Deep Work
Cal Newport
Why the hard work needs a room with nothing else in it. Half of how I work started with this book.
Cal Newport splits work into two kinds. Deep work is the stuff that needs your whole head for a long stretch: a hard bug, or a chapter you're trying to actually understand. Shallow work is everything you can do while half distracted, like replying to messages and checking things. His argument is that deep work is getting rarer just as it's getting more valuable, so anyone willing to do it has an unfair advantage.
The best known idea in it is attention residue. When you jump from one task to another, part of your mind stays stuck on the first one for a while. So a ten second glance at your phone costs a lot more than ten seconds. He also argues you should get comfortable being bored, because if you reach for a screen every time a moment goes empty, you slowly lose the ability to sit with one problem for an hour.
He doesn't pretend there's one right way to do it. Some people disappear for months. Some block out whole days each week. Most people with normal lives do it the rhythmic way, same time, same place, every day, until starting stops being a decision.
Half of how I work comes from here. The late hours at one desk with one lamp on, the phone somewhere else, the Notrik sprint with food ready and the phone dead for days: that's this book with the theory taken out. The exam prep runs the same way the code does, one subject at a time with nothing else open.
