The book "To work with the head. Patterns of success from IT-specialist "

Hi, Habrozhiteli! Cal Newport's book “To work with your head. Patterns of success from IT-specialist "



“What I do requires long hours of work with sources and full concentration”

Donald whip



Can't concentrate at work? Constantly distracted by checking email, social networks and news feeds? It's time to take advice from leading IT-specialists and immerse yourself in working with your head.

')

Master one of the most valuable skills - the ability to focus on a complex task, without being distracted by trifles. This is the only way to cope with complex information and achieve the best results in the shortest time.

"Monastic" planning system in-depth work

Donald Knut is known for his many innovations in computer science, including, remarkably, the development of a very rigorous approach to the analysis of algorithms. However, among his associates, Knut, however, is notorious for his attitude to electronic communications. If you visit Knut's page on Stanford University’s website with the intention of finding his email address, you’ll find the following ad instead:



I became a happy man on January 1, 1990, when I got rid of my mailbox. I have used e-mail since about 1975, and it seems to me that fifteen years of correspondence is enough for one life. Email is a wonderful thing for those whose task in life is to be at the epicenter of everything. But I am not one of them; my role is to be at the bottom. What I do requires long hours of work with sources and unbreakable concentration.



Further, Knut claims that he does not intend to completely cut himself off from the world. He admits that in order to write books, he needs to keep in touch with thousands of people and that he wants to be open to questions and comments. What kind of solution does it offer? Everyone is given his address - the usual mailing address. Knut assures that his secretary will look through all the letters and postpone those that he deems important. She should bring all the really urgent correspondence to Knut immediately, and he will read the rest in a crowd about once every three months.



Knut applies what I (the author) call the "monastic" system of planning in-depth work. This system attempts to increase in-depth work by eliminating or drastically reducing the number of superficial duties. Adherents of the “monastic” system, as a rule, have a clearly defined and highly appreciated professional goal, which they pursue, and their professional success primarily depends on the fulfillment of this single task at the highest level. It is this certainty that helps the supporters of such a system to deal with the quagmire of superficial problems, in which, as a rule, those whose activities are more diverse are stuck.



Knut, for example, thus explains his professional goal: "I try to thoroughly study certain areas of programming theory, after which I try to present this knowledge in a digestible form that is accessible to people who do not have time to do such a study." Any attempt to seduce Knut with intangible benefits from a large number of followers on Twitter, or the unexpected possibilities that email has opened to him, is doomed to failure, since neither leads directly to the achievement of his goal: a thorough understanding of the specific issues of programming theory and the subsequent describe them in an accessible manner.



Another follower of the “monastic” approach to in-depth work is the renowned science fiction writer Neil Stephenson. If you visit his author's website, you will notice that neither the e-mail address nor the regular postal address is listed there. Some light on this omission shed two essays posted by Stevenson on his first website (hosted by “The Well”) in the early 2000s. and saved by the Internet Archive. In one of these essays, archived in 2003, Stevenson summarizes his communication principles as follows:



For people who want to disrupt my concentration, I politely ask you not to do this and warn you that I do not respond to emails ... so that the basic meaning of [my communication principles] is not lost in elegant formulations, I will summarize it here in a concise form: all my time and attention is already reserved, and repeatedly. Please do not claim them.



To clarify these principles even more clearly, Stevenson wrote an essay entitled “Why I Am a Bad Correspondent” (Why I Am a Bad Correspondent). In general, his justification for his own inaccessibility relies on the following:



In other words, the productivity equation is non-linear. This is the reason that I am a bad correspondent, and the fact that I very rarely accept invitations anywhere to speak. When I organize my life in such a way that I get many long, consecutive, uninterrupted periods of time, I can write novels. But if these periods are divided and divided into parts, my productivity as a writer significantly decreases.



Stephenson sees only two mutually exclusive options: he can write good novels at his usual pace - or he can respond to many emails and attend conferences and as a result write novels worse and slower. He chose the first option and now avoids any sources of surface work. (This question turned out to be so important for Stevenson that the writer subsequently revealed it more deeply in his epic science fiction novel Anatham 2008, which describes a world in which the intellectual elite is concentrated in monastic orders, isolated from scattered crowds and technological reality and immersed in deep thought.)



Based on my experience, the “monastic” system forces many intellectual workers to take up a defensive position. The clarity with which its adherents determine their value to the world, as I suspect, hurts the sore nerve of those whose contribution to the informational economic picture is not so unequivocal. Of course, it should be noted that "ambiguous" does not mean "smaller in volume." A high-ranking executive, for example, is able to play a vital role in running a company with a billion-dollar budget, even if it cannot show something concrete, like a complete novel, and say: "This is what I did in a year." Consequently, the group of people for whom the "monastic" system is suitable is quite limited - and there is nothing wrong with that. If you do not belong to this group, the radical simplicity of the “monastic” system should not make you overly envious. On the other hand, if you belong to such people - that is, if your contribution to the world around is specific enough, clear and individual - then in this case you should think about this system, since it can be a decisive factor in choosing between an ordinary professional career and one that will be remembered for a long time.



»More information about the book can be found on the publisher's website.

» Table of Contents

» Excerpt



For Habrozhiteley 25% discount coupon - Newport