Top 3 Productivity Tips From the Book: Deep Work

I picked this book to learn how other people deal with schedules similar to mine (and yours) and what they are doing to change them.

I was pleasantly surprised by how the author tackles this, so I wrote my review of this book with my top 3 tips.

Before we proceed, it's important to understand the difference between deep and shallow work presented in the book.

Deep Work: "Professional activities performed in a distraction-free concentration that pushes your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value and improve your skill, but they are hard to replicate."

Shallow Work: "Noncognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted."

You can quickly reflect on your daily life and see that most of us do a lot of shallow work, which isn't necessarily bad, of course. I think it's important to say that we should always strive for balance, and it's unrealistic to expect any knowledge worker (a person like you and me) to only do deep work.

Tip 1: Avoid Social Media

"In an age of network tools, in other words, knowledge workers increasingly replace deep work with the shallow alternative—constantly sending and receiving e- mail messages like human network routers, with frequent breaks for quick hits of distraction." - From Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

This might sound ironic since you might have read this article through social media. Again, it's essential to differentiate between quitting and avoiding.

I'll be the first one to say that I check my phone several times when I'm craving dopamine. Visiting social media does impact my concentration, even if it seems like a "short peek."

The author suggests creating an environment where you don't have to fight the urge to avoid visiting social media. This will drain your concentration, which can be used for programming or solving problems.

When applying this tip, I usually use content blockers like AppBlock to block certain websites on my phone and laptop. This helps me since I don't have to fight my impulses.

Tip 2: Avoid Multitasking

This might sound controversial since most of us usually do several things at a time when working.

Waiting for a build to finish? Let me review this Pull-Request while I wait.

I'm not participating in this meeting so let me check my e-mails while I'm "actively listening" in case someone needs me.

This is heavily explained in this book: We shouldn't multitask. Science shows that when we change to a different topic, it takes some time for us to get "readjusted."

"The results from this and her similar experiments were clear: “People experiencing attention residue after switching tasks are likely to demonstrate poor performance on that next task,” and the more intense the residue, the worse the performance." - From Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

Avoid changing subjects and try to schedule blocks of uninterrupted work. During these blocks, you focus on a select number of tasks.

Deep work can only happen when you spend time doing a specific task, requiring a lot of concentration.

How can you do this if you are constantly multitasking?

Am I expected to look at a loading screen while waiting for something?

The author of this book would say yes, allow yourself to be bored!

"Much in the same way that athletes must take care of their bodies outside of their training sessions, you’ll struggle to achieve the deepest levels of concentration if you spend the rest of your time fleeing the slightest hint of boredom." - From Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

Tip 3: Prioritize Downtime

When I practiced sports, I always struggled to improve my skills as quickly as possible.

This meant that the more hours I trained, the more I improved.

I know now (and I hope you do, too) that rest is just as important. When performing an intensive task that requires hours of concentration, you should complement it with periods of downtime, where you're completely cut off from the problem.

This might sound difficult for a software developer since we can step away from the computer and think about the problem. This is not downtime.

Here's what the author suggests you do:

"(...) for succeeding with this strategy is to support your commitment to shutting down with a strict shutdown ritual that you use at the end of the workday to maximize the probability that you succeed." - From Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

But what happens when the clock strikes 5 p.m., and you're in the middle of an important task?

Respect your schedule and write down what you need to finish this task by yourself tomorrow.

Why is this important?

"Decades of work from multiple different subfields within psychology all point toward the conclusion that regularly resting your brain improves the quality of your deep work. When you work, work hard. When you’re done, be done." - From Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

Try creating a shutdown ritual where you stop working at a specific time. Try doing it for at least two weeks and assess your productivity with and without the ritual.

Conclusion

I thoroughly enjoyed reading "Deep Work." When I picked it up, I was seeking a fresh perspective on creating a productive work schedule.

Although the lessons are repeated multiple times, the author consistently introduces new examples to illustrate his points effectively.

I highly recommend you also read it. There are many more tips besides the ones I wrote here.

References

1. Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport