---
title: Deep work is unnatural, real, and non-negotiable
date: 2023-05-11T20:48:10.313Z
slug: 2023-05-11-deep-work
author: Thomas Wilson

---
By nature I am very opinionated, so I try hard to make my opinions changeable.  It's the least I can do for other people.

There are a handful of beliefs that you shouldn't flex on.  One such belief is that the kinds of problems I like working with demand deep work.  

I build software and (increasingly) teams that build software, I make clothes, I run/cycle.

The quality of work that comes from uninterrupted, narrow, intense *thinking* needs to be treated as a particularly rare animal that you desperately want to live in the habitat of your life or your work.

Unfortunately, deep work is not particularly natural, or urgent, or sturdy.  The overgrown vines of life will push it out – a full calendar, messages/emails, an early appointment overrunning by five minutes.

The cue for deep work is rarely self-evident or pressing, though we long dream of the empty calendar block.

This means that culture, the people around you (who are not you), need to recognise deep work as a real and non-negotiable kind of work.

I am trying to be that kind of colleague, that person who's pushing others re-prioritise (at least a little) deep work.  I'm trying to pump up the Social Approval Dopamine, to counter the Replying To An Instant Message Dopamine that the deep work competes with. 

Because the deep work is so hard to attract, and then to keep around - I think having to convince others of its existence and benefits would be too much.  It would be unwieldy, and twice the work.