What should a Christian worker assume about the cost of pursuing “deep” projects that resist a shallow age?
Deep work is not a trick for quick wins. It is a long obedience in a chosen direction. Cal Newport frames the deep life as an escape from “digitally-enhanced shallowness,” but he stresses that the escape is expensive because the projects that truly reshape a life require “a massive investment of time and effort” (Newport, “David Grann and the Deep Life”).
That simple claim clarifies why so many worthwhile pursuits die in the early stages. The path feels long, the progress feels slow, and the daily obligations feel loud. But the problem is not that deep projects are poorly designed. The problem is that deep projects demand a scale of commitment that shallow habits have trained us to avoid.
The problem is that deep projects demand a scale of commitment that shallow habits have trained us to avoid.
Newport therefore commends two virtues that match the actual cost of depth: diligence and deliberateness (Newport, “David Grann and the Deep Life”). When a person names the cost honestly, these virtues become less like personality traits and more like required tools.
Depth is not achieved by intensity alone; it is achieved by accepting the true cost of deep projects and then building life around that cost.
Related Material
Learn Like an Athlete — frames “deep work” as deliberate training, not a mood
Note-Taking: How to Increase Your Knowledge — shows how to build durable depth through connected notes and long-term retrieval
Source: David Grann and the Deep Life
Disclaimer: Information in my “slip-box” doesn’t necessarily reflect my agreement with the source or all its content. Recording diverse perspectives helps strengthen one’s position beyond the echo chamber of like-minded thinkers. By documenting alternative viewpoints, we engage in the intellectual wrestling match that ultimately deepens our understanding.
I aspire to post one note from my “slip-box” every weekday. If you want to learn more about how to work with knowledge, click this link: What is knowledge management?
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