Like anything, it's not ALL bad - there is some good in it. Only, like most stuff that comes out these days, it can be condensed into about 2 pages. (Deep Work : Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World)
Mate, why the hell do you write it like the body of a paper without the abstract? You're giving us motivation and wasting 200 pages on it. Start the book with something like :
"... The author's hope is that the reader, after digesting this material, see that it is in his best interest to suspend his Facebook and Twitter accounts, sign out of email accounts after 5:30 PM, stick to a rigorous sleep, diet and exercise regimen, and organize his schedule to allow for complete free-days to focus on vital projects. The sections on accessing empowering states to boost concentration, and the role self-awareness plays in managing one's emotional state are also crucial to internalize."
Of course, Mr. Newport is targeting 200 publications and 20 books before his 30th birthday, so the stuff I mentioned at the end of my preferred intro will (maybe) show up a few years later. Think about it man!! Don't you know people with low self-esteem have trouble concentrating? If your life is not in order, you will be distracted! If you have problem relationships, they will plague your mind! Do you see great work coming out of the trailer parks? Why not? It isn't like they don't have the time! Think about it - do some HARD WORK and THEN publish for EVERYONE! Not the R1 tenure-track community!!
Bottom line - there's a lot of basic stuff missing - people with high self-esteem and high energy-level concentrate better. Even Magnus Carlsen knows he needs to exercise regularly. And food? How about a basic list of OK snacks and OK meals and NOT OK stuff? Keep it simple you !@#$!@#$. Is it any surprise that MIT guys haven't accomplished anything near the Stanford grads in the last 20 years? That's because all they're trained it to push the boundaries of publishing. Give the lay people something they can use mensch! If Albert Lin knew this, he wouldn't have white hair before his 25th birthday.
One thing I learnt from Dan Arieli (The Upside of Irrationality) is - if you're doing something you enjoy, take breaks. If you're doing something you need to plough through, plough through! Don't take breaks. The rationale? Humans are very good at adapting. If it's something you like - you'll adapt - and the pleasure will not be noticeable anymore and you'll want to up the intensity. Why do people drink more or overdose (okay, that's naive I know). So, if you're taking a shower and you like the warm water hitting your back, stop! Enough! If you're working on taxes - GET IT DONE!! The point? When it comes to email - my brilliant insight is to always leave one email unchecked. You open your mail tool and see a bunch of new emails - decide right away which one you're going to save for checking later. Check the others and then shut the tool down. That's what I'm going to do from now on.
Enough sliming of the bad Mr. Calport :) Now, what DID I get out his airport trash :
The chain method of Jerry Seinfeld. BIG ONE - how to use it - incorporate it into your dashboard - I keep an excel spreadsheet (Google sheets sucks btw - why can't they provide the same features M$ does??!!) open all the time where I have separate sheets for accomplishments, targets, learning, etc. Now, I'll be putting in a new one - that's a running calendar and, I'll use that one to build a chain. Looks like the calendar thing is a solved problem - so that's good - we'll see :)
Simply : try to get rid of email, Facebook, Twitter, IM. Ensure you do come into contact with people regularly - as that gives your thinking the jolts it needs. Minimum time allocation for deep work of significance is one day. Also - learning to memorize a deck of cards in 5 minutes is a big deal - it will take you to the next level in concentration. [[I can't say for sure what exactly I got out of memorizing the Rubik-cube solution - but I'm none the worse for knowing it. I tell people I noticed my stress level was lower after I learnt juggling. (The rationale is that you become more comfortable with having a lot of things going on because you learn to let something go to deal with something else). Likewise, I've said that my Lumosity lifetime-subscription has more than paid for itself because, at the very least, getting better at something boosts your self-esteem and confidence and that, by itself gives you better cognitive ability and productivity that you can take to your day job.]]
Donald Knuth :
Email is a wonderful thing for people whose role in life is to be on top of things. But not for me; my role is to be on the bottom of things. What I do takes long hours of studying and uninterruptible concentration. I try to learn certain areas of computer science exhaustively; then I try to digest that knowledge into a form that is accessible to people who don't have time for such study.
____
The bimodal philosophy believes that deep work can produce extreme productivity, but only if the subject dedicates enough time to such endeavors to reach maximum cognitive intensity - the state in which real breakthroughs occur. This is why the minimum unit of time for deep work in this philosophy tends to be at least one full day. To put aside a few hours in the morning, for example, is too short to count as a deep work stretch for an adherent of this approach.
-----------
The chain method (as some now call it) soon became a hit among writers and fitness enthusiasts - communities that thrive on the aility to do hard things consistently. For our pruposes, it provides a specific example of ageneral approach to integrating depth into your life : the rhythmic philosophy. This philoosophy argues that the easiest way to conssitently start deep work sessions is to transform them into a simple regular habit. The goal, in other words, is to generate a rhythmm for this work that removes the need for your to invest eergy in deciding if and when you're going to go deep.
---------
The shutdown ritual described earlier leverages this tactic to battle the Zeigarnik effect. While it doesn't force you to explicitly identify a plan for every single task in your task list (a burdensome requirement), it does force you to capture every task in a common list, and then review these tasks before making a plan for the next day. This ritual ensures that no task will be forgotten : Each will be reviewed daily and tackled when the time is appropriate.
--------
Rule #1 taught you how to integrate deep work into your scheule and support it with routines and rituals designed to help you consitently reach the current limit of your concentration ability. Rule #2 will help you significantly improve this limit. The strategies that follow are motivated by the key idea that getting the most out of your deep work habit requires training, and as clarified previously, this training must address two goals : improving your ability to concentrate intewntsely and overcoming your desire for distraction. These strategies cover a variety of approaches from quarantining distraction to mastering a special form of meditationl, that combine to provide a practical road map for your journey from a mind wrecked by constatnt distraction and unfamiliar with concentration, to an instrument that truly does deliver laser-like focus.
------
Memorize a deck of cards :
- You have to be able to visualize moving through 5 rooms in your house and, in each room, you have to be able to, in your mind, go from one significant object to another - 10 per room. Add 2 objects of your choice to the 50 already compiled.
- Now (and here's where I wish you could make lifelike effigy of Andy Grove bear down on Calport and say "You are telling me WHAT to do, when I want you to tell me HOW to do it.") (the hard part) you have to readily have 52 people or things associated with the different cards of the deck - say Trump for the King of Diamonds - make up your own meanings. Say Marilyn M for the 1 of D, you get the idea.
- Then, looking at the deck of walk through your house and put a person with each object.
And you're done :)
Easy, right? Scumbag Calport!
-------------
No comments:
Post a Comment