Deep Work Book Review

I read Deep Work by Cal Newport twice in the past 3 months, here are my thoughts on it.

(This isn't a book summary, smarter people than me have created summaries on this book. This is more my personal experience with the book.)

1) Readability

When starting the book first, I had just completed Atomic Habits previously. If you've read Atomic Habits, you know it's a much easier book to get into.

Since James Clear had a blog previously, the ideas are presented much clearly and it's easier to get into, with depth underneath if you do more research on the ideas.

On the other hand, Deep Work imo was a more harder book to get into. There are no surface-level "hooks" to get you in, and each complex idea is presented directly and quite succintly.

As a result, it resulted for me to be a more demanding book in terms of time and attention.

2) Ideas

Apart from being slightly harder to get into, some of the ideas presented in Deep Work can feel more philosophical in nature (eg, embracing boredom) or out of date (eg, quitting social media, etc).

However, after reading reviews of the ideas of the book online and giving Deep Work a reread after 3 months myself, I felt like the ideas in the book actually had some merit.

The author is openly presenting his ideas on the ideal kind of work and lifestyle, and it's upto the reader on what he wishes to take away from it.

3) Conclusion

In conclusion, the book is a difficult, but good read. Read it with a healthy dose of skepticism and with your own research.

It is especially recommended to knowledge workers, eg, programmer,s designers, or any work involving sitting in front of a computer for any length of time.