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Video Summaries of Deep Work

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1-Page Summary of Deep Work

“Deep Work” and Why It Matters

Deep work is the kind of work that requires your full attention. It’s not easy to do, but it can be extremely rewarding. To understand deep work, compare it to shallow work, which doesn’t require much from you mentally and is often done while distracted.

Current trends push people to do shallow work. People want to network, tweet and respond quickly. This is dangerous because they might automate or skip important tasks that have limited value. Deep work offers profound value and it’s becoming increasingly important as technology advances.

Technology is changing the economy. Many people can’t keep up with technology, but this doesn’t mean they’re not competing in today’s world. Technology has created a new type of worker: high-skilled workers who are good at using complex technology to compete and succeed in business.

Specialization

In the past, companies hired locally or paid people to relocate. In that environment, local experts reaped rewards. Now companies might ask specialists to telecommute. This displaces local workers while validating superstars and pushes job markets toward a “winner-take-all” model. Information technology lets superstars multiply their influence and rewards in any field; you need to master hard things and learn complex material quickly for those jobs, which requires deep work (i.e., focused attention).

“Deliberate Practice”

Deep work is a state of intense focus. It requires you to concentrate on one task and not switch between tasks. You can achieve deep work by practicing a skill repeatedly until it becomes second nature, which helps you get better at it. The more elite work you produce equals the time spent on your task multiplied by how intensely focused you are while working on that task. If you’re distracted often or switch tasks frequently, your performance level will suffer because part of your attention will be stuck in the previous task, making it harder to concentrate fully on the next one.

There are many reasons why people don’t focus deeply on important tasks. The modern business environment makes it easy to get distracted, and the easiest way for most people is to respond quickly to messages. People tend not to prioritize their work or make sure they’re doing what’s most important. They just plunge in without thinking about whether they’re working on something that’s really worth their time, which leads them to do busywork because it can be measured easily—but not necessarily well.

“Cult of the Internet”

People act as if using the Internet is revolutionary, but it’s not. They invite people to like them on Facebook and use Twitter. This pulls their attention away from doing real work that matters to society.

What You “Pay Attention To”

Studies show that deep work is valuable. Winifred Gallagher, a science writer, spent years researching attention and its effects on our lives. She found that the way you manage your attention shapes how good your life is; it’s more important than circumstances. Your brain creates experiences based on what you pay attention to and where you focus your energy; focusing on positive things trains your prefrontal cortex to keep negative stimuli from affecting you as much. In deep work, we focus on topics that matter most to us in order to reshape our reality positively—deep work itself becomes its own reward because of the challenges associated with it and its structured nature.

In their 2011 book, Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly argue that deep work is a solution to the problem of meaning in our lives. They trace this idea back to the Enlightenment and René Descartes, who made us think for ourselves instead of relying on tradition. The authors suggest that we can solve this issue by doing what we love (craftsmanship).