A few days ago I went on a self-imposed twitter break. This book showed up the next day and I proceeded to read it in a handful of days because apparently I do have free time, it was just being eaten up in tiny increments of distraction. To say I was primed for Deep Work is an understatement.
The thesis is pretty simple: you need to train yourself to do solid stretches of focused work on important career-advancing problems. Both for your personal fulfillment as well as to be rewarded in our changing economy. If you don’t agree with that premise you’ll hate the book since it’s stating that over and over, giving examples of why this is important, and then details on how to actually do that. The first half is the defense of the premise, the second half is how to do so. If you’re really strapped for time you could skip the first half, but it’s well-written and enjoyably written.
If, like me, you’ve been feeling like your work life is mostly batting emails back and forth I’d highly suggest reading it. I have a big list of things I’m going to attempt from it and immediately after finishing reading this morning I mapped out the rest of my day.