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Comment by beat | Hacker News Reader

For those interested in managing online time and getting ourselves offline regularly, the book Deep Work, by Cal Newport, has some very useful ideas. One that I plan to start experimenting with is the idea of scheduled internet access - allow yourself to get online only at certain times of day. This isn't just for work. Even if you're, say, standing in line at the grocery store, you don't get to pull your phone out and check your email.

As the author points out, we've forgotten how to be bored. We need to learn to engage that part of our brain again.

https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Work-Focused-Success-Distracted/...

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While I'm fond of "deep work the idea", the book was a real disappointment. It's mostly selling the idea instead of explaining how to do something with it.

I followed the author's blog for a while, and I'd say a few key blog posts are enough to get the point accross. Even there it gets repetitive quickly.

The idea is good, it just doesn't require so much elaboration.

Would you be willing to link to what you consider the key blog posts?

Thanks!

It's been a while so I don't remember specifics.

However, after looking around, it seem the category "Patterns of Success for the Working World" (http://calnewport.com/blog/archive/) captures what I thought the interesting content was. It's still 100+ blog posts, so you'll have to do a bit of sorting.

Here's a few from my own quick searching that I found most interesting/foundational/helpful:

http://calnewport.com/blog/2009/07/08/grit-grinds-and-living...

http://calnewport.com/blog/2012/11/21/knowledge-workers-are-...

http://calnewport.com/blog/2009/06/22/on-the-value-of-hard-f...

http://calnewport.com/blog/2009/02/16/the-danger-of-deep-pro...

http://calnewport.com/blog/2008/02/15/fixed-schedule-product...

http://calnewport.com/blog/2011/08/11/the-career-craftsman-m...

https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/getting-started-i...

...aaaaand that's why it may be a good idea to disconnect in order to get any work done.

Well, what to do with deep work is up to you. I wouldn't expect it to be an instruction manual for anything but "Here is how you build your mind and work habits to be able to accomplish deep work."

> While I'm fond of "deep work the idea", the book was a real disappointment. It's mostly selling the idea instead of explaining how to do something with it.

Sadly, most self-help book are like this. :-(

> As the author points out, we've forgotten how to be bored.

I find outdoor activity to be one of the best way to be 'bored'. You have to focus on what your body is doing, you're back in nature, you'll be getting exercise.

Leave the podcast/spotify at home.

I advocate for taking time off to literally do nothing. No schedule. No purpose. No clocks. Just get up and operate based on the sun's movement and your own bodies needs. Be bored. Slow down time and fully disconnect from work. It's a hell of an experience.

It's hell indeed.

I'm on vacation this week and did exactly this on Sunday-Tue. It's Wednesday now and I feel feel very, very refreshed and relaxed. Focus is much easier today than it has been for some time.

As another person mentions, the book delivers a great nessage/idea, question is if a book is needed for sometthing which could have been summarized in a post. But 99% of self-help books belong to this category.

Besides, I am wondering if HN is a good and free lead generation channel for self-help books since I see many people pointing to the right book in the right thread and context. This could be easily scaled.

That would require it to be controlled, really. People recommend certain books because they're good. Word of mouth advertising.

You can't just take word of mouth and automate it and productize it somehow. That kills its nature.

This is what I subtly questioned: How do you want to know if it's real word of mouth or growth hacking?

I cannot imagine the author of this book resorting to growth hacking.

I've bought lots of books through HN recommendations, more often than not they're great. I do always check a bit of the poster's submission/comment history though, because people definitely do try to pitch their eBook or SaaS here.

I bought Deep Work off a HN recommendation, that included a whole bunch of follow-on comments about how great it was.

And it was well worth it.

> As the author points out, we've forgotten how to be bored. We need to learn to engage that part of our brain again.

This sounds like a contradiction. Isn't boredom precisely the state that results when one fails to engage their brain?

I would put it as, we've forgotten how to not be distracted. The mind needs time to wander.

Kind of. But you can see boredom as the desire for novelty, a cue to find something new so we can get that dopamine hit. Phones, internet and media are fantastic at giving us that little kick to keep us going, so we don't feel the need to engage our brain in more useful ways. Without that easy access to the dopamine treadmill that is your phone, you are encouraged to seek novelty elsewhere. This might be in wandering thoughts, seeking interaction with people or things around you, or some other endeavor.

To think a little further forward, doing this tends to increase the time until the next novelty, so you get practiced in not constantly seeking immediate gratification. It helps increase your ability to be patient and to concentrate, which in part is the ability to not switch tasks at the first hint of boredom.

He meant we can't stand to be bored anymore. At the slightest chance we immediately look for distractions, like the internet.

I agree with this but would emphasize that this is just an exercise to get free from a distracted state in your mind all the time.

I feel like this is a common semantic disagreement.

Some people want to encourage disconnecting yourself from external stimulus, and just enjoying your own thoughts, and use the word "boredom" to describe this. Whereas other people feel that "boredom" means the frustrating state of being entirely unengaged.

I sometimes wonder if people who don't disconnect very often haven't experienced much of the latter kind of boredom, and so aren't as aware of it as a negative thing.

Boredom is the state of not being satisfied with any of the sources of reward currently available in your environment.

thanks for the recommendation!

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