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One Sentence-Summary:  Deep Work  proposes that we have lost our ability to focus deeply 
and immerse ourselves in a complex task, showing you how to cultivate this skill again and 
focus more than ever before with four simple rules. 
Favorite quote from the author: “If you don’t produce, you won’t thrive, no matter how 
skilled or talented you are.” 
Deep Work suggests that being able to completely immerse yourself in a complex task is a 
rare, valuable and meaningful skill. The second part of the book then outlines four rules you 
can use to cultivate a deep work ethic. 
Here are 3 lessons from  Deep Work  to help you go from busy to brilliant: 
1. There are four strategies for deep work, all of which require intention. 
2. Productive meditation can help you work deeper, even while you’re taking a break. 
3. Stop working at the same time each day. 

Deep Work Summary 

Lesson 1: Use one of these four deep work strategies, but be intentional about it. 
Cal Newport isn’t one of those “one-size-fits-all-advice” kind of people. He knows that 
different things will work for different people, so when making his case for deep work he 
suggests four different strategies: 
1. The monastic approach. Monastic comes from monastery – the place where monks 
live. It means shutting yourself off completely, for example by moving to a cabin in 
the woods to write a novel, and not come back until it’s finished. 
2. The bimodal approach. This prioritizes deep work above everything else. You could 
set a 4-6 hour block each day for deep work, for example, where you lock yourself in 
your office, similar to the monastic approach. However, once that block is over, you’re 
free to do everything else that might be on your plate. 
3. The rhythmic approach. This chunks down your work into time blocks, similar 
to  the Pomodoro technique , and uses a calendar to track your progress. For example 
you’d plan your week ahead of time and put 10 blocks of 90 minutes on your calendar, 
and make working with timed blocks a habit. 
4. The journalistic approach. If you have a busy daily routine, this works well. What 
you do is to simply dedicate any, unexpected free time to deep work. 
 Being intentional about your deep work approach requires monitoring how you spend your 
time, so one of your first steps in making this decision should be to  track your habits . You’ll 
quickly be able to separate productive from unproductive time and spot patterns. 

Lesson 2: Make the most of unproductive time with productive meditation. 
This is an idea that Cal Newport calls it productive meditation, and it comes down to using 
your “unproductive” time to do deep thinking. 
For example, if you’re taking the subway to work each morning, and know you have 30 
minutes to and from work, in which you can’t do much else, use this time to try solving a 
complex problem in your mind. Commuting, showering, household chores, buying 
groceries and taking a walk (with or without your dog) are all great opportunities to think. 
The next time you have some “down time”, in which you do menial tasks, latch on to a big 
problem, try to see sub-problems of it, break it down and solve it. 

Lesson 3: Quit work at the same time each day, and stick to it. 

Cal has a habit of ending his work day at 5:30 PM, every day. No emails, no internet, no to-do 
lists, no computer after that. He describes his practice in  this 7-year old blog post , and while 
his systems evolve, planning both work and free time have remained a constant factor. 
Your brain needs some space each night to wind down, and it won’t get that if you have an as- 
much-as-possible work ethic. Limit yourself by quitting work and not checking email, or, 
even better, shutting down your computer, at the same time each day. This way, you’ll 
have a fixed slot of free time every day to recuperate. 
Your  mind will keep working below the surface , but you won’t burn yourself out by working 
around the clock.