Community college professionals familiar with author and Georgetown computer science professor Cal Newport will recognize in the above title his argument that absent a considered philosophy of technology use, knowledge workers are vulnerable to reduced productivity, loss of control of our time, and inadequate attention and focus on the deep work necessary for creative, substantive achievement.
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Community college professionals familiar with author and Georgetown computer science professor Cal Newport will recognize in the above title his argument that absent a considered philosophy of technology use, knowledge workers are vulnerable to reduced productivity, loss of control of our time, and inadequate attention and focus on the deep work necessary for creative, substantive achievement.
Newport’s work offers a critical, yet pragmatic perspective for those interested and concerned about professional efficacy and personal wellbeing in a technology-saturated culture dominated by what he refers to in his 2019 book Digital Minimalism as “...attention economy conglomerates” (Newport, 2019. p. 9).
There’s no shortage of researchers and writers analyzing the influence of technology on productivity, wellbeing, attention, and the myriad ways AI, “smartphones,” the internet, email, and other related technologies affect our working and personal lives. And while others may offer more heavily theoretical analyses and critiques on technology and society, Newport’s balance between research and pragmatic approaches for most knowledge workers has made his books bestsellers and his podcast increasingly popular. Still, like a cool musical band that you “discover” before the majority of your peers, I’ve found that many of my community college colleagues who would benefit from Newport’s work are unfamiliar with his research and writing.
Newport’s output is considerable, so my purpose here is simply to introduce a few of his foundational arguments and recommendations which may lead you to further investigate his work. 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” (Newport, 2016. p. 3). If a college president or chancellor spends all day in consecutive meetings, on the phone, monitoring email, texts, and social media on their smartphone, deep work will be conspicuously absent.
Among the most compelling and relevant research cited in Newport’s 2016 book, Deep Work, is that conducted by University of Minnesota business professor Sophie Leroy introducing the concept of attention residue. Instead of studying so-called multitasking, Leroy analyzed the ubiquitous task switching that knowledge workers practice when they redirect attention and effort from one task to another in rapid succession. Thus, if you’re working on a written report and you suddenly shift your attention to an email message, your attention doesn’t immediately follow, rather, a residue of your attention remains stuck contemplating the initial task. Leroy’s experimental research found that individuals experiencing attention residue after switching tasks are likely to demonstrate poor performance on that next task. (Newport, 2016. p. 42-43).
So, what’s a knowledge worker to do to enhance productivity, strengthen cognitive abilities to engage in deep work, and better manage distraction technologies and the prevalent work culture so anathema to focused effort and cognitive stamina? Newport posits several means to counter these powerful and omnipresent forces in the work and personal lives of many of us circa 2026. Among the recommendations are the following:
• Develop a philosophy of technology use. This recommendation from Newport’s follow-up work Digital Minimalism, refers to the deliberate and considered decision to “... focus online time on a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that strictly support things you value, and then happily miss out on everything else” (Newport, 2019, p. 28). The approach is to work backward from your values to your technology choices.
• Spend time without the smartphone, computer, or even headphones. Take your dog for a walk without any technology. Read a book away from technological distractions. Write — with a pen and paper — in a journal. Take a bath. Even professional athletes and Olympians schedule rest and recovery into their regimes. Give your cognitive muscles time to process and recharge.
• Schedule blocks of time for deep work. This means uninterrupted cognitively demanding, focused work. Place an out-of-the-office sign on your door, power down your laptop and turn off your phone. Give your family members a colleague’s phone number for emergencies or urgent matters. If you can, identify a physical location where you complete deep work, and make it as consistent as you can.
• Adopt high-quality leisure. It may seem to contradict the earlier recommendation of rest and recovery; however, I find this its corollary, and it can coexist peacefully with what’s often referred to as the need to decompress. Replace passive television watching and mindless scrolling with pursuit of a sport, gardening, building something, photography, writing poetry, learning an instrument. In Digital Minimalism, Newport discusses the value of practicing a craft as a replacement for a world mediated by screens (Newport, 2019, p. 178).
Larry Galizio, Ph.D., serves as president & CEO of the Community College League of California.
The Roueche Center Forum is co-edited by Drs. John E. Roueche and Margaretta B. Mathis of the John E. Roueche Center for Community College Leadership, Department of Educational Leadership, College of Education, Kansas State University.
This article originally appeared in May 7, 2026 edition of The EDU Ledger.
