Cal Newport gave us two useful terms: deep work and shallow work.

Deep work is focused, uninterrupted effort on something that matters. Writing. Creating. Solving a hard problem. It asks for your full attention and gives back your best thinking.

Shallow work is everything else. Emails, errands, scheduling, the small tasks that keep life running but rarely move it forward.

It’s tempting to see them as opposites, one good and one bad. But I’ve noticed something. They feed each other.

Some of my best ideas have come while doing something ordinary. Seemingly shallow. Watering the garden. Sorting papers. Washing a dish. The mind loosens, and suddenly a sentence arrives that I couldn’t force at my desk. Shallow work can open a door to depth.

And the opposite is true. After a long stretch of deep work, I need the simple tasks. They let me come back to the surface and breathe. Depth makes room for the gentle rhythm of the shallow.

Then there is flow, the state psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi described so beautifully. You lose track of time. Effort becomes ease. You’re fully absorbed and fully alive. I’m a big fan of flow. It’s where I feel most myself.

And flow isn’t reserved for grand work. It can find you in a spreadsheet or a song, a garden bed or a blank page. What matters is attention. When you bring your whole self to what’s in front of you, ordinary work can become deep.

Where does your deep work happen?

What shallow tasks surprise you with insight?

When was the last time you lost yourself in flow?

Pay attention to those moments. They’re showing you something.

Thanks – Michael (he, him)

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This matters too – Your Work is Your Legacy in Real Time.

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