reasons. Namely, early in the morning, there are less external variables vying for my attention. It’s easy to shut myself off because for the most part, the rest of the world hasn’t really ramped up yet.

Attention Drills

Newport makes the accurate assessment that attention is not something we have an innate amount of. We are not born with a predetermined amount. It is not a fixed trait like height. It is a muscle, or a skill to be grown and developed over time.

People are often stunned to discover I have ADHD, because I’ve spent years compensating, developing techniques which’ve allowed me to level the playing field with those individuals not suffering with a similar disadvantage.

Deep Work differs from a lot of other behavioral science books out there because Newport offers distinctive exercises we can utilize on a daily basis for helping grow our attention. This alone justified the purchase of the book for me.

The Last Word

Deep Work is one of my top reads of 2017 thus far. Interestingly I learned very few new things. This book did nothing to change my own personal processes (which was formed via years of my own trial and error), but it gave names and labels to things I had only held loosely formed in my head for so long.

If I’d had this book twenty years ago, it would’ve undoubtedly fast-tracked my learning process in both school and life. If you’re still struggling to dial in your system of work, or you’re just interested in learning more about the rules for focused success in a distracted world, I highly recommend picking up a copy of Deep Work.

[box] Have you read Deep Work? Get down to the comments and let me know what you thought?[/box]

[box] Tell me about your systems of productivity. What are some tips and tricks you can share with the community to help us all take our game to the next level? Get down to the comments and share![/box]