In the post about what is deep work, I mentioned how it can give you a super boost in your career. It is great to know what deep work can do for you, but how exactly do you put it into practice? For this post, I am going to try to answer this question about putting deep work into practice.
Disclaimer: I am not a professional in deep work. Most of what I say is based on my own experience and research.
Create a Schedule for Your Day
One of the easiest ways to implement deep work is to give yourself the opportunities to exercise it in the day. You can do this by creating a schedule for your day and giving yourself a block (a couple of hours) of time to work uninterrupted.
Great, so you have a schedule of your day planned out now. The easy part is done, now here comes the hard part. You got to commit to it. Do make sure you stick to the schedule you set and repeat the process daily. With enough practice, deep work will become a normal thing to you.
Eliminate Distractions
We live in a world that is full of distractions. Open office space filled with continuous background noises, anyone?
It requires a long period of uninterrupted focus to do programming. So, when there are constant interruptions, it lessens your ability to focus and result in lower quality output.
Here are some ways to eliminate distractions:
- Get a pair of noise cancellation headphones. Use them when you need to focus. I consider my Bose QuietComfort 35 to be one of the best investment I have made. I don’t need to play music at a high volume level to beat out the background noises. Also, having a pair of headphones on indicates that you are busy.
- Stop checking email throughout the day. As a developer, you should treat your email as a to-do list and schedule some time to check your email. I recommend in the morning and the evening when your day is ending. Try to keep it to one Pomodoro (~25 minutes).
- Prepare for the next day. At the end of the day, you want to clean up your work and prepare for tomorrow. Close your tabs and programs, delete or move all the files from your Download folder, and empty out the trash. Starting the day fresh, helps you be more focused.
Identify Shallow Work so You Can Avoid It Better
In an ideal world, we would not have to bother with any shallow work. But in reality, we still have to carry out some shallow work as much as we try to avoid them. Some examples of shallow work are checking email, responding to general requests on Slack, and filling in a spreadsheet. Specifically, shallow work is tasks that are not cognitively demanding and is often performed while distracted.
As you can imagine, some shallow work can take the same amount of time as deep work would take. The difference is in their value. Usually, deep work results in more meaningful output that can’t be easily replicated, unlike shallow work.
Give Yourself Down Time
Deep work isn’t about working more and or harder, it is about working smarter. It is about creating more value in the same amount of time. So, if you are finding yourself working more, then you should take a step back and reevaluate your execution of deep work.
Deep work is where you do the hard stuff that takes a lot of cognitive loads. Long stretches of intense focus and concentration need to be balanced out with quality rest.
When you give yourself quality rest, amazing things happen. You gain new insights while your conscious mind rests and the unconscious mind takes over to provide insights, creative ideas, and consolidate memories. You feel recharged and have the energy needed to work deeply.
I hope this post was helpful to you. If you found this post helpful, share it with others so they can benefit too.
What are your experiences with deep work?
To get in touch, you can follow me on Twitter, leave a comment, or send me an email at steven@brightdevelopers.com.