The Best Productivity Book I’ve Read
Actionable insights from “Deep Work”
Actionable insights from “Deep Work”
It’s not often that you come across a book that drastically overhauls your day-to-day life. Deep Work was one of those, and I’m so glad I hopped on the hype train.
Unlike 90% of the other personal development books out there, it isn’t just a manifesto, but a how-to guide with clear advice that can truly have an impact on the quality of work of someone who implements it.
This is a list of actionable insights I derived from the book combined with my personal experience.
What is deep work?
Deep work is a state of focused work where you can produce high-quality and high-value work in less time. These include activities like researching, coding, and writing.
Shallow work is either work that is done in a state of distraction or work that isn’t high-impact. Shallow work is activities like checking email, writing reports, and attending meetings.
The ultimate goal is to reduce the shallow work to what is strictly necessary so that you can have more time for the deep work that actually creates value.
Why work deep?
As technology advances, it becomes more and more crucial to master the ability to work deep to avoid falling behind.
The transition to remote work has only accelerated this process as high-skill workers from across the globe are thriving more than ever while local low-skill workers face an uphill battle.
In the modern world, there are 2 (main) accessible paths to high success.
Those who can leverage intelligent machines at a high level.
The superstars in their fields.
You need 2 skills to join these groups.
The ability to quickly master hard things; tech is changing rapidly and you need to be able to change with it.
The ability to produce at a high level.
Only the core skill of deep work can truly unlock these two skills and get you on the path to high success.
How to Work Deep
The book is entirely built around this central tenet:
High-Quality Work Produced = Time Spent * Intensity
Working for 12 hours a day doesn’t mean much if it’s all in a constant fog of distraction and email checking.
The majority of the following advice has to do with magnifying the intensity part of Newport’s equation so that you can make the most of your time.
Find Your Style of Deep Work
Newport identifies 4 approaches to deep work.
Monastic
The monastic approach to deep work is to remain in a near-permanent state of depth without distraction for extended periods of time. Someone like a writer in an isolated cabin in the woods with no internet connection would be a monastic.
This is perhaps the most high-value approach to deep work, but also the least feasible for most people.
Bimodal
The bimodal approach straddles both worlds. Bimodalists alternate between stretches of time (in days) that allow shallowness and stretches of time (in days) in which they resemble the monastics. Each day has to clearly be either shallow or deep.
The example Newport gives is of Adam Grant, a professor who is very involved with his students some days and shuts himself in his office on others when working on important research.
This approach is also not feasible for most people.
Rhythmic
The rhythmic approach schedules uninterrupted blocks of time for deep work into everyday life, typically in the morning or after work.
Journalistic
The journalistic approach packs in deep work as pockets of time open up throughout the day. This requires the ability to suddenly “turn on” near-instantly, which is difficult and requires practice in developing the ability to focus.
Try to identify what approach (or mixture of approaches) you can apply in your life and plan your days accordingly. If your philosophy ends up being purely journalistic, pay attention to the upcoming section on training the deep work muscle.
Strictly Ritualize Your Deep Work
Try to find a place that you use primarily for deep work. This can give you the cue to “turn on” whenever you go there. If you can find a place, try to do the majority of your shallow work and leisure outside of that space.
Develop rules that dictate your deep work time. (An example is setting the rule of not using social media during your deep work blocks.)
Prepare for your needs in advance by doing things like clearing out your space and filling up a bottle of water.
The 4 Disciplines of Execution
Newport uses advice from The 4 Disciplines of Execution to provide a framework for honing your deep work.
Focus on the wildly important. The danger of distraction goes down dramatically when what you are doing is important to you.
Act on the things that are controllable. You can’t directly increase the number of subscribers you have on YouTube, but you can increase the amount of videos you produce a week.
Keep a scoreboard. Track the number of deep hours you get each day. I would recommend using Clockify (unsponsored).
Do a weekly review. Use your scoreboard to review the number of deep hours you got and understand what led to the good and bad days.
Create a Shutdown Ritual
The best way to work deep when you’re “on” is to be fully relaxed when you’re “off”.
Incomplete tasks at the end of the workday can often leave a baseline of anxiety and stress that don’t fully let you relax.
You should close these “loops” by planning out your next day and sorting all of your incomplete tasks in a way that you trust will get them done. Here’s a productivity system (skip to time management and task management) that can help you get it done.
Training the deep-work muscle
Mastering the ability to work deep doesn’t come immediately, and requires investment. The next few tips will help you improve your ability to concentrate while working deep.
Schedule Distraction
Only let yourself be distracted by social media and network tools in specific blocks of time. If you absolutely need to use social media and network tools often, schedule those blocks more often, but still keep your use scheduled.
It’s also important to resist the urge to check your phone every time you’re bored to prevent yourself from turning to distraction the instant that you get bored while working deep (which will happen often).
Set a Timer
For tasks that have a specific end (like homework or checking your email) set a time-bound that forces you to work at full intensity to make the limit.
Productive Meditation
Use times like walks, drives, and showers to intellectually engage with your work.
To do this, identify a clear problem that you want to solve or however that translates to your work. Then, collect all of the variables related to that problem, and think of a next-step question.
Use your walk/drive/shower/workout to answer the next-step question.
Flex Your Concentration Muscles
It helps to practice your focus by finding leisure activities that you can use to build concentration.
Things like intently reading a book, productive meditation, and focused exercise can help you practice your ability to go deep.
Limit Social Media
Many people feel compelled to use social media in their professional lives because of the supposed benefits. Even if you can get social media out of your working hours, it can still have a negative impact on your ability to go deep if used excessively in your downtime.
Newport provides a framework for determining the benefit of network tools like social media.
Make a list of your high-level goals in your personal and professional life. This list should be fairly short.
Make a list of the top 2–3 activities you need to do to support each goal.
Create a list of the network tools that you want to decide on.
For each network tool run through the list of activities and determine what effect it has on that specific activity.
Only keep the network tool if it has a substantial positive impact on your life.
If you’re unsure about a specific social media tool, run the following trial. Quit it for 30 days unannounced and ask yourself at the end:
Would my last 30 days have been notably better with the network tool?
Did people care that I was gone?
If your answer is no to both, it would probably be best to move on. If you want some advice on breaking out of a social media rut, check this article out.
I’ll close out with one final piece of advice. Go full-screen for all of your deep work (major hat tip to James Clear). For Windows users, that’s function + F11. This advice has single-handedly been a game changer for my work.