Кэл Ньюпорт: Deep Work / В работу с головой

You need to read this book. Cal Newport, an academic and accomplished author, breaks down why we find “being productive” so difficult and, more importantly, what we can do about it.

In 287 well-researched pages, Newport explains both what is “Deep Work” and how to go about doing as much of it as humanly possible, while documenting the dangers and threats to this vision at every turn. If anything, Newport’s book is a perceptive meditation on the difficulty of doing one’s best work and how to overcome that difficulty. For graduate students—and Newport knows personally the unique struggles of academia—this book offers a vision for setting patterns and rituals that will lead to consistent contributions to one’s field.

What is “Deep Work” & Why Should We Care?

Newport defines “Deep Work” 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” (3). The goal is “to wring every last drop of value out of your current intellectual capacity” (3). In Part One he explores why deep work is worthwhile: it is economically valuable and advantageous, leading to economic security; the alternative, shallow work, does not lead to economic security; and deep work is more fulfilling, not only economically but on a personal level. Readers might quibble with defining value so often in economic terms in Chapters One and Two (although as graduate students your end goal is to get a job!), but through personal anecdotes and a philosophical argument for depth, Newport does show that “to build your working life around the experience of flow produced by deep work is a proven path to deep satisfaction” (86).

“Less mental clutter means more mental resources available for deep thinking.”

I must admit that I had two reservations before reading this book, and Newport has proven me wrong about both. First, I expected the book’s argument to be built upon personal stories that motivated me to dig deep within myself and simply work harder. I did not want to hear another message like that. Instead, Newport offers an incredibly well-researched perspective—a major strength of the book. When he makes a surprising claim, such as “embrace boredom,” he quickly shifts to studies and other relevant data to support his proposals and rarely resorts to opinion.

Second, I expected to find elements of a moral treatise that takes a stance against the world of distraction and its effects upon our ability to work productively. Newport, however, has no interest in the debate about whether tech is the future or our downfall as a society. For him, the commitment to deep work “is instead a pragmatic recognition that the ability to concentrate is a skill that gets valuable things done” (258). Part Two of the book—called “The Rules”—follows this pragmatic approach and outlines in four chapters how to enact the vision of deep work.