This book disappointed me.
Before I get into my review, I should describe who I am (skip the next two paragraphs if you don't care): I've been following Cal Newport for years. His book, Deep Work, was a game changer for me, and I've been reading every post on his blog since I read that book. I try to keep up with his podcast, but I miss an episode here and there.
I'm also an engineer at a FAANG company, one that that firmly refuses to give up its hyperactive hive mind. Every single day I get a barrage of notifications, private messages, and calendar invites that pull me away from doing real work. When I heard that Cal Newport was working on a book to address this very problem, I was stoked.
Before I get into my review, I should describe who I am (skip the next two paragraphs if you don't care): I've been following Cal Newport for years. His book, Deep Work, was a game changer for me, and I've been reading every post on his blog since I read that book. I try to keep up with his podcast, but I miss an episode here and there.
I'm also an engineer at a FAANG company, one that that firmly refuses to give up its hyperactive hive mind. Every single day I get a barrage of notifications, private messages, and calendar invites that pull me away from doing real work. When I heard that Cal Newport was working on a book to address this very problem, I was stoked.
This first half of this book is a whole lot of nothing repeated over and over. None of what he wrote about was new information, and even the history of email was fairly useless. Perhaps I'm not the target audience since I've been following Cal for a few years now. Regardless, I found it repetitive.
It isn't until you get halfway through the book that you start to get his real advice, and its... surprisingly not much. His advice can be summed up in two points:
It isn't until you get halfway through the book that you start to get his real advice, and its... surprisingly not much. His advice can be summed up in two points:
- Use a project planning tool (like Trello)
- Have regular status meetings
And that's it. I'm all for project planning software, and I wish I worked at a company that used something like Basecamp. But regular stand up meetings? I can't imagine a worse idea to solve the problem of over-communication. I could list the numerous reasons status meetings are a bad idea, but this article by Jason Fried does a much better job than I could. From my own experience, status meetings are a colossal waste of time.
I can only imagine that upon reading this, Cal would say something like, "Well you just aren't using status meetings correctly! If you keep them short and to the point, and everyone stays standing up, then they're effective!" But this sounds eerily similar to the people Cal derides in his book – those who say "email isn't bad if you just use it correctly." The problem is the system, not the user.
He even goes on to say that sprints are effective ways to do work, specifically:
I can only imagine that upon reading this, Cal would say something like, "Well you just aren't using status meetings correctly! If you keep them short and to the point, and everyone stays standing up, then they're effective!" But this sounds eerily similar to the people Cal derides in his book – those who say "email isn't bad if you just use it correctly." The problem is the system, not the user.
He even goes on to say that sprints are effective ways to do work, specifically:
In most software companies, it's completely reasonable for developers to be unresponsive during a sprint, as the culture is one that accepts that this is the best application of the their energy at the moment.
Working at a FAANG company I can decisively say this is false. Maybe this is true for smaller companies, but at our scale, you are constantly being pinged for small requests, meetings, and more.
I don't want to be too harsh. Towards the end of the book, Cal does give some good advice for dealing with this problem:
- Hold personal office hours
- Sum up all the time you spend in meetings and use that to push back, i.e. "Sorry, I would love to meet, but I limit myself to 20 hours of meetings per week." The example Cal gave was about reviewing research papers, but it could apply to almost anything.
But a blog post could have delivered that same message much more efficiently than this 300 page book.
I do want to give credit to Cal for calling out the lack of equality in the modern workplace. In referencing a study by Lisa Babcock, Cal notes that:
I do want to give credit to Cal for calling out the lack of equality in the modern workplace. In referencing a study by Lisa Babcock, Cal notes that:
[Women] are more likely to volunteer for "non-promotable" service tasks than men. Women are also asked to do these tasks more frequently than men, and say yes more often when asked... If they are disproportionately saddled with work that has little visibility or impact, it will take them much longer to advance in their careers.
I really appreciate that he pointed this out, and it's something more people should be aware of.
In summary, I'd give this book a 2/5 as I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. For people who have never heard of Cal Newport, these might be new ideas. But if that's the case, you're much better off reading a book like Deep Work.
In summary, I'd give this book a 2/5 as I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. For people who have never heard of Cal Newport, these might be new ideas. But if that's the case, you're much better off reading a book like Deep Work.