Ever since last October when I attended a “How We Work” workshop at Basecamp headquarters, I’ve become fascinated with the concept of “Deep Work”.
Deep Work, defined by Cal Newport, is as follows:
“Professional Activities performed in a distraction free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.”
The Basecamp workshop was not formally about this term but it was essentially what they were preaching in regards to how they work at Basecamp (and how they use their product to help them do such deep work). At Basecamp (and in the book) the theory is that if you protect your attention from distraction and focus as much as possible, you will actually get so much MORE real work done. And not only that you’ll get more work done but that you’ll also be happier/feel better because you’ll be working in a deep state called “Flow”. By no means is “focusing” a new concept but in our modern world of social media and instant messaging and iPhones, it’s so much harder to practice than ever before and therefore the concept feels so “different”.
Since that workshop I’ve become obsessed (even Eric has, too) with moving towards a distraction free work environment and I’ve become vigilant against unnecessary distractions (to the point of annoying many around me!). The low hanging fruit last year was eliminating many meetings and outside of work obligations (saying “no” is easier than you think!). At the beginning of this year, I doubled down and decided to formally implement a work schedule that would allow me to carve out “deep work” time throughout the day.
The schedule I wrote down was this:
- 4:30am — wake up
- 5am — 7am — deep work
- 7am — 9am — personal time, exercise, commute, shallow work etc
- 9am — 12pm — deep work
- 12pm — 1pm — lunch, ideally with someone from the office to talk shop
- 1pm — 4pm — deep work
- 4pm on is personal, commute, and shallow work time.
If you add up the actual work time, it’s a full distraction free 8 hours a day and my goal was to implement this 4 days a week.
The results have been phenomenal. I have to admit…the goal of 4 days a week was a bit audacious and a full 8 hours a day has been tough as well. Mostly because the schedule above doesn’t account for any meetings outside of lunch, bonding time with the team, or the inevitable travel weeks. Even so, the results of 3 days and averaging > 6 hours of deep work in each days is an absolute game changer. I was a pretty happy guy at work before I implemented this schedule and now I’m getting even more fulfillment out of my work days than before. Not to mention the amount of work I’m getting done still surprises me 5 months in.
This schedule and focus has boiled down to three things:
- Getting more work done
- Higher percentage of that work being more creative/thoughtful
- All in less time than previously
And I’m not even fully distraction free yet. It’s crazy powerful…
I realize this type of schedule is not for everyone but many of us in this economy are knowledge workers and I believe any knowledge worker can implement some variation of deep work into their lives. I’ve spoken with countless friends about this practice and the sentiment has been the same with everyone, they want get more quality work done. For them and for many of us, the low hanging fruit is there to pick off and get DEEP.
If you like the concept of being more productive in less hours, I encourage you to follow the Basecamp blog and most definitely read the book “Deep Work” (or one of the main summaries online). And if you’re in Miami and want to join a team who believes in cutting out the crap and getting work done, we have plenty of positions open at BrightGauge!
I’m a firm believer that in our new information economy, people and companies who can master this focus will be the winners. More work, more creativity, less time. Can’t beat it…
Editor's note: this blog originally appeared on medium.com and has been re-shared in it's entirety here.
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