Scott Alexander, Bryne Hobart and other writers are admired for their prolific ability to generate content with considered analysis. Coupled with this admiration is a lingering thought: but how?
Enter Cal Newport, himself a prolific computer scientist and non-fiction writer, who tackles this question head on. In his book Deep Work, Newport argues that elite output requires the ability and desire to undertake deep work, but that we live in a world which promotes shallow work. Newport seeks to identify the environmental factors which elevate shallow work, and to explain how we may instead cultivate deep work habits.
I.
Newport begins by articulating the state of fragmented attention that grips the modern knowledge worker. The ubiquitous nature of network tools, that is communication services such as email and SMS, social tools such as Facebook and Twitter, and infotainment such as news websites, serve to disaggregate attention. This state of fragmented attention prevents the pursuit of deep work and instead fosters shallow work.
Shallow work is defined as 'non-cognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted. These efforts do not create much new value in the world and are easy to replicate'. Newport’s chief example is the constant sending and receiving of emails. The fragmented attention landscape only enables larger more considered endeavours to be performed in sprints or bursts of effort. Newport argues that prolonged time in the shallow work state permanently reduces your capacity to undertake the concentration and contemplation of deep work.
Deep work is defined as 'activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to the limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill and are hard to replicate.' For Newport, deep work is a fundamental requirement for mastering new skills and producing at an elite level with high quality and speed.
II.
Newport acknowledges the link between ‘deep work’ and ‘deliberate practice’, which is a concept espoused by Anders Ericsson and popularised by Malcom Gladwell in his book Outliers: The Story of Success. Deliberate practice is a combination of deliberate focus on a specific skill and a feedback loop that allows for correction. Neuroscientific work has shown that myelin – a layer of fatty tissue that grows around neurons – allows cells to fire faster and cleaner. As you get better at a skill, you develop more myelin around the neurons. As Newport so eloquently puts it 'to be great at something is to be well myelinated’. The neurological triggering of myelination is undertaken by engaging in deliberate practice and intent focus without distraction. Therefore, deliberate practice is an act of deep work.
Sophie Leroy in her paper 'Why Is It So Hard to Do My Work', coined the term ‘attention residue’, which is linked to the concept of shallow work. When task switching, which is common in the modern workplace, your whole attention does not follow, and an attention residue remains with your previous task. This attention residue leads to performance degradation on the new task.
Newport introduces two new concepts to further articulate the prevalence of shallow work. The Principle of Least Resistance holds that without clear feedback on the impact of behaviours, we will tend towards behaviours that are the easiest. The Busyness as a Proxy for Productivity holds that in the absence of clear indicators of what it means to be productive and valuable, workers turn towards doing lots of tasks in a visible manner. Examples of both include prioritisation of responsiveness and constant availability (via email or instant messaging) or regularly occurring (low value) meetings. All such actions sap attention and concentration and limit the ability to undertake deep work.
The book nails the type of environment a knowledge worker is subject to. The desire to appear busy which requires instantaneous responsiveness and perpetual availability. Coupled with the seeming hopelessness of shallow administrivia and task switching that fills your day, without the ability to really sink your teeth into satisfying work.
III.
Most interestingly, Newport explores the links between attention, deep work, and a meaningful life. He contends we focus on the circumstances of our life, that is what is happening or not happening to us, which drives how we feel. However, a litany of neurological evidence suggests that our worldview is based on what we pay attention to. By undertaking deep work, we can refocus our attention in a way which in turn cultivates a sense of meaning and purpose.
Newport further bolsters his argument through the findings of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who researched a mental state he termed 'flow'. Csikszentmihalyi found that 'The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind are stretched to its limit in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile'.
Newport continues to tease this thread out. He suggests that work is craft, and the development of an ability ultimately leads to a sense of meaning. Or put differently, if deep work is embraced to cultivate focused skills, a transformation can occur from low satisfaction to highly motivated.
You get this sense or feeling when reading the work of Scott Alexander or Bryne Hobart, that they derive their wellbeing and meaning from deep-seated engagement with their work. Conversely, it appears a lot of knowledge workers suffer from a disillusionment or melancholic haze from the work they are undertaking. It struck me that they are stuck in a vicious cycle of shallow work, slowly moving further and further away from the deep work that will ultimately give them satisfaction and meaning.
IV.
Ironically, the biggest impediment to deep work is yourself, or more specifically the urge to turn your attention to something more superficial. Roy Baumeister's research found that fighting this desire is constant and its regularity and strength is underestimated. His further research on willpower found that willpower is limited and depleted as used. As such your finite willpower is no match for the constant bombardment of network tools competing for your attention.
Therefore, rituals and routines are critical to maintaining a state of deep work. Newport suggests various methods of incorporating deep work into your life, some more extreme, others more realistic. All methods are coupled with examples of real individuals who have adopted these methods of deep work to phenomenal success.
- For example, Neil Stephenson the science fiction author has the following communication policy:
‘Persons who wish to interfere with my concentration are politely requested not to do so and warned that I don’t answer email… lest [my communication policy’s] key message get lost in the verbiage, I will put it here succinctly: All of my time and attention are spoken for – several time over. Please do not ask for them’.
Stephenson further justifies this policy in his essay ‘Why I Am a Bad Correspondent’:
‘The productivity equation is a non-linear one… This accounts for why I am a bad correspondent and why I rarely accept speaking engagements. If I organise my life in such a way that gets lots of long, consecutive, uninterrupted time-chunks, I can write novels. But as those chunks get separated and fragmented my productivity as a novelist drops’.
- For example, Carl Jung would retreat to a stone house he built in the woods where he would lock himself every morning into a minimally appointed room to write without interruption. The rest of the time he spent in Zurich, attending to his busy clinic, participating in coffeehouse culture, and lecturing at prominent universities.
- For example, Jerry Seinfeld determined that to create better jokes, he needed to write every day. He developed a technique: every day he wrote a joke he crossed out the date on the calendar with a big red X. Seinfeld said:
‘After a few days you will have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You will like seeing the chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain’.
The above method is the chain method. However, scheduling has the same effect. For example, doing deep work every morning at the same time before other family, work, and life obligations.
- For example, Walter Isaacson’s approach to writing The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made, was described as follows by a friend:
‘It was always amazing… he would retreat to the bedroom for a while, when the rest of us were chilling on the patio or whatever, to work on his book… he’d go up for twenty minutes or an hour, we’d hear the typewriter pounding, then he’d come down as relaxed as the rest of us… the work never seemed to faze him, he just happily went up to work when he had the spare time’.
Newport has ascribed this method to journalists who have a wonderful ability to slip into deep work due to the nature of their profession. I will note this an advanced method, for the very reasons of attention and distraction noted in this review.
- For the modern knowledge worker, the best method for integrating deep work into your day is time block planning. That is at the start of every day plan and schedule every minute of your working day into blocks of time. Optimise your schedule to prioritise deep work and limit shallow work and distractions. In this review I will not detail the minutiae of this process, however I will state that disciplined adherence to this method sees one cull shallow work to what is necessary and allows for concentration without distraction.
- Combine this with fixed scheduling, that is define when work will end. For example, 5.30pm every night and no weekend work. Or a 45-hour work week. This will require you to ruthlessly cull (repeat after me; say NO) to shallow endeavours that sap away at your opportunity to undertake deep work. It also requires more disciplined organisation compared to less organised schedules.
- The perfect example here is Newport and an anonymous young computer professor as the counter example. Anonymous professor posts on his blog that for a regular twelve-hour day, he is ‘tending with bushels of emails, filling out bureaucratic forms, organising meeting notes and planning meetings’. In his example twelve-hour day, he spent one and a half hours pursuing a ‘research deliverable’ or as he put it ‘real’ work. He concludes, ‘I’ve already accepted the reality I will be working on weekend… very few junior faculty can avoid this fate’.
- Newport notes his experience is different, since commencing at Georgetown in the fall of 2011 and the fall of 2014, he published 20 peer reviewed articles, won two competitive grants, published one non-fiction book, and almost finished writing another one (Deep Work). All through following a routine of time blocking and fixed scheduling, rarely working nights or weekends.
This is perhaps the most convincing part of Deep Work: the commitment to limiting shallow work and pursuing deep work through organisation and ruthless culling provide huge productivity gains without significant increases to time spent. It’s a clear case of quality over quantity.
There is no magic bullet. You will have to determine how to incorporate deep work into your life, your work, and your schedule. However, it is important to ritualise the behaviour and Newport provides three criterion that must be addressed:
Recall how we started this section: the ritualisation and habitation of a deep work process limits the desire to turn your attention to the superficial given the constraints of limited willpower.
V.
To increase the effects of your deep work, Newport stresses the value of downtime and introduces the concept of a shutdown ritual, that is a strict endpoint to the day.
To justify the need for a shutdown ritual, Newport highlights four points which are supported by scientific research:
Having made the case for ceasing your deep work and pursuing downtime, Newport details the key components of a shutdown ritual: every incomplete task or project is reviewed, and either a plan for its completion is formulated or it’s captured in a place where it will be revisited when appropriate. Moreover, he advocates verbalising a vocal cue, such as 'shutdown complete', as a signal to your brain to stop thinking about work.
VI.
As noted above, shallow work reduces your capacity to undertake the concentration and contemplation of deep work. Conversely, the ability to concentrate intensely is a skill that must be trained. Going further, limiting urges to satisfy distractions can also be honed and boredom can be embraced.
Newport advocates reducing the need to be stimulated by network tools and ceasing social media use altogether. This is a ubiquitous problem facing the modern individual with a seeming onslaught of never-ending digital stimuli that serve as a veritable petri dish of distractions. Newport suggests, instead of taking breaks from distraction so you can focus, schedule the occasional break from focus to give into distraction. This draws on the previous learning regarding limited willpower and costs of switching. Newport goes into some depth into a method for scheduling Internet use, however I believe it is up to individuals to determine the lengths they will go to limit network tools or cease social media.
To limit distraction, Newport discourages mindlessly seeking entertainment in the digital space, recommending instead a more considered pursuit of leisure. Anecdotally, I find the most fulfilled of my friends are those that seek meaningful leisure: reading books, exercise, cooking, holiday planning, listening to music etc., as opposed to mindlessly and semi consciously surfing the web or scrolling apps.
VII.
Newport appears to have a structured and disciplined personality and therefore a structured approach to deep work that has served him well throughout his life, that might not be entirely relatable to all. However, there is no free lunch. If there is a desire for a fulfilling and meaningful life, the pursuit of deep work must be undertaken deliberately and with discipline. I find Newport's thesis and supporting arguments extremely compelling, and the litany of real-world examples peppered throughout the book (and his blog) add even more credence. Perhaps this review will provide us one more example, as I hope it spurs Scott to write a post explaining his approach to deep work and the tools he uses to achieve his prodigious output.
For me the most compelling argument for adopting Newport's methods was the work life balance he has been able to achieve. Throughout his phenomenally productive academic and literary career Newport did not work past 5.30pm. It is extremely liberating to hear from a successful individual that we do not need to subscribe to the idea of work, work, work to success. In essence the book is simply the detailed articulation of the popular phrase 'work smarter, not harder'.