Deep Work

"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."

I picked up this book after reflecting on my overuse of technology and ways to live fuller. Reading the book was largely meant to reconfirm my reflections, which, in fact, turned out to be correct or at least similar to its contents. Newport makes the distinction between deep and shallow work as one of cognitive demands. Deep work is work that requires distraction-free environments and is rather difficult; it relates to the idea of flow if you are similar to that. Shallow work is the kind of work that requires little effort, similar to the idea of busy work.

Part 1 of the book details more of the pragmatic arguments for deep work on how it is beneficial and hard to come by. I don’t think I need to restate that argument, so for Part 1, I will focus on the interesting part, which is why deep work is meaningful. Part 2 of the book discusses the rules for achieving deep work and provides some arguments related to the rules. What I highlight in Part 2 is the discussion of Bimodal Philosophy (Basically Work-Life Balance) and quitting social media.

What I will write is related to previous blog posts I wrote on Digital Hedonism, Experience of Time, My Productivity Set-up, and Software Design. I’ll link those under here for now.

Part 1: The Ideas

CH1 and CH2 cover the topics of why deep work is rare and valuable (Not a controversial idea). What I feel is more in contention is CH3, which focuses on finding meaning in deep work. Newport gives the discussion on the more material benefits of “deep work” with a neurological concept of “fire together, wire together” and a psychological concept of “flow”.

The interesting discussion for me was about self-meaning, Descartes’s skepticism, and craftsmanship. CH3’s argument is similar to Nietzsche’s “God is dead!” proclamation, which generally speaks on the loss of meaning from previous institutions, mainly religious. This loss of meaning has cast humanity into existential anxiety, and we must now cope with the consequences.

Newport quotes Dreyfus to illustrate that instead of having existential meaning in the context of oneself, people can find a self-detached purpose of creation for the sake of a field. There is beauty in that because it offers an alternative to the all-to-common focus only on developing yourself as purpose in the world.

"Beautiful code is short and concise, so if you were to give that code to another programmer, they would say, "Oh, that's well-written code." It's much like as if you were writing a poem."

Reflecting on the quote, I see why there is a sense of craftsmanship to it. I think of software design very much as an abstraction-capturing process similar to math in defining mathematical representations of the world. It is the same when determining the aesthetic qualities of software; it only feels so related to practicality because there is a sense in which the reader of code knows how the expert has captured the abstraction. This mirrors the idea that deep work is not merely about productivity but about engaging with tasks in a way that transcends mere functionality, touching on the essence of creativity and mastery.

Also, sometimes craftsmanship isn’t all about the abstractions as much as knowing how to manipulate and control them:

Part 2: The Rules

Part 2 is sectioned off into 4 rules (Work Deeply, Embrace Boredom, Quit Social Media, and Drain the Shallows) and delves into the whys and hows for achieving them.

Work Deeply and Embrace Boredom

These two sections can be conceptually seen as an inquiry into the question: What is good work-life balance? Newport argues for two forms of work philosophy: monastic (like Knuth) and bimodal (like Jung). He illustrates two different approaches to working deeply: one where you try to separate yourself from the world and isolate yourself as much as possible, or one where you find time to work deeply while “living” as well. Safe to say, the author argues for Jung’s philosophy of work over Knuth’s, but there is definitely merit to both, and leaves it up to the reader to decide which they would like to go towards.

Quit Social Media and Drain the Shallows

A key side-point Newport tries to make is that deep work is largely a practice of intentionality and effort. Social Media and the internet as a whole essentially remove that intentionality from the user and are inherently fragmented or unstructured.

"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."

Another fun pondering he made, not necessarily a lesson, was the benefits of quitting social media and highlighting the idea of bringing intentionality into living or rest periods. It was a quick segment about what it means to “live” or at least experience fulfillment in life. If you do end up still wanting to use the internet, try your best to use it intentionally (it usually is impossible to do so).


Citations

Attneave, F., B., M., & Hebb, D.O. (1949). The Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory.

Csíkszentmihályi, M. (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.

Newport, C.C. (2016). Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World.

Kelly, H. D. a. S. D. (2011). All Things Shining: Reading the western classics to find meaning in a secular age.