Deep Work: How to Develop the Most Valuable Skill of the 21st Century

Some books you read, and then forget. Others change a small part of your life. Then there are the rare gems that fundamentally change the way you think, live, and work.

Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport is one of the later (my Deep Work summary here).

As the world advances, three kinds of people will survive and prosper:

• Owners of capital or people with access to it
• Those who can work with intelligent machines and technology
• Superstars in their field of work

Deep Work focuses on the third type. To become one, you need to develop two skills: the ability to quickly master hard things and the ability to produce at an elite level, in terms of both quality and speed.

Deep Work is the concept that interlinks these two skills.

Hard things are complex and you need to give them all of your attention and focus.

The batching of hard but important intellectual work into long, uninterrupted stretches is key to high productivity.