2026-10-22: I found these old writings when I was cleaning up some stuff and added them here.
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The author Dr. Cal Neport describes in his book "Deep Work" the importance of the so-named method of working. He classifies work done by different people in 2 categories.

  1. Shallow work
  2. Deep work

When the work you do is creating high value and is not replicable easily by other men or machine, then it is called Deep Work.

Shallow work is the work done by mostly everyone today. The type of work that does not generate much value to the world or themselves and one which can be automated is known as shallow work.

Deep work is increasingly important in the knowledge age of today where the competition is non-local and high. One must be able to produce on a substantially higher level than others to be able to remain ahead.

He says that in today's economy mainly 3 types of people can hope to remain ahead:

  1. High skilled workers

    Making today's high powered machines work for you is not an easy job and thus requires one to be highly skilled.

    He gives the example of the person who used poll data to predict results of US elections.

  2. Superstars

    These are the people who are at the top of their field. Due to Internet and it's services, it is much more profitable for both the company and the appointed worker to appoint a person who works remotely and keep him on work on contract basis and move on afterwards.

    Here the example given is that of the developer who created Ruby on Rails framework.

  3. Owners

    These are the people who own & operate businesses. This comes from the study that currently is a good time to own capital (unlike post war in Europe where inflation and other things made people lose their money very quickly). Thus those who own capital to finance companies can be well off if they select their companies wisely.