We all know that deep work is important and does nothing but good for us – but when it comes down to actually doing it, where do we start?

In Cal Newport’s Deep Work, he gives some guidance on how to make the magic of “deep work” happen through a set of rules. The first rule being, of course, to “work deeply”. More specifically, the first rule is to add routines and rituals to your life that make the transition into focus easier.

Determine a Depth Philosophy

The first step in this process is to “decide on your depth philosophy”. Depending on the person and the type of work, their philosophy and approach to deep work will vary greatly.

There are those who may follow the monastic philosophy where they radically minimize or fully eliminate “shallow distractions” so they can focus on work. This could be through only allowing communication via post mail or not allowing outside contact at all in the aim to focus on a clear, discrete, and individualized contribution to the world.

For those who cannot simply cut off all contact from the world the bimodal philosophy may work better. In the bimodal approach, you make those eliminations only in periods of time (a minimum of one day) where you are focusing on deep work. Scholars such a psychologist Carl Jung and professor Adam Grant use this philosophy, benefiting from both long periods of focused time and for “shallow” tasks outside of their typical work.

A more practical approach for the everyday worker is the rhythmic philosophy where deep work becomes more of a habit than an intense session. Comics like Jerry Seinfeld and scholars like Brian Chappell use this method of blocking off a set time in their day to focus only on their work in order to make time for everything else in their lives more worry-free.

The final approach is the journalistic philosophy, where you use whatever free time you can find to work deeply. This one should be practiced with caution, however, as it requires you to be confident in your ability to easily switch into a deep work mindset.

While I would like to say I am confident in my ability to focus, I simply can not. So, I am choosing to use the rhythmic philosophy – I will simply block out a few specific times in my week where I will wake up earlier to get work done…but it is not quite that simple.

Ritualize Deep Work

You have already determined your depth philosophy, so now it is time to go deeper. Deep work must become a strict ritual so that you can make the most of the time you have allotted for focus. Newport suggests addressing the environment, parameters, and supplements for your work.

The environment you work in is wildly important to your focus – if you can dedicate a spot to only deep work that is even better. In addition to location, the time must be set in stone as well. The more specific, the more likely you are to actually follow through. In the Behavioral Scientist article Remedies for the Distracted Mind, it is established that the best work spaces are those that avoid distraction – using only a simple screen and everything not relevant off your desk.

The next step is to define how you will work once you actually start working. Structure is key – know if you what resources you need for the work you are doing and ban/ignore all else. Don’t let shallow distractions like email and instant messaging let you think you are doing work – they are in fact quite harmful to your productivity.

The Behavioral Scientist article actually states that it may take up to 30 minutes to regain focus after checking one of these shallow distractions. Not only that, but it references a study where 124 adults were divided into two groups: one was told to check their email as often as they could and the other was told only to check their email three times a day. After a week the groups switched tasks and it was found that when the subjects were only checking email three times a day, they had “reported less stress, which predicted better overall well-being on a range of psychological and physical dimensions.”

Something that the article suggests you do to put yourself on the right track for blocking out these distractions is using an app like Stay Focused to block or put a time limit on any application on your phone (or your phone in general) during certain periods in the day. I have started to use the app myself and found that it is not only useful in making me stay focused while doing deep work, but that it makes me more aware of how much time I spend on each app.

Divide the “What” and “How”

Now that everything has been prepared for us to dive into actually doing it. We know what we must do, but how should we do it? Newport suggests you execute your deep work “like a business” by following the four disciplines that highly successful companies use as outlined in the book The 4 Disciplines of Execution.

The first discipline is to focus only on “the wildly important” – you must have a specific goal for each deep work session. As the authors of the book say, “The more you try to do, the less you actually accomplish.” Having a single tangible, executable goal not only means that you are more likely to get it done, but that when it is done you will be boosted by the accomplishment you feel having done it.

The second discipline is to “act on lead measures.” There are two types of measures: lag measures, which are what you are ultimately trying to improve, and lead measures, which are smaller behaviors that will support those lag measures. In the case of deep work, Newport suggests, the primary lead measure is the amount of time spent in deep work.

The third discipline is to “keep a compelling scoreboard.” Newport’s scoreboard of choice is a row of paper with a tally marked for each hour spent working deeply, the hours where he achieved a goal or finished a task being circled. Any sort of visual representation works – choose something that displays your “score” (hours spent in deep work) in an exciting and energizing way.

The last discipline is to “create a cadence of accountability.” This can be in the form of weekly meetings to share progress (which pressures you to show that there has been some) or planning your week ahead of time. My personal choice is to use a whiteboard in my room with a checklist of the major tasks I have to get done on each day, along with a portable checklist in my planner. Nothing is more satisfying than checking off all the boxes in a large list!

Cut off the Stimulation

The final step to doing deep work is to stop doing it. In fact, it is best to stop doing anything related to work at all. At the end of your deep work, shut down all thinking and all work-related communication.

Having downtime aids in creating insights we night otherwise never let ourselves reach. In the TED Talk How to Get Your Brain to Focus, Chris Bailey makes the conclusion that due to all this screen time and constant communication, our brains are over stimulated which makes focusing difficult. He says that we are victim to our brain’s novelty bias – the crave for dopamine release that ends up taking over all of our time to actually take a breath and think.

After doing research on focus, Bailey did a month-long experiment where he did a “boring” task for one hour every day from reading the terms and conditions to staring at the ceiling. What he found was that after a week, he adapted to this “under”stimulation and during these times great ideas and plans came to him simply because he let his mind wander. He concluded with the thought that we should re-discover boredom because distractions are not really the enemy – they are a symptom of over-stimulation.

In addition to allowing time for insights, being lazy lets you recharge your brain so you can be more productive when you are doing focused work. Also, as Newport points out, the majority of the work you would do after-hours is typically not important so you should save your focus for the more constructive tasks.

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Now we know how to do deep work, but let’s step back an take a look at the why.

In previous blog posts, I have explored the tremendous effects that smartphones and the technology boom has had on the world and every single person inside. The article A Sociology of the Smartphone brings many of these effects to the forefront by reminiscing on the world before – a world of physical objects like pictures, cameras, keys, tickets, photos, calendars, and maps that we relied on. Now, everything we rely on is all in one device – a device that has become a part, for some a big part, of your identity.

Not only are the things we are reliant on in our phone, but as phones are becoming more and more widespread the option to use anything else is being taken away. This is especially harmful when it comes to sharing our personal data – surrendering our data is no longer becoming a choice, but a necessity. As Adam Greenfield says in his article, “whether we’re quite aware of it or not, we are straightforwardly trading our privacy for convenience.”

Greenfield ends his article with a quote from Winston Churchill: “We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.” While his application of this quote is to show how we have created this grim situation by creating tools like smartphones and communication networks. While I agree with this take, I think this quote can be used in a more positive and proactive way.

“We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.”

Greenfield, A. (2017, June). A sociology of the smartphone. Longreads. Retrieved from
https://longreads.com/2017/06/13/a-sociology-of-the-smartphone/

Even though these buildings have been created and we are becoming more aware of the negative effects they have caused, there is no reason that we can’t demolish them and create new buildings. This time, let’s construct the building with our well being, including our ability to focus, in mind.