In a world full of digital diversions, how are some people able to achieve a higher level of productivity than others? In the book Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, Georgetown University professor Cal Newport demonstrates how you can develop the skills necessary to focus on an optimum level and reach peak productivity. Learning how to do “deep work,” he argues, is among the most valuable skills people can learn.
In a nutshell, it boils down to this: set aside several 90-minute focus sessions a day in which you block out distractions and focus on an important task. That’s it. If you can do this daily, it’s been shown to improve productivity. “Three to four hours a day, five days a week, of uninterrupted and carefully directed concentration, it turns out, can produce a lot of valuable output,” Newport says.
Deep work pushes your cognitive capabilities, meaning it requires focus and concentration. It’s usually not something you can do while watching Netflix out of the corner of your screen.
Deep work is often a brief experience, cut short by meetings, chats, and other interruptions. You can set aside a four-hour block for deep work each day, but it would be difficult to maintain focus the entire time, even without interruptions. Think of how your mind sometimes wanders the longer you read an article or book — you just scan through the words and sentences, taking in none of their meaning. For tasks like this that require our full attention, our ability to stay focused tends to decrease over time.
It’s hard to argue with Newport’s logic. Unless you make a concerted effort to turn off all distractions, it’s difficult to attain the kind of productivity that turns out full book drafts in a matter of weeks or allows a professor to publish nine papers in a year. Since starting this article, I’ve already been interrupted by four texts, and once by my own brain telling me to write down a reminder about scheduling an appointment I’d been avoiding. I certainly shouldn’t be sitting anywhere near my phone. I know that if I focus intensely on this topic, I’ll be able to delve deeper and write faster than if I allow outside distractions. And when I’m finished, I’ll be able to move on to the next task with a free mind, even if the next task is a quick check-in in with my children or scheduling that dentist appointment. “When you work, work hard. When you’re done, be done,” says Newport.
How I’ll embrace deep work:
• Take control of my smartphone by reconfiguring the settings so that I no longer receive any alerts for social media or email.
• When I’m doing something, I will only do that one thing. This applies to everything from reading to experimenting with a new recipe. This will help me be more mindful in the moment, which some scientists say is as good for your brain as meditation.
What will you do?
How Deep Work Improves Productivity
