Quote
“Deep work: professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit.”— Cal Newport, in Deep Work (2016) · Deep Work →
Why it was said
Cal Newport gives this definition on the first pages of Deep Work, before the argument that such work is becoming both rarer and more valuable. Everything else in the book follows from treating it as a skill to be trained.
What it actually means
The definition has three parts and most work fails one of them: it is professional, it is free of distraction, and it pushes you to the edge of what you can do. Answering messages is none of the three. Newport's claim is that the ability to do the defined thing for hours is what produces the results that matter in knowledge work, and that it atrophies when it is not scheduled.
How to use it
- 1Block one ninety-minute session this week that meets all three parts of the definition, and defend it.
- 2At the end of the day, count the hours that met the definition; that number, not the hours worked, is the output.