Saturday, January 29, 2022

Book Review: Deep Work (by Cal Newport)

Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted WorldDeep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I love the concepts presented in this book. As such, I probably shouldn't be here writing a review (others have already written reviews better than what I could write).
All I need is a day-by-day guide and a coach to keep me on track building good focus habits for a year.
Speaking of a day-by-day guide to coach me into focus, my biggest critique for this book is with pacing. I don't know if it was the narration of the audio book, or maybe the length of sections and chapters in the book. The narrator isn't bad, but he just couldn't hold my attention (the irony). I can't say that this is entirely the narrator's fault. It could be the writing, it could be that I've been tired or distracted while trying to listen. Whatever the case, I found myself constantly jumping back 5-10 minutes because I had lost track of the point.

I don't need this book to convince me that I (and all of society) are chronically distracted. What I do need, is a guide to help the chronically distracted learn to focus, and I feel like this book misses that mark. Cal presents a lot of great points and ideas, but could have made them easier to digest and put into practice. That is to say, if I need to have deep focus in order to read your book and start practicing deep focus basics... well, I'm already failing, aren't I?
As I was jotting down notes on my highlighted bookmarks, I found several well written summaries of the book and concepts online. I'd start there.

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