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Deep work versus shallow work who are you rooting for? I find it disturbing, how difficult it is to convince people for the need of deep work. This book gives some clues, like for example how our brain gets simply addicted to those little treats. Checking social media, checking emails. Emails is a probable culprit. It might give the impression one is productive, woaw I reached inbox-zero look at that! On the other hand, processing those might have produced only little value. But we for some reason praise short response time and 24/7 availability. The lobby for open space offices is touched on too.
That’s refreshing to read an author who basically tells us that this and deep work is incompatible. If one’s goal is to go deeper, he’s gonna have to make sacrifices for example on social media and/or email.
A few take-away points for me:
- it boils down to basically plan every minute, that does not sound sexy but I get the point. I think it helps to stick to an activity that you knew in advance would make sense to complete. That should help to not give in to external or internal impulses for interruption.
- the capacity to concentrate can be trained (that connects very well with the concept presented in another book I read some time ago, Mindset).
- that goes hand-in-hand with another point, deliberately recognize that our brain might be addicted to interruptions, and thus the need to actively untrain that.
- a study around the myth of multitasking is mentioned, from Clifford Nass, I assume it’s this one on NPR: The Myth Of Multitasking. I’ll listen to it later.
- yet another time I stumble on the mention of Carl Jung over a short time, I’ve read a few quotes of him recently. In this book, the focus is on how he brought deep work in his busy schedule. He owned his own silence tower (located in Bollingen, St-Gallen). When he’d get there, he’d be the only one having the keys, impossible to be disrupted.
auf den folgenden Seiten werde ich Sie davon zu überzeugen versuchen, mich bei der Errichtung unserer eigenen Bollinger Türme zu begleiten… Ein Leben mit Tiefgang ist ein gutes Leben.
I read this one in German, as Nicole gave it to me after she first read it. Wouter focused more on the idea about getting used to boredom, a nice point too!
"Kümmert Sie, was andere Leute denken?" Neue Abenteuer eines neugierigen Physikers.
A book in 2 parts, around the life of the author first, recounted by the nobel prize Richard P. Feynmann himself. Second, his own recollection of the Rogers Commission, which revealed internal issues at NASA leading to the tragic accident of the Space Shuttle Challenger.
I’ve had a great time reading this one. It’s nice to read from such an highly educated person who keeps taking things with humor and don’t expect to be taken too seriously. Like in the “Hotel City” chapter for example, Feynmann is in Geneva walking around and randomly stumbling upon the United Nations premises. During a guided tour that he joined spontaneously, he sees from afar a known face, namely the russian physicist Igor Tamm. In his enthusiasm he crosses the door that separate them triggering the concern from the guide of his group who shouts “No, no! Not in there!” By then, no one from the group would have known that this man was a renown scientist.
His faithfulness commands respect too. He got married to his first wife Arlene, even though some time before their marriage she contracted tuberculosis. The illness did not question their commitment. I value this kind of attitude.
I honestly purchased this book for the second part, but in the end I think its for the first part that I’ll remember it.
wie wir später herausfanden, waren bei keinem der vorangegangenen Flüge jemals Rauchwolken aufgetreten
Hotel Pastis
I took that book off the shelve of our cosy Airbnb during our stay in Atascadero. Peter Mayle had this thing for making you want to get your next apero, taste good food, under the sun of Provence.
In that particular story, I thoroughly enjoyed Ernest and felt that the side plots were unecessary.
Healing the modern brain
Well paced and interesting. Our brain is fascinating. The author describes how it might thrives if we take good care of this wonderful machine of ours. Several tenets are part of the right mix, I could not mention all of them on top of my head but there are nature, purpose, sleep, a total of 9.
We see that people’s environments also play an important role in how they feel and how they interact with the world around them. The field of epigenetics, or the study of how our environments change how our genes are expressed,means that our DNA is not our health destiny. We have the power to make vital lifestyle changes that can quite literally change the way our bodies read genetic code, determining which genes are expressed and which are silenced.
With the right balance, our brain gets challenged and grows and all this contributes to a fullfilled life.