Set Aside Time for “deep Work” to Be Successful in Your Biggest Projects
Making time to focus on projects that require intense concentration can be tricky if your day is filled with meetings, emails, and conversations from colleagues. Scheduling blocks of time for this “deep work” can help you make more progress.
“Working deep,” as Cal Newport defined, is when you have a task that requires deep concentration to progress. For example, developing presentations, coming up with new ideas, or anything that moves your project, team or company forward. In contrast, “shallow work” includes administrative things such as paperwork, email, and meetings.
Finding time in the midst of small work to focus your energy and think about deep work is more than just planning time for deep work on your calendar. You should also track this to see if you are actually using the allotted time. Cal Newport explains:
One of the ideas that I found really useful is the scoreboard. I keep counting so that every day I can see how many hours of deep work I actually did. It seems like a simple thing, but without it it is so easy to live a week and just say, “Well, I was busy and I think I did some serious work there.” As soon as you start keeping score, you look at it and say, “Did I work one hour out of a 40-hour week? I feel awkward “. A compelling scoreboard encourages action.
Tracking your actual hours of deep work during the work week shows whether you are committing enough time to it. If you find that this is not the case, pay attention to what small work or distractions are preventing you from using this deep work time. It can be difficult to cut back on meetings or say no to people , but in the long run this deep work will pay off in the long run.
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