Deep

Go deep and get complete.

John Tesh turned me on to the book Deep Work by Cal Newport.

"Deep work is defined as the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It's a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. Deep work will make you better at what you do and provide the sense of true fulfillment that comes from craftsmanship. Most people have lost the ability to go deep... instead spending their days in a frantic blur of e-mail and social media, not even realizing there's a better way."

How important this is this book right now?

Very important... I wish I had it 10 years ago when I started my business!

What is resonating with me as I read it?

My inability to go deep is probably the single greatest cause to my personal growth (and thus impacts the growth of my business).

The Any-Benefit trap

I've been drawn tools and processes that keep me in the shallows.

Does the new tool provide any benefit? Likely. But does it make my work better or just keep me in the shallows?

Become a more critical tool curator. A better approach:

Identify the core factors that determine success & happiness (in our personal & work life). Only adopt a tool if it's positive output substantially outweighs it's negative impact.

What's key is you understand what your primary goals are!

The human adapts to its tools and its tasks.

As I speak to my mentors about by business, a common thread to their advice was to go deep. I've got far too many unfinished projects.

Going deep is about sustained periods of focus in one area. Going deep is the perfect way to describe what occurs when you dedicate prolonged periods of time in one area.

Fences of Focus

I have learned the importance of having a dedicated workspace. I can see why it helps to have a dedicated device for writing. I love my AlphaSmart because it serves one purpose: to write. There's no formatting to slow me down and it's not connected to the internet.

Those days when I wake up full of energy without focus, I feel like an unguided missile. My energy pours into whatever falls into my line of sight.

Tips & Tricks for creating fences of focus

Do you have a computer dedicated to writing?

One of the keys to Deep Work is to define a workspace and create fences for focus. Remove the temptation to get distracted by anything not essential to the deep work.

Predefine a place and time for deep work.

It hit me that when you use your home office for your artwork, there's competing priorities.

Deep Work Rules

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4 disciplines of the 4DX framework

1. Focus on the Wildly Important Goals

The more you try to do, the less you actually accomplish. Execution should be limited to a small number of BHAGs to pursue with the time you dedicate to deep work.

A specific goal with tangible benefits is what will motivate you to do the deep work. It's the root of enthusiasm. "Let the terrifying longing crowd out everything else." (David Brooks)

Set a BHAG. Ask: What if accomplished would make a big impact?

2. Act on the Lead Measures

Measure your success. Focus on the lead measures within your control.

Lag measures:

Lead measures:

Lag measures are results you are trying to achieve. Things that already occred by the time you measure them. Website analytics for example. By the time they are measured, it's impossible to change the result.

Lead measures on the other hand focus on actions you have control over that impact the lag measure. For example, if you need to increase the revenue in your business, you might measure lead generation activities and identify your most profitable products/services.

In the realm of deep work, it's the time spent on deep work towards your BHAG instead of the BHAG itself.

Track your deep work hours each day, not the result. Focus on the effort, not the result.

Keep a tally!

3. Keep a Compelling Scoreboard

Gamify your deep work. A physical artifact. Focus on metrics that drive improvement. Keep your rhythm register in front of you. Don't break the chain is a powerful URL. Cal took the idea a step further by circling the x's on his tally to reflect ships (milestones). It gave him an appreciation for the number of ours it actually took to achieve a milestone.

4. Create a Cadence of Accountability

Brief weekly (or daily) status (stand up) meetings to review the scoreboard and hold each other accountable to prior commits. To identify obstacles and gain insight on how to overcome. New commits are made for the week ahead.

Friday weekly review, Monday weekly plan.

Use your lead measure scorecard to drive results.

Plan your day or others will!

Execution trumps strategizing.

Idleness is vital

Your inbox is a pin prick obligations. Individually, you hardly feel them, but cumulatively, they cause serious injury. Time spent in your inbox is time you are stealing from deep work.

Idleness is vital. Meditation is a daily practice in idleness.

Create time on your schedule to retreat from shallow tasks.

Create a ritual of shutting down.

At the end of the work day, shut down until tomorrow. Your brain needs the idle time and you need to sleep! Indeed, with evening commitments, this is not always necessary, but consider on those days that your workday extends longer. Give yourself some time to recover the next day. This will help you avoid burnout.

Take mini vacations.

Downtime aids insights.

Downtime allows your energy to recharge. Attention fatigue is why after 72 hours in New York City, I'm exhausted. You need to take time to recharge so you can refocus your attention on the task at hand.

Just as you must give your phone time to recharge, when your batteries are low, you won't function as well and eventually go into a forced shutdown.

We are all dealing with attention fatigue. Spending time in nature can improve your ability to concentrate.

My brilliant insights often follow my yoga class.

Shut down (relaxing) activities

Key: Freedom from directed concentration

It's about finding an activity inherently fascinating stimuli!

It's about scheduling evening activities that free you up from focused concentration.

Don't disrupt your rest with work dashes. Attention restoration demands sustained periods of rest.

It's often better to do nothing at all.

Some decisions are better left to your unconscious mind to untangle. What this means is that you don't actively work on a solution, but rather step away from the problem and do something else. Under pressure to come up with a unique program, this is where I got the insight for the Hot Seat.

Conscious deliberation isn't always going to lead to the best decision. Think paralysis by analysis.

See UTT: Unconscious Thought Theory

Is your day ahead full of conflicting priorities? Consider looking ways to tap into your UTT.

Maintain a strict endpoint to your workday.

Never check your email on the weekends.

Habit stacking for your EOD (end of day).

A series of steps you conduct one after another. Set phrase: 'Shutdown complete' It cues your mind that it's safe to leave your work.

Cal's shutdown ritual (10-15 mins):

  1. Final review of inbox.
  2. Transfer new tasks to centralized tasks lists (google docs)
  3. Review the calendar for the days ahead
  4. Make a plan for the next day (consider it done)
  5. Announce 'Shutdown complete' to cue the mind that the workday has ended.

Tip: skim every task and assign them in time over the next few days.

Give your ritual a week or two to stick.

Incomplete tasks dominate our attention.

If skipping your ritual creates a sense of unease, you know you've successfully established a new habit!

Your workday has a start, middle, and end.

Limits on deep work and deliberate practice.

1-4 hours per day of intense concentration. Your capacity for deep work is limited your level.

When to do shallow tasks vs. deep work.

The criteria used to determine if a task is considered 'shallow' or 'deep'

Is it something a college grad with a few months of training could do? If so, it's shallow work.

Just because a task feels productive, doesn't mean it's deep work.

What's your shallow work budget?

How much time are you actually spending on shallow work?

Consider It Done! the Cognitive Effects of Unfulfilled Goals Are Eliminated By Making a Plan (E. J. Masicampo and Roy Baumeister)

Prior work suggests that unfulfilled goals persist in the mind, affecting thoughts and attention, until they are attained. Our research suggests that simply making a plan to attain a goal is sufficient to eliminate the goal’s various effects on cognition, thereby freeing resources for other concerns.

Related (Further Reading & Watching)

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