Soph Reads Stuff – Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

Do you want to know which skill makes knowledge workers better than their peers? Do you also want to have an existential crisis about your ability to concentrate? Then you’ll love Deep Work by Cal Newport. This isn’t your average toxic productivity bro spouting 4 am hustle-gains or faux-wisdom. This is genuine psychological research about the benefits of distraction-free work and committing yourself to a deeper level of thought. 

In fact, Deep Work is one of the most challenging books I’ve read in this series. It’s honestly rocked me to my core. It’s all about how knowledge workers (aka people with desk jobs) can cultivate this enhanced concentration technique to produce more high-quality work. It’s a fairly academic text – with an actual index at the back – but it weaves Cal’s personal ethos and psychological frameworks together effortlessly and is a surprisingly easy read. 

Cal’s a great writer, and while Deep Work did take me a while to get through, that’s not because it was too dense. I think it had more to do with the fact that I regularly had to go away and rethink my life. If you want to find out what got me in such a tizzy, keep reading ⬇️

What’s inside?

Deep Work started off strong with a story about one of my favourite psychologists, Carl Jung. Apparently, he used to box himself up in a tower and refuse to talk to anyone until he’d finished his work. I don’t know about you, but for an introvert like me, that sounds like living the dream. The interesting thing is that this actually made him way more productive, because this strange, isolationist habit allowed him to enter a state of deep work. From then on, I was hooked. 

This book is absolutely packed with quotes that I want to plaster all over the office. Here are two of my favourites: 

• “A deep life is a good life.”
• “A deep life is not just economically lucrative, but also a life well-lived.”

However, on the other side of those idyllic promises are some much starker warnings: 

• “Network tools negatively impact deep work.”
• “Once you’re wired for distraction, you crave it.”
• “If you don’t produce, you won’t thrive – no matter how skilled or talented you are.”

Turns out there’s a reason that the best writing advice is simply ‘keep writing’. But this is why Deep Work shook me so deeply; after four years of gruelling but rewarding academic study, I often feel like my day job, while also challenging, doesn’t actually push me as much as it should. I don’t often spend time pondering deep questions or getting lost in an area of research anymore. The majority of my work is shallow. The closest I get to philosophical quandaries is trying to decipher some of my bosses’ cryptic Slack messages. 

Cal went on to make some pretty daming indictments about the modern world of work. Apparently, remote working has basically screwed over entry-level people forever? And we’re all working wrong. Oh, and interruptions are terrible for everybody below the C-suite. It’s been shown that lower levels of connectivity and reduced working hours result in improved productivity and well-being, but most companies ignore that fact in favour of draconian ideas about busyness being a proxy for productivity. 

Culturally, we place an emphasis on immediate connection and communication, with the expectation that employees should be reachable at all times. According to Cal, that’s the worst thing we could do to our productivity. And now I can’t unsee it. My inboxes are an almost constant source of distraction. If I’m being honest, so is LinkedIn. Anything with notifications can pull me out of a focused state alarmingly quickly. 

Thankfully, once Deep Work has convinced you that your entire working life is doomed, it covers a plethora of ways that you can create your own deep working habits and save yourself from superficial busyness. In fact, things like fixed ends to the workday, delayed email responses, and quitting social media are actually scientifically proven to benefit your working habits. One of my favourite tips was to ritualise your work. Whether you’re setting yourself up for success by scheduling the day over your morning coffee or creating a niche close-down ritual for your daily moment of freedom, patterns can help your brain enter and exit the working state more effectively. 

Another of Cal’s points that I’m obsessed with is that most people see their working hours as the main part of their day rather than prioritising the time around work, which actually belongs to them. We should be structuring our rest in the same way we do our job! Active relaxation is actually more beneficial than passive relaxation, like watching the telly. According to Deep Work, voluntarily doing math (aka obsessively counting my crochet stitches) is a better wind-down activity than watching Friends for the 607th time while scrolling Pinterest for wedding inspo. Who knew?! 

It also turns out that grand gestures aren’t just for rom-coms, they’re also for hacking your brain into a state of radical, deep, productivity. Things like 30-hour round-trip flights, locking yourself in an expensive hotel room or building your own writing shack all come expert-approved. So does ignoring your emails. I repeat: science says we should ignore our emails. There are, of course, exceptions, but Cal actually recommends that we stop replying to emails unless something really good or really bad will happen as a result either way. 

Now, I know we’re reaching the part where I usually complain about or criticise some aspect of the book. Unfortunately, other than it being responsible for my fall into an existential spiral, I can’t actually find any negative things to say about Deep Work. It’s a really solid book in every single way. 

My recommendation:

Given what I just said, it’ll probably come as no surprise that I’m awarding Deep Work five stars. It might not have made me cry (my normal justification for that score), but it has fundamentally changed how I view my working habits. I’ve also now got Cal Newport in my head every time I find myself mindlessly scrolling on social media, so I think it’s safe to say that Deep Work has had a major impact on my life. It’s also impeccably written, excellently produced, and all-round an exceptional piece of literature. 

Rating: 💜💜💜💜💜

TL;DR

I can’t think of a better way to sum up Deep Work than this quote from it: “A workday driven by the shallow, from a neurological perspective, is likely to be a draining and upsetting day, even if most of the shallow things that capture your attention seem harmless or fun.” You should read it immediately because it will change your life. 

Want to chat about books? Find me on LinkedIn –> Sophie Colclough 🥰