DEEPWORK — Cal Newport
Make sure you have time in your schedule for this book. It is also good to take notes as you read as it might get a bit too much to take in and retain.
1. What keeps you busy is different from what work you do. You might be spending the whole day at work and feel like you have been very busy, but what work did you do? Busyness is not a proxy for productivity. From answering emails and chats to looking at those Instagram feeds in between work we really don’t know how the workday flies. According to Cal there are two types of work conscious deliberate self improving work — deep work and shallow work — the one we are all currently doing now. According to Cal shallow work won’t help you in gaining mastery over your work. Creating and learning new things requires deep work. Deep work is what you do to solve difficult problems. It is the kind of creative work which will keep you employed in the current economy which is moving slowly towards automation.
2. Most people end up doing shallow work daily due to various reasons. In today’s world full of distractions; be it the open office or the lure of social media it is really difficult to do deep work. To keep one’s mind focused on something for a long time is becoming an actual skill. This is the reason I go off of Facebook for months so that I can concentrate on reading more and learning new things without the distractions of the latest meme.
3. There are three ways to do deep work: one is to go complete offline by eliminating all distractions (monastic approach), second is have long periods of exclusion during the day free for deep work (bimodal approach), or go into deep work mode for like 2 hours whenever you find time (rhythmic modal approach). For me, the third approach works the best. For someone who gets distracted very quickly the rationing of time for deep work helps to make good use of the time. As most of my reading happens on my phone I turn off notifications, and read the books on my phone. It is not easy and your brain would keep asking you to check on the social media initially it would a strain not giving into these whims, but it will get easier with practice.
3. How do you make sure you are doing deep work?
Here the book postulates a 4 step process:
a) set measurable goals which are the most important for you b) act on leading measures c) keep a scorecard d) create a cadence for accountability.
Example: You want to get started on writing. A measurable goal could be publishing 2 posts on Medium every month. Leading measure can be putting 1 hour for writing in your schedule every day. Scorecard is to track if you are being able to follow on leading measures and actually publishing 2 posts every month. For accountability tell a friend to keep asking you about it.
4. Have a fixed time when you are allowed to check the internet or a fixed time for deep work. For me it is the other way, I need fix time to get deep work done. Multitasking does not equal productivity. I have learned this hard way. But due to some reason I have always failed to focus on a single task for a long period of time. Hence as mentioned earlier the rhythmic approach helps.
5. Trick your brain to run on autopilot.The trick is to think while doing tasks that your brain could do with minimum effort. For example repetitive tasks like taking a bath or brushing your teeth, or taking a long walk through a place that you are familiar with. Run these thoughts through but don’t let shower time thoughts be just that. For those of you who like me get thoughts just before you sleep it would be great to just note it down, or better record it on the phone and play it the next morning. Hearing your groggy voice tell you what to do the next day could be a bit weird, but it trust me, it get’s the job done.
For most of us deep work is no secret revelation or ground breaking discovery, it is something that most of us have grown up doing, remember all the time we studied for the exams or learnt a new sport or to playing a new instrument — it was all deep work. An easy way to go about understanding the importance of deep work would be to look at the life of any person who you think is successful and map out how they got there and you would see that even those whom you considered to be overnight superstars had spent years doing deep work.
SO GOOD THEY CAN’T IGNORE YOU — Cal Newport
1. Don’t follow your passion — If there are three words that is the most used in the media it is ‘follow your passion’, we have all at some time thought about quitting your job and becoming a Youtuber, a blogger or starting a restaurant. What this book says is that following one’s passion blindly is stupid. Imagine quitting your job to become a travel blogger. First ask yourself what is the career capital you have accumulated on this field? What is your body of work in this field? Have you ever been paid to write travel blogs? Leaving everything to follow a passion, without any insight is something irrational.
2. Focus on creating career capital — Cal defines career capital as something equal to experience and expertise that you gain from working. For example for a Product manager like me it can be the skills he has acquired: design, tech, analytics as well as the products built in the past or blogs written on the subject. Hence instead of finding the right work: focus on working right, and eventually you will be able to build a love for what you do.
3. The Craftsman Mindset — Have you noticed how the best players or the best artists in the world rose to fame? It wasn’t something overnight it was the result of relentless practice in perfecting one skill, hours of sacrifice and devotion to be the best that they are today. This is the craftsman mindset, the art of deliberate, focused goal oriented work. To be really good at something; so good that people can’t ignore you. It requires a lot of effort. A lot of sweat and tears but it will be worth it in the long run
4. Five habits of a new age craftsman: a) decide which capital market you are in (winner take all vs auction) b) identify your capital type c) define “good” d) deliberate practice e) be patient while seeking rewards.
Focus on building career capital before seeking control
5. Ask yourself “what you can offer the world” — You need to have rare, valuable skills which becomes your career capital and this accumulation of career capital is what a craftsman does. Find a job which lets you work on these rare skills, help you acquire career capital
6. Control over your career — You need to have control over your career, a basic sense of autonomy which you can get after acquiring enough career capital. Think of the best person in your line of work, and think if they quit their job would they find it difficult to find another. If the answer is no, then that means that they have some amount of asking power and control over their career.
7. Think small act big — It is always the small steps that take where you want to go. Hence start with achievable goals and work your way up by taking even more challenging tasks. One way to do this would be to take small bets. Coming back to the travel blogger analogy, if you would really want to be a travel blogger, start small, start writing blog posts while in your current job. Keep reading, writing, studying, add up some career capital on it and then take the plunge.
8. Focus on becoming purple cow (as Seth Godin says) — For a Tech blogger writing a new listicle blog post on 20 habits successful entrepreneurs have won’t do a lot to her career. But writing a 10000 word post on how blockchain will disrupt governance? Now that is a purple cow: something which will capture the attention of people
The ultimate focus of every career professional in the 21st century should be to:
a) Focus on a field in which you can accumulate enough career capital
b) Earn autonomy over your career by being indispensable
c) Focus on doing deep work and deliberate practice to become better
d) Keep making small bets and find adjacent spaces/sectors. Don’t be stagnant in your job just to play it safe
e) Keep asking what you can offer to the world. What is your mission. But before all that focus on gaining enough career capital. Be a purple cow.
So Good They Can’t Ignore you is a follow up of DeepWork and reading both one after another would give you a better perspective of career capital and how it works. What more I like about these books are the real life examples from various fields that Cal has given that make it relevant for everyone working professional.
Thanks to Shweta Mohandas who edited this.
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