Ratings283
Average rating4.1
One of the most valuable skills in our economy is becoming increasingly rare. If you master this skill, you'll achieve extraordinary results.
Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It's a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. Deep work will make you better at what you do and provide the sense of true fulfillment that comes from craftsmanship. In short, deep work is like a super power in our increasingly competitive twenty-first century economy. And yet, most people have lost the ability to go deep-spending their days instead in a frantic blur of e-mail and social media, not even realizing there's a better way.
In DEEP WORK, author and professor Cal Newport flips the narrative on impact in a connected age. Instead of arguing distraction is bad, he instead celebrates the power of its opposite. Dividing this book into two parts, he first makes the case that in almost any profession, cultivating a deep work ethic will produce massive benefits. He then presents a rigorous training regimen, presented as a series of four "rules," for transforming your mind and habits to support this skill.
A mix of cultural criticism and actionable advice, DEEP WORK takes the reader on a journey through memorable stories -- from Carl Jung building a stone tower in the woods to focus his mind, to a social media pioneer buying a round-trip business class ticket to Tokyo to write a book free from distraction in the air -- and no-nonsense advice, such as the claim that most serious professionals should quit social media and that you should practice being bored. DEEP WORK is an indispensable guide to anyone seeking focused success in a distracted world.
Reviews with the most likes.
The idea of isolation and extreme concentration leveraged throughout the book felt like another banal, elitist, pretentious, easy-as-pie solution like acute minimalism promoted by YouTube self-help gurus: reduce distractions by locking yourself in a cabin in the woods and congrats, you're a next level genius!
I think this was a really important book for me to read. Sure some sections could have probably been shorter, but there are some ideas in here that I don't see myself ever forgetting and that could also lead to some significant changes in my life.
In a world where network tools like Facebook are designed by the smartest engineers to make you addicted to their services, how do you make sure you get deep meaningful work done? Newport does a great job in summarizing a lot of the problems we face in our new distracted world and what steps to take to win back thoughtful work. Like all things, this requires planning, practice and a conscious effort to do more with our time without expending more of it.
This book is well worth your time if you keep checking your phone, can't do something for 5-10 mins without going to Facebook, Snapchat etc.