In our current world everyone is asking for your attention. It might be your friends, your colleagues or your Facebook friends that you have never even met before. However, your attention and time are limited resources. They need to be spent wisely and in an appropriate manner. But how do you do that in a world that is as connected as ever, where everyone can grasp you in an instant? And why would you want to be focused in the first place and escape all this distraction? Is it really necessary or is multitasking work, youtube, facebook and talking to our friends the right way to live your life?
If you want a rich fulfilled life, the answer might be: You really need to get rid of all the distractions and get into a state of deep mind. Cal Newport addresses this in his book Deep Work: Rules for focused success in a distracted world with a quote from Winifred Gallagher, who states, that he will live the focused life, because it's the best kind there is. And after finishing his book, I definitely agree. All the insights I received from the book are golden. Next to the well-known prophecy of quitting social media for a richer life, if you do not have a specific reason you are using it, he gives very constructive and practical insights, that you can directly apply to your own life and become more focused.
To get to know deep work, a little theoretic background might be useful. Deep Work includes all professional activities that are performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capacities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill and are hard to replicate. There are four different patterns of deep work: monastic deep work, journalist deep work, bimodal deep work, rhythmic deep work. Monastic deep work dedicates his whole time to only one task. Journalist deep work is using every single minute he can squeeze in towards his deep work. Bimodal deep work is switching between periods of deep work and periods of shallow work. The periods can range from weeks to months. Rhythmic deep work is a bimodal deep work, but packed in a day. So basically, every morning from 7 am to 9 am you will deeply work on your project. In the end, you will have to figure out which philosophy suits you best. It might even be a mix between them.
To reach the state of deep work the power of rituals and gestures can help to make deep work a habit. For me, it was hard to just tell myself to sit down at my desk at home and get into the state of deep work. It is far easier, to go to pack up your necessities and find a adequate place, where you can start doing your deep work. You can more easily commit yourself. Regarding the gestures, I love the example of J.K.Rowling, who was struggling finishing up her Harry Potter Series. So she checked into an expansive 5 star hotel. This move came with a huge commitment.
Other important rules are, that you have to supervise your deep work like a business. Follow up with lead measures, make a good plan and focus on the wildly important. For a PhD Student, it might be to focus on publishing 2 papers in the current year. It is a tough goal, but you will do everything to fulfill this goal. And don't forget to be lazy. You need the evening times to recharge your brain.
Another great insight is, that we must embrace boredom. Nowadays, everyone is pulling his electronic weapon as soon as he or she has an eye blink of spare time to check out social media. But why do we do this? Is there any particular reason to be reachable all the time? It is good to be bored sometimes and just let your mind wander around. Which also brought me into the habit of meditation, which I currently pursue and helped me to clear my mind up.
One tip I haven't followed yet, but will give a shot asap, is to train your brain outside of work. Your brain is like a muscle and you need to use it, if you want to get the most out of it. That's why Newport is suggesting to memorize a deck of cards. He even provides a little trick. Instead of remembering the card, you have to remember a familiar path with 5 rooms or setups (maybe your home/school/workplace). Once you are familiar with your setup, fill each room with 10 items that you can easily memorize, fix a sequence for the order of the items, go through it in your mind over and over again. Then you need to have an association with the cards, for example, Donald Trump refers to the King of Diamonds. So when you go through the deck, if your first item in your first room is a mat, and the first card is the King of Diamonds, you can imagine, Donald Trump to wipe his shoes of at the door mat. I wrote this down in such detail, since I really want to try this out by myself. I am curious if it works.
Lastly, schedules are very important and you should distinguish between shallow and deep work in your scheduling. For experienced deep workers, a maximum of 4 hours of deep work are the limit per day.
Overall, these are the most important takeaways from Cal Newports book and I am glad that he spread his wisdom to all of us. It is a great read and I hope you can get your hands on a copy of it. Would love to hear from you in the comments how you deep work is affecting your life!
