{"id":19194,"date":"2018-10-11T15:00:34","date_gmt":"2018-10-11T22:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=19194"},"modified":"2018-10-11T15:00:34","modified_gmt":"2018-10-11T22:00:34","slug":"the-balance-of-deep-and-shallow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-balance-of-deep-and-shallow\/","title":{"rendered":"The Balance of Deep and Shallow"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>We live in such a distracted world, me being one of the most distracted\u2026squirrel\u2026individuals around J. After being in Hong Kong and riding the MTR multiple times, with my Octopus card of course, I noticed Americans are not the only distracted ones. In fact, even more people in Hong Kong seemed buried in their phones than in the US. I was amazed how they could walk on and off the subway, up and down the stairs, and through the turnstiles without even lifting their eyes from watching a show or reading something on their cell phones. Cal Newport\u2019s book, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World<\/em>, became such a stark contrast to all of this as I came off of that experience in Hong Kong. It is interesting that his definition of Deep Work is: \u201cProfessional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.\u201d[1]<\/a> It seems that distraction-free performance is a rare commodity these days and we are plagued with what Newport calls \u201cShallow Work: Noncognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted. These efforts tend to not create much new value in the world and are easy to replicate.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

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This book got my attention when the author started unpacking these concepts of Deep and Shallow Work and when I discovered that his motivation for writing the book was the following: \u201cMy interest in this matter instead veers toward a thesis of much more pragmatic and individualized interest: Our work culture\u2019s shift toward the shallow (whether you think it\u2019s 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.\u201d[3]<\/a> I have a ton to gain from learning the skill of deep work and I am personally inspired and agree there is an opportunity for a few to take advantage of the opportunity to produce incredible results. I also could use as many superpowers as possible, since Eric Barker considers the ability to perform Deep Work \u201cthe superpower of the 21st century.\u201d[4]<\/a> I appreciated the practical suggestions included in the book that I hope to incorporate in order to prevent the endless chasing of squirrels. I also agree with what Newport thinks are the abilities needed to succeed in the modern economy\u2026\u201cthe ability to master difficult things quickly and the ability to generate excellent results consistently\u201d, except I would add the ability to relate to people with emotional intelligence (EQ).[5]<\/a> It won\u2019t matter what we create during our deep work if we can\u2019t communicate it and relate with people effectively regarding what we have created.<\/p>\n

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I am not discounting the need for myself and many others to develop the skill of removing shallow distractions and engaging in Deep Work, but I have also read about many individuals who have come out of their cave with a brilliant idea or result and those around them couldn\u2019t stand working with them long enough to help bring it about. This is why I am passionate about bringing men and women together in leadership because research shows that women tend to carry more interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence than men. If men and women could gain more appreciation for what we offer each other, the things we could accomplish and create together can be even greater than what Newport describes comes out of deep work. He also talks about the delicate balance of isolation and collaboration and how some of the greatest work and results come from collaborating in a deep way.[6]<\/a> If we could just get past the age-old barrier of men and women working closely together and figure out how to do this appropriately and professionally we could accomplish great things.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>I love how the four rules Newport lays out have a balance and simplicity to them. The rules are: 1-Work deeply, 2-Embrace Boredom, 3-Quit social media, and 4-Drain the shallows. The idea of embracing boredom is a great balance to the intense concentration he is advocating and teaching. It is a deliberate rest and taking a rest from the deep work to prevent burnout. It is also making time to focus on other leisure activities and hobbies that help nurture the creative outflow during the deep work. Obviously regularly taking a break from social media and the internet is a great idea that many of us will struggle with. We have become so accustomed to digital voyeurism and constant updates on a daily, no hourly, no minute by minute basis, my guess is the time we will gain for deep work by limiting this will be astounding. This goes hand in hand with the idea of draining the shallows. So much of what we do on our phones every day falls into the shallow category. I also like what he said about scheduling deliberate time for shallow activities and not pretend that we will eliminate them altogether.[7]<\/a> I would also agree with his label of these non-critical tasks being \u201cblack holes\u201d.[8]<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In conclusion, I enjoyed the research he highlighted by Laura Carstensen, a Stanford psychologist, where she observed the effect of attention on a neurological level. She used fMRI scanning to determine that \u201cold subjects were happier than young ones, but not because of better circumstances in life. They were happier because they trained themselves to enjoy the good and ignore the bad. In other words, they enhanced the world they live in just by controlling their attention.\u201d[9]<\/a> If we can learn to train what we place our attention on, it can change the course of our life. I see this in my office on a regular basis with clients coming in with all kinds of reasons to focus their attention on the negative aspects of their lives. But the ones who seem to get better the fastest are the ones who find a way to focus on what they are grateful for and enjoy in themselves. My takeaways from this helpful book will definitely be: taking breaks from social media and the internet, making time for distraction-free deep work, embracing boredom and rest, and train my attention in the positive direction.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [1] Cal Newport, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World<\/em>, Grand Central Publishing, Kindle Edition, Locations 43-44.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [2] Ibid., 84-86.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [3] Ibid., 105-107.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [4] Ibid., 177-178.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [5] Millionaire Mind Publishing, Summary of Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World<\/em>, Kindle Edition, Locations 100-106.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [6] Ibid, 425.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [7] Ibid., 729.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [8] Ibid., 194-196.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [9] Ibid., 300-302.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We live in such a distracted world, me being one of the most distracted\u2026squirrel\u2026individuals around J. After being in Hong Kong and riding the MTR multiple times, with my Octopus card of course, I noticed Americans are not the only distracted ones. In fact, even more people in Hong Kong seemed buried in their phones […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2,951],"class_list":["post-19194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-newport","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19194"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19199,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19194\/revisions\/19199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}