6 ms·

Didnt someone do a summary of that book in like a single page somewhere? As in, there were good ideas but it could be summed up to a short paper. I can't find t

Didnt someone do a summary of that book in like a single page somewhere? As in, there were good ideas but it could be summed up to a short paper. I can't find the link now.

StavrosK 8y ago
I found that you could do the same for many business books, and had made a site to provide summaries of the books. What sparked me to do it was reading "The No Asshole Rule", which was so devoid of actual content that it could be summed up by its title. It was full of anecdotes and statistics that ended up drawing the wrong conclusion.
- Something1234 8y ago
  Whats the site?
  - dayglo 8y ago
    There’s a good site that does this called Blinkist. https://www.blinkist.com/en/about/ https://www.blinkist.com/en/about/
    - yata01 8y ago
      You’ll need a subscription or trial to Blinkist if you want to view anything other than their daily freebie.
  - StavrosK 8y ago
    This was years ago, and there wasn't much interest so I took it down.
- abnry 8y ago
  So I think this is true, but it is not necessarily a terrible thing. It is one thing to memorize a summary of a book. It is another to engage with and apply the ideas in the summary. The goal of a book is to hopefully give you enough time and space to do that.
  - StavrosK 8y ago
    Unfortunately, most of the books I've read just have the extra material as filler, and don't lead to much engagement. It was just anecdotes like "the nurses in hospital X reported that their bosses were 30% assholes, and in hospital Y they were 96% assholes, so it's no wonder hospital X saved 49% more patients!" and other non-sequiturs like that.
normal_man 8y ago
Yeah the book is good but I found it to be insanely padded and bloated.
hackermailman 8y ago
Three sentences: https://www.samuelthomasdavies.com/book-summaries/business/deep-work/ https://www.samuelthomasdavies.com/book-summaries/business/d... I think the author himself has a one page blog post summarizing it as well. I agree with him about the smartphone cancer that has crept into all our lives though I imagine there will be much worse distractions in the near future like deep learning phones that can tell us everything going on in a room the moment we enter it (since everybody else also has the same device). Permanent HUD like a James Cameron scifi
- walterbell 8y ago
  > deep learning phones that can tell us everything going on in a room What information would be on this HUD? Do you mean real-time voice analysis?
  - hackermailman 8y ago
    It was from slides in a deep learning CMU course with examples such as walking into a restaurant with group seating where staff immediately knows your name and preferences/allergies, and you immediately have information on what topic each table is talking about and in what languages (which are automatically translated) what seats are free to sit at, which order is currently being cooked, ect. The idea was a scenario where each room you walk into your device can tell you everything there is to know.
- thisisit 8y ago
  > I think the author himself has a one page blog post summarizing it as well. Link please.
  - flying_kangaroo 8y ago
    If you do a search across his blog there's various articles touching on different parts. Here's one such: http://calnewport.com/blog/2012/11/21/knowledge-workers-are-bad-at-working-and-heres-what-to-do-about-it/ http://calnewport.com/blog/2012/11/21/knowledge-workers-are-...
kirubakaran 8y ago
Sure, and Woody Allen summarized War and Peace in one line: It involves Russia.
- Numberwang 8y ago
  And you could have made your comment even shorter by not writing it at all.
mattmcknight 8y ago
Would check with Derek Sivers: https://sivers.org/book/DeepWork https://sivers.org/book/DeepWork I think the point of reading the book is you will see the ideas in the summary, but may not believe they are true. The book is there to convince you through data, logical arguments, and stories that the ideas are true. In addition, repetition is one of the most valuable techniques for actually remembering things.
- swah 8y ago
  I read the summaries by Sivers before reading a book and after reading a book, many times. Of course, sometimes I skip the book.
skorbenko 8y ago
Actually, I made something of the sort that you're asking for [1]. Thank you for checking it out, and I would love to hear some healthy criticism! [1] https://skorbenko.github.io/books/books/flow.html https://skorbenko.github.io/books/books/flow.html

Didnt someone do a summary of that book in like a single page somewhere? As in, there were good ideas but it could be summed up to a short paper. I can't find the link now.

StavrosK 8y ago

I found that you could do the same for many business books, and had made a site to provide summaries of the books. What sparked me to do it was reading "The No Asshole Rule", which was so devoid of actual content that it could be summed up by its title. It was full of anecdotes and statistics that ended up drawing the wrong conclusion.

Something1234 8y ago
Whats the site?
- dayglo 8y ago
  There’s a good site that does this called Blinkist. https://www.blinkist.com/en/about/ https://www.blinkist.com/en/about/
  - yata01 8y ago
    You’ll need a subscription or trial to Blinkist if you want to view anything other than their daily freebie.
- StavrosK 8y ago
  This was years ago, and there wasn't much interest so I took it down.
abnry 8y ago
So I think this is true, but it is not necessarily a terrible thing. It is one thing to memorize a summary of a book. It is another to engage with and apply the ideas in the summary. The goal of a book is to hopefully give you enough time and space to do that.
- StavrosK 8y ago
  Unfortunately, most of the books I've read just have the extra material as filler, and don't lead to much engagement. It was just anecdotes like "the nurses in hospital X reported that their bosses were 30% assholes, and in hospital Y they were 96% assholes, so it's no wonder hospital X saved 49% more patients!" and other non-sequiturs like that.

normal_man 8y ago

Yeah the book is good but I found it to be insanely padded and bloated.

hackermailman 8y ago

Three sentences: https://www.samuelthomasdavies.com/book-summaries/business/deep-work/ https://www.samuelthomasdavies.com/book-summaries/business/d... I think the author himself has a one page blog post summarizing it as well. I agree with him about the smartphone cancer that has crept into all our lives though I imagine there will be much worse distractions in the near future like deep learning phones that can tell us everything going on in a room the moment we enter it (since everybody else also has the same device). Permanent HUD like a James Cameron scifi

walterbell 8y ago
> deep learning phones that can tell us everything going on in a room What information would be on this HUD? Do you mean real-time voice analysis?
- hackermailman 8y ago
  It was from slides in a deep learning CMU course with examples such as walking into a restaurant with group seating where staff immediately knows your name and preferences/allergies, and you immediately have information on what topic each table is talking about and in what languages (which are automatically translated) what seats are free to sit at, which order is currently being cooked, ect. The idea was a scenario where each room you walk into your device can tell you everything there is to know.
thisisit 8y ago
> I think the author himself has a one page blog post summarizing it as well. Link please.
- flying_kangaroo 8y ago
  If you do a search across his blog there's various articles touching on different parts. Here's one such: http://calnewport.com/blog/2012/11/21/knowledge-workers-are-bad-at-working-and-heres-what-to-do-about-it/ http://calnewport.com/blog/2012/11/21/knowledge-workers-are-...

kirubakaran 8y ago

Sure, and Woody Allen summarized War and Peace in one line: It involves Russia.

Numberwang 8y ago
And you could have made your comment even shorter by not writing it at all.

mattmcknight 8y ago

Would check with Derek Sivers: https://sivers.org/book/DeepWork https://sivers.org/book/DeepWork I think the point of reading the book is you will see the ideas in the summary, but may not believe they are true. The book is there to convince you through data, logical arguments, and stories that the ideas are true. In addition, repetition is one of the most valuable techniques for actually remembering things.

swah 8y ago
I read the summaries by Sivers before reading a book and after reading a book, many times. Of course, sometimes I skip the book.

skorbenko 8y ago

Actually, I made something of the sort that you're asking for [1]. Thank you for checking it out, and I would love to hear some healthy criticism! [1] https://skorbenko.github.io/books/books/flow.html https://skorbenko.github.io/books/books/flow.html