“Ill choose my targets with care . . . then give them my rapt
attention. In short, I’ll live the focused life, because it’s the best kind
there is.”
Cal Newport's latest book, Deep Work, provides any student, practitioner, or academic the insight to
build and hone a successful legal career. Law is a notoriously complex,
frustrating field. As a young associate, you must learn about novel issues in
short amount of time, and subsequently produce valuable insight to demanding
(rightly so) clients or supervisors. My experience with studying law, which has only been as a
student and summer associate, has been vitally missing what Cal Newport calls
Deep Work—a skill necessary to achieve optimal productivity. Fortunately, for
those like myself who have up to this point been missing out on Deep Work, the
rest of the population doesn’t possess the skill either. Why not? Well, it has
to do with the fact that we are constantly consumed by online media and other
day-to-day distractions that channeled through the internet and our smart
phones.
Let me start by saying that at base, Deep Work is a really valuable asset.
I have been engaging in Deep Work for the last couple weeks and my productivity
in writing a Law Review article has increased tremendously. I also enjoy “going
Deep” and receive a level of satisfaction (a type of emptied-out feeling) after
that I don’t often experience when working in a distracting environment.
Thus, this book can help
you gain an asset, but I don’t quite know how to categorize the book’s genre.
It’s neither a garden-variety self help book, nor a business book with general
principles about how to succeed in your respective field. It is really a
“Skills” book that teaches you ways to become extremely productive in any field
that requires periods of learning new tasks. In fact, it is really no different
than a “how to” book describing the ways to build something. But instead of
building something tangible, you begin to build something much greater: the
ability to focus in a way unparalleled to the majority of the population. In a
profession where you can see students and practitioners alike checking their
email or other distracting websites every couple minutes, the ability to focus
is becoming a lost art, but also a competitive advantage.
But what is Deep Work? It is the ability to focus without
distraction on a cognitively demanding task. Newport explains that people
have been engaging in Deep Work far before the writing of this book and
describes the habits and satisfaction various professionals, old and young (i.e.,
Carl Jung and Adam Grant) gain from Deep Work. And, upon completion of this
book, you too will be increasingly excited to start your next project or
complete your next “Deep” task—not everything we engage in on a daily basis is
considered Deep Work (think answering emails or reading a well-written
secondary source vs. writing a research paper or drafting a motion on summary
judgment). Upon completion of this book, you will be inspired to shut off your
smart phone for prolonged periods of time and decline frequent ESPN visits or
Reddit visits from this day forward. The difference in productivity is
palpable.
In today’s industry, everyone wants to be productive. Everyone wants
to be efficient. But not everybody wants to implement the steps to get there;
this book will show you the steps and urge you to follow them in a decidedly
persuasive fashion.
I could go into further specifics about the tactics Professor Newport
applies, but, unfortunately, as experience dictates, my attempts to explain
such tactics has proved unsatisfying. Thus, Ill leave Professor Newport to fill
in all the gaps for you, but not before I leave you with my favorite principle
from the book: Attention Residue. This principle dictates that people are
increasingly less productive when they constantly switch tasks instead of
focusing all their attention on a single subject. This reduced productivity
results because the other less important task(s) work as a distraction that
remains on your subconscious mind. So, when in the middle of performing a
cognitively demanding task like writing a brief, think twice before you switch
out of Westlaw and decide to briefly check Facebook; opening that tab will can
a residual-type effect that impedes your ability to focus once you get back to
brief writing.
Hopefully this review
will inspire you to check out this book so you too can develop the skills
necessary to cultivate both Deep Work and success in your profession. You can find the link to the book here:
Disclaimer: I am an Amazon affiliate and will receive a commission if you buy this book using this link. In addition, please let me know if there are any questions I can answer about this book, or Deep Work in general.
Thanks, Matt
For a great youtube video on Deep Work, check out Brian Johnson's channel here.
