3 May 2017

• Fait accompli: an accomplished fact; a thing already done.  
• E-mail seems a fait accompli. Resistance is futile. (Cal Newport in Deep Work) 

1 May 2017

• Facetious: Treating serious issues with deliberately inappropriate humor 
• I am being somewhat facetious here in my wordings, but this underlying sentiment is nonetheless common and important to tackle. (Cal Newport in Deep Work) 

26 April 2017

• Stricture: A restriction on a person or activity
• In the 1920s, at the same time Jung was attempting to break away from the strictures of his mentor, Sigmund Freud, he began regular retreats to a rustic stone house he build in the woods outside the small town of Bollingen. (Cal Newport in Deep Work pg. 106) 

25 April 2017

• Desultory: Lacking in consistency, constancy, or visible order, disconnected; fitful.
• Rubin's Twitter's profile reveals a steady and somewhat desultory strings of missives, one every two to four days, as if Rubin receives a regular notice from the Times' social media desk (a real thing) reminding her to appease her followers.  (Cal Newport in Deep Work pg. 66) 

24 April 2017

Fungible: (especially of goods) being of such nature or kind as to be freely exchangeable or replaceable, in whole or in part, for another of like nature or kind. 

• And even then, the outcome is fungible, as it's not able to separate out, for example, how much value was produced by this frequent, expensive e-mail use to offset some of its cost.  (Cal Newport in Deep Work pg. 55) 
• These insights are often communicated through fungible artifacts, such as journal articles, slide decks, teaching cases or books that practitioners can consume and apply to their specific context. (AMJ) Added 21 April 2019. 
• Can IT jobs replace the lost manufacturing jobs? No, of course not. These are totally fungible jobs. (Added 7 November 2022)

Simulacrum: a slight, unreal, or superficial likeness or semblance

• Instead of trying to manage their time and obligations themselves, they let the impending meeting each week force them to take some action on a given project and more generally provide a highly visible simulacrum of progress. (Cal Newport in Deep Work pg. 60)

6 May 2015

• Doyen: A senior member as in age, rank, or experience, of a group class, quantity of food taken or provided for one occasion  of eating.
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• Arcane: Known or understood by very few; mysterious; secret; esoteric. 
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• Insidious: Intended to entrap or beguile; stealthily treacherous or deceitful.
• But part of what makes social media insidious is that the companies that profit from your attention have succeeded with a masterful marketing coup: convincing our culture that if you don't use their products you might miss out. (Carl Newport in Deep Work)