Deep Work - How To Focus On What Matters

With my MSc exams on the horizon, I have been looking for ways to allow me to perform my best when examination day rolls around. To perform my best, I will need to prepare my best, and the most important part of preparation is being able to concentrate on topics I am studying for a prolonged period. The go-to book for this topic is Cal Newport’s Deep Work, and here are my major takeaways from it.

WHAT EXACTLY IS DEEP WORK, AND WHY IS IT USEFUL

Deep Work, is focusing on a single task for a prolonged period of time. It sounds simple and in many ways it is. However, the key with Deep Work is that focus on the task must be absolute. That means no wandering mind, no quick checks of your email (guilty), your messages, or even the football scores (guilty). All that exists in Deep Work is the task. This then allows you to achieve Flow state which is the feeling of being in the zone, where even a difficult task is enthralling and all your brainpower is focused on solving it.

Cal Newport argues that the ability to work deeply is the most economically important skill today. This is due to the plethora of (particularly technological) distractions vying for our attention 24/7. When distracted it is almost impossible to implement deliberate practice (a highly intense and intentional form or practice that often leads to rapid improvement) and as a result difficult to pick up new skills. For those in the field of technology such as myself, picking up new skills is vital, due to the rate of change of programming languages, etc, and doing so quickly will help you to develop a unique skill set.

HOW TO EXECUTE DEEP WORK

Cal Newport suggests that to work deeply we need to set aside chunks of four hours. Yes, four hours, distraction-free to allow us to get fully immersed in a single task. After all, the equation for producing high quality work is:

High quality work produced = time spent * intensity

By setting aside four hours, we will be able to maximise both variables and produce at an elite level. “Distraction-free” is the keyword, however. Checking an email during a work block seems harmless, it can be destructive due to something called attention residue. Attention residue refers to the phenomenon where thoughts about Task A persist even though you have stopped Task A and are now working on Task B. For example, you are working on a crucial paper and decide to briefly check your email. After reading the one email and returning to your paper, your brain is still thinking about a way to respond to the email and the permutations of what was said in the email, preventing you from fully focusing on your paper. This is before considering all the other temptations when your internet browser is open like checking your social media. Eliminating this will create an effective deep work block that will maximise your chances of full focus.

Firstly, define how long you will work four. Having a predefined length of time is like a personal contract that makes you more likely to follow your own protocol. You should also have a location where you will work, preferably one that is used exclusively for work and never for leisure. It should also be a distraction-free environment where people are unlikely to try and interact with you in person (a good pair of noise-cancelling headphones is a way to achieve this). You should also have everything you need for the entire session with you, for example, food, coffee and if possible go to the bathroom before you begin work.

Once you start working you should have a set of unbreakable laws. Breaking these laws threatens to form a habit, where it is acceptable to break a deep work block and this will lead you right back to where you started, being distracted at every turn. The most obvious law should be no internet access. This means no internet-related tasks during the deep work block, if you need the internet to continue your task try to switch to a different work-related task until the next break where the internet is permitted. If unavoidable, head straight to the needed information without any detours.

Another focus facilitating rule is to implement Roosevelt Dashes or self-imposed deadlines. For example, for a piece of work that may usually take you two full hours to complete, set a self-imposed deadline of e.g. 1 hour 45 minutes. The goal must be just about achievable if you were to work on it to your full capacity. This ensures that you are forced to focus fully on the task at hand the entire time and this concentrated focus/deliberate practice will lead you into the flow state.

Other rules you can implement include only getting up for a bathroom break (although avoid this if possible) and avoiding eating as this can lead to messy fingers, which will mean the space requires a clean up leading to the focus block being broken.

After implementing these rules it’s just a matter of getting down to work.

HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR DEEP WORK ABILITY

These rules are simple enough to write on paper but much more difficult to implement in real life, as I will soon find out no doubt.

However, one thing Newport is sure to point out is that the brain doesn’t get bored, it just seeks novelty. Most people do not look forward to cleaning their work area on a lazy Saturday morning, however, as they look to sit down to work, cleaning the stray papers on their desk suddenly becomes the most urgent task in the world. This is because the brain has a desire to focus on new tasks, so when you have been working anything seems more interesting than continuing to work. So armed with this knowledge we can remind ourselves of this fact when distractions come tugging at our attention.

And more than that, the ability of the brain to focus can be trained like a muscle. Repeating a skill forces the brain to strengthen the synaptic connections between the neurons that perform a task. The good news for us is that focusing is a skill, so by repeatedly using these deep work blocks we get used to focusing.

Newport goes a step further and suggests that sometimes rather than looking to cut out all distractions, having distractions can help us exercise the connection in our brain that makes us avoid distractions, which is a more applicable day-to-day skill.

These are just a few of my takeaways and I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to improve their focus.

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