Whew! Finally got around to processing my notes from reading Deep Work by Cal Newport. I transferred them from my notebook to Notion and used Notion’s AI tool to fix spelling and grammar. It was the first time I tried using their AI tools and it was helpful in allowing me to type quickly without worrying about typos. It also did a good job in fixing grammar mistakes.
Here are some stand out parts that I liked, but first let’s define deep vs shallow work.
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Deep Work = professional activities performed in a state of distraction free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit.
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Shallow Work = non-cognitively demanding logistical style tasks, often performed while distracted.
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Shallow work is unavoidable, but we can mitigate the negative effects of context switching by approaching our day with intention and use time blocks for different tasks.
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Build days around core times chosen for deep work. Batch process shallow work.
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When starting a task, attention residue from the previous task still resides in your brain. That’s why it takes some time to warm up. The longer you can stay focused on one task, the better you can negate the negative effects of attention residue.
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Being visibly busy, like answering emails, responding to messages quickly, chiming in on a random discussion, makes you seem productive. Without clear metrics on how productive people are, they rely on being visibly busy to prove their worth in a tangible way.
Who you are, what you think, feel, and do, what you love - is the sum of what you focus on. - Winifred Gallagher
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Our brains construct our worldview based on what we pay attention to.
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When you lose focus, your mind tends to fix on what could be wrong with your life instead of what’s right.
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Willpower is a finite resource. It’s not enough to rely on willpower or good intentions. You must add rituals and routines into your daily life to minimize the amount of willpower required to stay focused.
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The more you try to do, the less you actually accomplish. Keep your goals and projects small. Focus only on the most important.
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Don’t just plan your work and projects, but also plan how you’ll spend your leisure time. Unstructured time runs the risk of wasting it on trivial things, like YouTube or other infotainment websites.
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Schedule your day in time blocks. People worry that strictly scheduling their time will hinder creative pursuits. The schedule isn’t rigid. If you stumble upon a great insight, then keep on going, and when you lose steam, reschedule the rest of the day. The schedule is meant to introduce thoughtfulness to your day, not rigidity.
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Focus on activities that give the biggest value in pursuit of your goals. People mistakenly believe that low value activities that provide some value are harmless. Whether it’s a high or low value activity, both use finite resources of your time and energy. It’s a zero-sum game. Be intentional with the activities you do.
Zeigarnik effect: The ability of incomplete tasks to fill our thoughts.
- Create a shutdown ritual for the end of every work day to help clear your mind of thinking about work. It’s helped me by just doing a simple bullet point list of which tasks I should start doing the next work day and make notes of any in-progress tasks. As long as you make a plan on how you’ll finish incomplete tasks, your mind will be able to let it go.
