MAKE TIME
Here’s a counter-intuitive insight: Fewer hours, spent on deep work, produce a much higher impact than more hours busy with shallow work.
What are deep and shallow work? I’m just ‘busy’.
Ok, with respect for your time, let’s get a move on…
In today's working environment, we often find ourselves pinned down by a mountain of meetings, emails, and constant interruptions. This can leave little room for the kind of focused, deep work that drives innovation and strategic progress.
Deep and shallow work
The terms were coined by Cal Newport in his book Deep Work. They describe “efforts that create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate”, versus, “Non-cognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted. These efforts tend to not create new value in the world and are easy to replicate.”
He goes on to describe two abilities crucial for success in the new (knowledge) economy:
The ability to quickly master hard things.
The ability to produce at an elite level, in terms of both quality and speed
The two core abilities described depend on your ability to perform deep work.
You can think of it simplistically as busyness versus productivity – deep work is where your productive impact is.
But our working days aren’t particularly set up for deep work.
So how am I supposed to MAKE time?
By deliberately structuring your day (and your colleagues’ days – this is a cultural shift), you can carve out pockets of uninterrupted time, ensuring you have the space to think, strategize, and lead effectively.
This method hinges on two powerful techniques: time boxing and time blocking.
To understand how these techniques can help you make time, it’s crucial to differentiate between them:
Feel the rhythm
Effective implementation of time boxing and time blocking involves a few key steps:
Identify Priorities: Determine which tasks require deep work and align with your strategic goals.
Batch shallow tasks: Schedule some meetings back-to-back to carve out larger blocks of time for uninterrupted deep work.
Set Boundaries: Clearly define the start and end times for meetings – respect deep work times for yourself and your teams.
Communicate: Inform your team about your new schedule to manage expectations and encourage them to adopt similar practices.
Manage your energy: Schedule deep work for times of day that are most effective for you to focus and give yourself mental breaks with periods of shallower work that allow your subconscious back-of-mind to do some of the heavy lifting. (I’ve got more on this type of ‘slow motion multitasking’ coming up in another article).
Compare these two days. You might recognise the first. The orange represents time for deep work and is, well, compromised. The second is achievable – grouping shallower tasks (and respecting the boundaries) carves out time for deep work.
The day shown above feels familiar. Busy work has taken over and the opportunities to focus on 'real' work are squeezed to the point of being ineffective.
In comparison the day below has blocks of time for deep work, creating a cadence to the day that allows shallow tasks and meetings to happen, while also facilitating a sense that progress is being made through productive, deep work.
Deep work is going to continue to be a defining element of the knowledge economy. Changing how we work to accommodate it rather than fight it is essential.
Shallow work is necessary to achieve the results we’re looking for. However, the most successful will be the ones who learn to prioritise and protect time for deep work – for themselves, and certainly show the same respect to others in their organisation.
Making time is a discipline. It takes consistency and commitment from a group of people. The alternative is more busyness over productivity. Which results in less progress and a greater toll on the individuals over time.
One of the greatest markers for happy, long-standing tenures is the sense of progress.
If you are busy and have a sense that you could be making more progress, let’s discuss how you can make more of your time.
