reply to u/Mindless-Cow5458 at https://old.reddit.com/r/productivity/comments/1nk55qu/did_anyone_actually_read_deep_work_i_keep_seeing/

Are you sure you're not a bot adding to the noise?!? Newport is a computer scientist who probably makes more from book sales than his day job, so wouldn't you expect he's controlling an AI bot or two that stirs the pot in Reddit and other online locations to garner interest in selling more books?

And do you think these topics are really new and intriguing? Has Newport noticed something genuinely new about the human condition? Has he got some innovative new tonic, elixir, patent medicine, or magic bean that is going to solve all your problems?

You'll probably get more out of reading the classics... the greats... the poets... For example try Geoffrey Chaucer in House of Flame (c. 1375)

For when thy labour doon al ys, And hast mad alle thy rekenynges, In stede of reste and newe thynges Thou goost hom to thy hous anoon, And also domb as any stoon, Thou sittest at another book Tyl fully daswed ys thy look.

Or translated into modern English:

For when your labour’s all done And you’ve made all the accounts Instead of rest and other things You go straight home And as dumb as any stone Sit at another book Till your eyes are fully dazed

Chaucer complains in the 14th century of "looking at screens all day" as if he were an office worker in 2025. "Making all the accounts" here is akin to staring at an accounting spreadsheet all day.

But who can productively make money on Chaucer's poetry any more, so you write your own version and reinterpret the greats to make a buck. If only Chaucer had a bot...