51 pages • 1 hour read
Cal NewportDeep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Key Figures
Cal Newport
Cal Newport is the book’s author. While much of the book is written as a self-help manual, Newport frequently diverges into accounts from his own life. As a writer, professor, and researcher, Newport is trained in computer science and programming. He obtained his PhD from MIT, and while there, he discovered some of the skills he mentions in Deep Work. He argues that one should adopt a more thoughtful way of approaching work and study. Newport’s approach is a combination of his own experiences mixed with data.
Newport anticipates resistance toward his ideas and frequently addresses this throughout the book. Newport frequently summarizes his main points before moving onto the next section or idea. Newport he lays out a case for conversion to deep work principles. Occasionally, Newport refers to himself as a “curmudgeon” and a “Luddite” because his views and opinions on social media are often considered negative. He has measured social media’s value in his life and has determined that it does not enhance it. He is aware that he is not immune to the many challenges posed by living in the modern era in which opportunities for distraction come incessantly.
Adam Grant
When Newport first met Grant in 2013, Grant had already become the youngest professor to gain tenure at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Grant was highly prolific and productive, which is why Newport interviewed him for the book. Newport says: “It turns out that Grant thinks a lot about the mechanics of producing at an elite level” (38).
Grant is able to successfully produce in academia, Newport argues, because of how he uses his time. Newport explains that Grant has adapted his schedule so that it includes long stretches devoted to deep work. Grant loads up on his teaching requirements in the fall semester so that he can devote time to his other professional obligations, specifically research and publishing in academic journals. He has built in similar mechanisms for his daily tasks. Newport says: “By maximizing his intensity when he works, he maximizes the results he produces per unit of time spent working” (40). Grant’s method offers a model for readers to follow on their path toward achieving more depth in their work.
Winnifred Gallagher
A science writer by trade, Gallagher was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. She wrote a book about her experience, Rapt, in which she chronicles not only the experience of fighting cancer, but how she was able to keep a positive outlook on life in spite of it. Newport cites one passage from Gallagher’s book:
The cancer treatment that followed was exhausting and terrible, but Gallagher couldn’t help noticing, in that corner of her brain honed by a career in nonfiction writing, that her commitment to focus on what was good in her life— ‘movies, walks, and a 6:30 martini’—worked surprisingly well (75).
Newport uses this to discuss how it’s useful to learn how to control what one pays attention to. Because Gallagher was skilled at directing her attention, her life during this time was not as horrible as it may seem. In fact, it was “quite pleasant” (76). Newport uses Gallagher as an example that what people choose to pay attention to can shape their outlook on life.
Forrest Pritchard
Pritchard operates a small, family style farm just west of Washington, DC. As an independent farmer, Pritchard has learned that his success depends greatly on his strategies to maximize efficiency. Newport includes the interview with Pritchard in a section where he encourages readers to measure the true value of networking tools such as social media.
Pritchard mentions the hay baler as a tool that has value in general, but when he analyzes the possible value to his farm specifically, he concludes that it is best not to grow hay. Newport uses Pritchard’s pragmatism as an example of the craftsman approach to tool selection; he suggests this approach could yield surprising results for knowledge workers immersed in the world of electronic communication and networking tools. Newport suggests that knowledge workers should apply the same basic pragmatism as Pritchard employs.
Ryan Nicodemus
Nicodemus conducted an experiment that revealed that much of what one might think one needs is actually not needed. In an effort to reclaim his life from his ever- increasing collection of material possessions, Nicodemus decided to pack all of these things into boxes. When he needed a particular thing, he allowed himself to remove it from its box. After a week, Nicodemus discovered that most of the stuff he had packed was still in boxes.
Ultimately, he realized that he did not truly need the possessions in the way he initially thought. Newport says: “Stuff accumulates in people’s lives, in part, because when faced with a specific act of elimination it’s easy to worry, ‘What if I need this one day?,’ and then use this worry as an excuse to keep the item in question sitting around” (204).
Nicodemus’s experiment becomes a jumping off point. Newport suggests that people should impose a social media ban on themselves for 30 days. He suspects that in many cases, people will discover the same thing that Nicodemus did, namely that while a person might initially believe they need something in their lives, when they intentionally abstain, they learn that perhaps they do not need it after all.
