Reading Cal Newport’s book, Deep Work, was a revelation. My copy is now scribbled over and destined to be returned to over and over in the future. I hadn’t heard of the author before reading the book. In fact, in retrospect, I can’t remember why I bought it in the first place, other than to assume that it’s one of many self-help books I have picked in moments of inspiration while browsing. This is a habit I’ve had for years, and I’m not ashamed of it. Have I ever made major transformations to my life, like lost 50 pounds or gotten rich quick? Of course not, but in my view, the constant desire to improve is worth something since it reflects a future optimism that I hope I never lose. Even the sobering reality in the data of our lives hasn’t fully reset my expectations on what I can and cannot (or will never) do. I absolutely subscribe to the view that our books shelves are a physical reflection of our psyche; self-help books are, I hope, the part of me that honestly wants to be better tomorrow than I am today.

Newport’s book concerns our professional selves and the uniquely modern challenge of focusing on important, value-creating work, however that looks in one’s line of work.  Like Newport, who is a university professor, I fall into the category of “knowledge worker”. That is, I’m paid to use my brain, to process and analyze lots of information in a specialized field. Or, as a hiking guide quipped to me years ago, I drive a desk for work. As I see it, basically any white-collar job has the strong aroma of knowledge worker, so I suspect many readers will see aspects of their work lives in Newport’s book. I certainly did, which is one of the reasons I quickly became engrossed. Many, many times did I harrumphed in agreement when Newport discussed counterproductive trends, such as open-plan office spaces or the awful sinkholes that many meetings or email practices represent.  Several times I jotted “Yes! Exactly!” on the margin, dog-earing the page for future reference.

Newport’s book is the first I’ve read that offers both a rationale and a plan of action to reclaim my mental life. It’s given me the hope that I can do more of the fulfilling, scholarly work that I enjoyed as a graduate student and postdoc. If you wish for the quiet thoughtfulness of Maria Popova and yet revere the productive efficiency of Tim Ferriss, then you will find Cal Newport’s book giving voice to your inner feelings, addressing your common work-life battles, and giving you strategies for a counterstrike. Whereas Steven Pressfield’s War of Art is a drill sergeant’s boot kicking you in the behind, Newport’s Deep Work is the captain of the debate team who not only wins your loyalty but also pulls you aside and says, “here’s how I do it…”

The book is divided into two parts; Part 1 argues for the importance of deep work in our lives while Part 2 puts forth rules and strategies to increase the ability to engage in deep work. I confess that I skipped straight to Part 2 after reading the introduction. I didn’t need convincing. I needed help.

In 2003, before I purchased my first cell phone, a close friend of mine convinced me that a mobile phone would “turn down time into productive time”. This was the era before true smartphones, so in that context, what he meant was that he could make calls while in the car, waiting in line, etc. The rapid yet incremental evolution of tech in our lives has chipped away at more and more of our down time, to the point that we fill the spaces with, in my opinion, lots of meaningless distractions. Yes, I often complain to my colleagues that meetings are the illusion of work. True, I never joined Facebook, but in that case, what started as laziness turned into a moral stance borne more from privacy concerns than time management.  I also gave up Twitter late last year, largely because the unavoidable vulgarity of American politics made it unusable for me. I’ve always agreed with whoever said that you didn’t need to read the newspaper because, when big news happened, you heard about it anyway.  I don’t think I’ve missed much. I haven’t been a regular TV watcher since middle school, and though I occasionally watch a movie with my wife, the only media I regularly consume in large volume are podcasts and streamed radio broadcasts of Yankees baseball games. Also, to my credit, I’m generally quite good about not working while at home or on weekends. Yes, I absolutely want to spend quality time with my toddler son and wonderful wife, but I can’t deny the fact that I’m often so drained by my daily computer work that I can’t muster the enthusiasm to flip open my laptop afterhours and stare at another screen. (And because so many of the hobby projects that I want to do, like writing or learning new skills, are greatly aided by using a computer, I never make any progress on them, further sinking my spirits.) Thus, I came into Newport’s book a very motivated pupil.

I loved Newport’s book but this post won’t be much of a formal review. These are my personal Dopplenotes of my takeaways. I’m determined to adopt the DW mindset.

Quick changes I’ve already made:

• I created a sender filter email that I hope to automatically use to reset expectations on when and how I respond to email requests.
• I deleted a bunch of social media apps. I rarely used them anyway, but I didn’t want to even see them on my phone anymore for fear that they’d tempt me. I’d argue that Newport’s criticisms of the “any-benefit” approach to social media and networking tools are applicable to e-commerce service as well.
• I created some custom shortcut keystrokes within Outlook so make the SW of processing emails more efficient. Why I didn’t think to do this before, I have no idea. By the way, I’m now all the way around to the idea that filing emails into distinct folders is pointless. A friend of mine who works at Google told me that their research indicates that email users fall into two categories – filers and pilers. With broad, flexible searching functions, why file away when you can search everything? Evernote users know this, I loved using the now-defunct Google Desktop, and I’m a Gmail user so I should know this too having simply “archived” tens of thousands of email messages. Yet for some reason, I believed that my professional email account had to be organized. A shallow, repetitive task if there ever was one. (Note: yet hard to break, apparently. The compulsion to sort some type of emails persists)

Some of the key changes I plan to make:

• Spend some time strategizing on what goals and associated tasks should be the focus of my DW. I’ve started thinking about this issue, and it’s pretty tricky actually. What’s the most important work I could do to be successful and for my company to be successful? Between the obvious DW and SW, there’s a lot of gray area. Doing some meta-work and seeking the advice of my work colleagues will be critical here. This applies to my leisure time too, because as Newport points out, one really should have a framework for getting the most out of personal projects as well.
• Maintain a much higher DW/SW ratio by budgeting SW to no more than 30% of my time. (I did some back of the envelope calculations and my initial daily schedule will include almost 40% SW, so I predict that my colleagues will notice little, if any, change. If my email reduction strategies work, then I should be able to tip the DW/SW balance further in favor of DW. This would make me an aspiring adherent of Newport’s rhythmic philosophy of DW.
  1. Sub-goal #1 – Maintain a visual representation of the number of hours in DW, e.g., a print out of a blank month to X out and/or tally each day’s DW total.
  2. Sub-goal #2 – Experiment with Newport’s “Rooseveltian dashes” to accomplish some DW goals. [This blog point began as a dash, so it seemed to work!]
• Adopt the fixed-schedule productivity approach, in which I plan in advance, the full daily schedules of each working day. This will take a monumental effort on my part; I’m a poor planner! But I realize that is at the heart of the problem. I’m habitually, continually at the mercy of whatever attention-grabbing SW happens to flow across my desk (my inbox, actually). In addition to better prioritization of tasks, I see the fixed-schedule productivity approach as having another benefit. Combined with the strict SW budget, it creates an incredible validated excuse to decline unwanted intrusions. For example, when a colleague interrupts me with an unscheduled request to join a meeting, I will have a demonstrable written evidence to say that I simply don’t have time in my schedule.
• Reduce email burden by:
  1. Limiting the number of responses, which should be helped by the sender filter I mentioned above as well as renouncing the obligation to always respond to inbound inquiries. This applies to my co-workers as much as it does to folks outside my company. In fact, I bought copies of Deep Work for everyone in the office; I hope they find benefit in it as I have, but I also want them to understand the rationale for the changes I’m making.
  2. Adopt the process-centric approach to email responses. This will take some effort because it’s natural for me to informal in email exchanges. But I see that it’s incredibly important. The examples Newport gives made me exult in the certitude that I will avoid so many future email traps.
• Re-organize my office, my desk in particular, to reduce the clutter and prevent distractions. This is more than just Feng Shui. It’s about reducing the number of factors impinging on my limited attentional resources, and as Newport describes, train myself to quickly engage in DW.
• Spouse-willing, try out the monastic philosophy of DW, perhaps with a Grand Gesture. I’d argue that taking the time and effort to separate oneself and commit to engaging in DW is no different from the time and effort spent going to corporate retreats or professional conferences. Only, I’m willing to bet that a monastic retreat to inhale new ideas and synthesize the learnings is a hell of a lot more valuable than either of the two aforementioned practices, especially for us knowledge workers. And yet, in today’s corporate world, the Think Weeks that Bill Gates is known for are as universally-supported and minimally-practiced as midday napping. I’d like to change that, and I’m absolutely willing to extend the opportunity to my office colleagues.

To read Newport’s book is to understand that embracing DW is a lifestyle choice. It’s a continuous process of refining your work habits and improving your mental discipline (avoid the tempting infotainment sites, combat distractibility by developing sustained attention, etc.). There are many parallels with mindfulness meditation in that it’s both very difficult and requires lots of practice. Yet, like meditation, the practitioner benefits from the practice itself. For me, I don’t want to simply go on an SW diet, like the internet sabbaticals that Newport describes. Rather, I want a healthier DW lifestyle, so I don’t have to resort to crash SW diets to stay sane. But at the outset, when does a diet maintained become a lifestyle? How long will it take? We’ll see. Wish me luck!