This is my final week of college so I would like to use this post for a moment of reflection. For my first graduate class I created a whitepaper on Deep Work in Documentary Production. I will be analyzing how this advice has worked for me so far and some new things that I have learned since then.

A Distracted World

In the whitepaper, I explain how the “attention economy” is enveloping more and more of our time. With the pandemic, things have only gotten worse.

When working at home or in a personal office, like many documentary producers do, it is even more difficult to avoid distractions. Through your computer you have access to hundreds of social and informational sites within seconds. Even away from your desk, your phone is a tether to constant connection and distraction.

In 2020 and 2021, it is not only documentary filmmakers who are staying at home – it jumped to 71% because of the pandemic. Working from home is not a bad thing, it can actually make your time a lot more productive – if you take the right steps to ensure that you do not get trapped by the only increasing distractions.

How to Do Deep Work

So how can we work from home, or anywhere, distraction-free and fully focused?

The first step is to decide what your deep work schedule looks like. There are three different types of schedules; bimodal (taking a chunk of days to focus on deep work), rhythmic (carving out time within specific days of the week), and a hybrid of the two. I had concluded that the hybrid schedule is best for documentary production where you can use the rhythmic philosophy for the “shallow work” of documentary production and the bimodal philosophy for “deep work”.

Having planned, filmed, and edited a documentary since that time I think that the “best” schedule depends on who you are and how you work. The bimodal philosophy can be extremely draining when you dive fully into a project and nothing else for a few days. I had done two very taxing shoots that would be in the category of bimodal and I can honestly say that it was not a stable way of working for me.

When I was editing my film, I tried the rhythmic philosophy: every morning I would get up at 5:30 AM to do another cut of the film. I would usually be done by 10 so I was able to use the rest of the day to attend to my other habits, duties, or shallow work.

Part of the reason that this was such a productive time for me was because I did this work in an uninterrupted and distraction-free environment. The apps on my phone would be locked (and I would use my phone for a Pomodoro timer) and my only task was editing – work that is definitely valuable and deep.

When to Do Deep Work

Carving out a chunk of the morning for deep work is no small task.

We only have 24 hours in the day, so we must make the most of it. Many people make the mistake of seeing the eight or nine hours they spend at work as the day and the time before and after it as bookends when we have nine more hours of conscious time to do with as we please.

The easiest way to make sure that you actually take advantage of each hour of the day is to find a proper planning system where you can plan exactly how you spend all of your time. While in my whitepaper I suggested using Trello, I have since moved to a physical planner, namely the Hobonichi Cousin.

Another tactic that I am still getting used to is living by the “hell yes!” or “no” methodology. I have been so close to burnout several times in the last few years, mostly because it is difficult for me to say no to opportunities that I am offered. (Actually, just last week I accepted two freelance gigs for the week of my finals – had I reminded myself of this method, I would not be writing this blog at 1 AM and two days late.) Really I need to practice what I preach, so this is a reminder for myself as well: only say yes when it is a hell yes, otherwise say no thank you.

Why Deep Work is Important

Deep Work is not only valuable in the sense that it creates something that is useful, entertaining, and unique; it gives the person doing the work purpose. In the whitepaper I talk about Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art and how it addresses the pain of facing resistance – a resistance that is strong, brutal, and ever-present – in order to create your life’s work.

Ask yourself ‘if I were the last person on earth, would I still want to be doing this?’ If your answer is yes, then you know that you can and will face any resistance necessary to create meaningful and irreplaceable work.

As my job search begins, I must keep this vital question in mind. I genuinely want to do work that is meaningful and that can allow me to make change in the world. I want to work somewhere where I am willing to face the resistance every single day with pride and courage. After reflecting on my whitepaper and the experiences I have gone through to get to this point, I am ready and more excited than ever.