Deep Work Author: Cal Newport
I would say this book means a lot to me when I felt overwhelmed, and anxious during my job-hunting process in the UK.
List several quotes that I really love:
The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to the its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.
This quote has resonance with me. Touching something new that I am interested in is always exciting.
Who you are, what you think, feel, and do, what you love - is the sum of what you focus on.
I can feel myself, and my passion when I focus on something.
To build your working life around the experience of flow produced by deep work is a proven path to deep satisfaction.
Everyone needs to work but do we need the meaning of work? do we enjoy every moment during work?
It follows that to embrace deep work in your own career, and to direct it toward cultivating your skill, is an effort that can transfom a knowledge work job from a distracted, draining obligation into something satisfying-a portal to a world full of shining, wondrous things.
Dr Newport suggested a path to a more satisfying career composed of deep work in which enhancing skills.
One of the main obstacles to going deep: the urge to turn your attention toward something more superficial.
I have the same experience, whenever I learn obscure knowledge, I have a strong desire to scroll down my phone or short video on YouTube.
Scroll down short videos can bring temperate pleased but destroy the capacity of deep work.
Muscles need exercise to be strong, and the mind also needs deliberate practice to focus for a long time. That is the reason why some people try meditation to control their minds.
Give yourself a specific time fame to keep the session a discrete challenge and not an open-ended slog.
Dr Newport provided some strategies for deep work, like smart time setting rather than pushing too much. Willpower is limited.
Implication is that you should identify a small number of ambitious outsomes to pursue with your deep work hours.
Small rewarding is a good way for insisting on deep work in the long run, I often tell myself, I can go outside if I finish this task.
Lead measures, on the other hand, "measure the new behaviours that will drive success on the lag measures."
Some success is not decided by myself, in that case, I should focus on the measures that I can and that can help close to that success. For instance, I can't let employers give me work but I can prepare the skills they need and show that I am a good candidate.
In multiple places throughout this book I discuss and recommend the habit of a weekly review in which you make a plan for the workweek ahead (see Rule #4).
My productivity becomes better after I write down weekly plans.
Instead of scheduling the occasional break from distraction so you can focus, you should instead schedule the occasional break from focus to give in to distraction.
The mindset solves the obstacle transforming distraction to focus, instead, letting life get used to a focused life.
The law of the vital few, however, remind us that the most important 20 percent or so of these activities provide the bulk of the benefit.
The 80-20 rule, also Pareto Principle, reminds me to focus on the 20 percent work all the time.