What You Lose With ‘Deep Work’
In the war against distraction, it’s easy to close yourself off from new conversations, ideas, and opportunities
For the past few years, I’ve blocked off large parts of my days for what the author Cal Newport calls “deep work” — the act of focusing, without distraction, on a cognitively demanding task. The case for single-tasking is clear: We’re lying to ourselves if we think we can effectively do multiple things at once. Studies show that interruptions create a more stressful work environment, and that our brains need time to recover from each one.
So for a while, I doubled down in my war against distraction. I avoided social media, kept only the most essential meetings, and deleted every unsolicited email that crossed my inbox. Deep work has been one of my most valuable practices — since eliminating everything I’ve deemed it essential to my productivity, I’ve been able to write hundreds of articles, build an editorial studio, and work on a bunch of fun side projects.
Lately, though, I’ve been having more mixed feelings about this laser focus. I wasn’t sure how to explain my gnawing ambivalence until I came across a speech by mathematician Richard Hamming: “I notice that if you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you…
