Improve Your Focus in a Distracted World ~ My Ten Takeaways from Cal Newport's 'Deep Work'
At the end of your workday, do you ever think ‘what have I actually done today?’ Do you find it increasingly difficult to switch off from your work in the evening and on weekends? I’ve been on a mission to find methods that improve our productivity and my research led me to ‘Deep Work’ by Cal Newport (author and computer science professor at Georgetown University).
It takes a lot to convince me to invest my time in a book; I give it 50 pages and if I haven’t got into it by then, I let it go. If I really love the content of a book and feel it will benefit people, I will go one step further and share it with as many people as I know. Deep Work is one of those books.
What is ‘Deep Work’?
Deep work helps you learn hard things quickly
Deep work helps you to produce at an elite level
Deep work generates a life rich with productivity and meaning
Deep work isn’t for everybody
Deep Work is a state of working without distraction, so you can concentrate intensely on the task at hand to produce at your best level. When you work, you work hard to create new value; when you’re done, you’re done. And because you’ve engaged fully with your work, you will be better able to create boundaries around your work life and engage fully with your personal time, feeling fully satisfied that you’ve done enough work for the day.
Sound simple? The truth is, it’s not easy in our modern world to focus intensely on our work with hundreds of tasks, network tools and interruptions vying for our attention. And many of us find it difficult to fully engage with our personal time, because our mind keeps us drifting back to unfinished work tasks and issues. But Deep Work gives us some interesting insights into what we can do to improve our current work situation, but more importantly, how we can change our habits for the better.
My Top Ten Takeaways from Deep Work
One: Multi-tasking isn’t what we think it is - Multi-tasking doesn’t mean doing lots of different tasks at the same time; it means constantly switching our attention from one task to another, at multiple times throughout the day. This leaves us feeling exhausted.
I used to ‘reward myself’ with a click glance at Instagram or my email after completing 15 minutes of ‘hard work’ before getting back to the task at hand. I didn’t realise how damaging this was. When I returned to work, I couldn’t shift the content of Instagram I’d just consumed. I was still able to do the task, but not in the same way, and not with the same amount of effort and focus as before. Needless to say, I no longer look at social media throughout my work day. This leads me to takeaway 2…
Two: Quit social media - Have I got your attention now? Cal has never had a Facebook, Instagram, YouTube or Twitter account and he’s still extremely successful, a credit to the hard work he puts into his writing. Although Cal doesn’t tell us to quit social media forever, he advises us to take a closer look at our reliance on social media and assess what benefits each platform brings to our lives, through spending a month without these services. For more information, see Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport, where he outlines exactly how to do this (FYI, this is the next book on my reading list). I am interested in completing a month without social media to fully engage with the book content, but I know that I don’t want to give it up completely because my social channels and connecting with people all around the world brings me incredible joy.
Three: There is a connection between improving your memory and improving your ability to concentrate - Your ability to concentrate is only as strong as your commitment to train your skill in concentration. Concentration is a skill and so is building your memory power. I had no idea that memorising is a competitive sport. Memory athletes are a real thing and take part in The World Memory Championships. A side effect of memory training is an improvement in your concentration level. This has led me to the work of Jim Kwik, who has an incredible podcast full of 15-20 minute episodes on how you can train your brain to learn things faster and unleash your memory potential. I’m currently on episode 20 and I’m hooked.
Four: Schedule every minute of your workday - Cal’s approach to scheduling is to draw a vertical line down the page in his notebook. On the left hand side he writes all of the hours of his workday and then assigns each of these hours to tasks. For each activity for his workday, he draws a block around the hours he wants to allocate to each one. The minimum block length is 30 minutes and it’s fine to batch similar activities into a generic ‘task block’. Of course, our schedule may change due to things taking less or more time, or through possible interruptions, and according to Cal that’s fine, we can just adapt our schedule accordingly.
How I schedule my work day using Newport’s time-blocking technique…
I write mine in pencil so things can be changed neatly (as you all know, I’m not so keen on mess!). But what’s important is the meaning behind the schedule: ‘The goal is not to stick to a given schedule at all costs; it’s instead to maintain, at all times, a thoughtful say in what you’re doing with your time going forward’. Otherwise, we’re at the mercy of working on things that take our fancy in the moment or through responding to requests from others. Scheduling puts us back into the driving seat on our workday journey, allowing us to work with intention at all times.
Five: Use the shallow-to-deep scale for work tasks - The opposite of ‘deep work’ is what Cal calls ‘shallow work’: tasks that aren’t too demanding, often performed while distracted and do not create much new value. Examples include irrelevant meetings, interruptions, web surfing, office politics and other work admin. These are the things that seem urgent in the moment but turn out to be a drain on our time and effectiveness at work.
But it’s not always so easy to tell what a ‘shallow task’ is, so how do we fix this? For each task, ask yourself: ‘How long would it take (in months) to train a smart apprentice or graduate with no specialised training in my field to complete this task?’ The longer the time, the higher that task should go on your priority list. And these are the tasks we should do first when we set to work.
This strategy has helped me to re-prioritise how much time I am spending on different areas of work. During the current circumstances, I get a work block of between 3-4 hours every day. I look at my current task list, and make sure I choose my hardest task first (writing, research, preparing a presentation etc.) before tackling the smaller ‘bitty’ shallow tasks of responding to email and general business admin. I assign all of the shallow tasks to a time block of between 30minutes to 1 hour after I’ve completed my deep work for that day. I find the shallow tasks split my attention, and when I start with these, I am not able to focus as well as I want to on the more important tasks that require deep thinking.
Six: Log your deep work hours with a tally system - This is a great way to keep score with yourself. If you’re putting in effective work hours, free from distraction, then keep track of them. Cal recommends assigning a tick on a calendar (displayed prominently) to mark each hour spent in a state of deep work. Also, whenever you complete a project or reach a significant milestone, circle the tick that represents the finishing point. Circles then become a strong visual of your achievements and also refines your expectations for how long it takes for you to work towards them.
Ticking my deep work hours on my calendar…
Previously, I had been tracking my work each day by writing down what I achieved during that time (otherwise, I would look back over the week and although I had achieved a lot, it was difficult to remember everything if I hadn’t kept track of it). Logging my deep work hours with ticks on my calendar is something I’ve now started and is quite addictive once you start seeing them displayed in this way. I am starting to dislike seeing days where I have no ticks, and therefore no deep work hours! So this strategy can also inspire you to create more opportunities for engaging in deep work.
Seven: Allow time for ‘productive meditation’ - This doesn’t mean meditating while washing the dishes! It means using the time when you’re occupied physically but not mentally to think specifically about a single well-defined professional problem. If you’re walking, jogging or showering, you can use this time to reflect on a work issue.
At the moment, I am highly energised by listening to podcasts during my walk or when I run. But I can see the value of this method so I am going to first start with one walk / run per week when I am left completely alone with my thoughts on one specific business goal.
Eight: ‘Yes’ is the most dangerous word in one’s productivity vocabulary - When I was a teacher working 60+ hours a week, I never said no. This led me to burnout. In most jobs, it can be difficult to turn down a shallow obligation that seems harmless in isolation. But when you prioritise deep work time, it puts you in a scarcity mindset and your time becomes more precious, allowing you to view other obligations as suspect and potentially disruptive. Cal puts this another way: the bar for gaining access to your time and attention increases.
Unless you’re receiving a request from your boss that you are unable to turn down, your focus on deep work gives you the confidence to politely decline anything that does not bring a significant benefit to your work goals and expected outcomes.
I am getting better at saying no to people and opportunities that come my way. I always felt obliged to say yes to an event, a client or a job out of a desire to please or because I viewed it as an opportunity to generate more business. Cal tells us that the question is not whether this opportunity offers some benefits, it’s whether it offers enough benefits to offset its drag on our time and attention. Viewed through this lens, I started to develop my confidence in saying no to things that would not be a good use of my time.
Nine: Create a shut-down ritual - This is a series you steps you complete, one after the other, to make sure you’re successful in switching off work for the evening. This is something I have done for many months now and I’m going to write another post about what works for me, because it’s incredible just how well it works.
Instead of just leaving your desk at 5.30pm (or whenever you finish work), to allow your brain to close down your ‘work mode’, you need a shut-down ritual (which takes between 10-15 minutes). If we simply stop, incomplete tasks will keep battling for our attention throughout the evening. A shutdown ritual allows us to create a plan for these incomplete tasks so we can put them to bed for the evening and not worry about them. This is what Cal does:
First he takes a final look at his email inbox (to make sure there’s nothing urgent to respond to).
Then he writes down any tasks that are on his mind on his official task list.
Third he reads through every task in his list, and looks at his calendar (making sure he’s not forgetting anything urgent or looming deadlines).
Then he uses this information to make a rough plan for the next day.
Finally, he says ‘shutdown complete’ (he admits this sounds cheesy but also tells us this acts as a simple cue to his mind that it’s safe to release work thoughts for the day).
Ten: Downtime is essential - When I first started my business, I regularly worked evenings. Part of this was due to the fact that I couldn’t work during the day because I was looking after my two small children. That said, I would work well into the evening, giving myself no time to rest. It was no wonder that I struggled to get to sleep! I look back now and shudder at my behaviour. I now realise that to work well, we need to keep our minds free in the evening by shutting down our work thinking completely.
Downtime helps us to recharge and gives us the energy to work deeply the next day. So during your downtime, if you’re someone who checks their email, mentally replays conversations with your colleagues or boss or who spends your time scheming about about upcoming projects or challenges, you’re actually robbing yourself of the energy required to work well the next day.
This was a real eye-opener for me because old habits die hard. Until a few weeks ago, I would continue to work well into the evening, robbing myself of the important downtime needed to disconnect from work. My work shut-off is now 8.30pm. My current work schedule is a balance between looking after my children and having a time block of 3-4 hours during the day so I still have to complete some work in the evening. But for the time being, at 8.30pm, I’m done for the day.
My Verdict: 5 Stars
This book was engaging, informative and I loved Cal’s style of writing. He provided so many great examples of the people who engage in deep work habits and have been incredibly successful. It’s inspired me to change my work habits and since changing them, I’m more satisfied with my work output and feel increasingly energised to seek out more deep work time to produce work and content of value. The references in his book also gave me an extensive list of articles, blog posts and books that I have added to my ever-increasing reading list!
As Cal says, deep work isn’t for everyone. But for the people who want to improve their productive output, and refine their boundaries between work time and personal time, it’s a must-read. Have you read Deep Work? Or is it on your to-read list? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this post. Did you find any of the content useful? Let me know in the comments.