Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

“The Deep Work Hypothesis: 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.”

This passage articulates the book’s central message. Newport’s purpose in the book will be to prove his hypothesis—that those who can perform deep work will flourish in workplace. Few can execute deep work, an increasingly valued skill; this makes it coveted.

“As intelligent machines improve, and the gap between machine and human abilities shrinks, employers are becoming increasingly likely to hire ‘new machines’ instead of ‘new people.’”

Newport shows the stakes: Humans will be replaced by machines in the workplace. There is an ominous undertone; while the words are not threatening, it suggests that one should prepare. One way to do that is to develop skills using deep work principles.

“The small company looking for a computer programmer or public relations consultant now has access to an international marketplace of talent in the same way that the advent of the record store allowed the small-town music fan to bypass local musicians to buy albums from the world’s best bands.”

Newport offers an analogy. He compares the ability of local businesses to source global talent from the Internet to a person’s ability to access international music at a record store. Central to the analogy is ease of access to talent. This makes getting hired more competitive.

“High-Quality Work Produced = (Time Spent) x (Intensity of Focus)”

This is Newport’s formula to explain how to arrive at producing high quality work. The more time spent intensely focused on a singular task, the more likely one is to execute a higher quality work product than one who does not do this.

“Generally speaking, as knowledge work makes more complex demands of the labor force, it becomes harder to measure the value of an individual’s efforts.”

Quantifying productivity for knowledge workers is increasingly difficult, which creates uncertainty for the employee. Since metrics are sometimes hard to come by, employees do not truly know how productive they are.

“So why is Alissa Rubin urged to regularly interrupt this necessarily deep work to provide, for free, shallow content to a service run by an unrelated media company based out of Silicon Valley? And perhaps even more important, why does this behavior seem so normal to most people?” 

Newport uses rhetorical questions to critique what he calls “the cult of the internet” (66). Contradictory things are expected of modern employees—to provide high quality work but to punctuate this with superficial work, such as tweets.

“In such a culture, we should not be surprised that deep work struggles to compete against the shiny thrum of tweets, likes, tagged photos, walls, posts, and all the other behaviors that we’re now taught are necessary for no other reason than that they exist.”

Newport again questions the wisdom of embracing social media as good just because it exists. Newport’s larger purpose here is to present an alternative to this kind of thinking, the performance of deep work.

“This concept upends the way most people think about their subjective experience of life. We tend to place a lot of emphasis on our circumstances, assuming that what happens to us (or fails to happen) determines how we feel.”

Newport draws from the work of Winifred Gallagher, who argues that what one chooses to pay attention to is the true reason for how one feels the way they do. Gallagher believes that where one directs their attention is within their control, while circumstances of life, such her cancer diagnosis, are not. She chose to focus her attention on more positive and uplifting things rather than on her illness; this made her feel better.

“You have a finite amount of willpower that becomes depleted as you use it. Your will, in other words, is not a manifestation of your character that you can deploy without limit; it’s instead like a muscle that tires.”

Newport uses a simile, where something is compared to something else using “like” or “as.” In this case, he compares will to “a muscle that tires.” Willpower can become exhausted from use in the same manner that a muscle can become fatigued. In other words, willpower is not inexhaustible. Thus, the ability to focus is not always as simple as just willing oneself to do so.

“In my experience, it’s common to treat undistracted concentration as a habit like flossing—something that you know how to do and know is good for you, but that you’ve been neglecting due to a lack of motivation.”

Again, Newport points out that achieving focus isn’t simple or merely dependent on motivation. The ability to focus draws upon willpower, effort, and energy, and because of this, it requires practice. Unlike flossing, learning to focus is a skill that must be developed and honed. It isn’t easy.

“To simply wait and be bored has become a novel experience in modern life.”

Newport critiques the modern tendency to remain in a state of near-constant distraction. In an era where one’s attention is always sought, Newport argues that one should actively resist and avoid impulsively giving into distraction. The more one denies oneself superficial distraction, such as scrolling through social media, the more one can condition one’s mind to remain focused.

“Your ability to concentrate is only as strong as your commitment to train it.”

Newport summarizes the core of Chapter 4—the idea that concentration is a skill. The word “commitment” suggests that a dedicated effort is required in order to develop focus. It is not just going to happen because a person wants it to.

“Part of what makes social media insidious is that the companies that profit from your attention have succeeded with a masterful marketing coup: convincing our culture that if you don’t use their products you might miss out.”

In Chapter 5, Newport is not so subtly skeptical when he discusses social media and its impact on deep work. He evokes the concept of FOMO, or fear of missing out; people fear that by abstaining, they will miss something crucial—even though, as Newport suggests, they will not.

“These services aren’t necessarily, as advertised, the lifeblood of our modern connected world. They’re just products, developed by private companies, funded lavishly, marketed carefully, and designed ultimately to capture then sell your personal information and attention to advertisers.”

Newport reminds readers that social media is not indispensable. By presenting these services as products with clearly defined revenue goals, he aims to change the reader’s view.

“I recognize that I come across as curmudgeonly when talking about this issue—is there any other way to tackle it?—but it’s important to discuss because this quest for self-importance plays an important role in convincing people to continue to thoughtlessly fragment their time and attention.”

Newport acknowledges that his tone veers toward grumpy. He uses a bit of self-derision and speaks in a conversational tone, perhaps aiming to establish a rapport with the reader. He also positions himself outside of the people he is criticizing, mainly those whose need for self-importance drives their compulsive use of social media.

“If you give your mind something meaningful to do throughout all your waking hours, you’ll end the day more fulfilled, and begin the next one more relaxed, than if you instead allow your mind to bathe for hours in semiconscious and unstructured Web surfing.”

Newport explores the theme of Work-Life Balance and Stimulating Free Time. He repeats an idea from earlier in the book, namely that mindless Internet surfing, even during free time, negatively impacts the brain’s ability to focus. One should strive to keep the mind actively engaged rather than be distracted.

“Once you’ve hit your deep work limit in a given day, you’ll experience diminishing rewards if you try to cram in more.”

Newport borrows this claim from psychologist Anders Ericsson. As Newport continues to make the case for a reduction in shallow work, he reminds readers that deep focus is finite and can be exhausted. Since this is the case, time management becomes crucial; learning how to maximize efficiency in one’s schedule is of the utmost importance when cultivating deep work habits.

“We spend much of our day on autopilot—not giving much thought to what we’re doing with our time. This is a problem. It’s difficult to prevent the trivial from creeping into every corner of your schedule if you don’t face, without flinching, your current balance between deep and shallow work, and then adopt the habit of pausing before action and asking, “What makes the most sense right now?”

Newport aligns himself with the reader by using the inclusive “we.” While he himself has been able to establish the kinds of habits that foster deep work, he recognizes the tendency to offload the mundane to the default mode network in the brain. Accepting this is not defeat; instead, it reminds one to be more careful and intentional with one’s time.

“‘What makes sense for me to do with the time that remains?’ It’s the habit of asking that returns results, not your unyielding fidelity to the answer.”

Newport suggests that when people are managing their time, they should always have this question front and center. The goal is not to squeeze out spontaneity; instead, tracking how one spends time and filtering it through this question ultimately creates more opportunity for spontaneity.

“I, too, am incredibly cautious about my use of the most dangerous word in one’s productivity vocabulary: ‘yes.’”

Newport suggests that being a “yes” person, or a people pleaser, in the workplace can drag one toward shallow and superficial work. Saying “yes” all the time by default invites more distraction.

“A commitment to fixed-schedule productivity, however, shifts you into a scarcity mind-set. Suddenly any obligation beyond your deepest efforts is suspect and seen as potentially disruptive.”

“Fixed-schedule productivity” is an exercise in maximizing efficiency. Arranging and managing one’s time to dedicate exclusively to deep work should be a priority for those seeking to develop into deeper workers. Blocking time creates the sense that time is not unlimited—because of apparent scarcity, one is far more likely to be highly motivated. The scarcity mindset helps foster a sense of urgency.

“The notion that all messages, regardless of purpose or sender, arrive in the same undifferentiated inbox, and that there’s an expectation that every message deserves a (timely) response, is absurdly unproductive.”

Just because an email is received does not mean that it automatically warrants a response. Newport encourages readers who spend lots of time cleaning out their inboxes to consider that such an activity is a distraction; it steals away time and energy that could be better spent engaged in a meaningful activity.

“It’s easy, amid the turbulence of a rapidly evolving information age, to default to dialectical grumbling. The curmudgeons among us are vaguely uneasy about the attention people pay to their phones, and pine for the days of unhurried concentration, while the digital hipsters equate such nostalgia with Luddism and boredom, and believe that increased connection is the foundation for a utopian future.”

Newport reiterates the binary that often occupies discussions surrounding how one should use technology. In Newport’s view, the binary is an either/or fallacy. There is a middle ground between being obsessed with interconnection and technology and living isolated in a cave. He urges readers to find this balance in their own lives. Ultimately, Newport encourages readers to consider how they use technology and to ask themselves whether it is productive for them or not.