Deep Work by Cal Newport

Note: I don’t review substandard books. I read a lot. I don’t have a lot of time to review books, so what I do share, I’m sharing because the book has been very influential and helpful to me in my life, and I believe it will also help others. If you are a marketer, author, researcher, or entrepreneur, these are must reads.

Quick links/info:

  • Buy the book >>
  • My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
  • Required reading for authors, researchers, students, and anyone doing heavy mental lifting
  • Author Website
  • Tags: Focus, distraction, writing, research, productivity, process, getting stuff done, growth, effectiveness, efficiency, priorities.

How to know if this book can help you:

  • You’re an author.
  • You’re a researcher.
  • You struggle to get large projects done because you’re constantly distracted by the small stuff.

Review:

How would you like to publish more books, articles, or papers? And not just more, but better ones. Enter deep work.

You know that four-quadrant idea Eisenhower used to prioritize tasks by urgency and importance?

➀ Do First

First focus
on important tasks
to be done the same day.
➁ Schedule

Important, but
not-so-urgent stuff
should be scheduled.
➂ Delegate

What’s urgent,
but less important,
delegate to others.
➃ Don’t Do

What’s neither urgent
nor important,
don’t do at all.
Stephen R. Covey brought this idea to the masses through The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and later his son Sean Covey, along with co-authors Chris McChesney and Jim Huling, taught this as 4DX in their book The 4 Disciplines of Execution. Newport adapted 4DX to his own concept of deep work with these recommendations:
  1. Focus on the wildly important. As other books like The ONE Thing and Essentialism teach, if you want to get a lot done then develop an extreme focus on a small number of goals at a given time. You can have it all, but not if you try to do it all at once.
  2. Act on lead measures. The lead measure in deep work “is time spent in a state of deep work dedicated toward your wildly important goal.” The lag measures describes your output, such as the number of books you wrote.
  3. Keep a compelling scoreboard. Track your time, otherwise you’ll make up stories about how you spent it and don’t reflect reality. Keep a pad next to your computer, or use a simple time tracker like Caato.
  4. Create a cadence of accountability. Review your progress frequently. It can be weekly, monthly, or quarterly—the point is that you analyze what you’ve done, what worked and what didn’t, and then make new plans for the future.

Is this helpful? Then read Deep Work to get more of it.

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