PSYC1105 DW2.0

1. Generally speaking, why does the author claim that deep work is rare?

2. What are some trends in the business world that seem to work against deep work?  How do these trends manifest in the life of a college student like yourself?

3. “Twitter is crack for media addicts. It scares me, not because I’m morally superior to it, but because I don’t think I could handle it. I’m afraid I’d end up letting my son go hungry.” What do you think George Packer was trying to say with that quote?

4. What is attention fragmentation? 

5. Explain the “metric black hole”

6. How does the metric black hole explain the extreme (and obscene) growth of executive salaries?

7. How do you understand the section on bussyness as a proxy for productivity?

8. Why do you think it is so easy to fall for the illusion of business and productive being the same?

9. What do you think is the value of a shipping company printing “like us on facebook” on its trucks? The author uses the anecdote of him noticing a truck with that legend as an example of what?

10. How do you think that the “metric black hole” manifest itself in college life?

11. The book takes an almost deferential view of craftsmanship.  Why is craftmanship so appealing to the author?  Do you have any personal experience, either yourself being a craftsperson, or someone else in your family of among your friends, that relates to Ric Furrer’s experience?

12. How do our brains construct our worldview, according to the book?

13. What are some of the benefits of cultivating intense concentration?

14. Examine the last 10 emails that you responded to. How many are related to shallow concerns (you define what shallow means)?

15. What is ESM?

16. There is a counterintuitive result in the ESM studies regarding free time vs. work time.  What is it?

17. What is flow? How have you experienced?

18. What is nihilism? And how is it related to the enlightenment in the view of Dreyfus and Kelly?

19. Dreyfus and Kelly say “The task of a craftsman is not to generate meaning, but rather to cultivate in herself the skill of discerning the meanings that are already there” Do you agree with them?

20. The author claims that work satisfaction does not come from getting a rarefied job, but on having a rarefied approach to your job.  Why is that?   Here is the definition of rarefied: rarefied: of high moral or intellectual value; elevated in nature or style.