I'm a self-improvement junkie who hates self-help books. Most self-help books (if not all) masquarades poor advice and wishful thinking as a path to self-progress. Every now and then I torture myself reading self-help books to reinforce my above thoughts about self-help books. Luckily I came across this book as strong recommendation from a twitter account which I really value a lot. And I'm glad that I took the recommendation.
Deep Work is a common sense book than a self-help book. The crux of the book is that there are two kind of work we do. One is Deep work and the other is shallow work. Deep work is rare and hard. Shallow work is easy and ubiquitous.
What is Deep Work? Deep work is concentrating on a cognitively demanding work with zero distractions to produce quality work. Its demanding and helps provide valuable things to society that are hard to replicate or replace.
What Shallow work? Any work we do on auto-pilot. Replying emails , social media presence etc. These work are easy to replace and not valued much in society.
The book is dividend into two parts. Part I is about why Deep work matter and its scientific backing. Part II is how to achieve Deep work.
Part I doesn't have to try hard to convince us about the internet chipping away our ability to concentrate and contemplate. And provides all the necessary studies and research on internet and its effects on attention. Most of the critique are well ground and rational, and definitely not a luddite rant on the internet.
Part II is how to achieve Deep Work.
Discusses on what type of Deep work philosophy to choose.
Ritualising Deep work: Identify Location and time to do deep work. Adhere to rules and process to deep work. (like no internet)
4DX fundamentals: Focus unimportant things, Act on measures, Keep a scorecard, Create accountability.
Embrace Boredom:Don't take break from distraction. Instead take breaks from Focus. Schedule your internet usage. Structure your deep thinking.
Quit Social Media.
Drain the Shallows: Schedule your day in blocks in advance to focus on Deep work.
Although it follows the typical science/self-help format with familiar paragraphs like 'The Study conducted by University of X researchers on group of people in Y of the age Z in ABC environment agrees with my thesis', this is a potent work with strong common sense solutions to the ubiquitous problem of shallow work. My thoughts on self-help books remains unchanged. However I would highly recommend this book.
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![Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by [Cal Newport]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/417yjF+Z5zL._SY346_.jpg)
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Top reviews from India
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Reviewed in India on 9 March 2020
Rating : 5/5
Deep work is a book for everyone although the author emphasises it for knowledge workers. In my opinion it is for businessmen who wants to achieve their goals in their hectic schedule, teachers (faculties) who wants to pursue research despite their academic duties, or an entrepreneur who wants to increase the productivity and creativity of the team, or just some random guy who wants to spend some quality time with family but cannot. Books helps you to develop self discipline.
This book can best be placed among books like Outliers/Mastery/Flow/Peak etc. where importance of work and it’s consequences are explained. Only thing is Deep work is more detailed in terms of strategies and bit less on psychology studies.
The book is hardly 300 pages but will require some time to fully understand all hacks & strategies. Work habits of great people like Carl Jung, J K Rowling, Bill Gates, Walter Isaacson and many others are very well explained. The author also writes about his life and experience.
After reading this book you will definitely be more productive, you might be able schedule every minute/hour/day of your life, you would be able to effectively choose your career job and not fall for dead end jobs, and lastly decipher what is fact from fiction when it comes to big companies.
After completing this book and from my experience at different work places I think the book may be a bit ambitious for developing & undeveloped countries. This is because I think in this countries there is still lack of work ethics and your company/institute may not respond as the book says or they may not even consider deep work as meaningful. All in all deep work gives a positive experience.
Verified Purchase
Quite relevant in our noisy age.
By Sarvesh Nanjee on 9 March 2020
Genre: Productivity | Creativity | Hacks | Self Development | BusinessBy Sarvesh Nanjee on 9 March 2020
Rating : 5/5
Deep work is a book for everyone although the author emphasises it for knowledge workers. In my opinion it is for businessmen who wants to achieve their goals in their hectic schedule, teachers (faculties) who wants to pursue research despite their academic duties, or an entrepreneur who wants to increase the productivity and creativity of the team, or just some random guy who wants to spend some quality time with family but cannot. Books helps you to develop self discipline.
This book can best be placed among books like Outliers/Mastery/Flow/Peak etc. where importance of work and it’s consequences are explained. Only thing is Deep work is more detailed in terms of strategies and bit less on psychology studies.
The book is hardly 300 pages but will require some time to fully understand all hacks & strategies. Work habits of great people like Carl Jung, J K Rowling, Bill Gates, Walter Isaacson and many others are very well explained. The author also writes about his life and experience.
After reading this book you will definitely be more productive, you might be able schedule every minute/hour/day of your life, you would be able to effectively choose your career job and not fall for dead end jobs, and lastly decipher what is fact from fiction when it comes to big companies.
After completing this book and from my experience at different work places I think the book may be a bit ambitious for developing & undeveloped countries. This is because I think in this countries there is still lack of work ethics and your company/institute may not respond as the book says or they may not even consider deep work as meaningful. All in all deep work gives a positive experience.
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Reviewed in India on 11 April 2019
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Great book
By Diva on 11 April 2019
The book is good for the people who have the need to success
By Diva on 11 April 2019
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Top reviews from other countries
JWH
An inspiring guide to working much better...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 December 2017Verified Purchase
no
Low quality. Entire book could be condensed to a leaflet.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 March 2019Verified Purchase
J. Whittaker
most of them useless. This however is a true gem
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 October 2017Verified Purchase
Richard
Repetitive
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 July 2018Verified Purchase
Peter - The Reading Desk
Focusing deeply on what matters
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 26 August 2018Verified Purchase