# Deep Work  ## Metadata - Author: [[Cal Newport]] - Full Title: Deep Work - Category: #books ## Highlights - “Hearing a succession of mediocre singers does not add up to a single outstanding performance.” In other words, talent is not a commodity you can buy in bulk and combine to reach the needed levels: There’s a premium to being the best. ([Location 296](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00X47ZVXM&location=296)) - Two Core Abilities for Thriving in the New Economy 1. The ability to quickly master hard things. 2. The ability to produce at an elite level, in terms of both quality and speed. ([Location 334](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00X47ZVXM&location=334)) - Tags: [[orange]] - This provides another general observation for joining the ranks of winners in our economy: If you don’t produce, you won’t thrive—no matter how skilled or talented you are. ([Location 369](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00X47ZVXM&location=369)) - 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.” ([Location 398](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00X47ZVXM&location=398)) - High-Quality Work Produced = (Time Spent) x (Intensity of Focus) ([Location 455](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00X47ZVXM&location=455)) - The problem this research identifies with this work strategy is that when you switch from some Task A to another Task B, your attention doesn’t immediately follow—a residue of your attention remains stuck thinking about the original task. This residue gets especially thick if your work on Task A was unbounded and of low intensity before you switched, but even if you finish Task A before moving on, your attention remains divided for a while. ([Location 470](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00X47ZVXM&location=470)) - Busyness as Proxy for Productivity: In the absence of clear indicators of what it means to be productive and valuable in their jobs, many knowledge workers turn back toward an industrial indicator of productivity: doing lots of stuff in a visible manner. ([Location 715](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00X47ZVXM&location=715)) - All of these trends are enabled by the difficulty of directly measuring the value of depth or the cost of ignoring it. ([Location 789](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00X47ZVXM&location=789)) - Like fingers pointing to the moon, other diverse disciplines from anthropology to education, behavioral economics to family counseling, similarly suggest that the skillful management of attention is the sine qua non of the good life and the key to improving virtually every aspect of your experience. ([Location 852](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00X47ZVXM&location=852)) - Human beings, it seems, are at their best when immersed deeply in something challenging. ([Location 939](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00X47ZVXM&location=939)) - truth about willpower: You have a finite amount of willpower that becomes depleted as you use it. ([Location 1090](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00X47ZVXM&location=1090)) - distraction remains a destroyer of depth. Therefore, the hub-and-spoke model provides a crucial template. Separate your pursuit of serendipitous encounters from your efforts to think deeply and build on these inspirations. You should try to optimize each effort separately, as opposed to mixing them together into a sludge that impedes both goals. ([Location 1476](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00X47ZVXM&location=1476)) - Decades of work from multiple different subfields within psychology all point toward the conclusion that regularly resting your brain improves the quality of your deep work. When you work, work hard. When you’re done, be done. ([Location 1706](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00X47ZVXM&location=1706)) - Tags: [[orange]] - Don’t Take Breaks from Distraction. Instead Take Breaks from Focus. ([Location 1766](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00X47ZVXM&location=1766)) - The Craftsman Approach to Tool Selection: Identify the core factors that determine success and happiness in your professional and personal life. Adopt a tool only if its positive impacts on these factors substantially outweigh its negative impacts. ([Location 2114](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00X47ZVXM&location=2114)) - Professional Goal: To craft well-written, narrative-driven stories that change the way people understand the world.   Key Activities Supporting This Goal: • Research patiently and deeply. • Write carefully and with purpose. ([Location 2170](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00X47ZVXM&location=2170)) - At the beginning of each workday, turn to a new page of lined paper in a notebook you dedicate to this purpose. Down the left-hand side of the page, mark every other line with an hour of the day, covering the full set of hours you typically work. Now comes the important part: Divide the hours of your workday into blocks and assign activities to the blocks. For example, you might block off nine a.m. to eleven a.m. for writing a client’s press release. To do so, actually draw a box that covers the lines corresponding to these hours, then write “press release” inside the box. Not every block need be dedicated to a work task. There might be time blocks for lunch or relaxation breaks. To keep things reasonably clean, the minimum length of a block should be thirty minutes (i.e., one line on your page). ([Location 2471](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00X47ZVXM&location=2471))