1       INTRODUCTION

The Bollingen Tower belonged to Carl Jung once. He had a duty to put in a lot of effort to further his education and profession. By concentrating solely on a single task, deep work enables you to advance your activity without being distracted. There are no electronics like computers and phones to divert your attention in this place. It’s not a war on computers per se, but we could argue that social media and computers consume a significant portion of our lives and that we occasionally mistake our phones for inactivity.

TITLE Understanding deep work and how it is connected to successful individuals

Understanding deep work and how it is connected to successful individuals

2       Understanding deep work and how it is connected to successful individuals

Cal Newport, the book’s author, provides us with examples of contemporary success stories and analyzes their connections. We believe that since using a computer to do a task is quicker and less expensive than hiring a person, machines are replacing humans in the workforce. The jobs that humans can do today and in the future are the ones that machines cannot.

In this scenario, there are three different types of winners: the highly talented person who is useful to the organisation and is capable of doing much more than a computer can, as well as anyone who automates robots to replace other workers. The second is that you would rather hire a superstar, or someone who is at the top of their field, to do the task at hand than a mediocre person who might take longer and perform less well. The owners, or, to put it another way, those who are the owners of intelligent machines, will prosper in our new economy. Because of their capital and return on investment, it is simpler for them to succeed. “The rewards returned to those who own the intelligent machines are growing.” (Cal Newpton)

Two core abilities for thriving in the new economy

1. The ability to quickly master hard things
2. The ability to produce at an elite level in terms of both quality and speed

Alfredo Dalmace The Intellectual Life is a short but important work written by moral philosophy professor Sertillanges early in the 20th century. Sertillanges recognizes that difficult things must be understood and helps the reader get past this barrier. To put it another way, he explains that learning requires intense concentration. In The Intellectual Life, Sertillanges asserted that “men of genius themselves became great only by bringing all their power to bear on the matter on which they had determined to reveal their full measure.” It appears that Sertillanges was ahead of his time on this issue as well. (Ericsson’s words sum up the situation the best.)

Ericsson and his colleagues in his area, psychologists, are only interested in defining intentional practice as a beneficial practice. Nonetheless, neuroscientists have been examining the psychological processes that spur people to get better at difficult jobs. Surprisingly, researchers believe that the secret to the answer lies in the fatty tissue layer called myselin, which surrounds neurons and acts as an insulator to improve cell firing. This new performance science suggests that you become better at a skill when the relevant neurons are surrounded by more myelin, which makes it possible for the circuit to fire more successfully and freely. It takes a high myelinated person to be excellent at everything.

“High-Quality Work Produced = (Time Spent) x (Intensity of Focus)”

In a lab setting, Leroy investigated the impact of this attention residue. She used a collection of word puzzles as the object of one such experiment. She would introduce the topic and instruct them to move on to a new, difficult assignment during one of the trials. “People experiencing attention residue after switching tasks are likely to demonstrate poor performance on that next task,” were the findings. Checking the email or message that was sent to you can seem harmless. Many do, in fact, excuse their actions by claiming that they wouldn’t have bothered me anyhow. Leroy, however, shows us that this is not a significant advancement. This fast check will introduce us to a new task that, for the most part, we are unable to perform at this moment. You’ll be compelled to return to the main task while leaving the secondary task unfulfilled.

My opinions are changing, and I’m beginning to believe in deep work, although people often praise the pomodora effect, which is defined as 15 to 60 minutes of work followed by a 10-minute rest. This now goes against the deep-work methodology. The second thing I’m thinking about is whether your brain will become fatigued after 2-4 hours of deep work, for instance, if you deep-work for 6 hours. I think he’s making some good points as well, like how multitasking and getting distracted can hurt your capacity to concentrate and learn.

People like Jack Dorsey are successful while not adhering to the deep work philosophy; thus, this does not imply that it is ineffective. However, it’s because some individuals multitask and manage other necessary duties. We cannot claim that Dorsey’s work is shallow because, contrary to the definition of shallow work, it is extremely useful and highly rewarded in our society.

3       Why it’s hard to measure deep work

It’s unfortunate that so many trends are given priority over in-depth work; many of the trends limit one’s capacity for in-depth thinking. For instance, open offices encourage collaboration but also reduce the amount of in-depth work.

The literal cost of seemingly innocent actions was the subject of an experiment conducted by Tom Cochran. The story’s real significance lies in the measurement of something like: How do our present email practices affect our financial results? They are quite challenging to measure.

The astronomical rise in executive salaries was the subject of a study by French economist Thomas Piketty. Even those who dislike him acknowledge that it is challenging to quantify individual contributions, which is, in the words of one of them, “undoubtedly true.”

However, this is where things really start to get interesting. Leslie Perlow persuaded her executives at The Boston Consulting Group, a high-pressure management consulting firm, to allow her to tamper with one of their teams’ working practices. Does staying connected all the time actually benefit your work? She wanted to find out. Extremely, she forced the team to take one day of the workweek completely off with no communication with anyone inside or outside the organisation. “However, neither the team’s clients nor its members’ jobs were lost. Instead, the consultants reported greater job satisfaction, improved intragroup communication, and increased learning. The client receives a better product, which is the most important thing.

4       Why making things easier is ruining deep work

According to the book’s principals, the reason cultures of connectedness exist is because it is easier.

If you can’t count on a prompt response, you’ll need to make plans in advance and be ready to put some things on hold while you wait for what you asked for, as well as divert your attention to something else. It’s important to consider what to work on and how long to work on it. If getting an email response in an hour makes your day easier, getting a reply to an instant message in under a minute would multiply this benefit by a factor of ten. Simply put, it is easier to be distracted than to focus deeply, and emails let you take a break from your work.

The common practice of regularly scheduling project meetings is another illustration. Continuous focus throughout the day is challenging because these meetings frequently accumulate and interfere with schedules. Why do they persist? They require less effort. Standing meetings have evolved into a straightforward (yet brutal) method of personal organisation for many people. Instead of making an effort to organise their own time and tasks, they let the upcoming meeting each week motivate them to start working on a particular project and, more broadly, to produce a highly visible illusion of progress.

At the expense of long-term satisfaction, the principle of least resistance protects workplace cultures from the immediate discomfort of coordination and planning. Because it values different things that are not outdated and non-technological, deep work is severely disadvantaged in a technological monopoly. And to make matters worse, it encourages distractions like using social media for work. The metric black hole prevents us from determining the exact extent of the harm this does to our work; if we had concrete data on how these actions affect our current technopoly, it would probably collapse.

A deep life is a good life.

Blacksmith Ric Furrer, who spends the majority of his time in deep work, claims to be content and happy with his life. When we consider the internet generation, which is constantly multitasking, distracted, and forced to check their email, It demonstrates that these people are dissatisfied with their lot in life.

When science writer Winifred Gallagher was given the news that she had cancer, you might have expected her to be very depressed and unhappy with life. Instead, she says, “This disease wanted to monopolise my attention, but as much as possible, I would focus on my life instead.” She spent time with herself, taking walks and watching movies. Instead of being weighed down by sympathy and fear, her life during this time was frequently quite pleasant.

Measuring our happiness at work and at leisure revealed that we are happier at work. It demonstrates that the more of these flow states we experience throughout the week, the more satisfied we are. When a person is deeply engaged in a difficult task, they perform at their best.

It should be obvious how deep work and flow are related; deep work is an activity that is excellent for creating flow states. Csikszentmihalyi used words like “stretching your mind to its limits,” “concentrating,” and “losing yourself in an activity” to describe what creates flow (all of which also apply to deep work). The original ESM experiments by Csikszentmihalyi support the idea that experiencing deep consciousness orders consciousness in a way that makes life worthwhile. Building your professional life around the state of flow that comes from deep work is a surefire way to achieve lasting fulfilment.

Winifred Gallagher quoted A deep life is a good life, any way you look at it.

My thoughts on the book and reflection

5       DISCUSSION

My feelings about this book are conflicted; I’m not sure if it’s like other self-help or time management books that merely try to persuade you to adopt their methods of execution. I haven’t yet formed a complete opinion of the book; I’ve only read up to Part 2 and am hesitant to keep reading. The book’s attempt to prove that the deep-work method is effective takes up about 50 pages of the book’s first chapter, which is quite unbelievable. I’ve noticed that when I actually work hard, it makes me happy and proud of myself. However, when I used to use the pomodoro technique to study, it was terrible; it made me feel disconnected from what I was learning and from the activity I was doing 10 minutes earlier.

I completely agree that technology is depriving us of a lot of life’s pleasures and experiences. Of course, there are many advantages to technology, but as one of the 2000 children raised in the internet age, I think there are more drawbacks than advantages for our society. When there were simply phone conversations and no messaging, deep work could be done; I believe it could even be done while having fun or spending time with family.

It’s wonderful that the most intelligent people employ this method and that it has helped them find fresh information. Whether multitasking is more effective for certain people or whether deep work is better for everyone is still beyond me. Deep work is not necessary, in my opinion, to succeed. As I write and think about the deep-work method more and more, I’m getting almost entirely convinced of it. All I have to do is find out more about it and how it’s done.

Now that I know why writing while reading is so beneficial, I’m glad I discovered this learning strategy and have found it to be useful.

REFERENCES

References

Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World (Cal Newport, 2016)