Summary/Review: "One of the
most valuable skills in our economy is becoming increasingly rare. If you
master this skill, you'll achieve extraordinary results. Deep work is the
ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It's
a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and
produce better results in less time. Deep work will make you better at what
you do and provide the sense of true fulfillment that comes from
craftsmanship. In short, deep work is like a super power in our
increasingly competitive twenty-first century economy. And yet, most people
have lost the ability to go deep-spending their days instead in a frantic
blur of e-mail and social media, not even realizing there's a better way.
In DEEP WORK, author and professor Cal Newport flips the narrative on
impact in a connected age. Instead of arguing distraction is bad, he
instead celebrates the power of its opposite. Dividing this book into two
parts, he first makes the case that in almost any profession, cultivating a
deep work ethic will produce massive benefits. He then presents a rigorous
training regimen, presented as a series of four "rules," for transforming
your mind and habits to support this skill. A mix of cultural criticism
and actionable advice, DEEP WORK takes the reader on a journey through
memorable stories-from Carl Jung building a stone tower in the woods to
focus his mind, to a social media pioneer buying a round-trip business
class ticket to Tokyo to write a book free from distraction in the air-and
no-nonsense advice, such as the claim that most serious professionals
should quit social media and that you should practice being bored. DEEP
WORK is an indispensable guide to anyone seeking focused success in a
distracted world"--