Cal Newport’s 2018 book has been hugely popular, but until recently neglected by me. My misconception was that this was a more grown-up version of one of those personal productivity  manuals like Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Work Week. It’s more thoughtful than that, and in a way, without the get-rich premise, more realistic. Newport mainly focuses on smart strategies and techniques for making you more focused and productive in a work context but his very readable book (appropriately deeply consumed in a couple of sittings) is also highly relevant if you are interested in teaching, learning, or instructional design.  While reading, I imagined Cal has one of those rich deep voices used for big budget action movie trailers (clears throat); “Deep work is necessary to wring every last drop of value out of your current intellectual capacity.”  If that sounds a bit ominous and over the top, he helpfully puts it more simply this way; “To learn hard things quickly, you must focus intensely without distraction.  To learn, in other words, is an act of deep work.” Cal explains the profound value that can be found when you create space and distraction-free time for ‘deep work’. 

His argument goes something like this: deep work is hard, therefore it is rare, and such scarcity is highly valuable; so, if you become accomplished at deep work, your personal value will be enhanced exponentially. The problem is that in the twenty-first century, we are wired 24-hours a day to be actively distracted, allowing us little room for depth.  The act of ‘carving out’ time for deep work is a tough undertaking in itself, which needs planning, discipline and much determination.

Cal cites a few examples of Deep Work in action; Bill Gates writing the first code for Windows, Mark Twain writing Tom Sawyer in a remote shed, Woody Allen producing 44 screenplays in 47 years (using the same Olympia SM3 manual typewriter); JK Rowling holed up in a suite of a smart hotel, writing the seventh Harry Potter book; prolific science-fiction writer Neal Stephenson’s habitual aversion to the black hole that is social-media. Cal’s thesis reminded me a lot of Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, where he tells the stories of extraordinary personal achievement; from rock stars to professional athletes, software billionaires and scientific geniuses.  There are many factors behind their success, but he argues that the common denominator was not talent, or innate ability, or intelligence; but actual time invested: often 10,000 hours, or more, of absolute dedication to a craft. As my Yorkshire heritage might have described it: great talent also knows how to put a shift in.  Gladwell’s most famous example is The Beatles, who performed live in Hamburg over 1,200 times from 1960 to 1964, amassing more than 10,000 hours of playing time; laying the foundations in their craftsmanship for the masterpiece recordings later in their career.

The second half of the book goes into more practical, pragmatic (and in a way more challenging) territory providing a series of ideas for carving out time for Deep Work, and generating personal and professional value. His section on ditching social media is particularly enjoyable. A lot of the executives I get to work with feel almost obligated to use a myriad of social media platforms - and not just to keep up with their teenage kids (an impossible task), but to be seen to be active, connected and relevant online by their peers. Rather than accumulate ephemeral “contacts” and connections, he advocates an alternative to Facebook: “maintain close and rewarding friendships with a group of people who are important to you.” His approach to improved work-life balance is simple enough; embrace boredom, quit social media, schedule every minute of your day, clear space (physical and cognitive) for Deep Work, and, in particular, tackle the tyranny of email [send fewer and simply ignore those that aren't easy to process]. I read Newport’s book and recently sent a copy to a small exec-ed class attending LBS. The book seemed to be received well, being read by most and one exec said that she had bought a copy for her CEO and top team. She paid forward a business book, which made my day!

John Dore