How Deep Work Saved My PhD Journey: Lessons from Chaos, Focus, and Cal Newport

3 minute read

It was 2022.
I had just finished the first year of my PhD. But instead of feeling confident, I was drowning.

I was writing a research paper from scratch — no template, no direction, just a blank Overleaf page staring at me. My notes were scattered across PDFs, Notion pages, and sticky notes. Reference management felt like a nightmare. Every day was a struggle — I’d spend hours trying to recall where I had read a specific method or result.

And then, just when I thought things couldn’t get harder, our postdoc left suddenly. My professor handed me a major project — one that was completely out of scope and deadline-driven. Everything felt overwhelming. The chaos, the pressure, the cognitive load — I was burning out.

But then I picked up a book that changed everything:
Deep Work by Cal Newport.

The Book That Rewired My Brain

Newport defines deep work as:

“Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.” (Location 32)

Exactly what I needed — and exactly what I was missing.

I was doing everything… and nothing deeply. I was reacting, not thinking. Consuming, not creating. Every email, every Slack ping, every tab I kept open in Chrome chipped away at my focus.

One line hit me hard:

“To remain valuable in our economy, you must master the art of quickly learning complicated things.” (Location 145)

That was my PhD in a sentence.

From Chaos to Clarity: My Deep Work Transformation

After reading the book, I decided to flip my routine. Here’s what I did:

Blocked deep work hours every morning: No emails, no meetings, no distractions. Just research, writing, and thinking.
Moved to Obsidian for all my research notes. Linked ideas, backlinked thoughts. It became my second brain.
Automated my references with Zotero + Better BibTeX. No more formatting chaos at the last minute.
Documented everything I did, so I could do it once, and use it forever.

This one change — focusing on depth over busyness — brought clarity.

Instead of solving a problem five times, I started solving it once, properly. Instead of juggling ten tabs, I’d deep dive into one paper. Instead of multitasking, I started mono-focusing.

I finally made progress. I finished my paper. Then another. Then more.
By the end of the year, I had published multiple manuscripts and even led the big project successfully. All thanks to embracing deep work.

Why Every Student (and Researcher) Needs Deep Work

“Deep work is becoming a key currency.”
“It’s the superpower of the 21st century.” – Cal Newport

In an era of infinite distractions, your ability to focus — truly focus — is rare. And that rarity makes it valuable.

Newport writes:

“Two Core Abilities for Thriving in the New Economy:

The ability to quickly master hard things.

The ability to produce at an elite level, in terms of both quality and speed.”

That’s what academia demands. That’s what research demands. That’s what life demands.

Final Thoughts: Deep Work Isn’t Just a Strategy. It’s a Mindset.

Looking back, 2022 was messy. But that mess led me to the mindset I carry today:
🔒 Protect your focus.
📚 Go deep.
🧠 Master hard things.
🛠️ Build systems, not just habits.

So, if you’re struggling with research, learning, or creating in today’s noisy world — do yourself a favor.

Read Deep Work. Then live it.

👋 About Me

Hi, I’m Shuvangkar Das, a power systems researcher with a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Clarkson University. I work at the intersection of power electronics, DER, IBR, and AI — building greener, smarter, and more stable grids. Currently, I’m a Research Scientist at EPRI (though everything I share here reflects my personal experience, not my employer’s views).

Over the years, I’ve worked on real-world projects involving large scale EMT simulation and firmware development for grid-forming and grid following inverter and reinforcement learning (RL). I also publish technical content and share hands-on insights with the goal of making complex ideas accessible to engineers and researchers.

📺 Subscribe to my YouTube channel, where I share tutorials, code walk-throughs, and research productivity tips.

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