Book summary of Deep Work by Cal Newport

 Deep Work by Cal Newport 

The rules of achieving a focused success in the world of destruction. 

 In two words

In Deep Work, we will see how we can fully put our attention to your work. This book tells us how we can not do two work together. Also, with the help of this book, we will know how we can use our time and your focus well.

Who is this for?

• Those who use the Internet a lot. 
• Those who think they can do two things at once.
• Those who want to know how to focus.

 About the Author

Cal Newport is an author who has written 6 books so far. He is a professor of computer science at Georgetown University. He also writes a blog called Study Hacks, in which he explains how you can be successful in school or college.

Why you should read this book?

Today we are surrounded by internet and social media. We check notifications every 15 minutes by logging into our Facebook. We check our phone every 10 minutes. All these things keep distracting our attention from time to time, due to which we are not able to give our full attention to the work which is important for us. This book tells us how we can get out of this problem. 

This book tells us how to get into deep work. Deep work means focusing your mind completely on your work and breaking away from all the distracting things. This book tells us how we can accomplish more work in less time. Why do we get distracted? In what ways can you go into deep work. How you can get rid of your internet or social media addiction.

Ch 1: It may sound good to do a lot of things at once, but it is actually a lie. 

 Many people will continue to do their work and will continue to use Facebook at the same time.  They feel that in this way they are doing two things together and saving a lot of their time.  But something else came out in the study of University of Minnesota professor Sophie LeRoy.  Sophie made two groups.  

He asked the first group to solve some puzzles and go through some résumés from time to time and according to that, decide whether to hire people or not.  In other words, he gave the first group two tasks to do at once.  while the other group was asked to just solve the puzzles.  In this, Sophie noticed that when the people of the first group were leaving one task and going to another, their mind was still focused on the first task, due to which they were unable to pay attention to the second task.  In simple words, doing too many things at once reduces the quality of work.  

Your mind is not able to focus on two things at once and if you try to do this forcefully, then your mind will get confused.  After this, many people keep tabs of social media open in their computers while working.  Whenever a notification comes, they go and see it.  This also affects the quality of your work.  In a 2012 study, McKinsey Consulting Firm found that an average employee spends 60% of their work time talking online. 

He only replies to emails in 30% of the time. That is, people are doing very little work, but still they feel that they are doing a lot. If these small tasks are added together, then in the end it starts taking too much. But nothing is gained by doing them.  So always try to do only one thing at a time.

Ch 2: There are many ways you can adopt to concentrate on your work. 

There are many ways you can use to completely focus your attention on your work.  The first method is called the sage method, in which you separate yourself like a sage from all distractions and concentrate only on your work.

Another way is - bimodal way, in which you give yourself a time for your important work and in the meantime do only that work. You give the rest of the time to other tasks. The third way is to work in a rhythm. In this, you concentrate completely on your work for 90 minutes and then take a short break.  Also, with the help of a calendar, you see how much work you have done.  Finally comes the journalistic method, in which you see any free time and go to your work and keep doing it.  But there is one thing in all these works. 

You make a habit of doing things this way.  You do not work according to your mood, but make a routine every day, due to which you go to work every day by creating your own mood.  To save yourself from wandering, you can find an empty space or put up a do not disturb board outside your office. 

You can adopt any number of methods to stop yourself from wandering.  Apart from this, switch off your phone.  Also pay attention to your health.  Make sure that whatever you are doing, do it everyday.  Take care of your health so that you can do your work well everyday.

Ch 3:Reduce the use of technology and teach your mind to focus.  

In today's time, there are many things to distract our attention. Also, our mind is not made to concentrate on any one thing. Our brain is designed in such a way that its attention wanders all the time. The reason for this is that when we lived like tribals in the forests, it could be harmful for us to concentrate on one thing because it could make us a victim of some animal.  Also, by getting distracted all the time, we are able to find new opportunities.

But this quality of ours was necessary to live in the forests, not to live in the cities.  To put your mind to work, you must first learn to focus.  While taking a shower, getting dressed or taking a walk, think about how you are spending your day or what are the things that are eating up your time.  After this, when you find the problem, you find different solutions for it.  When you also know what work you have to do, then ask yourself how you can reach your destination by doing that work.  Along with this, pay attention to your habits regarding social media.  See why you are using social media.

If you are doing all this to stay connected with people or are using them for some work reason, are you really doing that work?  Or if you want, you can also watch by turning off social media for a month.  After this you ask yourself this question – has your life become better by not using social media or not?  Has it made any difference to someone not using your social media?  Was there any work that was not completed because of not using it?

According to the answers you get to these questions, decide whether you should use social media or not.

Ch 4:Make a plan to use your free time properly.  

When we reach home after a full day's work, we are so tired that we do not feel like doing anything.  But still we take out time to watch TV or use the internet and we feel like doing all that work.  After doing all these things, we get tired even more and then we do not even sleep well at night.  To save yourself from this type of situation, you should plan how you will use your free time. 

Give different time to your important work and other work.  If you do your important work for one hour, then you can do other work for 1 hour.  Now it is not necessary that you follow a strict time table everyday.  Our aim here is to decide how you can use your free time.  For this, you will also have to plan what you will do everyday in your evening or what you will do during the holidays. Give yourself a time to complete a task and try to complete that work within that time. In the meantime, turn off your phone and stop checking email. 

Apart from this, take out time to do some other things too so that you can freshen your mind.  Also take some time to read books or spend time with your friends.  Also plan to do all these things in advance.

Overall, in today's time many people believe that they can do two things at once. But this is wrong. Your mind can only focus on one thing at a time. So do not use internet or social media while doing your important work. Plan your day so that you can make good use of your free time. If you feel completely exhausted at the end of the day, use the Internet sparingly. Write on your diary when and when you can use the internet during the day. 

After this, use the internet only in this given time. In this way you will be able to control your habit. Many times it happens that we give ourselves some time to use the internet, but we unknowingly use it for a long time. But if you use the Internet only at a given time of day, you will find that you are able to do better work than before.