Aesthetics
Ignoring the appendix and glossary, there are approximately 250 pages of content. I bought the paperback version of the book (because it’s cheaper xd) and realized that it's quite broad and big. I expected it to be smaller because it does not contain as much content as some other books I’ve read recently. However, a substantial advantage stemming from the proportions of the book itself is that it’s extremely easy to read. The author is left with plenty of space to make the text as discernible as possible. There are many sections marked in bold as well as plenty bulletin points and that, combined with, proper spacing plus a rather large font make it really easy to follow which contributes to the pleasurable reading experience.
Informative value
The book consists of 7 chapters divided into 2 sections: The Idea and The Rules. In the first section, Newport explains why he thinks that deep work is becoming increasingly more valuable and important in the context of modern society. This part is packed with on point yet compact information that sheds a bit of light on how he became interested in deep work and conversely provides the reader with real-life examples of stories of people successfully adapting deep work into their daily lives. He briefly touches the routines of Carl Gustav Jung or Bill Gates and many more.
The second section consists of actionable and easily comprehensible (not so easily done though) steps that help the reader to decide on a way in which he wants to integrate deep work into his daily routine. On top of that, he offers various approaches on how to integrate the concept itself into one’s life, so almost everyone can find something suitable and give it a try.
Expressiveness
Cal Newport is an academic and I was a little worried that his book might become a bit too hard to follow (note: the similar thing that happened to the book Spark by Ratey) but my worries quickly dissipated as I read through the first few pages. The text is structured in an intricate and eloquent way and yet it remains charmingly simple that basically anyone can pick up the book and clearly understand its content.
Maybe the book itself is not jam-packed with tons of intricate ideas and stirring jargon but that’s not the point of it. Its main objective is to explore the concept of deep work in an articulate manner while still remaining readable and enjoyable for anyone who stumbles upon it. In that regard, it does a wonderful job in doing so.
Overall feel
To conclude my review, I would highly recommend you to give this book a go if you are enthusiastic about coming up with a way to improve your quality of life through finding and cultivating your passion in a sensible manner. There is not much to say because the book itself is pretty straightforward. I knew what I was going to get from page one, but upon reading the appendix I was still genuinely content with my decision to give this book a go because it broadened my worldview exactly in those areas, in which I felt that I was lacking big time.
Golden Nugget (s)
Yay, the golden nuggets! There is nothing better than to read a summary of a book that is not content-heavy because you get to know the key points without needing to spend your time on reading the actual book. That might be true, but I’ll be first to admit that my skills in terms of educating others are basically non-existent compared to the esteemed educator that Cal Newport surely is.
Despite me understanding the harsh reality of my explanatory skills, I’ll give it a go and create a very brief summary of this book’s most essential concepts.
1. Deep work is becoming increasingly rare in our modern society, but rare does not mean useless in this particular case. In a society characterized by fragmented and disorganized lifestyle due to:
a. the flourishing of an open-space work policy
b. incomprehensible lack of resources used to implement truly functional strategies to increase the productivity in companies
c. the excessive influence social networks have on us
is deep work becoming a new counterculture as well as a lifestyle that will probably pay an astronomical dividend in the future.
2. So, why, according to Newport, is this scenario almost sure to become reality?
To keep up with rapid technological advancements of the 21. St century and to succeed an average citizen needs to do two things:
• Quickly master hard things and produce work on an elite level in terms of quality and speed.
“Coincidentally”, deep work helps you out big time in both of these domains.
3. Okay, deep work seems like the right thing to do, but HOW do I get into the habit of regularly performing it?
• Choose the right approach (Newport outlines various approaches to deep work ranging from secluding oneself for months to intensely focus on one task to priming yourself in a way that you are able to work deeply in irregular intervals for the limited amount of time and still yield great results.)
• Ritualize (Every habit needs to be practised for it to have any advantageous effect on your life whatsoever – deep work is no exception.)
• Don’t be afraid to team up (Deep work is not always a one-man show. In this book, there are many techniques such as serendipitous encounter or whiteboard effect that rely on you to team up with someone in order to step up your game.)
• Embrace boredom (Unfocused individuals tend to be unfocused for one simple reason: they just can’t stand low stimuli “aka boring” environment. Deep work is not always pleasant and stimulating short term but in the long term, it produces results worth sacrificing short-term comfort for.)
• Prioritize (Some tasks are obviously more beneficial than others. To make a proper use of one’s limited resources, one should take some time to step back and think about what merits and demerits a certain interest provide and eliminate it if it’s not worth the time. Many people fall into a trap called “any benefit approach” – justifying the use of any service as long as there is any possible benefit to its use. Consequently, these individuals are confused why they hopelessly fall behind the schedule on any more substantial, long-term project they take up.)
• Schedule and quantify (This one is easy. Both of these actions help you track the progress and the real impact of one’s work, increasing one’s motivation and decreasing the ambiguousness associated with performing a difficult task.)
• NO (You can’t meet all the demands imposed on you by your environment, family, acquaintances or company – it’s just not humanly possible which inevitably means that you need to turn down a whole lot of requests or opportunities to free up your schedule so you can dedicate some of your time to deep work.)
That would be it for a brief overview of the book itself. Obviously, I just breezed through the topics this book has to offer to compile sort of a foreshadowing of what is to come if you give this book a go.
Hope you are having a wonderful day
Cheers
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