Going Deep… With Your Work
Last time, I promised that we would be going deep into a topic that some might find surprising:
Our work.
Today, we’ll be discussing how focus, a state called “flow” and energy management can help you get more done in less time — without sacrificing the quality of your work.
What is Deep Work?
George Town professor Cal Newport is a superstar in productivity circles. Mention his name to anyone with any interest in productivity and they’ll instantly know who you’re talking about.
In 2016, Newport wrote a book called Deep Work which repeatedly ranks in the top ten (if not the top five) for most influential productivity books of the decade. If you’re looking for a more in-depth look at the topics discussed here, I highly suggest reading it.
Deep Work argues that the key to becoming prolifically productive is not in doing more, but in doing less with greater focus. In fact, the formula Newport gives for deep work is:
“High-Quality Work Produced = (Time Spent) x (Intensity of Focus)”
Thus, deep work is actually a term for work done at an intense level of focus for a certain period of time to produce something of meaning and value. Newport also argues that deep work is “rare,” meaning that it can’t be easily delegated to another individual. It becomes the work that you — and only you — can do.
Maximizing Deep Work
So, it’s easy to see why everyone would want to engage in deep work. It enables every individual to produce something uniquely valuable to society. Maximizing that work, however, can be tricky.
If you look at the formula above for deep work, you might think that the time spent doing the work would be more important. But there’s actually one main issue with “time spent” as a variable: it can be maxed out.
First, we all have the same 24 hours in a day. So we’re already limited. Add on life obligations and that time becomes even more limited. Then, to cap it all off, we’re actually restricted in the amount of time we can perform work that requires intense concentration.
The first two statements seem a bit obvious. But the last one — that’s the kicker, right? Where does this limit come from?
In the early 90s, a psychologist named K. Anders Ericsson examined the habits of elite performers — musicians, athletes and even memory champions. From this research, Ericsson developed a theory known as “deliberate practice.” This kind of practice is repetitive and meant to perfect one aspect of a person’s work.
For a golfer, it might be working on the same swing over and over again. For a pianist, it would be practicing the same difficult passage repeatedly until it’s perfected. Deliberate practice may sound boring, but it seems to be what separates the masters from the average crowd. And it sounds a bit similar to what we’re looking for with deep work: intense focus over an amount of time.
Whenever Ericsson looked at his data, however, he noticed a pattern. Individuals who were just getting started with deliberate practice could only manage about an hour of focused work before their minds began drifting. “Experts” who were well acquainted with deliberate practice could work up to about four hours, but rarely more than that before mental exhaustion set in.
The same principle applies for deep work — when you’re just getting started, you may not be able to manage more than an hour. Once you make deep work a habit, you might pull off four hours, but probably not much more than that.
So, we’ve established that we can only do so much to maximize our deep work output on the time end of the formula. Let’s look at the other variable: focus.
Flow and Focus
Have you ever lost yourself in your work? To the point that you think only fifteen or thirty minutes have passed, but when you look at the clock, you realize you’ve been working for hours?
Congratulations, you’ve experienced “flow.”
In the mid-70s, psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced as “cheeks-sent-me-high”) began to explore creativity and the importance of “play” in psychology. This research eventually led to the discovery of a mental state called “flow.” Csikszentmihalyi calls “flow” an “optimal experience.” The activity is reward enough in itself.
Here’s the thing about flow — reaching it has certain requirements. In fact, there are three:
- Flow requires a goal-oriented task with near-immediate feedback on performance.
- The task must be something an individual can become so engrossed in that they forget everything else but the task.
- The task must be slightly above your abilities, forcing you to stretch, just a bit.
Sounds like the kind of task that would take a lot of focus, right? And that’s why tasks oriented to reach a flow state are perfect for a deep work mindset.
Flow state is so absorbing that it’s a “painless” sort of focus. It allows you to work on a task without necessarily forcing the work. Basically, if you can hit a flow state, you can churn out deep work with ease.
But what if you need to do deep work on a task that you can’t seem to get into a flow state with? Newport states that the “focus” aspect of deep work is all about finding the suitable schedule for you (more on this in just a bit), removing distractions and creating rituals to induce the mindset needed for deep work.
The third point may have you wondering: how are you supposed to create rituals to focus? My answer: look at what comes to you naturally.
I firmly believe that everyone has at least one thing that they can “naturally” jump into the flow state with. And I don’t mean that it has to be some grand task. It could be some everyday occurrence like cleaning. But everyone has a task like that somewhere.
Think about what this task might be for you. And don’t limit yourself. I don’t care if it seems silly or trivial. Whatever it might be, I want you to zero in on it.
Now think, what do you do before, during and after that task? Do you put on a certain kind of music? Do you leave your phone in another room? Where are you when you typically do the task? What time is it? Write all of these things down, especially the things you do before the task.
The end result: you’ll have environmental changes that could help ease you into deep work. Listen to the same music, sit in the same room — try potential trigger after potential trigger until you hit on the things that makes hitting your focused state easier.
Scheduling Deep Work
So in all of this, we haven’t addressed how to actually make time for your deep work tasks.
Cal Newport outlines four “philosophies” on deep work. I like to think of these as different “schedules.” The four are:
Monastic: Requires an individual to disengage from the everyday (and thus getting away from focus-draining “shallow” tasks) for an extended period of time (weeks or even months), similar to a cloistered monk.
Bimodal: An individual alternates periods engaged with everyday, shallow tasks and periods of deep work on some form of sliding scale (usually a week or a month). Using a week as an example, someone might spend three to four days on deep work and three to four days with “non-deep” tasks.
Rhythmic: A habit of deep work is established so that deep work becomes a daily occurrence. This is slightly different from the bimodal method as the emphasis is placed on consistency (same time, every day or every week) of deep work.
Journalistic: The name here comes from observations of journalists who tend to write “whenever possible,” even if it’s only a short five or ten minute spurt. An individual flips “back and forth” between deep work and shallow work, regardless of the time available.
Now, I would guess that among the average population, the last three “philosophies” are the most practical. Very few of us have the luxury of being able to separate from everything in our daily lives (needed to truly reach the “monastic” method.) So, I’d like to focus on these methods.
The main issue with the last three methods is determining when you’ll do them. Here, I’d like to make an addition to Newport’s philosophy: we must take our energy levels into account.
Energy management has gotten traction as a productivity topic in the last few years, especially as new research explores our circadian (daily) and ultradian (cycles lasting less than a day) rhythms.
Related research on chronotypes, or the measure of when individuals prefer to sleep, is another up-and-coming area. Basically, some research indicates that individuals may be genetically predisposed to be “night owls” or “morning larks.”
It’s still contended how much influence our genetics have and how much control we have over changing our preferences, but I would argue: why fight it if we don’t have to?
If you’re a morning person, doing your deep work first thing as soon as you wake up is probably a great tactic. You’re at your peak energy levels and will have a better ability to focus. So maybe your deep work strategy would be getting up a bit earlier to do your deep work before you have to truly “start” your day.
Now, I can hear my fellow night owls groaning at the mere mention of this type of schedule. That’s fine — it simply means it’s not the schedule you need to follow. Instead, look for where you feel your best during the day. Maybe you “hit your groove” a couple of hours after waking up, maybe it’s not until well after 5:00 in the evening. In any case, find that time and try to block some of it off to perform your deep work.
Morning folks, you do have one major advantage over the evening people. Willpower is strongest in the morning (regardless of sleep patterns), so you’ll be doing your deep work with the greatest amount of willpower available to you.
Evening people, don’t let this discourage you. Simply keep in mind and try to schedule your deep work tasks for as early in the day as you can — as long as it is in keeping with when you’re feeling the most energized.
Regardless of your sleeping patterns, managing your energy in this way will also help cement deep work as a regular habit if you’re using the rhythmic approach.
Now, the journalistic approach may seem hard to apply energy management to. You can still take your circadian rhythms into account (i.e. trying to work on the deeper side more often when you’re feeling energetic), but more focus may need to paid to your ultradian rhythms. Most folks will have about ninety minutes of “active” brainpower, followed by a need for twenty to thirty minutes of rest. Use this to your advantage when flipping back and forth and try not to start your deep work at the beginning of a “rest” cycle.
To sum up, the key to improving your deep work is to go with what feels “natural” as much as you can.
Hopefully, this has given you insight into the importance of deep work and how to start incorporating it into your daily life. If you’re interested in finding out more about any of the topics discussed in this series, I encourage you to explore the books mentioned.
Next time, we’ll be diving into exactly why we can’t rely on willpower to get us through tasks we’d rather not do— especially when we’re stressed.
Finally, to all of my American readers: I hope you have a happy Thanksgiving!