Deep Work: Rules for Success in a Distracted World
Introduction
Deep work is professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit.
Deep work creates new value, improves your skill, and is hard to replicate.
Knowledge workers are losing familiarity with deep work because of network tools, which fragment their attention into slivers.
Shallow work is non-cognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted. They don't create new value and are easy to replicate.
Our work culture's shift toward the shallow exposes a massive economic and personal opportunity for the few who resist and prioritize depth.
Deep work has value because it is required to quickly learn complicated things, and is required to produce the best and most useful things.
The deep work hypothesis says deep work is becoming both increasingly rare and increasingly valuable, and so those who make it the core of their working life will thrive.