Deep Work by Cal Newport has been hanging on my to-read list for many years now and I finally got to it. Maybe not a revolutionary or supernatural concept – a deep work, a state where you can fully focus yourself on producing – yet, nowadays it’s so hard to achieve. We have trapped ourselves in so many addictive distractions; social media, e-mails, dopamine-filled notifications.
We can produce so much more than we do. Yet, a clash with the perfect world image dictated by social media standards where plus shorter attention span makes us unable to commit to producing something meaningful and valuable, on a regular basis at least.
I sometimes wonder if previous generations who didn’t have access to tech and social networks like we do, were more productive than us? By productive I mean creating a value bigger than for themselves. Of course, even if something was indeed created, much of that value has been lost because it wasn’t stored anywhere (other than passed by word of mouth, z dziada pradziada), lack of technology advancement meant no economies of scale.
I’m now without my computer for the next 2 weeks (long story short – I left my computer at the hotel and now for the next 2 weeks I’m traveling to remote places so no courier would follow quick enough). If you could see me now tiping maniacally on a wireless keyboard and seeing results on my pixel 3…
Actually, here is the photo of my current setup.
Thanks Sony for bluetooth function of sending photos to the phone. WordPress for mobile trains your patience better than all meditation apps combined.
I’m hoping, this situation can force me to producing more. I realise more and more that I love being helpful and I love sharing what I know. I’ve always stayed away from posting publicly such things because I thought I’m no expert by any means, and I was having this imposter syndrome/ that I’m a fraud. Now I see more and more there is no other way of getting your audience (may it be customers, followers or just like-minded people you’d like to connect with) than sharing your knowledge, giving others value. It’s much easier when they find and come to you than when you need chase them for attention.
This circles me back to Cal’s book, where he says: “Our work culture’s shift toward the shallow (whether you think it’s philosophically good or bad) is exposing a massive economic and personal opportunity for the few who recognize the potential of resisting this trend and prioritizing depth”
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“This provides another general observation for joining the ranks of winners in our economy: If you don’t produce, you won’t thrive—no matter how skilled or talented you are.”
Talent and skills kept to yourself are as good as if you had none. Producing and sharing what you know and learn with others creates compounded benefits to you and to the world – you get feedback which you can use to perfect yourself further and you create a name for yourself – people value you and look up to you. The best things happen when people collaborate and create this “collective wisdom” effect. This speeds up everything, from concepts validation to solutions implementation. Collective wisdom is btw something we’re working on improving in the workplaces with Untrite technology. We’re just at the beginning of this vision but I already know it’s going to make a big positive impact.
It’s easy to give in to the instant dope of news clippings and unimportant info you’ll forget by tomorrow. But if you do want to give your life a meaning, you need to give.
