Go for Elite Performance over Hyper Connectedness

The world today will have you believe that being connected is everything. I am writing this as we were just served the latest offering – Threads, arguably set to take on Twitter. More than a 100 million users have already signed up on the platform. The social media universe is always in a state of evolution and perhaps questioning why we need a Threads when we have Twitter is a moot point. Maybe more of the Gen Z and Alphas will be quick to board the Threads bandwagon, while my generation is still wondering what the fuss is all about. Similar to the newer generations disdain for Facebook – (my children don’t get why I am still on it)- Perhaps the Darwinian nature of the social media universe will continue to play out as long as human beings remain hungry for connectedness.???

Sometime last year a meme became popular on Instagram where celebrities, and then their followers started posting a photo montage of their personas on various social media platforms – a family photo on Facebook, a casual outdoorsy photo on Bumble, a hot picture on Tinder, a chic one for Instagram and the classic headshot for Linkedin. These posts were both a parody and an apt commentary on our lives today.??We have attuned ourselves to project an image that will cater to the target audience and while there is nothing wrong with that, the question is the time and effort that goes into managing these personas in the virtual world. For years now people have been spending an inordinate amount of time obsessing about their Instagram grid, vying for that perfect photo that is worthy of??–?the post.??This insatiable thirst for affirmation and relevance is all the fuel and fodder tech capitalists need to invest millions of dollars in developing products just to keep us hooked and hyper connected.

It might be interesting to do the math to calculate the amount of time we spend collectively as a species scrolling reels and what is the opportunity cost we are paying for this as a society. Setting aside these broader concerns for a moment, let’s reflect on what is the opportunity cost for an individual. Research has proven that human beings thrive when they are seeking mastery in their field. Our brains are wired to continuously learn, build on what we know, seek challenges and create value. When our natural desires to do something meaningful is thwarted, we feel lost, frustrated and even depressed. This is not a rant against social platforms – I am as much a creator and consumer of content in this universe personally and professionally – but a call to reflect on the amount of investment you are willing to make in staying connected, paying with your most precious currency-?time.?

Research shows that it takes 10,000 hours of focused work on a subject to attain mastery in it. Even if you were to spend half of your work week purely on your subject- it will take you 10 years to become an expert in the field. This kind of focus is rare in the real world, and becomes even harder when our lives are full of distractions. The reality is that we all seek expertise in our domain whether we explicitly acknowledge it or not, it is what we are programmed to pursue. The trappings of mastery are of-course more relatable – early promotions, big salaries, industry awards and accolades, large corporate roles. The underpinnings of these markers of worldly success lies in our natural desire to produce at an elite level. This kind of quality work is possible when we have razor sharp focus and all our energies are directed towards it.

Cal Newport in his book Deep Work defines this as “Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.”?He explains that in the new economy the core abilities needed to thrive are 1) The ability to quickly master hard things. 2) The ability to produce at an elite level, in terms of both quality and speed.

Deep work is about performing intellectually challenging, value creating work that is distinctive and stretches your cognitive abilities to the limit. The kind of activities that demand intense focus requiring you to harness your expertise and ingenuity while also pushing you to explore the unknown.?

When doing strength training in the gym, your trainer pushes you to take on weights that are just outside your current physical ability. You keep increasing the strain on the muscle progressively to make it stronger. This logic applies to building your cognitive muscle too. The more we engage in tasks that are outside our currently intellectual abilities, the more we strengthen our cognitive capacities.

This kind of intense focus is hard to achieve when you are besieged by distractions. It is not just social media that presents a “shiny new thing” by the minute, testing your resolve to focus. Professional emails and IMs are a constant drain on your time and energy when you are trying to engage in deep work. The pandemic pushed organizations to embrace the work-from-anywhere approach and this meant greater reliance on virtual collaboration tools. While this was a welcome change for most people struggling with long commutes, many found a new challenge of constant distractedness with home offices and the need to be always available on internal collaboration platforms.?

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi??pioneered the Flow theory in 1990 referring to a state of being in which people become so immersed in the joy of their work that nothing else seems to matter. He quoted, “The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times…The best moments usually occur if a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.”??Deep work done in a state of flow is when we start producing at an elite level.?

On the contrary, shallow work comprises of activities that will not challenge you intellectually but are nevertheless necessary. No one can operate without attending to these tasks- all of us will have some element of shallow work in our professional lives. Responding to emails, signing forms and letters, attending some meetings, project check-ins, creating templatised review decks are some examples of what can be deemed as shallow work which is unlikely to lead to meaningful value creation for the organization. It is not practical to think that we can eliminate all shallow work, but it is important to recognize it as such so that we can minimize its disruption to truly value generating activities.

Newport argues that Knowledge workers are tending toward increasingly visible busyness because they lack a better way to demonstrate their value. He calls this tendency “Busyness as a paradox for Productivity”.?

Here are my key takeaways on how to minimise distractions and live an enriching personal and professional life centered around deep work.

1)?????Being visibly busy does not equate value creation. Resist the temptation to respond to every email within the hour. Instead set a couple of blocks of time during the day when you tackle your mailbox. Multi-tasking is mentioned prominently in many job descriptions as a necessary skill. This often means shallow work – and it will be important to understand its implications on your long term aspiration to gain mastery in your domain.

2)?????Choose your social media tools with care. Newport offers an interesting premise of the “any-benefit” thinking we fall prey to.??Are you on the platform because it is absolutely essential to your personal and professional life? What could you accomplish in the time it frees up if you were to eliminate the tool completely?

3)?????Plan for breaks from deep work to do shallow work – not the other way around. Plan your schedule around your most value creating activities first, and then add segments of time for addressing administrative work.

4)?????Deep work does not mean working alone. One cannot thrive in the new economy by becoming a recluse and shunning all human interaction. Some of the best Nobel prize winning innovations have been a result of collaborative deep work. Reach out to others to test your ideas, and build on each other's thinking.?

5)?????Make it a habit. Working deeply requires a high level of personal resolve and will power. Research shows that we have only a finite reserve of will power and it depletes with each successive instance we have to resist temptation. This means that if you are already on a punishing diet, you are unlikely to resist bingeing on the latest OTT show. You are drawing on the same finite source of will power – and it becomes harder with each time you have to exercise resolve. For this reason, it is best to minimize temptations when working deeply. Try to ritualize your deep work habit – find a quiet place to work, put aside your phone, and turn off email and IM notifications.?

6)?????Guard your time like it's your most valuable treasure. Say no to shallow work as much as you can, given your organizational context. This can be hard to do if the company culture rewards responsiveness, being constantly available and visible busyness over real value generating work. Negotiating your boundaries and expectations with your supervisors may help.?

7)?????Finally, know that working intensely for long stretches of time on difficult-to-master activities can be immensely rewarding but may also lead to cognitive overload. Take frequent breaks – every 90 minutes or so – from cognitive work. Take a short walk, listen to some music or indulge in any other activity that will help you renew your energies.

It is much easier to swim in the shallows than going deep. Pursuing mastery in a field can be a daunting aspiration and will pose terrifying challenges. Persisting on this path of deep work is certainly not easy, but those who build deep work rituals over time differentiate themselves head and shoulders above the rest; consistently creating elite value for their teams and organizations.

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