Blocking off time each day to work without distractions will make you more productive

"Blocking off time each day to work without distractions will make you more productive" - This book

There, I just saved you another 7 hours.

Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation.

Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation.

718 les gens ont trouvé cela utile

Formulaic Self Help

This is another book in the Formulaic Self Help Genre. The formula is: Propose an idea that everyone already agrees with, and take it to an extreme, then reference a handful of rich and famous people and claim they sort of follow your extreme proposal, then give a multistep program to implement your proposal in the reader's life.

Most books in this genre have the same weakness, they fail to point out that most people that follow their program are not rich or famous. Such books also don't discuss the many other rich and famous people who do the exact opposite of the proposed method, yet achieve greatness.

In this case, Deep Work is focusing and avoiding distractions while working. Good advice. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people that have great focus and avoid distractions while working but don't achieve greatness, because they are focusing quite deeply on the wrong thing. There are also a lot of people who create best with many people working together in a dynamic and distracting environment. Some with rock music, others with 10 screens of continuous data.

I am an introvert and don't engage in social media (never read or sent a tweet, check facebook about 3 times/yearm very limited email). I think the advice given would work pretty well for introverts, I am not so sure about this working for other personality types and work styles.

If you are an introvert with a social media addiction, this book may be helpful to you.
For me it was not worth my time.

The narration was OK for a self help book.
The PDF is basically just a list of references.

Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation.

Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation.

388 les gens ont trouvé cela utile

Academics ONLY

If you work in any kind of operational environment, this is not the book for you. I really struggled through the first 4 chapters...straining to not give up. Those first chapters consist of the author referencing other academics, as if this was a research paper. I finally skipped that last half of chapter four. On to the good part, so I thought... Give me some rules, as the title explains. Well, those don't help either unless you work at a university and can lock yourself in an office for at least 5 hours a day. Let me sum it up, turn off your phone and email (wow, thanks...original idea there that is not in hundreds of other books, but yeah, good advise). Then, get rid of all of your social media....eye roll. He even talks about one "professor" who happily tells the world that he gave up all email on January 1st 1990....yeah, 1990.... Ok, now batch your work. Yet, another example of another "professor" that only teaches in the fall and researches in the spring and summer so he can "deep work".

I was looking for a couple pointers on how to "focus in a distracted world", and what I learned was that I need to become a university professor.

Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation.

Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation.

215 les gens ont trouvé cela utile

Waste of time

Let me save you a few hours, this books is worth about three blog posts. The first half of the books is about why Cal believes Deep Work matters. Skip it, it's fluffy stories and motivation. The second half of the book is about how to do "Deep Work" If it's never occurred to you to restrict or remove email and social media then perhaps it's useful to read. There's a tiny section on block scheduling and a short section on improving focus and attention that could be useful, but are better already covered by Newport's Study Hacks blog.

Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation.

Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation.

150 les gens ont trouvé cela utile

1.5x pace

Recommend listening at 1.5x pace to keep engaged throughout. Some dry points, but worth finishing as there are several actionable recommendations and ways to re-imagine how we spend our work and extracurricular time.

Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation.

Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation.

148 les gens ont trouvé cela utile

Not too deep...

The premise of the book is great - and I fully agree with it. However, the contents are mostly common sense and I personally didn't find anything I didn't already know and wanted to, in this book. I already shared the author's opinion that deep work is important and desirable before I read (listened to) the book. Unfortunately for me, he spends a huge chunk of the book selling the concept, supported by research evidence no one really needs (do we really need the details of dozens of scientific research projects to believe that we get more done when we direct our undivided attention to one focused, deep work?) then proceeds to give okay, but far from groundbreaking advice, such as controlling your schedule, making yourself less accessible to distraction, ignoring social media, etc. The added value in the book would make for a very meaty magazine article, but sadly, it makes a very content-light book that feels padded, with little substance and nothing ground breaking. I believe that my opinion has to do with the fact that the author is in academia, where an original thought, a completed research project, a dissertation, a well documented academic paper, a lecture, etc. is considered a tangible achievement in and of itself, while I'm a business owner i.e. I either get stuff done others are willing to pay for or I don't eat. And deep work has always helped me with that, so I didn't need to be sold on that. If you are a creative or business owner, you don't need or have time for 40 pages to make a simple point. You need the get-to-the-point summary and then you go deep and execute - or you'll be in deep something else.

Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation.

Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation.

102 les gens ont trouvé cela utile

Taking a stance!

A great productivity book that takes a stance and offers concrete steps you can follow, to be more productive. *Productive* as in *increased creative output* – not "productive" as in David Allen's GTD, where productivity largely means "crankin' widgets and emptying your inbox" – a surefire system to "get busy – and *stay* busy – while feeling productive".

I recommend Cal's book to anyone entrapped in social media and/or email and IM. Especially those who're doing creative work like writing, artistic endeavours, innovation, etc.

If that's you, this book will set you free, unleashing your creative work, by giving it the space, time, energy and *respect* (from yourself) that it rightly deserves – and *needs* in order to thrive, evolve, grow, and be *shared* with the world, in a format that is *usefu*l to other people.

Drafts and ideas on your laptop is just that: drafts and ideas. To turn that raw material (of genius maybe) into something real and concrete: takes deep work. It is the *difficult* part. The crucial, tedious 80% of the creation process. Doing deep work requires dedicated time, space and energy. And taking a stance – respecting *yourself* and *your work* enough. To *do* the work. Your *deep* work.

Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation.

Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation.

76 les gens ont trouvé cela utile

don't waste your time

1) This book could be condensed into three words: "focus is good"... done. No need to read the book now.

2) Too much of the book is anecdotal and not scientifically rigorous. I did deep work, so you should too. Bill Gates is rich and he does deep work, so you should too. Jk Rowling is a good author and does deep work, so you should too..

3) This book is flooded with the author's personal tips, which makes it feels incredibly amateurish. An example of this is when he goes into depth about his email filter and process. Don't get me wrong, process and discipline is the difference between the good and the great. I just don't care about your personal email settings at all. It's like listening to four hour work week all over again.. Blehhhh.

Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation.

Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation.

35 les gens ont trouvé cela utile

So dang good! Realistic, eye-opening suggestions.

My summary of action items collected from this book plus ideas it inspired me to add:
#1: Distractions. Recognize that you are allowing yourself to be distracted (constantly checking in on your phone, email, Instagram). Set boundaries for your distractions; set a block of time for distraction-free deep work; have a piece of paper nearby to write down any distracting thoughts that pop up, then keep working. Quit/drastically reduce social media usage. Embrace boredom which trains your brain to stay on one track (and go deep).
#2: Make It a Daily Ritual. Schedule a block of time for deep work everyday and make it a ritual. start with 1 hour and work to increase it.
#3: Shut-Down Ritual. Perform an evening shut down ritual (like revisiting your to do list and making plans for tomorrow) after work and/or before going to bed.
#4: Attention Residue. Don't give in to multitasking or you'll suffer attention residue; where your attention on the new task is still smeared with thoughts of the other tasks.
#5 Ruthlessly say no to as much shallow work as possible. Rid as much shallow work from your daily set of obligations as you can (meetings, phone calls, emails, chatting, admin tasks). Unsubscribe from as many emails as possible. Choose to not reply to emails that dont meet the criteria described in the book. Get out of meetings that dont really need you there. Let coworkers chat with you a few mins but then tell them that you (or you both) need to get back to work. Take a hard look at your to do list, are there some tasks you can just not do and the world will still go on?

Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation.

Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation.

34 les gens ont trouvé cela utile

Not as deep as I hoped.

What did you like best about Deep Work? What did you like least?

Best: Makes a great case that distraction is the cancer to working/thinking deeply.
Worst: Literally goes on and on and on and on about email. I felt like the book should have been titled - Deep Avoidance of Email.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

The various profiles of people who work deeply and find ways to thrive in a distracted society were inspirational and thought provoking. ....So more of that, less of the nauseating email avoidance strategies.

What aspect of Jeff Bottoms’s performance would you have changed?

His voice isn't really deep or commanding enough to create the credibility I'd like to hear in a self-help audio-book.

Any additional comments?

Avoid this book and get So Good They Can't Ignore You by the same author.

Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation.

Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation.

31 les gens ont trouvé cela utile