Keywords:: PermanentNote
Reference: Deep Work by Cal Newport
Deep work—the ability to focus on complex ideas for a prolonged time is arguably one of the most valued and most scarce skills in today's world.
Nowadays, you're constantly bombarded with many distractions during work, like notifications, people engaging you in conversation, shitty food, social media, etc. In other words, it's tough to get deep work done.
What's dangerous is that these distractions are usually subtle. For example, someone asks you to look at their project; someone else has a quick question; another person asks you to add the last touches before the ad campaign launch. These 'small' things are not only distractions, but also they are seeds for shallow work because they tend to take up more time than expected.
Hofstadter's law everything takes more time and costs more than expected even when you take into account the Hofstadter's law.
That said, you must be very cautious in every environment where such distractions are prevalent. Here a couple of rules you can cultivate to achieve deep work. [1]
First, choose a time and place in which you will perform deep work. Treat this period as a ritual during which you will stay focused with dedication. After that, you can do whatever you like. [2]
Second, train your focus muscle during daily tasks through productive meditation. Make sure you're avoiding shallow activities and multi-tasking. Whenever you do something, do it with purpose and full attention. This rule also refers to breaks. Choose activities where you can truly relax your brain and enable it to connect the dots in the background. [3]
Third, train the muscle. Every time you manage to get into the deep state, you adapt. It becomes easier next time.
Relevant notes:
1 P: Set up your environment so that it support your goals: Environmental cues have a significant impact on our mood, creativity, and direction of our thoughts. Therefore, when choosing an environment to work, choose one that will support the end goal you want to achieve.
2 PN: One thing massive consequences: You can try to implement the one thing question during your deep hours as you're doing one thing at a time anyway.
3 P: NSD: No Synthetic Dopamine: nsd may help you in keeping your breaks clean of mindless activities like scrolling social media, video games, porn, etc.
PN: How to get into flow: the rules for flow are similar to those of deep work. Use both to get into a godlike state of focus.
PN: Environment for idea generation: Ideas appear in places where many ideas can flow freely and make multiple, unpredictable connections. Environments for deep work are the opposite, they are closed. Best if you stay in both regularly. The first will let you share and test the ideas you have developed during deep work. The second will give you the opportunity to work on the inspirations you've gained from the first.
--
PN: Get into deep work: Downtime plays a crucial role in deep work. Then, you are opening your mind for inspiration, which fuels your deep hours.
PN: Get into deep work: the ability to focus on complex ideas is one of the best skills you can have because it allows you to learn everything else quicker. The quicker you develop it, the better.