DEEP WORK

CARL NEWPORT
“Productivity is about depth of work, not amount of time”
• DEEP WORK: 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.

• SHALLOW WORK: Non-cognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often

performed while distracted. These efforts tend not to create much new value in the
world and are easy to replicate.

• THE DEEP WORK HYPOTESIS: The ability to perform deep work is becoming
increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our
economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the
core of their working life, will thrive.
 World Today
• The ability to quickly master hard things and the ability to produce at an
elite level, in terms of both quality and speed, are two core abilities for
thriving in today’s economy.
 Part I: The Idea
1. Deep work is valuable
 Who will survive?
• Those who are good at working with intelligent machines.
• Superstar performers in any field.
• Owners of capital, or those with access to it.
 How to become a winner in the new
economy?
2 core abilities

• The ability to quickly master hard things.

• The ability to produce at an elite level, in terms of both quality and speed.
 Learning and deep work
To learn requires intense concentration, and requires deliberate practice
where you practice with continuous feedback for a sustained period in the
absence of distraction, to gain expert skills.

To be great at something is to be well-myelinated.

 Producing and deep work

• High-quality work produced = (Time spent) X (Intensity of focus).

 Don’t Switch Tasks: Attention Residue Phenomenon

Attention residue is the “mental contamination” that different tasks produce on each other.
Chapter 2: Deep work is Rare
Chapter 3: Deep work is Meaningful
 Newport’s Arguments
• Neurological argument

• Psychological argument
• Flow is a mental state where a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish
something hard and worthwhile. flow generates happiness

• Philosophical argument
PART 1 CONCLUSION

a deep life is a good life, any way you look at it.

PART 2