Book of the Month: Deep Work by Cal Newport

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We live in a distracted world.

Whether it’s our jobs, our homes, or even in public, our worlds are full of stimuli competing for our attention. Technology, for all its advancements, can be the biggest distractor of all. But as the hustle and bustle of our everyday work and home lives continues to bombard our attention, our brains are processing, absorbing everything around us. We’ve become proud of our multi-tasker badges and our to-do lists and our mottos of getting shit done.

But are we as productive as we think? Some days we may feel accomplished, while on other days we’re just trying to keep up.

Most athletes reading this have had many experiences with flow, the term coined by Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi, which describes a state of concentration or complete absorption in an activity. When we’re engaged in activities that align with our passions and require intense concentration, we’re more likely to feel “in the zone.”

How many times did the referee’s halftime whistle leave us thinking where the half went? For most us, playing in the moment was part of why we made so much progress.

How well have we transferred flow to our everyday work and personal lives?

In Deep Work, author Cal Newport explores how we can produce more by organizing our time to maximize flow. Newport considers deep work the “Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit.” Deep work, as opposed to shallow work, which entails less cognitive demand and can often be completed while distracted. Along with the work from Czikszentmihalyi, Newport also references the impact of deliberate practice, referenced in a previous post, as a foundational component of deep work. As distractibility becomes even more progressive in our lives, Newport’s argument is for taking back our time to accomplish the tasks that demand our full selves.

One of the disadvantages of multi-tasking and constant interruptions is attention residue, a term coined by researcher Sophie Leroy from the University of Minnesota in 2009. Attention residue describes how when we switch from one task to another, our minds can still remain stuck thinking about the original task. In multiple studies, Leroy explored how switching tasks affects performance and found that “People experiencing attention residue after switching tasks are likely to demonstrate poor performance in the next task.”

Newport uses researcher Adam Grant’s methods of deep work as one of his many examples. Grant, also referenced in a previous post, is an organizational psychologist at Penn who runs a top podcast on top of his teaching and publishing schedule. The key to Grant’s productivity, according to Newport, is his focus on extended deep work. Grant is able to teach all his courses in the fall then dedicate the spring and summer to his research, effectively dedicating each period of time with his full attention. He’s also known to bunker in his office for days or weekends, unplugging from his world, and reminding others he is not available even when they know he’s in his office typing away.

It might seem harmless to take a quick glance at your inbox every ten minutes or so. Indeed, many justify this behavior as better than the old practice of leaving an inbox open on the screen at all times. But Leroy teaches us that this is not in fact much of an improvement. That quick check introduces a new target for your attention. Even worse, by seeing messages that you cannot deal with at the moment (which is almost always the case), you’ll be forced to turn back on primary tasks with a secondary task left unfinished. The attention residue left behind by such unresolved switches dampens your performance.

When we step back from these arguments, we see a clear argument form: To produce at your peak level you need to work for extended periods with full concentration on a single task free from distraction. Pu another way, the type of work that optimizes your performance is deep work. If you’re not comfortable going deep for extended periods of time, it’ll be difficult to get your performance to the peak levels of quality and quantity increasingly necessary to thrive professionally. Unless your talent and skills absolutely dwarf those of your competition, the deep workers among them will outproduce you.

Grant’s method of deep work may not be viable for everyone. Throughout the book, Newport provides several examples of how creatives, craftsmen, and businessmen alike have patterned their time for deep work. Some prefer a monastic approach, cutting people off with no electronics whatsoever in order to commit to the solitude of their work. The famous 20th Century psychologist Carl Jung used to escape to his retreat in the mountains for a few weeks at a time, where he would write, mediate, and walk before returning to his busy practice and social life in Zurich. Others have found a ritual of time blocks, whether daily, weekly, or monthly, to reserve specific parts of the day to their deep work. There are also experts at short time blocks, like biographer Walter Isaacson, who’ve trained themselves over time to set aside short burst of time throughout the day without any attention residue. Many writers, such as JK Rowling, have even locked themselves away in hotels or retreats for a day or two, or longer, just to get away from everyday responsibilities and engage in a pressing part of their mind.

Whichever method you prefer, the argument is simple. If your goal, like mine, is to be more productive in 2026, it’s up to us to prioritize that time in our day to dedicate to the work. Time blocking is a valuable tool for initiating deliberate practice. The others in your lives—children, spouses, friends, colleagues—may not appreciate being shut out of your life completely for a period of time, but if the work is important to you and they care about you, they’ll hopefully realize the necessity of your deep work and support your intentions.

If not, there’s always the personal vacation.