7 ms·

Deep Work: A welcome kick in the butt

223 points by cpbotha 10y ago

dominotw 10y ago
>Extending the length of the 25 minute pomodoro. If I’m in the deep work flow, I’ll continue past the 25 minute alarm. Someone told me that its 25 minutes because it prevents you from building too much context in your head that prevents you from taking a break at 25 min mark. You can't do creative work if your brain is filled with lot of context. eg: TDD goes really well with pomodoro because you are only thinking about the next test and you can break on failing test so you can pick up right back. Is this a reason for 25 min for Pomodoro?
- cpbotha 10y ago
  I used to advise friends to stick to the 25 / 5 minute break, but more because I thought that this enabled one to sustain this rhythm for longer. However, currently I'm experimenting with longer pomodori, with the reasoning that if I'm in the flow / deeply working, the value of that flow is too great to take the risk that I might break it because of an arbitrary break. I think a better advice now would be to experiment, and see what suits you best in terms of sustainability, output and fulfilment. Today I my pomodori were between 25 minutes and an hour. It's home time now, but I feel great due to a large part of the day filled with flow.
- josephg 10y ago
  I'll be honest; I've never understood this mindset. The idea of purposefully interrupting my flow every 25 minutes, explicitly dropping my context is ghastly. If you could design an ideal hell for me it would involve hard, interesting programming problems and constant (every ~10-20 minute) seemingly random external interruptions. (Its not an accident that I don't have children.) Most of the work I'm really proud of happens in 1-1.5 week long coding binges, during which I code ~14 hours a day, don't eat well and don't get outside much. During that time my entire being is oriented around the problem. I sleep when I'm too tired to be productive and wake up with the problem spilling out of me. I usually need a couple of weeks recovery time afterwards during which I'm pretty useless for anything thats not light and fluffy. But that time is 100% worth it. If I could work at that intensity for 1 week out of each month I'd be more productive than I have been at any 9-5 job I've ever had. Well, for a given definition of productivity. So I guess I like pomodoros - I just think they should be about 1 week in length.
  - ajmurmann 10y ago
    Do you mind me asking if you are self-employed? The rhythm you describe very exciting, but impossible in most work places. What you are doing though is probably the only work pattern that surely qualifies as "a sprint".
    - brachi 10y ago
      > I just think they should be about 1 week in length. > I usually need a couple of weeks recovery time And exactly like a real sprint (running very fast) a period of resting is necessary after such an effort, usually longer than the execution time spent.
      - ajmurmann 10y ago
        Yes! I couldn't agree more. I'm happy to sprint. If do it much rather than a marathon. But only if I get a break after it. Otherwise it's a marathon that you start out running like it was a sprint and fail.
  - beat 10y ago
    I find that approach works best for about three days. I suppose three days of work is all my little brain can hold! Three days of crunch followed by one or two days of downtime is insanely productive for me.
  - shamano 10y ago
    "From a practical standpoint, our research suggests that, when faced with long tasks (such as studying before a final exam or doing your taxes), it is best to impose brief breaks on yourself. Brief mental breaks will actually help you stay focused on your task!” http://psychcentral.com/news/2011/02/09/taking-breaks-found-to-improve-attention/23329.html http://psychcentral.com/news/2011/02/09/taking-breaks-found-...
  - KurtMueller 10y ago
    I would say you should adjust the timer to whatever fits your lifestyle. I've always understood the pomodoro timers as 25 minutes of getting down into the trenches and then taking 5-10 minute breaks to think about whatever you're doing from a high level overview.
- clentaminator 10y ago
  > You can't do creative work if your brain is filled with lot of context. Intuitively I'd assume that the context and information in working memory is precisely what enables one to do "deep work". Constantly requiring you to rebuild your in-memory cache feels like it would lead to sub-standard work.
- jasim 10y ago
  TDD is probably not the best way to do deep work. http://ravimohan.blogspot.in/2007/04/learning-from-sudoku-solvers.html http://ravimohan.blogspot.in/2007/04/learning-from-sudoku-so... About context, this is from Programmers at Work by Susan Lammers, interviewing John Page, author of the PFS productivity suite, famous in the late 80s. Lammers: Why are programmers so obsessive? Page: You constantly try to hold the state of the entire system you're working on in your head. If you lose the mental image, it takes a long time to get back into that state. It's like being an air-traffic controller who has nine planes in his mind and knows exactly where they're all going. Distract him by asking him when his shift is over and he loses those planes--the model he had in his head. In programming, a big complicated model is very efficient once you're in the groove. If you get out of it, you've got to work on it quite a while to get back in.
- mrec 10y ago
  > You can't do creative work if your brain is filled with lot of context I think you can, but the big risk is that what you produce becomes incomprehensible to anyone without all that context filling their brain, including you next week. (Not saying I'm in favour of deliberate interruptions, just that this might be an argument for them.)
- Rainymood 10y ago
  >Someone told me that its 25 minutes I used to believe this as well, then I tried 50 minutes, 10 minutes break and I like it way better. Try it for yourself and see which one works best for you!
- t594 10y ago
  Been pomodor'ing for 5yrs on/off... what i like about the 25, is it makes it a challenge, like a short race. "Can I really get this done in only 25?" It makes me work harder, and its a short enough time that i know i CAN give 100% focus if i start it with the right mindset. Also, I never realized how short 25mins actually was. And working like that helps me estimate programming tasks. It used to be that someone would ask, "how long will it take you to do X?" I would always say, "an hour or two". Then I realized how short an hour actually is... only 2 pomodoros... and wow, that went by fast. If I'm not done with a task, the trick I use for not losing focus between Pomodoros is to leave an easy bug, or purposely break something easy and leave a "//todonext". I can't remember who, but some famous sculptor used this technique. He would purposely mess up an easy part of his sculpture, so that the next day, he had a "softball" to fix that easily got him back into work mode. (anyone know this phenomenon?)
dsschnau 10y ago
i've never seen anyone actually use a pomodoro in real life, and the occasional day i've given it s a shot, I end up thinking "this is silly, I'll just focus on my work". I guess my protest is that it seems silly, especially when I'm focused on something and the timer goes off and I'm supposed to stop. It seems like its adding structure only for the sake of structure. Has anyone actually started using pomo, and stuck with it, and seen positive results?
- RUG3Y 10y ago
  I've had positive results with pomodoro. I honestly think it's more likely to be useful for people who are worse off than you are and can't focus or manage time. If you can sit and focus on your work without help, you don't need it.
  - dsschnau 10y ago
    Haha, I wish! I have a notoriously hard time focusing through the day, especially if personal matters are weighing on my mind.
    - qwer 10y ago
      The pomodoro technique makes work easy to start because it's a promise to yourself that it will only be for a limited amount of time. If you break that promise to yourself by not stopping, you've lost the entire point.
- treehau5 10y ago
  I use it, although I admit not religiously. Writing down my tasks I need to get done, then 'estimating' them in 25 minute chunks really helps me get my brain around the concept of time, just how little of it I have in a workday, and just how fast it passes, which is the real issue for me. Also, there's nothing wrong with doing 2 or 3 in a row, if you feel like it.
- emperorcezar 10y ago
  I use it to realign myself. If I'm having a bad day concentrating, I'll fall back on using podomoro.
ggregoire 10y ago
The first part of the book has a really good description of the "modern" work environment and its defects, and how it valorizes superficial work over deep work. I was actually surprised by how identical this description was to my last work environment. - Open space to promote communication and knowledge sharing (and controlling what people are doing), but at the end you are interrupted every 5 minutes by people walking and talking/screaming/laughing about anything but work. - People expect you to have Gmail and Slack open all day and to reply in the 5 minutes. - You are encouraged to go on Facebook/Twitter/Youtube/whatever to like and share the latest news/video/open position/whatever posted by the company. Then you start reading/watching something else that looks interesting and you lose easily 30 min / 1 hour. - At the end, what matter is how many hours you spend in the office. Nobody cares if you spend a full week on a task because you can't never focus on what you do.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- BeetleB 10y ago
  >People expect you to have Gmail and Slack open all day and to reply in the 5 minutes. When I was looking for my last job, I explicitly queried about this: "Will it be OK if I check my email only 3 times a day (at work)?" In my previous job, too much work was done through email. Person wants me to do some work and return a plot. I send it to him. Within 5-30 minutes, he has a question about it. I have to respond soon. And it goes on and on - with each email interrupting whatever work I'm doing. So I don't have "meetings through email" any more. They want to ask me stuff? Let's get in a room and at a fixed time and work through them. "I keep my messenger app permanently off. Is that a problem?" >but at the end you are interrupted every 5 minutes by people walking and talking/screaming/laughing about anything. For me, this is a non-issue, and much preferred to emails and IM's. Especially IM. Also, phone calls are OK too. Why? With IM, they start a conversation and then suddenly disappear, only to reappear 15 minutes later when I think the issue is closed and have started to work on something. No one does that in person (well, almost no one). When they come to me in person or call me on the phone, they cannot just browse the Internet while talking. They are mindful of my time. And somehow, I feel they prepare their questions better, too.
milesf 10y ago
I've found this combination works well for me: - The "Emergent Task Planner" is my daily piece of paper that I physically write out what I want to accomplish. At the end of the day I know what I've done and haven't done. (http://davidseah.com/node/the-emergent-task-planner/ http://davidseah.com/node/the-emergent-task-planner/) - I break my sessions of work into 2 or 4 hour blocks, and shut off all the distractions. - If I'm struggling to stay focussed, I use a Pomodoro timer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique) - If I'm struggling to stay off social media, I fire up Self Control (http://selfcontrolapp.com/ http://selfcontrolapp.com/) - If I'm really having a garbage day for productivity, I find stuff to do off my OmniFocus List that involves physical activity (cleaning the house, fixing things, going for a walk). I work from home now, but when I used to have an office cubicle I would just walk around the building.
- Hates_ 10y ago
  Those emergent task planners are great!
kordless 10y ago
As the poster child for this stuff from a few years back, I've lit on the simple intent on being present for a small amount of time each day. There are hundreds of ways to meditate - find one that works well for you and practice it. Work toward sitting and observing without judgement. Work toward quieting the conversations in your head. I would also recommend not over thinking about any of this too much. Thinking about thinking has the same lowered efficiency as being distracted by gadgets/media.
- pcmaffey 10y ago
  Yes, thinking about productivity is a rabbit hole that devours your productivity.
  - derrickdirge 10y ago
    I've spent years not being able to find a functional organization strategy due to this very trap.
wccrawford 10y ago
>Yes, even after work, he makes the case for structuring your leisure activities in a similar fashion. I find that this attitude makes it hard for me to relax. I've always been like this, and while I do derive a certain amount of comfort from it, I find it hard to schedule time to sit and do "whatever", and therefore it's hard to relax during that time. To put it another way: A day at the beach sounds horrifyingly boring to me, but a day at a waterpark sounds awesome. I feel the need to be doing things during my relaxation time, even if I might be more relaxed doing "nothing".
- markeroon 10y ago
  I'm the same. I find playing hockey, basketball, etc to be the most "relaxing" of all activities. The only way I can really switch off is by doing something else.
- imesh 10y ago
  I wonder, I used to feel that way, but now nothing is better than a full day at the beach truely relaxing and doing absolutely nothing. I wonder if it's because of age or because my job is really burning me out and leaving me with no energy.
  - wccrawford 10y ago
    Maybe I'll get there, but I hope I don't have to burn out to do it.
cauterized 10y ago
How does this work if you're on a "manager schedule" and 50% or more of your job is supposed to be dealing with interruptions, having ad-hoc conversations, and the like?
- hkon 10y ago
  I can't imagine it applies...
- svachalek 10y ago
  I haven't read this book but in my experience, "shallow" work is also a necessity, always has been; it's just that in last decade or so we seem to have glorified it and let it replace all other forms of working. IMHO it's not a matter of avoiding shallow work altogether, but more about blocking off time and space to really think and prioritize rather than react react react. As a manager I'd imagine you'd need less of this time than your direct reports but it'd be good to help protect their focus as much as you can, assuming they want it. (Depending on the nature of the work, some people seem to thrive on bite-size jobs.)
gdubs 10y ago
If you want to get deep on this subject, I highly recommend "The Organized Mind" and "The Power of Habit". The Organized Mind really breaks down the cost of "task switching" and explores the brain's strengths, quirks, and weaknesses, and how strategies of highly effective people exploit those traits. The Power of Habit is good for developing a less naive approach to behavior change. It's eye opening.
ianbicking 10y ago
Hard work is hard, but I wonder if it truly requires an anti-social approach. The nice thing if you are working in isolation is that everyone involved in your work environment is probably aligned towards a goal. Or at least we hope you yourself are aligned – and yet even that is hard to manage, as we all know from our own ability to distract ourselves. An open office, messaging, all those distractions aren't just distractions, they are external influences that aren't designed to help you get YOUR work done. Someone else has a question to help them get THEIR work done. Someone else is monitoring your productivity to help them alleviate their own anxiousness. I'm not a big fan of pair programming, but I do like how it can lead to better focus. It's like you are focus accountability partners. I also like ad hoc meetings setup for a specific purpose, if the purpose really is important for the participants I think it's productive. And if the problem is really important, I like a meeting where we talk things through and then get quiet for a long time. We don't give up. We don't defer the problem, leave and go our separate ways. Part of doing hard work, in my experience, is loading up the tensions, piling up everything that makes it hard, and then finding the way out. It's not always easiest to do that alone.
0xD3ADB33F 10y ago
Heard a lot of good things about this book, but the writing is just atrocious, and after a couple of chapters I didn't actually learn anything new... don't get the hype.
- parallel 10y ago
  I thought the writing was excellent and the content insightful.
espeed 10y ago
Was it Eric Schmidt, Larry or Sergey who said ideally everyone would have the opportunity to do a three-year "deep think"?
- nine_k 10y ago
  ...and a flying car, and a pony? Jokes aside, for most of us, the only person who can give you a three-year "deep think" is yourself. Save up money, schedule off distractions, plan ahead, and have that deep-think semi-vacation. Doable? Quite probably. Easy? Well, no. You have to already have a lot of concentration and determination to give yourself that large chunk of uninterrupted concentration and determination.
hkon 10y ago
I agree that social media and internet is a great distraction. But co-workers can be a source of good distractions. However for the distractions to be good. Everyone must be on track, around the same knowledge levels and focused on what problems needs to be solved. If you don't have these kind of colleagues, you might as well stay at home. When you are at work you will have to answer questions from those who didn't get the memo...
ptrk 10y ago
I made a macOS app [1] after reading this book that helps keep track of deep focus sessions. [1] (free) https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/zen-time/id1089216789?mt=12 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/zen-time/id1089216789?mt=12
outworlder 10y ago
> Even worse, if we continue doing it this way, we’ll start losing our ability to focus. Is that true? Based on my own anecdotal evidence, I'd say it is, but I'm a sample size of 1...

223 points by cpbotha 10y ago

>Extending the length of the 25 minute pomodoro. If I’m in the deep work flow, I’ll continue past the 25 minute alarm. Someone told me that its 25 minutes because it prevents you from building too much context in your head that prevents you from taking a break at 25 min mark. You can't do creative work if your brain is filled with lot of context. eg: TDD goes really well with pomodoro because you are only thinking about the next test and you can break on failing test so you can pick up right back. Is this a reason for 25 min for Pomodoro?

cpbotha 10y ago
I used to advise friends to stick to the 25 / 5 minute break, but more because I thought that this enabled one to sustain this rhythm for longer. However, currently I'm experimenting with longer pomodori, with the reasoning that if I'm in the flow / deeply working, the value of that flow is too great to take the risk that I might break it because of an arbitrary break. I think a better advice now would be to experiment, and see what suits you best in terms of sustainability, output and fulfilment. Today I my pomodori were between 25 minutes and an hour. It's home time now, but I feel great due to a large part of the day filled with flow.
josephg 10y ago
I'll be honest; I've never understood this mindset. The idea of purposefully interrupting my flow every 25 minutes, explicitly dropping my context is ghastly. If you could design an ideal hell for me it would involve hard, interesting programming problems and constant (every ~10-20 minute) seemingly random external interruptions. (Its not an accident that I don't have children.) Most of the work I'm really proud of happens in 1-1.5 week long coding binges, during which I code ~14 hours a day, don't eat well and don't get outside much. During that time my entire being is oriented around the problem. I sleep when I'm too tired to be productive and wake up with the problem spilling out of me. I usually need a couple of weeks recovery time afterwards during which I'm pretty useless for anything thats not light and fluffy. But that time is 100% worth it. If I could work at that intensity for 1 week out of each month I'd be more productive than I have been at any 9-5 job I've ever had. Well, for a given definition of productivity. So I guess I like pomodoros - I just think they should be about 1 week in length.
- ajmurmann 10y ago
  Do you mind me asking if you are self-employed? The rhythm you describe very exciting, but impossible in most work places. What you are doing though is probably the only work pattern that surely qualifies as "a sprint".
  - brachi 10y ago
    > I just think they should be about 1 week in length. > I usually need a couple of weeks recovery time And exactly like a real sprint (running very fast) a period of resting is necessary after such an effort, usually longer than the execution time spent.
    - ajmurmann 10y ago
      Yes! I couldn't agree more. I'm happy to sprint. If do it much rather than a marathon. But only if I get a break after it. Otherwise it's a marathon that you start out running like it was a sprint and fail.
- beat 10y ago
  I find that approach works best for about three days. I suppose three days of work is all my little brain can hold! Three days of crunch followed by one or two days of downtime is insanely productive for me.
- shamano 10y ago
  "From a practical standpoint, our research suggests that, when faced with long tasks (such as studying before a final exam or doing your taxes), it is best to impose brief breaks on yourself. Brief mental breaks will actually help you stay focused on your task!” http://psychcentral.com/news/2011/02/09/taking-breaks-found-to-improve-attention/23329.html http://psychcentral.com/news/2011/02/09/taking-breaks-found-...
- KurtMueller 10y ago
  I would say you should adjust the timer to whatever fits your lifestyle. I've always understood the pomodoro timers as 25 minutes of getting down into the trenches and then taking 5-10 minute breaks to think about whatever you're doing from a high level overview.
clentaminator 10y ago
> You can't do creative work if your brain is filled with lot of context. Intuitively I'd assume that the context and information in working memory is precisely what enables one to do "deep work". Constantly requiring you to rebuild your in-memory cache feels like it would lead to sub-standard work.
jasim 10y ago
TDD is probably not the best way to do deep work. http://ravimohan.blogspot.in/2007/04/learning-from-sudoku-solvers.html http://ravimohan.blogspot.in/2007/04/learning-from-sudoku-so... About context, this is from Programmers at Work by Susan Lammers, interviewing John Page, author of the PFS productivity suite, famous in the late 80s. Lammers: Why are programmers so obsessive? Page: You constantly try to hold the state of the entire system you're working on in your head. If you lose the mental image, it takes a long time to get back into that state. It's like being an air-traffic controller who has nine planes in his mind and knows exactly where they're all going. Distract him by asking him when his shift is over and he loses those planes--the model he had in his head. In programming, a big complicated model is very efficient once you're in the groove. If you get out of it, you've got to work on it quite a while to get back in.
mrec 10y ago
> You can't do creative work if your brain is filled with lot of context I think you can, but the big risk is that what you produce becomes incomprehensible to anyone without all that context filling their brain, including you next week. (Not saying I'm in favour of deliberate interruptions, just that this might be an argument for them.)
Rainymood 10y ago
>Someone told me that its 25 minutes I used to believe this as well, then I tried 50 minutes, 10 minutes break and I like it way better. Try it for yourself and see which one works best for you!
t594 10y ago
Been pomodor'ing for 5yrs on/off... what i like about the 25, is it makes it a challenge, like a short race. "Can I really get this done in only 25?" It makes me work harder, and its a short enough time that i know i CAN give 100% focus if i start it with the right mindset. Also, I never realized how short 25mins actually was. And working like that helps me estimate programming tasks. It used to be that someone would ask, "how long will it take you to do X?" I would always say, "an hour or two". Then I realized how short an hour actually is... only 2 pomodoros... and wow, that went by fast. If I'm not done with a task, the trick I use for not losing focus between Pomodoros is to leave an easy bug, or purposely break something easy and leave a "//todonext". I can't remember who, but some famous sculptor used this technique. He would purposely mess up an easy part of his sculpture, so that the next day, he had a "softball" to fix that easily got him back into work mode. (anyone know this phenomenon?)

dsschnau 10y ago

i've never seen anyone actually use a pomodoro in real life, and the occasional day i've given it s a shot, I end up thinking "this is silly, I'll just focus on my work". I guess my protest is that it seems silly, especially when I'm focused on something and the timer goes off and I'm supposed to stop. It seems like its adding structure only for the sake of structure. Has anyone actually started using pomo, and stuck with it, and seen positive results?

RUG3Y 10y ago
I've had positive results with pomodoro. I honestly think it's more likely to be useful for people who are worse off than you are and can't focus or manage time. If you can sit and focus on your work without help, you don't need it.
- dsschnau 10y ago
  Haha, I wish! I have a notoriously hard time focusing through the day, especially if personal matters are weighing on my mind.
  - qwer 10y ago
    The pomodoro technique makes work easy to start because it's a promise to yourself that it will only be for a limited amount of time. If you break that promise to yourself by not stopping, you've lost the entire point.
treehau5 10y ago
I use it, although I admit not religiously. Writing down my tasks I need to get done, then 'estimating' them in 25 minute chunks really helps me get my brain around the concept of time, just how little of it I have in a workday, and just how fast it passes, which is the real issue for me. Also, there's nothing wrong with doing 2 or 3 in a row, if you feel like it.
emperorcezar 10y ago
I use it to realign myself. If I'm having a bad day concentrating, I'll fall back on using podomoro.

ggregoire 10y ago

The first part of the book has a really good description of the "modern" work environment and its defects, and how it valorizes superficial work over deep work. I was actually surprised by how identical this description was to my last work environment. - Open space to promote communication and knowledge sharing (and controlling what people are doing), but at the end you are interrupted every 5 minutes by people walking and talking/screaming/laughing about anything but work. - People expect you to have Gmail and Slack open all day and to reply in the 5 minutes. - You are encouraged to go on Facebook/Twitter/Youtube/whatever to like and share the latest news/video/open position/whatever posted by the company. Then you start reading/watching something else that looks interesting and you lose easily 30 min / 1 hour. - At the end, what matter is how many hours you spend in the office. Nobody cares if you spend a full week on a task because you can't never focus on what you do.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
BeetleB 10y ago
>People expect you to have Gmail and Slack open all day and to reply in the 5 minutes. When I was looking for my last job, I explicitly queried about this: "Will it be OK if I check my email only 3 times a day (at work)?" In my previous job, too much work was done through email. Person wants me to do some work and return a plot. I send it to him. Within 5-30 minutes, he has a question about it. I have to respond soon. And it goes on and on - with each email interrupting whatever work I'm doing. So I don't have "meetings through email" any more. They want to ask me stuff? Let's get in a room and at a fixed time and work through them. "I keep my messenger app permanently off. Is that a problem?" >but at the end you are interrupted every 5 minutes by people walking and talking/screaming/laughing about anything. For me, this is a non-issue, and much preferred to emails and IM's. Especially IM. Also, phone calls are OK too. Why? With IM, they start a conversation and then suddenly disappear, only to reappear 15 minutes later when I think the issue is closed and have started to work on something. No one does that in person (well, almost no one). When they come to me in person or call me on the phone, they cannot just browse the Internet while talking. They are mindful of my time. And somehow, I feel they prepare their questions better, too.

milesf 10y ago

I've found this combination works well for me: - The "Emergent Task Planner" is my daily piece of paper that I physically write out what I want to accomplish. At the end of the day I know what I've done and haven't done. (http://davidseah.com/node/the-emergent-task-planner/ http://davidseah.com/node/the-emergent-task-planner/) - I break my sessions of work into 2 or 4 hour blocks, and shut off all the distractions. - If I'm struggling to stay focussed, I use a Pomodoro timer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique) - If I'm struggling to stay off social media, I fire up Self Control (http://selfcontrolapp.com/ http://selfcontrolapp.com/) - If I'm really having a garbage day for productivity, I find stuff to do off my OmniFocus List that involves physical activity (cleaning the house, fixing things, going for a walk). I work from home now, but when I used to have an office cubicle I would just walk around the building.

Hates_ 10y ago
Those emergent task planners are great!

kordless 10y ago

As the poster child for this stuff from a few years back, I've lit on the simple intent on being present for a small amount of time each day. There are hundreds of ways to meditate - find one that works well for you and practice it. Work toward sitting and observing without judgement. Work toward quieting the conversations in your head. I would also recommend not over thinking about any of this too much. Thinking about thinking has the same lowered efficiency as being distracted by gadgets/media.

pcmaffey 10y ago
Yes, thinking about productivity is a rabbit hole that devours your productivity.
- derrickdirge 10y ago
  I've spent years not being able to find a functional organization strategy due to this very trap.

wccrawford 10y ago

>Yes, even after work, he makes the case for structuring your leisure activities in a similar fashion. I find that this attitude makes it hard for me to relax. I've always been like this, and while I do derive a certain amount of comfort from it, I find it hard to schedule time to sit and do "whatever", and therefore it's hard to relax during that time. To put it another way: A day at the beach sounds horrifyingly boring to me, but a day at a waterpark sounds awesome. I feel the need to be doing things during my relaxation time, even if I might be more relaxed doing "nothing".

markeroon 10y ago
I'm the same. I find playing hockey, basketball, etc to be the most "relaxing" of all activities. The only way I can really switch off is by doing something else.
imesh 10y ago
I wonder, I used to feel that way, but now nothing is better than a full day at the beach truely relaxing and doing absolutely nothing. I wonder if it's because of age or because my job is really burning me out and leaving me with no energy.
- wccrawford 10y ago
  Maybe I'll get there, but I hope I don't have to burn out to do it.

cauterized 10y ago

How does this work if you're on a "manager schedule" and 50% or more of your job is supposed to be dealing with interruptions, having ad-hoc conversations, and the like?

hkon 10y ago
I can't imagine it applies...
svachalek 10y ago
I haven't read this book but in my experience, "shallow" work is also a necessity, always has been; it's just that in last decade or so we seem to have glorified it and let it replace all other forms of working. IMHO it's not a matter of avoiding shallow work altogether, but more about blocking off time and space to really think and prioritize rather than react react react. As a manager I'd imagine you'd need less of this time than your direct reports but it'd be good to help protect their focus as much as you can, assuming they want it. (Depending on the nature of the work, some people seem to thrive on bite-size jobs.)

gdubs 10y ago

If you want to get deep on this subject, I highly recommend "The Organized Mind" and "The Power of Habit". The Organized Mind really breaks down the cost of "task switching" and explores the brain's strengths, quirks, and weaknesses, and how strategies of highly effective people exploit those traits. The Power of Habit is good for developing a less naive approach to behavior change. It's eye opening.

ianbicking 10y ago

Hard work is hard, but I wonder if it truly requires an anti-social approach. The nice thing if you are working in isolation is that everyone involved in your work environment is probably aligned towards a goal. Or at least we hope you yourself are aligned – and yet even that is hard to manage, as we all know from our own ability to distract ourselves. An open office, messaging, all those distractions aren't just distractions, they are external influences that aren't designed to help you get YOUR work done. Someone else has a question to help them get THEIR work done. Someone else is monitoring your productivity to help them alleviate their own anxiousness. I'm not a big fan of pair programming, but I do like how it can lead to better focus. It's like you are focus accountability partners. I also like ad hoc meetings setup for a specific purpose, if the purpose really is important for the participants I think it's productive. And if the problem is really important, I like a meeting where we talk things through and then get quiet for a long time. We don't give up. We don't defer the problem, leave and go our separate ways. Part of doing hard work, in my experience, is loading up the tensions, piling up everything that makes it hard, and then finding the way out. It's not always easiest to do that alone.

0xD3ADB33F 10y ago

Heard a lot of good things about this book, but the writing is just atrocious, and after a couple of chapters I didn't actually learn anything new... don't get the hype.

parallel 10y ago
I thought the writing was excellent and the content insightful.

espeed 10y ago

Was it Eric Schmidt, Larry or Sergey who said ideally everyone would have the opportunity to do a three-year "deep think"?

nine_k 10y ago
...and a flying car, and a pony? Jokes aside, for most of us, the only person who can give you a three-year "deep think" is yourself. Save up money, schedule off distractions, plan ahead, and have that deep-think semi-vacation. Doable? Quite probably. Easy? Well, no. You have to already have a lot of concentration and determination to give yourself that large chunk of uninterrupted concentration and determination.

hkon 10y ago

I agree that social media and internet is a great distraction. But co-workers can be a source of good distractions. However for the distractions to be good. Everyone must be on track, around the same knowledge levels and focused on what problems needs to be solved. If you don't have these kind of colleagues, you might as well stay at home. When you are at work you will have to answer questions from those who didn't get the memo...

ptrk 10y ago

I made a macOS app [1] after reading this book that helps keep track of deep focus sessions. [1] (free) https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/zen-time/id1089216789?mt=12 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/zen-time/id1089216789?mt=12

outworlder 10y ago

> Even worse, if we continue doing it this way, we’ll start losing our ability to focus. Is that true? Based on my own anecdotal evidence, I'd say it is, but I'm a sample size of 1...