How to Truly be Productive - Deep Work by Cal Newport

How to Truly be Productive -??Deep Work by Cal Newport?

Perusing a local Waterstones, I came across a book by Cal Newport called Deep Work. I wasn’t looking for it when I initially went into the Waterstones. Much to my shame, I didn’t know of its popularity prior to when I selected it from the row of books. Something about its self-evident title jumped out to me. The idea of working more deliberately and with more focus has always been a desired ability and one that I felt I lacked.?

Flicking through the blurb at the back, I was immediately sold. The idea of being more focused and effective at work ultimately means doing more with less time – this is a powerful ideal. My mind immediately raced with the possibilities and implications of this: perhaps If I mastered it’s lessons I could become better at my craft or, even more importantly, perhaps the increased free time could allow me to be a better father and husband.

Still in the bookshop, with tetchy children, and an increasingly impatient wife watching me deliberate over which books to buy, I hastened my purchase. I am truly glad I bought it.?

Cal Newport’s book, Deep Work, provides great guidelines for workplace productivity. It offers pragmatic insights by way of 4 rules (and several sub-rules) that offers practical guidance on how to truly be productive and reach a place of ‘Deep Work’.??I have summarised the main points of the book below using his headings and where possible taken direct quotes.?

I hope it’s as powerful a read for you as it was for me.

#Rule 1: Work deeply

Decide on Your Depth Philosophy

Newport argues that there are 4 Deep Work approaches (Monastic, Bimodal, Rhythmic or Journalistic). it’s significant to understand the approaches as it ultimately address the?how?you will go about working deeply.??The approaches range from a radical elimination of what Newport refers to as ‘shallow work’ (non-cognitively demanding logistical style tasks often performed while distracted), by withdrawal in some guise to focus on the task at hand, to the Journalistic approach which lets you fit in work wherever you can in your schedule.?

The approach selected is dictated by the character of the person, nature of the work to be executed and the commitments of the person at the time.?

Ritualise

Newport advocates for the use of rituals around work. He points to the practices of some famous ‘deep workers’ and he dismisses the idea of haphazard work as effective when trying to achieve a state of true focus. Some of the areas, he advocates developing rituals around are:

1. Where you will work and how long for.

2. How you will work once you start to work .E.g you might institute a ban on internet use, or maintain a metric such as words per twenty-minutes to keep your concentration honed.?

3. How you will support your work. Newport notes that “your ritual needs to ensure your brain gets the support it needs to keep operating at a high level of depth. For example, the ritual might specify that you start with a cup of good coffee, or make sure you have access to enough food or the right type of food to maintain energy or integrate light exercise such as walking to help keep the mind clear”.?

Make Grand Gestures

Newport argues that there is a strategic advantage in “…leveraging a radical change to your normal environment, coupled perhaps with a significant investment of effort or money, all dedicated toward supporting a deep work task, you increase the perceived importance of the task. This boost in importance reduces your minds instinct to procrastinate and delivers an injection of motivation and energy”.

A deliberate change of environment can create an access point for deep work to be achieved.?

Don’t Work Alone?

The book acknowledges the significance of working collaboratively, and addresses an apparent contradiction that he makes. On the one hand, Newport advocates for withdrawn periods that induce focus but then on the other hand goes on to advocate for a collaborative joint creativity. He clarifies the confusion by arguing that this type of collaboration – people bumping into each other and learning new things, which he calls the ‘Theory of Serendipitous Creativity’ and withdrawn work styles are not necessarily at odds.

Newport argues for a workplace where you can have “serendipitous encounter” but still have an environment that supports isolated thinking. He points out that architectural practice will play a part in this working style, where you may have “soundproofed offices, connected to large common areas” this yields a?“hub-and-spoke?architecture… in which both serendipitous encounter and isolated deep thinking are supported”.??

Execute like a business – 4 Key Disciplines of Execution.

Newport transposes a theory that corporates use to implement high level strategies called the 4 Disciplines of Execution. He suggests that “these ideas have been forged for the world of big business, but the underlying concepts seem to apply anywhere that something important needs to get done against the backdrop of competing obligations and distractions.”?

The 4 ideas are as follows:

1. Focus on the wildly important – the more you try to do the less you accomplish. “ you should identify a small number of ambitious outcomes to pursue with your deep work hours.”?

2. Act on lead measures rather than lag measures: once you have defined your wildly important goal measure the new behaviours that will institute to drive success rather than the lag measures, which are the things that you are trying to ultimately improve.?

3.?Keep a compelling scoreboard: a scoreboard creates a sense of competition that drives you to focus on the measures even when other demands vie for your attention.

4. Creating a cadence of accountability: “a rhythm of regular and frequent meetings that owns a wildly important goal. During meetings the team members must confront their scoreboard and commit to specific actions to help improve the score before the next meeting”.

Be Lazy

Newport is a proponent of shutting down after working hours. I really wrestled with this principle due to the reactive nature of my work. In fact I have often, in some form of perverse USP, paraded my ability to clients to be accessible at all hours. In truth, my family relationships have paid the price as as result. Newport suggests:?

“At the end of each work day, shut down your consideration of work issues until the next morning. No after dinner email check, no mental replays of conversations and no scheming about how you’ll handle an upcoming challenge; shut down work thinking completely”.

He then goes to on elaborate the various benefits of this:??“downtime helps aid mental insight and recharge energy.”?

#Rule 2 Embrace Boredom

Don’t Take Breaks from Distraction Instead Take Breaks from Focus.

It’s really evident when reading Newports work that he is critical of the use internet for entertainment purposes. He argues that, as a result of internet usage, “our brains have become accustomed to on-demand distractions as a result it is a hard to shake the addictions even when you want to concentrate.”?

Elsewhere he writes: “you will struggle to achieve the deepest level of concentration if you spend the rest of your time fleeing the slightest hint of boredom….we need to wean our mind from a dependence on distractions.”

“If every moment of potential boredom in your life – say, having to wait five minutes in line or sit alone in a restaurant until a friend arrives – is relieved with a quick glance at your smartphone, then your brain has likely been rewired to a point where….it's not ready for deep work even if you regularly schedule time to practice this concentration”. He also goes on to espouse that “once you’re wired for distraction you crave it”.?

“Instead of scheduling an occasional break from distraction so you can focus, you should instead schedule the occasional break from focus to give into distraction” schedule in advance when you will use the internet for example. This shift in paradigm was a powerful takeaway for me. The status quo should be focus on any given task and the habit cultivated will overflow in more meaningful tasks. It also highlighted that distraction is a?habit?that needs to be eliminated and replaced with a?habit?of focus.?

Work like Roosevelt?

Newport speaks of the academic success of Teddy Roosevelt and advocates a “Rooseveltian” style of work. He breaks down this style into 4 key behaviours:?

1. Estimate how long you would need for your work in question then put aside a hard deadline that drastically reduces this time.?

2. (if possible) commit publicly to the deadline.?

3. Then motivate yourself by setting a countdown timer where you can’t avoid seeing it as you work. 4 -??Keep self-Imposed deadlines at end edge of feasibility.

Meditate Productively

“The goal of productive meditation is to take a period in which you’re occupied physically but not mentally like walking, jogging, driving and showering and focus your attention on a single well-defined professional problem…. You may even consider scheduling a walk during your work day specifically for the purpose of applying productive meditation to your most pressing problem at the moment”.

Memorise a Deck of Cards

A side effect of memory training is an improvement in your general ability to concentrate. This ability can be fruitfully applied to any task demanding deep work.?

#Rule 3 – Quit social media.

To be sure, Newport is not against the use of social media. He advocates a more strategic and thoughtful use of it. He suggests that “…the threshold for allowing a site regular access to your time and attention …should be much more stringent, and that most people should therefore be using many fewer such tools”.??

In his view, social media “…used without limit, can be particularly devastating to your quest to work deeper” as he previously explains, it lends itself to the habit of distracted focus.

He then goes on to specifically argue against the use of internet for entertainment purposes even in leisure time. “These sites are especially harmful after the work day is over…. they provide a cognitive crutch to ensure you eliminate any chance of boredom …such behaviour is dangerous as it weakens your general ability to resist distractions”.?

“It is crucial, therefore, that you figure out in advance what you’re going to do with your evenings and weekends before they begin. Structured hobbies provide good fodder for those hours”.?

#Rule 4 – Drain the Shallows

“Treat shallow work with suspicion because its damage is often vastly underestimated and its importance vastly overestimated….you must keep it confined to a point where it doesn’t impede your ability to take full advantage of your deeper efforts”.

The following strategies can help to execute this:

1. Schedule every minute of your day.

2. Quantify the depth of the activity – learn to accurately label your work commitments.

3. Asking your boss for a shallow work budget – what percentage of time should be spent on shallow work? Then stick to that budget.

4. Finish your work by 5:30pm – Newport calls this fixed schedule productivity. Newport works backwards to find ways to satisfy this declaration – often learning to say “no” will allow you to have more free time.

5. Become hard to reach. Through the use of emails you respond to and the way you craft outgoing emails?(to ensure a more process-centric communication) you can eradicate shallow work to its baseline. He also suggests simply, in some instances, not responding.?

In Summary

I am a big fan of Newports deep work approach. I think it’s even more relevant in our time with the increased occurrence of hybrid working and the endless alerts, calls and meetings that seem to vie for our attention. This is not to say that his work is free of criticism. His approach to social media and work commitments, arguably, is quite binary. It could be argued that in some jobs,??social media is not tangential to work but actually?is?the work and the ability to operate on some level of reactive broken focus may be required in order to excel.?

Also, being an academic himself, Newport seems to cater his strategic advice to those who operate in silo more frequently than not. The advice lends itself to those that have the ability to be able to withdraw for periods of time. This may not be realistic in certain work environments.?

Finally, the book does little to address the professional structural issues of distractions that break deep focus. Oftentimes, the well-meaning colleagues are??the greatest perpetrators of breaking deep work habits. A section on communicating your deep work habits to others, without coming across like the office social recluse, would have served the book well.?

Notwithstanding this, I loved the book. A great read, filled with lots of practical advice to get more done with less time. The Implications of it are personal and professional. Any one interested in excelling through focus should read Cal Newport’s Deep Work.?