My Plan for the Next 10 Years

This blog post has been made into a short film. Watch it here.

In his book So Good They Can’t Ignore You, Cal Newport argues that building a remarkable career is more about cultivating rare and valuable skills through deep work and deliberate practice.

Going deep into a field or technology requires adopting a “craftsman mindset”. 

This means focusing on deliberate practice, continuous improvement, and getting really good at something, rather than just chasing after fleeting interests.

Newport emphasises that depth is essential to mastery. 

Surface-level knowledge won’t allow you to unlock the full potential of a technology. 

To truly understand and leverage a field, you need to engage in deep work—long periods of focused, distraction-free effort.

This deep focus enables you to build rare and valuable skills, which Newport argues are key to gaining “career capital”. 

Once you have career capital—meaning you’re so good they can’t ignore you—you gain control over your work life and can craft the career you want.

According to Newport, you should focus on acquiring career capital—valuable skills that are in demand in your field. 

Once you have built up significant career capital by going deep into a field, you gain leverage. 

This can lead to more control over your work (e.g., autonomy, flexibility) and better career opportunities, which Newport argues are the real ingredients of a fulfilling career.

Newport argues that once you have developed significant skills in a particular field, you are better positioned to explore that technology’s full potential. 

With deep expertise, you can start to innovate, understand what is truly possible, and push the boundaries of what can be done with that technology.

By going deep, you gain the ability to see opportunities that others might miss, and you can apply your knowledge in creative ways that have a meaningful impact.

So that’s what I’ll spend the next 10 years doing.

Going deep in one field and perfecting my craft. 

What exactly will I go deep in? 

I’m not sure yet. I’m exploring. 

But that’s what Marc’s Fieldnotes is going to be about from now on - and in some senses - it’s what it’s always been about.

Learning something new.

Meeting new people.

Visiting new places.

And learning from these. 

Because all little moments of learning we collect along the way…

They add up.

And that’s called your life.