Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life

The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods

Cal Newport defines Deep Work as activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push cognitive capabilities to the limit. Deep Work is essential in order to quickly master new things quickly, and to produce at an elite level in terms of both quality and speed.

Cal Newport quotes A.G. Sertillanges, a Dominican friar and professor of moral philosophy who wrote in The Intellectual Life

Men of genius themselves were great only by bringing all their power to bear on the point on which they had decided to show their full measure.

Winifred Gallagher concludes in the book Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life that management of attention is the key to improving nearly every aspect of existence. Realizing this is the easy part. The hard part is figuring out how to fit Deep Work into a busy schedule. Newport outlines 4 applicable philosophies for fitting deep work into the demands of a modern schedule.

1) The Monastic Philosophy
This is available to a limited pool of people, mainly tenured professors, and successful authors. Examples include computer scientist Donald Knuth and science fiction writer Neal Stephenson, who both go to extreme lengths to eliminate shallow tasks and communication.
2) The Bimodal Philosophy
Practically speaking, this is about taking a proper holiday, or carefully blocking off certain days for different kinds of work. It need not be long. Carl Jung, on several key occasions in the 1920s retreated to a house in the woods in order to work on writing, but spent most of his time to living a very active social life in Zurich. Adam Grant, a famous business school professor is, is very active with university responsibilities most of the time, but when working on a book, he’ll cut himself off from most office communication for 2-4 day periods.
3) The Rhythmic Philosophy
This is perhaps the most practical method for most people. Basically, it means creating a simple regular habit of deep work. Combine a simple scheduling heuristic, and an easy way to keep track.
One suggested method is to get up 90 minutes earlier and spend the extra time on deep work(this happens to be the method used by yours truly to get more reading/writing/coding done )
4) The Journalistic Philosophy
This seems like it could be combined with the rhythmic philosophy. In essence it means getting deep work in whenever you can fit it. It does require strong attention discipline(but like muscles, this can be trained). Walter Isaacson managed to write his first 800+ page book while working full time as a journalist using this method.  (us mere mortal can use noise cancelling headphones as an aid in applying the journalistic philosophy of deep work)

Newport also offers two suggestions for ramping up the amount of deep work one does.

• Beware of distractions and looping. This is when the brain wanders into unrelated issues when it should be focused on a critical task. Newport used the example of when his brain would rehash preliminary results over and over again when he was trying to work on a proof.
• Structure deep thinking. Identify relevant variables, define the specific next step questions, and once it is solved , consolidate the gains by reviewing the identified answer. Approach problem solving methodically.