This is a well-considered, balanced and persuasive book with many insights. While the author is in the sciences, I recommend this book to anyone in the arts who is looking to nurture their creativity and production. This book provides a foundational concept for people who want to build a body of work that creates a meaningful difference. The idea is that we do our best (deep) work when we have the habits and conditions that support, encourage and build that capacity. It is not for everybody. If you want 'hacks' or shortcuts, this is not the book for you. This book goes beyond the "hustle and grind" approach of putting in time and effort - it presupposes that you're willing to do both of those things. It asks – what will differentiate you then? That is the core goal this book will help you with - to sustain creating and producing work that is the best quality you're capable of (or even better than you've been capable of in the past). Newport spends the first half of the book providing the research and context to back up the argument that deep, focussed work is what will generate these breakthroughs. The second half of the book steps through the how. Each of the four rules is given with guidance and ideas for implementation that refers to the examples and context given in the first half of the book. This book is not for everybody, that's okay, just consider your needs, your work/art. If you need time to think or plan or create before you do what you do, this book is aimed at you. I'm grateful to Cal Newport for this book. There are things I have already been able to use as I have made this first read through, and other aspects that will take me longer to try, and test for my own needs. It was absolutely worth reading. Read more

Most personal development books advocate secret shortcuts to success. The 4-Hour Workweek, an extremely popular title from author Tim Ferriss, detailed strategies for “joining the new rich” and traveling the world by working as little as possible. Cal Newport’s latest book entitled Deep Work by contrast is refreshing in its emphasis on extremely cognitively demanding work as the key to success and personal fulfillment. Deep Work is defined 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.” Deep Work is contrasted with Shallow Work, defined as “Noncognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted. These efforts tend to not create much new value in the world and are easy to replicate.” Newport’s thesis is that the ability to actually concentrate on hard stuff is becoming rare due to addictive and distracting technologies from Facebook to Buzzfeed to email. Meanwhile, any job that can be replaced by a computer or someone in a developing nation will be, so deep work is actually more valuable than ever. Deep Work is the knowledge workers’ version of “deliberate practice,” the sort of which leads to expertise as found by K. Anders Ericsson in studies of violin players, golfers, chess grandmasters, and so on. Sheer number of hours of very challenging practice with the aim to deliberately improve one’s skills correlates with the greatest expertise, hence the "10,000 hours rule" popularized by Malcolm Gladwell. Expert violin players practice 3-4 hours a day, whereas mediocre players practice only 1 hour a day or less. Similarly, knowledge workers who spend 30-50% of their work day in completely focused concentration on important, difficult projects produce more value than knowledge workers who spend most of the time checking email, sitting in meetings, and distractedly trying to get a few things done each day. While Newport emphasizes the benefits in productivity and job security from Deep Work, I think the real benefits are in meaningfulness and life satisfaction. Newport has given a name to something vague I’ve felt was missing in my life. Now I not only have the vocabulary to talk about it, but also a model of how to live a deeply meaningful life in a sustainable manner. I’ve had a belief that to do a high volume of good quality work, it was necessary to be a workaholic, a belief supported by the exemplars of high achievement in my life. Not wanting to experience the obvious negative effects of workaholism, I’ve instead chosen to be a slacker. Newport presents a golden mean between the extremes of workaholism and slacking, activity and rest; that of spending 3 or 4 hours a day sequestered in highly concentrated periods of challenging mental labor, 90-120 minutes at a stretch, never working after 5:30pm, and managing all this by ruthlessly eliminating the inessential. This is a noble use of ruthlessness, versus Tim Ferriss’ ethic of ruthlessly cheating-within-the-rules or exploiting international labor markets for personal gain. The inessential ought to be eliminated; doing so ensures room for deep and important work. While Ferriss sometimes talks about eliminating the inessential, he frequently contradicts himself by recommending many unimportant things like expensive and needless supplements, or worthless accomplishments like setting a “world record” for number of tango spins in 1 minute, or cheating at kickboxing. Ferriss emphasizes laziness (“the 4 hour X”) and hacks that allow one to skirt effort, while Newport advocates hard, hard work for which there is no shortcut. Ultimately Newport’s Deep Work is not simply about doing better work, it’s about living a better life, balancing many competing priorities, determining which technologies aid your most important labor, and valuing your energy and your time as the precious and non-renewable resources they are. This book a must-read for anyone who does knowledge work of any kind and wants to live a meaningful life in our age of distraction. That said, this book leaves me with some questions. Deep Work is a book about finding meaning through work as well as success in life in Late Capitalism. The proposed solution to being outsourced or automated in a hyper-competitive global marketplace is to become indispensable by practicing in a way that leads to profound expertise. However, most new jobs in the economy are in the service sector. Quite a few service jobs won’t allow for Deep Work, for example Starbucks baristas, Amazon warehouse workers, Bus/Uber drivers, call center employees, administrative assistants, and so on. Do these workers have any opportunities to practice Deep Work on the job in a way that cannot be commodified? Newport at one point suggests that these entry-level jobs do not, therefore the worker should develop deeper skills to increase their opportunities for deep work. But when and where can a service industry worker develop their skills, especially if they are already working full-time or more? The best time to develop skills is while you are being paid, and Newport advocates not doing anything work related after 5:30pm. It seems that the only way for such a person to get ahead would be to add an additional 3-4 hours of deep work into their schedule on top of their 8+ hours on the job, but this would necessarily lead to lower cognitive performance from overwork and inferior rest. Since expertise is about total hours spent in deep work or deliberate practice, an economy where the deepest workers thrive rewards the privileged. Also by definition if rockstars are some of the only people in a field who will thrive, the system is inherently unjust, privileging a tiny minority while the overwhelming majority suffers. Is Deep Work only for the 1%, and therefore the 99% are destined to lead meaningless and shallow lives? Will Deep Work counter the trend towards increasing inequality, or will it further this disturbing phenomenon, or neither? Is there a way we can increase the opportunities for Deep Work for all workers, not just the professional elite? Shallow Work is defined as basically busy work that presents a veneer of being productive, whereas Deep Work is the opposite: focusing on very cognitively demanding work that is personally and socially important. But some of the examples of Deep Work involve very showy displays of work such as number of published papers or (I imagine) lines of code written. Everyone knows it is easier to write 5 shallow books than one truly deep one. Could one be a better researcher by publishing fewer, higher quality papers? Does “publish or perish” really create better academic institutions? Does number of published papers make for a good researcher or professor? Does number of citations even make for a good paper? Many paradigm-changing papers or works were ignored at first. As physicist Max Plank allegedly said, "Science progresses one funeral at a time." Is high craftsmanship always valued and appreciated in a field, or do other values make something more popular or financially lucrative? For instance, a better program might be one which is more elegant, requiring fewer lines of code to do the same thing. But lines of code is a showy metric that appears to be better, despite being more shallow. While Newport's official "lead" metric for success is hours spent in deep work, he also emphasizes the metric of number of academic papers published. Newport’s previous books were on academic success, which is largely defined as getting straight A’s in difficult classes. Is Deep Work just trying to get an “A” in life, or is it truly working on what is important, even if one is not rewarded externally as much as the person who plays to the crowd/rules? Is it “he who dies with the most published and cited papers wins?” or is it “he who writes the most meaningful and deep papers wins?” What if the crowd's values for success in your field are wrong or shallow? Is Deep Work actually deep, or is it merely technical? It seems like many of the examples involve learning a highly specialized technical discipline, and/or perhaps inventing something new in a highly specialized technical discipline. But is technical skill and proficiency what truly matters in life? To take the example of masterful musicians who K. Anders Ericsson studied: is mastery in musical performance merely a matter of technical proficiency? Clearly without technical proficiency, one cannot reach a level of mastery in music, so some high degree of technical proficiency is necessary. But just as clearly, musical performance that only contains technical mastery is missing something equally as important, making this technical ability insufficient. Newport’s previous book was about developing skill instead of following your passion, but a technical musician who lacks passion makes for a cold and unmoving performance. Is Newport underestimating the importance of passion or heart in expertise because it is more challenging to measure or teach? I know several people who are back in school right now. All of them spend many hours a day studying very cognitively demanding material in a highly focused manner, but none are superstars. Why is this? One (my wife) doesn’t even have a Facebook or Twitter account, and studies in a very focused manner for hours at a time, and yet is still very slow compared to her son, who can write a nearly good paper in literally 1/10th the time. (He plays hours of video games every day.) Is she lacking some crucial study skill? Another is a PhD candidate in the biological sciences and basically works round the clock. Why isn’t she a superstar in her field given her long hours of difficult study? (She is doing well, but not head-and-shoulders above similar PhD students.) Is she not resting enough or focused enough while she works? Hours spent in a highly focused manner on cognitively demanding tasks is clearly an important thing, but also clearly not the only relevant variable in producing outstanding results. What are those other factors that determine extreme results and are they learnable? Is Deep actually compatible with More and Fast? In this book, Newport emphasizes being able to produce high volume of work quickly in order to survive and thrive in Late Capitalism. But does this emphasis on More and Fast sacrifice some level of depth that is only possible with Less and Slow? For example, in the psychological sciences as well as in pharmaceutical drug trials, it is difficult to get funding for longitudinal studies that track individuals over long periods of time, but deep and important information is found from these studies that cannot be replicated through short-term studies alone. Because of the lack of these studies (and their expense), we have lots of data on short-term effects of drugs but little information about the effects of these drugs after years of use…and many of these drugs continue to be used for years, such as SSRIs and other anti-depressant drugs. Deep Work does seem to eliminate much of what is unimportant, specifically mindless entertainment and needless technology. A life of Deep Work is certainly more focused and meaningful than one without. There are also some advantages to More and Fast. But what other Deep things are we missing out on by focusing on More and Fast work? Despite my questions, I found the book very moving and important, and I highly recommend it. In my own life, I will be seriously considering ways to make my daily work life revolve around as much Deep Work as I can sustain. Read more

I really resonated with this book. I work in software, and even though my job requires a lot of hard thinking and problem solving, I find myself constantly distracted by a work culture which seems to think it's ok to be perpetually interrupted. This book has been my guiding light and adopting even half of what it recommends is challenging, but very worthwhile. If you read "So Good They Can't Ignore You" you might remember Cal Newport highlights the need to develop "career capital", that is, hard-earned rare and valuable skills, which enable you to get a meaningful / satisfying job. This book is a substantial part of the answer to the question of: "how do I get rare and valuable skills?". Newport starts the book by arguing quite convincingly that deep work is not only increasingly rare, but increasingly valuable. But let's rewind a bit, what is "deep" work? Deep work is defined as working in a very focused manner, free from distractions, intensely concentrating on something that hopefully yields a valuable outcome. The output need not be something physical, it could be an insight, an idea, or a skill. Think of straining your brain to solve a puzzle versus copy and pasting things while chatting to a colleague. The former is deep, the latter shallow. Deep work is becoming increasingly rare because of our work culture's obsession with "connectivity", open plan offices, and social media. Why are we destroying our ability to work deeply then? Some things stand out, like the fact that it is hard to get metrics for how these things make us less productive, how hard it is to quantify the productivity of a knowledge worker, and how we tend to jump on the latest tech without thinking about alternatives / downsides. The case is made for deep work becoming increasingly valuable partly because of these distractions: if you can do it, you will stand out. But it's also valuable because of what it leads to: mastery of hard skills, and valuable output. Apart from these extrinsic benefits deep work is also intrinsically meaningful. It can cultivate a sense of craftsmanship and can lead to the fulfilling "flow" state. After the "what" and the "why" the rest of the book focuses on the "how". Lots of useful ideas and techniques are explored here. The general theme is do what you can and be thoughtful about how you spend your day. For example identify how you can do deep work: is it possible for you to go to the woods for the weekend, or (like most busy people with jobs) do you have some morning/evening time to use well? Make good routines / rituals. Schedule distractions and make focus your default state. Quit (or reduce your time on) social media. Adopt tech with a more critical mindset. Be less available on email etc. To conclude, this book is a shining light in the fog of modern work practices. If you are an attention deprived knowledge worker, it will likely help you a lot. But I can see it benefitting a wider class of people, because our ability to focus is so important. Read more

One of the best books to read. Live saving valuable tips are shared which are worthy for lifetime. Read more

As expected Read more

Es un libro muy completo y realmente sirve para lo que es, si estás enfocado en una maestría o algún proyecto, pero no avanzas o no tienes resultados precisos, éste libro es idóneo para abrirnos la mente en qué estamos fallando. Por parte del vendedor no lo empacó debidamente y llegó con un ligero golpe, además unas manchas en la portada pero quizás sea de la imprenta. Read more

My live practically changed at the end of this book which I read in 5 hours. It’s so interesting that you can’t avoid the feeling of ending it as soon as possible. Read more

الكتاب مستعمل استعمال بسيط Read more

A must read book for every aspiring and seasoned professional to take control of daily work flow. Read more

The book is definitely very interesting. However, it's sometimes poorly written. Read more

Lettura piacevole che fa pensare. Read more

Sehr gutes Buch. Kann ich nur empfehlen. Read more

This book is very helpful for students those who suffer from the distraction. This make a complete case for cultivating focus,and offers immediately actionable steps. The language of the book is very easy to read. Read more

Newport is such a terrific writer. This book was a pleasure to read and easy absorb the concepts Read more

The author wastes your time telling you how bad is shallow work. Hey, I picked up this book, that should be a good enough signal that I don't need an explanation of a shallow work. Oh no, he goes on dedicating half of the book ranting about shallow work. This book should've been an internal memo for the academy employees, professors, etc. - not for the general public. If you are looking for the "Rules For Focused Success In A Distracted World" - I hate to tell you that you will be disappointed. Another distraction, the waste of time and money. Read more

The author takes a long time and many references to say : 1) make deliberate choices to do things that require focus and concentration, 2) get organized to cut activities that do not (even if it means not replying to emails, or cutting social media), and 3) - since so many people are stuck on social media other attention wasters - you will do better with less hours. This is important and often neglected advice, but you probably do not need a whole book to understand this. Read more

nice book quality is also good Read more

One of the great books that anyone can read. Highlights practical issues we face in our daily lives and how to overcome the distractions and be more effective. I really enjoyed this book. Read more

I didnt read the book yet, but i have to give 5 star for the physical quality, good packaging and no damage.. Read more