This book is awful. It has all the same sins of Digital Minimalism but without the grace I afforded it for being the first of Newport's books I written: it is vacuous, it lacks any rigorous or interesting thesis, it is overstuffed with silly and facile anecdotes, it sports the prose of a Medium post.

There is nothing good about this book. You want to read this book and gain its wisdom? Here is its wisdom: "focus is important and you should limit things that unnecessarily break your focus." There is nothing clever or laudatory this book offers besides that.

(A fun game to play, though its hardly the biggest sin of the book: how many individuals that the author singles out for being particularly good at deep work have secretaries or administrative assistants or spouses that do all the household labor? The answer is all of them.)

★