Notes from the book: Deep Work (2016)


Finally got down to reading the book Deep Work from Cal Newport (2016).

The book central idea is that 'deep work' i.e. work based on prolonged stretches of focused time without distractions, has become largely underrated in today's always-on internet world. And that is not good.

The book's argument didn't strike me as revolutionary, or particularly new. I think that anyone with some kind of advanced education (academic or not) knows exactly how important focused work is.

Deep work is underrated

This book is a convincing reminder of the fact that in many jobs deep work is not seen as essential, anymore.

So we should make a conscious effort to make room for it, in our lives, and to get others to recognise its importance. Yes - I am talking to you, business managers and time-suckers!

I saved a few passages from book that I felt were particularly inspiring as a Github Gist, available below.

The Gist is best experienced if you open it in GitHub

Cite this blog post:


Michele Pasin. Notes from the book: Deep Work (2016). Blog post on www.michelepasin.org. Published on July 1, 2023.

Comments via Github:


See also:

2022


paper  Generating large-scale network analyses of scientific landscapes in seconds using Dimensions on Google BigQuery

International Conference on Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators (STI 2022), Granada, Sep 2022.


2017


paper  Fitting Personal Interpretation with the Semantic Web: lessons learned from Pliny

Digital Humanities Quarterly, Jan 2017. Volume 11 Number 1


2015




paper  ResQuotes.com: Turn your Notes and Highlights into Research Ideas

Force11 - Research Communications and e-Scholarship conference, Oxford, UK, Jan 2015.


2010


paper  How do philosophers think their own discipline? Reports from a knowledge elicitation experiment

European Philosophy and Computing conference, ECAP10, Munich, Germany, Oct 2010.





paper  Data integration perspectives from the London Theatres Bibliography project

Annual Conference of the Canadian Society for Digital Humanities / Société pour l'étude des médias interactifs (SDH-SEMI 2010), Montreal, Canada, Jun 2010.







2007


paper  Supporting Philosophers’ Work through the Semantic Web: Ontological Issues

Fifth International Workshop on Ontologies and Semantic Web for E-Learning (SWEL-07), held in conjunction with AIED-07, Marina Del Rey, California, USA, Jul 2007.