Since I’m an incoming PhD student in computer science, I felt this book had a lot of little gems of advice for succeeding in grad school. The general premise is simple: you should work in deep concentration in a distraction-free environment. You should avoid shallow work like logistical tasks (e.g. email) as much as possible. By working deeply for longer, you’ll be much more creative and productive. I found Cal Newport’s four disciplines to be super helpful:

  • Discipline 1: Focus on the Wildly Important. You should focus on a small number of “wildly important goals”. This could be the number of papers you want to publish or the field you want to be an expert in.
  • Discipline 2: Act on the Lead Measures. You need to have a way to measure success. There are lag measures and lead measures. Lag measures describe what you want to improve. When you recieve a lag measure, it’s too late to change your behavior since it’s already happened. Lead measures “measure the new behaviors that will drive success on the lag measures.” A lag measure could be “how many papers you published per year”, while a lead measure that’s more effective is “how much time you spent in deep work”.
  • Discipline 3: Keep a compelling scoreboard. Track your lead measures such as logging how many hours you worked deeply each day.
  • Discipline 4: Create a cadence of accountability. Review your scores and understand why you’re doing better or worse, and act on those results.

I have been trying to incorporate some of these into my own life by scheduling out chunks of time to only work deeply. I would say this is a must-read for any incoming PhD student. Since Newport is a professor, he pulls a lot from his experiences in academia, making much of it relatable. Even though the core idea of the book is obvious, the anecdotes and evidence Newport provides is motivating.