29 Aug 2025
Author: Cal Newport
Rating: 5 star
Deep work is the path to a good life. It leads to a deeply satisfying and productive life.
But the key thing to identify is what do you want to do deep work on.
yes to your important tasks than to say no to trivial distractions. Just saying “spend more time working deeply” will not cut it.Identifying time to do deep work is important - because otherwise it is very very easy to let the weeks, months and years fly by. [[Do not end the week with nothing]]
Cal recommends time boxing every single minute of your day. Bring it back with the ToDoIst calendar integration. Some reflections from the author which I felt were true when I tried it as well:
After you fix the issue of what to focus on, the next core issue is to resort to high stimuli / low volume activities art the slightest moment of boredom / cognitive challenge. Stay with the challenge. That is the only way to improve. How can I actionably set this up? Focus sessions in Raycast that block Twitter? What else? Just a pact to yourself that you will stare at the wall but you have to sit here with the problem at hand? The next time I feel bored / want a dopamine hit during a deep work session - focus is only on not giving into it. The only way to improve is by [[Putting in the reps]]
People who are constantly distracted think they can switch to focused time when they want. But they can’t. It just doesn’t work. And you are kidding yourself if you think you are an exception ti this scientific research // then is the realization true that you haven’t entered deep work zone in a long long time!
Shallow work is satisfying. Keeps giving you dopamine hits without really achieving anything. Don’t fall for it. Don’t let your internal whims and external requests dictate your day. Your time is literally your most valuable resource.
Cal talks about identifying shallow work as that which can be done easily by a recent college graduate with some training. How does that change with ChatGPT promising a PhD expert in every pocket. And how does our relation with which work is shallow vs deep change? For e.g. the L/N/O task classification by Shreyas - what to do without AI, what to do with AI, what to still not do. // think
Shutting down is important. It opens your mind to make unconscious connections and it recharges your attention span. And ofc, it improves sleep. Surprise Surprise! Not checking slack just before sleeping helps improve sleep. It’s also important because you are not really checking anything and can do nothing about what you see.
For me personally, a good takeaway is that work done in frequent distracted times is neither important nor are the small breaks helpful. So you are not achieving either. Instead set a shutdown time and honor it. Shutting down though needs to have a ritual. For e.g., Add everything to task list so your brain is free. Check for next 2-3 days calendar to know no surprises.
The only time I can really concentrate is when I have real deadlines. That’s when I can shut everything off and focus. How can I expand on this? Can I set artificial timelines, promise deliverables in advance? Think - this is an interesting thing you def know is true about yourself. It doesn’t have to be everyday 8 hours.
Tim Ferris: Develop the habit of letting small bad things happen. If you don’t, you will never find time for the life changing big things.
Let some balls drop, it is okay. Live the focused life - because it is the best kind there is. Ability to concentrate is a skill that gets valuable things done.
Bimodal: Dedicate some time to deep work, rest open to everything else. Important to note that you need to include a bare minimum time, otherwise you never enter flow.
Typically one full day suggested but you can define how many days in a week/month etc. If scheduling deep work makes you uncomfortable, know that people respect it when blocks are well known and well advertised. // one full day impractical in current work environment. Can I start with half a day? Thing to really note is that it takes time to ease into concentration. You can’t do deep work in a 30mins slot.
Rhythmic deep work scheduling: Reduce friction by making it scheduled. I will do X every day at 8am for Y hours.
Seinfield’s advice on joke writing, [[Difficult yet simple]]:
to be a better comic -> write better jokes -> write every day -> just don’t break the streak
Journalist: Jump into deep work at odd times, whenever you get some time in your schedule. The imp. pre-req is that you need to be convinced that the work you are doing is important. Otherwise, it is very easy to get lost in the supposed “busyness” of life. Also, this is tough - to get into deep work flow at whim, not for the novice.
This also btw does not mean no scheduling, and is over and above that.
Fixed schedule productivity: Don’t work after xx hours. Lots of great people are able to work this out. Think about what work you take up. Think about why you work late at times. A lot of it is just not being meticulous with the scheduling of the work. Remote work should give you flexibility. It is a serious question to ask as to where are the 2 hours of a day of commute time going.
Interesting people in history have had a pattern of multiple shticks [[What is my Shtick?]]. E.g. this book talks about Carl Jung, famous pyschologist who had a clinical practice to go deep + very active in the Zurich coffeehouse scene to simulate thinking.
Adam Grant talks about a key strategy of professional advancement: giving your time and attention to something, without expecting something in return.
“Ooh, Shiny” DNA -> nice way to humanize the shiny object syndrome.
The reason read-later apps work is they allow you to have your cake and eat it too. Keep getting the dopamine hit of social media/browsing while not having the guilt of letting a great long form article go away. No need to do high cognitive task right now.
This is not a new topic. But this section of the book really reinforces the concept of deep work. And deep work is not the 30 mins block you find in your work to get a PRD out 😆
2 core abilities to thrive in this new economy: quickly master hard things, produce at an elite level (quality and speed)
To learn requires intense concentration -> deliberate practice
What separates masses and elites: life-long period of deliberate effort to improve performance in a specific domain
Therefore, delberate practice involves:
Biological explanation of why deliberate practice works:
When you intensely do some deliberate practice, layer of fatty tissue develop around neurons of that particular circuit doing the practice. When you really concentrate, you are firing the circuit again and again. Only when that happens, does the process of fatty tissue development around the neurons starts. If you don’t concentrate and say are scrolling twitter on the side, your neurons will never be isolated enough for the fatty tissue development to start.
To learn hard things quickly, you must focus without distraction. If you can learn hard things, you can succeed. Specially in today’s world when just being able to pay attention to something.
If you are working on something, and then you go and say, check your slack, you have done two things:
Manual craftsmanship is simple but difficult. This is a useful imbalance when seeking purpose. Knowledge work on the other hand exchanges this clarity for ambiguity.
Deep work is not just economically lucrative but a life will lived
Skillful management of attention is the key to improving virtually every aspect of your life.
Choose what matters with utmost care, then give them your rapt attention. A focused life is a good life. I have felt this - days when I do a lot of productive work inherently feel good. My odd semesters in rimc, where I was more busy due to boxing and hockey, were my most memorable semesters and surprisingly when I did much better in academics. It’s nice to give something that has gone around in your mind for a long time, a conceptual term. Gives a good mental satisfaction.
Deep work is increasingly important because so less of it is happening by your peers. And sure, improving the entire world with deep work is great. But thats not happening anytime soon so might as well just take advantage of it as.an individual
deep work is tough because it is easy to turn to the superficial work. It gives you an instant dopamine hit, it makes you feel busy and productive and important. Specially in a PM role, deep work is what matters. But you are constantly surrounded by shallow work.
People constantly fight desires, all day long and give into them more than half the time. Desires to not do deep work. Desires to check email,.youtube,.twitter etc. Which means: (a) it’s okay that you are having them, you are not uniquely fucked. (b) fixing this gives you a surprisingly large competitive advantage because all your peers are also going through this.
You have a finite amount of willpower that becomes depleted as you use it. How do you increase willpower? Use it on correct things. Use it regularly so it becomes like a muscle that improves with more reps.
No doomscrolling helps you do deep work. But doing solid deep work - cognitively challenging - mind puts in the reps - doesn’t want to be ignited with doomscrolling. E.g. deep work -> no mood to listen to podcasts during gym. Mind is cognitively exhausted and can’t handle the chatter.