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I read this book because I wanted to learn more about making use of deeply focused work. This book delivered only partially. There are some interesting pointers on how to integrate more highly-focused work into your life and how to expand your mental capabilities... but a lot of them will be exponentially harder for neurodivergent people, and the suggestions for integrating more "deep work" are probably not feasible for people who have caretaker responsability or people in precarized work. Nearly all of his success stories are people who have a pretty high degree of privilege to begin with.

In the first part, I got annoyed with his sales pitch for deep work - I already knew it was something potentially beneficial and open-plan offices are horrible. Maybe he needed to make this sales pitch because corporate culture is so invested in inhumane, focus-destroying work practices?

I also don't get his abhorrence of email, but perhaps I'm just an outlier in that my email influx is manageable? And although I have come to loathe Facebook and mostly avoid Twitter and Instagram, his "social media is evil and you ought to quit" chapter doesn't convince me either.

Overall, there were a few concepts I might revisit at some point, but otherwise, this book was a disappointment, not because the concept of "deep work" is bad, but because the book is coming from such a privileged and limited perspective.