Deep Work

Cal Newport, in his book, Deep Work, argues that in a world where we are constantly bombarded with distractions, it is more important than ever to be able to find ways to do Deep Work.

Deep Work is the ability to focus on a cognitively demanding task without distraction. Deep Work is a very valuable skill for a few reasons.

It is an increasingly rare competitive skill. Constant connectivity and distractions in the age of the internet makes it hard to produce high-quality productive work.

It is increasingly important to master the hardest skills. With advances in Artificial Intelligence, mundane tasks will get automated. In fact, even the bar for “harder” creative expert tasks like writing and media production are getting lowered in the age of Generative Artificial Intelligence.

Finally and most importantly, Deep Work enables individuals to make meaningful contributions to their organisations, communities, and society. By dedicating time to focused deep work, individuals can acquire new skills, address complex problems, create innovative solutions, and produce work that has a positive impact on others.

Newport outlines the four rules with strategies to apply those rules:

Rule #1: Work Deeply

Scheduling Modes

The first thing to work deeply is to figure out a mode, or a philosophy, as Newport puts it, of scheduling deep work. Newport describes 4 philosophies of scheduling:

Monastic Philosophy

Schedules almost exclusively very long stretches of deep work with almost no shallow work. Quotes from legendary Don Kunth or Neal Stephenson

Bi-Modal Philosophy

Divides time between clearly defined long stretches of deep work in a day and leaving the rest open to everything else.

Rhythmic Philosophy

Ensures that there is a rhythmic cadence to deep work without clearly allotting a time in a day.

Journalistic Philosophy

Fits deep work into existing schedules in a dynamic adaptive manner. This requires being able to switch from shallow to deep mode of working in quick time.

Mode vs Philosophy

Newport suggests choosing a philosophy of scheduling for deep work. But I think if one thinks of these as “modes” of scheduling, one can be creative in scheduling by “blending” these modes depending upon the situation. For example, I’m working towards a bi-modal mode of scheduling for work-days – mornings for deep work, evening for shallow work and personal time. I’m exploring the journalistic mode of scheduling deep work on weekends - squeezing any reasonably long unplanned free time with deep work.

4DX Execution Framework

According to Newport, a successful deep work schedule should be ritualised. In fact, he recommends to “execute like a business” for deep work based on the 4DX framework.

Focus on Wildly Important

Figure out what is wildly important and focus on that during deep work. In my workplace, we use the Objectives & Key Results goal-setting framework. I have been using the OKRs framework even for my personal goals.

Act on Lead Measures

Track both lead and lag measures, but act immediately on lead measures.

A lag measure is a measure that one is trying to ultimately improve. But it lags in that it comes in too late to change your behaviour. For example, yearly earnings of a website. Lead measures measure the new behaviours that will drive success on the lag measures. For example, daily traffic of a website.

For deep work, figure out lead and lag measures. Act immediately on lead measures rather than lag measures. For example, for someone trying to blog, track a lead measure like hours spent per week writing. If this goes down, figure out ways to increase the same. That should over time cause the success of lag measure, say the number of blog posts.

Compelling Scorecards

Showcase the lead measures prominently as a scorecard to get one’s competitive juices flowing because “People play differently when they’re keeping score”!

To track amount of deep work, I previously tried printing and using the “168 Hours” Time Sheet suggested by Laura Vanderkam in the book “168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think”. But it seems like too much manual effort to track all the 168 hours in a week. I would rather just track chunks of deep work using a software or even a physical hardware timer.

To track overall goals, I use a document which scores key results every quarter. It would be nice to somehow visualise the scores of objectives in say a widget on your phone or on your workstation. I intend to explore such options in the coming weeks.

Cadence of Accountability

Review the measures, both lead and lag measures weekly. This can help track trends in the measures and ensure appropriate action is taken to achieve the targets for deep work.

Till now, I have been reviewing my professional and personal OKRs only every 3 months. That is too much time between reviews to fix anything. Going forward, I’m considering a weekly review to help correct the course earlier.

Rule #2: Embrace Boredom

It is easy to overwork and mistake busyness for productivity when trying to work deeply. So, it is important to balance and ensure there are adequate breaks to recover sufficiently to sustain working deeply over long periods of time.

Take Breaks From Distraction Focus

Rather than thinking of scheduling focus time between distractions, plan breaks from focus time. For example, rather than thinking of having internet detox time, like specific times or days, consider having specific times for internet distractions.

Productive Meditation

Besides breaks that recharge, consider downtime that can assist in insights. And one way to achieve that is through “productive meditation”. In “productive meditation”, one is occupied largely physically, say like walking, jogging, or even showering, but is focussed on one single well-defined “problem”. The idea is not to increase productivity, but rather increase the ability to concentrate and think deeply for longer periods.

Memorization

Memorization is another approach to increase the ability to concentrate for longer periods. Newport proposes some card memorization tasks.

Personally, card memorization tasks seem arbitrary – one might not have enough motivation or discipline to learn those card memorization tasks. Instead, one can consider some memorization task that is related to some personal interest. For example, someone interested in music can memorise lyrics or notes.

Rule #3: Quit Social Media

Newport doesn’t actually suggest the drastic “quit social media”. But, rather to reject the state of distracted hyper connectedness.

The typical reason for consuming social media like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter is that it has some value like “news” and “entertainment”. It typically starts as a “filler” activity for leisure or time between tasks. But eventually it becomes excessive due to the addictive nature.

Craftsman Approach

Newport’s proposal is to follow a craftsman approach to selecting these tools. Identify the core factors that determine success and happiness in your professional and personal life. Adopt a tool only if its positive impact substantially outweighs its negative impact.

Personally, the only social media I consume is Twitter. There was a time when browsing Twitter was a “filler” activity that used to stretch. But now, I have a dedicated time of about 30 minutes, typically before bedtime, to just catch up on the latest happenings, especially on topics of interest.

Rule #4: Drain the Shallows

Newport asks us to treat shallow work with suspicion because its damage is underestimated but its value vastly overestimated. Shallow work is inevitable, but it should be confined to a point where it doesn’t impede deep work. To achieve that, schedule every minute of the day, quantity depth of each activity and allocate a budget for shallow activity.

One of the main shallow activities, especially for a knowledge worker, is communications via chat and email. Newport offers a few tips for managing email, like forcing the senders to do more work before sending emails, and also similarly doing more work when sending or replying to emails. Basically, strategies to avoid multiple back and forths when the emails are ambiguous. Another extreme tip is to avoid replying unless the email is clear and actionable.

Below are some of my own tips and learnings towards being on top of communication.

Communication Guide

If you don’t set clear expectations on your communication preferences, there might be a perception of not being responsive. So, the first step is to make your communication preferences and expectations clear in a “communication guide”. For example, specifying simple things like that you don’t expect a chat with just a “hello”. Or when to prefer chat over emails. And what turnaround time can one expect.

Zero Inbox

Once you have clarified your communication preferences & expectations, there is still the actual stress of dealing with all the chat and email messages. It is important to have a well-defined workflow to act and respond to messages, say like Zero Inbox. This has been a personal challenge, and I’m yet to find the best time and tools to be on top of chat and email messages. For now, I use Gmail features like “yellow-star” to mark messages requiring a response and “is-important-marker” to mark important messages.

Conclusion

Newport’s book, “Deep Work,” provides a compelling argument for the importance of deep work in our increasingly distracted world. He offers a practical framework for implementing deep work into our lives, including strategies for scheduling, embracing boredom, quitting social media, and draining the shallows. By following these strategies, we can all achieve greater focus, productivity, and creativity in our work and personal lives.