Welcome to 2025! To start off the year, I just finished, Cal Newport’s Deep Work and it is an excellent way to start the year. In summary, Cal, a Georgetown professor, has mastered the science of focus and minimization of what he calls “Shallow Work” in favor of “Deep Work.”
What is Deep Work and Shallow Work?
Here is Cal’s definition of Deep Work and Shallow Work.
Deep Work: Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These effforts create new value, improve your skill and are hard to replicate.
Shallow Work: Noncognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted. These efforts tend not to create much new value in the world and are easy to replicate.
Throughout the text, Cal refers to great examples in history – authors, professors, presidents – who had such focus on their work and ability to resist distractions that they were able to change the world. He states “the ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill and then make it the core of their working life will thrive.”
How to Change the World
He shares a few key insights for the types of individuals that are making an impact on the world: High-skilled workers, those can get valuable results out of complex tools and machines; Superstars: those who are the best in their craft; and Owners: those who bring capital to opportunities and industries. He states that while being one with capital is beyond the scope of the book and far-reaching, anyone with focus can become a high-skilled worker or a superstar. These are not easy endeavors, and in order to do so, one needs to be free of distraction.
The Difficult Rules
Here are the simple rules Cal shares for anyone looking to focus their attention better and remove distraction from their lives in order to better serve the world:
Work Deeply: This rule emphasizes gaining the skill of Deep Work, formulating the practice and habit creation as well as structuring your life in such a way that you can work deeply for hours at a time.
Embrace Boredom: As we begin to build the habit of deep work, we will find many opportunities for distraction and boredom. Cal urges readers not only to resist, but rather to embrace boredom. It is in boredom that our creativity and productivity can emerge.
Quit Social Media: This one is controversial. Cal reminds readers that social media can be immensely distracting, and while everyone can find some benefit from the use of social media, most people refuse to weigh the complete list of benefits against negatives to determine whether the use of social media is best for one’s professional and personal goals.
Drain the Shallows: Minimize the shallow work in your life. If you are a working professional like myself, you have to answer emails and attend meetings, but Cal provides some great suggestions. Structure (and restructure, as needed) each hour of your day, set expectations with emails (and if not necessary, do not respond), and take control of your schedule to minimize shallow work and maximize deep work.
Time to Change the World
Fresh into the year, these insights are invaluable for me as I focus my professional efforts in business and personal goals as a husband and father of four. I created goals for each of these. I am very excited about more invaluable content on this blog and making a powerful difference in businesses and in my community. While raising a wonderful family, I hope to grow into executive leadership in my industry, write books and build businesses. These goals do not happen on accident.
I encourage you to think about the important areas of your life and consider where there is distraction and how you can carve out time to build the habit for Deep Work.
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