Page 5 - ISI Directory Feb 26 Update

FEBRUARY & MARCH

{Theme of the Month} Traveling To The Deep

Book of the Month | Deep Work: Rules For Focused Success In
A Distracted World by Cal Newport

Week of Feb 6: Introduction concretely: If every moment of potential boredom
Do you have the ability to quickly master hard things? in your life—say, having to wait five minutes in line
or sit alone in a restaurant until a friend arrives—is
relieved with a quick glance at your smartphone,
Week of February 13: Chapter 1
then your brain has likely been rewired to a point
Do you have the ability and desire to produce at an where it’s not ready for deep work. Do you allow
elite level, in terms of both quality and speed. yourself to be bored?

Week of February 20: Chapter 2 Week of March 20: Rule #3
Deep work should be a priority in today’s business Identify the core factors that determine success and
climate. But it’s not. The reality is that deep work is happiness in your professional and personal life. Adopt
hardand shallow work is easier and in the absence a tool only if its positive impacts on these factors sub-
of clear goals for your job, the visible busyness that stantially outweigh its negative impacts. Are you willing
surrounds shallow work becomes self- preserving. Are to quit using social media if it radically impacts your
you giving clear goals to those around you? ability to produce and enhance deep work.

Week of February 27: Chapter 3 Week of March 27th: Rule #4 and Conclusion
Do you regularly see yourself stretching your mind Treat shallow work with suspicion because its
to its limits, concentrating, and losing yourself in an damage is often vastly underestimated and its im-
activity—all of which also describe deep work? Once portance vastly overestimated. Are you able
in this state of mind your work becomes meaningful. and willing to drain the shallows?
Are you there?

Week of March 6: Rule #1
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. Do
you have a clearly defined work habits?

Week of March 13: Rule #2
Once your brain has become accustomed to on-
demand distraction, it’s hard to shake the addiction
even when you want to concentrate. To put this more

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