What is the one skill that, if you have it, will completely change your life?

Deep Work - One of the most valuable skills is becoming increasingly rare. ~ Cal Newport

Microsoft study revealed that we now have an attention span of 8 seconds–making our attention span shorter than that of a goldfish (at nine seconds).

Let’s take few examples to showcase how distracted I am :

1. I always have 10+ tabs open on my browser. I keep switching between tabs between email, WhatsApp Web, Facebook, Quora, my website, google analytics and what not.
2. I open an app, scroll through it a little, close it and open it again. I am so distracted that I forget what I just did.
3. If I have 3 tasks to complete in day, I end up working partly on all 3 instead of focusing to complete 1 of it.

This has affected the quality of my work and made me very irritable, I go to bed every night cursing myself on my inability to complete any of the tasks. This had to change, after all I am an entrepreneur and I got a business to run. How can I let myself be so distracted?

I came across this term “Deep Work” on a blogpost and decided to try my hands at this. It’s really helped me increase my productivity and made me happier. Let’s explore what Deep Work is :

‘Deep Work’ is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task.

Some key advantages of deep work:

1. You’re happier.
2. It results in high value creative output. You’re less likely to make mistakes.
3. You’re able to overshoot your goals and meet deadlines better than ever.
4. Deep work creates momentum. “You tap into the power of success accelerants and achieve goals faster.”

If you too are a victim of “Shallow Work” and want to adopt this strategy, I’d like to challenge you to “The 100 day Deep Work Challenge”. The rules for the challenge are as follows:

1. Rule 0 - Distraction free. No mobile phones. Find a silent spot where humans can’t disturb you.
2. Rule 1 - Set a Goal - Deep work is intended to achieve a goal and not wander aimless. Set a goal for yourself - Write a book, Master a skill, or complete a video course.
3. Rule 2 - 90 minutes everyday - Complete 90 minutes of deep work everyday without a single break. It could be anything - Reading a book, Watching a tutorial video, Writing a blog/Quora answers etc
4. Rule 3 - Deep work first - Complete your Deep work session first thing in the morning.
5. Rule 4 - Track - At the end of each Deep Work session, write down what you have achieved, what problems you face and how do you plan to solve it.

Track all your 100 days and see your life change. I believe this is one skill, if mastered can change the lives of millions of people, especially us millennials who are hooked to our smart-phones all the time.

~Shashank Shekhar

CEO, Stoned Santa