Deep Focus — Get More Done in Less Time
We all want that secret formula to success, mastering a skill or earning the big bucks — with the least amount of effort. I can assure you, knowing how to use deep work, will get you there in the least amount of time possible!
You’ve probably heard of the term ‘Deep Work’ popularised by Cal Newport from his book with this same title. Whilst the idea is not new — focusing on a cognitively demanding task for a prolonged period of time without distraction — his book really helped with an explanation of how and why it works. Included are many great examples and many different methods of how to implement deep work into your life.
I have started to implement deep work into my daily schedule which fits one of the methods he speaks of in the book;
The Rhythmic Philosophy of Deep Work Scheduling
Whilst there are other methods to reaching a deep work / flow state, I have found this rhythmic method to work best and I think it will suit most peoples lives too. If you’d like to learn about the other methods or understand the concept in a more detailed manner I’d highly suggest picking up a copy of the book. Until then — I’m here to help you get started with it!
💰 Exploiting the Knowledge Economy 💪🏼
There are 2 core abilities needed to flourish in the environment we have found ourselves in today:
1. The ability to quickly master hard things
2. The ability to produce at an elite level, in terms of both quality and speed
Today’s world has become focused on how much, how well and how quickly one can master a skill. Predominantly these days, the skill to learn is non-physical.
Newport has coined our financial system as the ‘knowledge economy’. Rather than using our bodies to do the heavy lifting we are using our brains. Pretty simple concept ay?
However, it may seem daunting at first, but upon breaking it down into dissectible parts, it becomes quite manageable — and surprisingly fun.
We can start off with probably the most boring word you don’t want to hear — so let’s get it over and done with because to be honest, I’m tired of hearing about it too.
Consistency
Yurp, I said it.
Cool — moving along swiftly because consistency alone is not going to have us master our desired skill.
Why?
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results” — Albert Einstein
‘Deliberate practice’ has entered the chat.
I have a dart board at home. If everyday I throw a dart at the board but just sort of picked the dart up and threw it. Eventually I’ll get good at aiming in the general direction of the board and probably getting the dart to stick. However, if I did the same but actually took my time, aimed at the bullseye and concentrated on keeping good form whilst throwing the dart, you can bet I’d get pretty good at getting very close to the bullseye each time.
This is ‘deliberate practice’, popularised by Malcom Gladwell in his book Outliers: The Story of Success. In order for something to qualify as deliberate practice there are 2 components:
1. Focusing your attention tightly on a specific skill or idea that you are trying to improve upon
2. Receiving feedback so that you can correct yourself where needed, ensuring you are focusing on what’s most productive to this action.
Let’s follow this idea up with an equation for the ‘Law of Productivity’:
🧠 Doing the Maths 🧮
Law of Productivity:
High Quality Work Produced = (Time Spent) X (Intensity of Focus)
What’s this all mean? Pretty simple — Me find one thing. Me focus hard. Me do long time. Good come out.
Want an example? Sure.
You can go to the gym 5 days a week — great! You aren’t going to be lifting the same weight over and over again without really pushing yourself right? Nope — that’s not going to get you the results you are seeking. Instead of half arsing it, you are going to push yourself, work on good form and increase the weight as you progress. This requires concentration on the movement and attention to your body to understand the feedback you are receiving — deliberate practice!
Time spent would be the time you were doing the exercises and the intensity of focus is how much attention you paid to performing the exercise correctly.
This is an equation so let’s do the maths!
Sometimes it’s easier to see with numbers. Bigger number = good. Smaller number = less good. Obviously this is overly simplified! But it’s to get the point across — so don’t @ me!
In the example above you can see that the concentration on the task for just 1 hour produced a higher output than that of the low intensity 4 hour session.
I won’t make you look at any more maths today, so let’s get straight to doing the deed… or doing the deep.
Hah, hilarious — deserves a clap for this article surely?
🪜 Fulfilment in Just 3 Steps 📈
During the come-up days of Jerry Seinfeld, he made use of consistency, deep work and a visual to keep him on track and making progress. I’ll briefly mention the visual method because it is something I currently use daily, you can read more about that in my MonkMode Protocol article.
This visual is called the ‘chain method’ which is as simple as it sounds. For every single day that you do that THING, mark an X on your calendar. Soon enough you are going to have a chain of X’s. For me — this must be one of the most powerful methods for keeping me coming back for more each day.
Whilst the chain method will help to motivate you to come back every day, you need rituals.
This ain’t that hocus-pocus typa shit though — sorry. It’s just not that easy.
We can use rituals to minimise the friction in our transition into the deep work state. Such that we can more easily go deep and stay in this state for longer. Keeping in mind that we are all just human with crazily different personalities. There is no one size fits all deep work ritual. You kinda just needa read em’, try em’ and then decide what works best for you.
Here are 3 questions you can use to to address your rituals:
1. Where you’ll work and for how long?
This is something the book Atomic Habits speaks of too, which I touch on in my MonkMode Protocol article. Having a set place and time will help you to transition into the work you need to do. The more often you do the task, in that spot, at that exact time, the more easily it will become a habit. It’s best to set a specific time frame for this session too — enabling an almost discrete challenge and not leaving it open-ended.
2. How will you work once you’ve started?
This is how you’ll establish a structure. A great idea is instituting a ban on all communication during this time. Creating a metric to maintain will keep you hustling too will benefit you. Such as the amount of words per 20 minute interval — if you’re a writer. Having a structure in place will help you to assess whether you are working sufficiently hard during the sessions.
3. How will you support your work?
My support is a great cup of coffee! Yours may be organising your desk, clearing the clutter and ensuring only what you need is available to you. Maybe it’s some stretching or a short yoga session. It could be having the right snacks with you to ensure you get that energy that you will definitely need as you go deep. Having these supports in place ensures there is less need to get up again once you have begun. Less distraction, less mind wandering.
🙅🏼♀ ️Never Don’t Not Commit 🫵🏼
With a bit of practice you’ll start to see the wonders of deep work. You’ll start making so much more progress than you have done in the past. Being in this flow state turns the hours into minutes. Consistent deep work days will also have you feeling a kind of fulfilment which is rewarding in itself.
To sum up the article into 3 of the most important words;
Consistency,
Practice,
Focus.
Emphasis on the consistency. Please do not beat yourself up if today you didn’t manage to go as deep, didn’t manage to spend as much time or didn’t get as much focus in as you wanted to. Consistency is key. Doing it more and more often will make it easier. Even if you are only doing a little bit, this effort compounds over time. Bringing Einstein back for another dose of wisdom — he famously referred to compounding (interest) as the eighth wonder of the world so take advantage of it!
Thank you for reading. If you’ve made it this far please consider subscribing, liking and commenting. I would love to hear from you — what would you like to hear more of? What did you like? What did you dislike? Would be glad to hear anything and everything to make my articles better.
Till next time — ciao 🤙🏼
