Deep Work

Two Core Abilities for Thriving in the New Economy
1. The ability to quickly master hard things.

2. The ability to produce at an elite level, in terms of both quality and speed.

Throughout history, skilled laborers have applied sophistication and skepticism to their encounters with new tools and their decisions about whether to adopt them. There’s no reason why knowledge workers cannot do the same when it comes to the Internet—the fact that the skilled labor here now involves digital bits doesn’t change this reality.

Tim Ferriss once wrote: “Develop the habit of letting small bad things happen. If you don’t, you’ll never find time for the life-changing big things

But there are some general questions that any effective ritual must address:
• Where you’ll work and for how long

There is a popular notion that artists work from inspiration—that there is some strike or bolt or bubbling up of creative mojo from who knows where… but I hope [my work] makes clear that waiting for inspiration to strike is a terrible, terrible plan. In fact, perhaps the single best piece of advice I can offer to anyone trying to do creative work is to ignore inspiration.

concentration so intense that there is no attention left over to think about anything irrelevant, or to worry about problems.

concentration so intense that there is no attention left over to think about anything irrelevant, or to worry about problems.

University of North Carolina psychologist Barbara Fredrickson

Who you are, what you think, feel, and do, what you love—is the sum of what you focus on.

The thesis of this final chapter in Part 1, therefore, is that a deep life is not just economically lucrative, but also a life well lived.