How Can I Become More Productive?

I recently finished reading the book “Deep work” by Cal Newport

But the concept of “Deep Work” was new to me, I had never tried to inculcate in my routine.

Before we dive deep into the concept, let us look at the people who followed DEEP WORK strategies to achieve irreplaceable and world class output:

1. Writer Mark Twain worked in a cabin isolated from the main house, requiring his family to blow a horn to attract his attention for meals.
2. While writing the Harry Potter books, JK Rowling's only tweet for the first year and a half after joining Twitter was: “This is the real me, but you won’t be hearing from me often I am afraid, as pen and paper is my priority at the moment.”
3. CEO Bill Gates famously conducted “Think Weeks” twice a year, during which he would isolate himself in a lakeside cottage to do nothing but read and think big thoughts.

The author Cal Newport defines Deep Work as:

“Professional activities performed in a distraction free environment that pushes your cognitive abilities to the limit. These skills create new value, improve skills and are hard for others to replicate.”

On the other hand , Shallow work can be defined as :

Non‐cognitively demanding, logistical‐style tasks that can be completed in a semi‐distracted state. Shallow work includes answering email, sorting documents, and running errands. The less engagement your work requires, the more shallow it is.

How Deep Work Works?

Neuroscientists have observed that intense periods of focused and isolated periods of work cause “myelin” to be released in relevant parts of the brain.

Myelin is a white tissue that develops around neurons and allows brain cells to work faster . So by practicing deep work, we are upgrading our brain to perform tasks with better speed and performance both.

What are 4 Deep Work Ritual Requirements?

D : Dedicated work space Your ritual needs to specify a location for your deep work efforts. This location can be as simple as your normal office with the door shut and desk cleaned off .

E : Exact end time Give yourself a specific time frame to keep the session a discrete challenge and not an open‐ended slog.

E : Easy starting sequence Your ritual needs rules and processes to keep your efforts structured. Without this structure, you’ll have to mentally litigate again and again what you should and should not be doing during these sessions and keep trying to assess whether you’re working sufficiently hard.

P: Power‐ups Your ritual needs to ensure your brain gets the support it needs to keep operating at a high level of depth.

What are Deep Work Strategies?

• Schedule Distractions : It is important that you draw boundaries on your distractions. Make fixed time for attending to distractions and hold your focus on your work until then.

• Develop a deep work ritual : Scheduling chunks of deep work in an ad hoc manner , does not yield much productivity at all. To get maximum productivity from deep work, schedule it alternatively with periods of shallow work . Have a reoccurring time to go into deep work each day or each week. Early morning is typically the best time to do this. The ultimate goal should be to plan deep work rituals to build up the sum of deep work practices to 4 hours a day.

• Evening Shutdown Ritual : Sleep is the interest we pay on loans of intense focus required to do deep work. Cal suggests that every evening you make a list of unfinished tasks and their plan of action. This should be done so that once you get things off your mind , you are more likely to get a sound sleep.

I recommend this book to every knowledge worker. If you follow the principles advised by Cal, in this book your productivity will increase manyfold.

In this fast changing AI world where every knowledge worker is afraid of his/her job being taken over by AI, this book will work as a firewall to protect your job.

Sources :

DeepWork by cal newport