Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

Newport identifies three new trends in modern business: open floor plans at company headquarters and offices, instant messaging, and social media presence. Newport cites Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who says that open floor plans are serendipitous and help foster collaboration. He critiques this office space model, saying that it also creates near constant distraction, preventing employees from performing any kind of deep work whatsoever. Newport also claims that real-time instant messaging likewise creates continuous distractions and prevents deep work. As for social media, Newport suggests that it causes distractions because of its addictive nature. All three of these trends are encouraged in the modern workplace, which is paradoxical because they dampen the propensity to engage in deep work and thus limit productivity.

Newport shifts gears and introduces Tom Cochran, the chief technology officer at Atlantic Media. Cochran, concerned about the sheer amount of emails he received and sent, researched his own email habits and found that he spent about 90 minutes every day engaging in email. He then conducted a companywide study and discovered that upwards of 95% of labor was spent engaging in email exchanges. Newport asserts that even though Cochran was able to arrive at a number like he did, the number is not foolproof. Because it is hard to quantify, Cochran’s study represents what Newport calls the “metric black hole” (55). Companies lose track of how employees spend their time working. In any case, companies are reluctant to change, Newport argues, and the trends are justified by problematic outlooks and mindsets.

Newport describes how a culture of connectivity leads to unintended distractions at the workplace. This includes employees constantly checking their emails in order to provide prompt responses in a fast -paced business environment. Newport discusses a study conducted by a Harvard Business School professor named Leslie Perlow, which found that employees who were given one day a week entirely free from email actually made them feel more productive, a contradiction to what most of these employees anticipated before the study began. Companies still insist on a culture of connectivity, even though it may decrease productivity, due to the principle of least resistance. In other words, once the pattern is established, it is simply easier to maintain than change it. Newport also suggests that preoccupation with email and messaging becomes easier than doing actual deep work.

Another flawed mindset is what he calls, “busyness as a proxy for productivity” (64). Employees do not have reliable metrics that tell them how productive they are, and being publicly busy allows them to have the appearance of being productive. If an employee is constantly checking emails, even while at home, then it appears they are being productive. Newport cites Yahoo’s CEO Marissa Mayer, who said to employees: “If you’re not visibly busy […] I’ll assume you’re not productive” (65). Newport sees this as a flawed outlook that limits productivity.

Newport mentions the third problematic outlook, what he calls “the cult of the internet” (66). He introduces the topic by describing the seemingly contradictory expectations of war correspondent journalist, Alissa Rubin. At the same time Rubin was writing hard-hitting and important articles on the war in Afghanistan, she was expected to self-publish tweets. Newport sees the tweeting as unnecessary; it should not be expected of someone like Rubin.

He also recognizes that his view is not the majority. He touches upon English author Aldous Huxley’s novel, Brave New World (1932), and the idea that technology in the novel is not questioned.

Newport uses American author Neil Postman’s term technopoly to describe the way culture adopts anything high-tech as good, simply because it is high-tech. This unquestioning embrace of the Internet is ultimately bad for business because it devalues deep work.

Newport introduces Ric Furrer, a blacksmith from Wisconsin and briefly details some of the work that goes into creating a sword. The work requires concentration, patience, and practice. Furrer finds great meaning in the work that he does. Newport contrasts Furrer’s work with that of the typical knowledge worker; Furrer’s goals are much more concrete, and his sense of productivity is likewise clear. Because the end goals of knowledge workers are much more ambiguous, the tendency to operate in shallow work increases and is a natural consequence.

Newport shifts gears and provides three reasons for why depth creates meaning. First, he looks at neurological explanations and introduces Winifred Gallagher, a science writer who was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. Gallagher learned a great deal about the power of attention throughout her ordeal and wrote a book called Rapt (2009), in which she delved into the power of attention. A point she makes, which Newport uses for his own book, is that people often make the mistake of assuming that what happens to people in their lives determines how they feel. Instead, Gallagher insists that how people respond and what they choose to focus on determines how they feel.

Pursuing this idea, Newport cites Laura Carstensen, a Stanford psychologist, whose research concluded that a person can train their brain’s prefrontal cortex to alter how they perceive negative circumstances as they age. How people understand their lives is largely a consequence of what they pay attention to, and this can be changed and mastered. Newport claims that developing an ability to concentrate has the added benefit of filtering out irrelevant information in a world where one’s attention is constantly being competed for. He provides a small case study from his own life, presenting a snapshot of his email inbox. The messages were all shallow in some way, or implied some kind of negativity. Learning how to direct one’s attention enables one to avoid falling into the trap posed by forms of superficial focus. In Newport’s view, a commitment to deep work helps a person find meaning and value much more effectively than constant distraction.

The second rationale centers on the psychology of deep work. He discusses Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Csikszentmihalyi devised the term “flow,” which describes a person’s deep involvement in an activity in which they become lost. Flow depends on the right kind of cognitive challenge; the person is tested, not overwhelmed, and focus happens naturally. Newport draws connections between Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s work and Winifred Gallagher’s. He concludes that the deeper one is able to become absorbed in their work, the more rewarding the work is. Newport also refutes the idea that relaxation is what provides value to life; instead, he argues that losing oneself in their work is a more meaningful endeavor.

Finally, Newport examines philosophical justifications that deep work provides meaning. Newport examines the work of Sean Dorrance Kelly and Hubert Dreyfus, two eminent philosophy professors. In their book, All Things Shining (2011), Dreyfus and Kelly look at the work habits of a wheelwright, or a craftsman who creates or fixes wooden wheels. They conclude that a wheelwright becoming fully engaged in their work is akin to connecting to something sacred. Newport briefly touches upon the idea that in the post–Enlightenment age, people have become disconnected from the sacred; because of this, it is incumbent upon them to create their own versions of what is sacred.

Newport argues that deep work provides one connection to the sacred. He circles back to Ric Furrer and says that when an observer sees Furrer’s face, they know that Furrer is totally absorbed in his work. Newport ties together the work of a craftsman like Furrer to that of the knowledge worker. He argues that it is not necessarily the kind of work that people should be concerned about; instead, it is the way they approach the work. Even the most mundane work can be sacred if one is able to engage fully with it.