deep work
The “gift of listening” is based on the ability to grant deep, contemplative attention—which remains inaccessible to the hyperactive ego.
from The Burnout Society by Byung-Chul Han
deep work
If you work in an environment where you can get an answer to a question or a specific piece of information immediately when the need arises, this makes your life easier—at least, in the moment. If you couldn’t count on this quick response time you’d instead have to do more advance planning for your work, be more organized, and be prepared to put
... See moreCal Newport • Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
A more substantive potential use of words to enhance our lives is the lost art of conversation. Utilitarian ideologies in the past two centuries or so have convinced us that the main purpose of talking is to convey useful information. Thus we now value terse communication that conveys practical knowledge, and consider anything else a frivolous
... See moreMihaly Csikszentmihalyi • Flow: The Psychology of Happiness
The key to developing a deep work habit is to move beyond good intentions and add routines and rituals to your working life designed to minimize the amount of your limited willpower necessary to transition into and maintain a state of unbroken concentration.
Cal Newport • Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
In Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche formulates three tasks for which pedagogues are necessary. One needs to learn to see, to think, and to speak and write. The goal of education, according to Nietzsche, is “noble culture.” Learning to see means “getting your eyes used to calm, to patience, to letting things come to you”—that is, making yourself
... See moreByung-Chul Han • The Burnout Society
One of my (many) contrarian beliefs is that we do not have strong enough preferences. We often blame social media or the speed of information as the reason why we’re easily distracted, but the real reason behind our inability to focus has less to do with the sheer quantity of media and more to do with our laziness when it comes to distinguishing... See more
the need for a meaningful anchor
Sit down with a book, magazine, or long-form article, block out distractions, and dedicate our minds to better ideas.
It’s an act of rebellious empathy.
It’s an act of rebellious empathy.
The Reader’s Manifesto
deep work as rebellion - I like a lot this framing :)
The reason we’re so increasingly intolerant of long articles and why we skim them, why we skip forward even in a short video that reduces a 300-page book into a three-minute animation — even in that we skip forward — is that we’ve been infected with this kind of pathological impatience that makes us want to have the knowledge but not do the work of... See more