“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself,” said Rumi, the 13th century scholar and poet.
Does being busy, attending meetings, answering emails, dealing with the workplace mini soap opera dramas mean being productive? Is a stream of social media distractions an antidote to boredom? If we did not feel bored, would Netflix and Showmax be the business success that they are?
What is deep work, and why is it critical for the elite manager to perform? Like a heroin addict, have our brains become hooked to, on demand ‘TikTok’ like distractions?
Serial tasking – the ability to focus and concentrate on one demanding problem, is the ability super successful Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) have.
Capacity to be able to do deep work is key, otherwise one is stuck in a delusional ‘Matrix like world’ of addictive constant distractions – keeping one trapped, at the level of survival.
Multi-tasking is a bit of myth, though we think, somehow, we can get by doing it. You start the day knowing you have to do an important task on your ‘to do’ list. Yet, somehow all those little distractions and admin work creep in. By the end of the day, one feels drained, mentally exhausted – wondering what happened?
MIT trained computer scientist Cal Newport defines deep work: “Professional activities performed in a state of distraction free concentration that push your cognitive abilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.”
In his book Deep Work, Newport points out the two core abilities to thrive in the [constantly changing] new economy. The ability to master hard things and produce at an elite level, in terms of quality and speed.
Formula for deep work is -- High quality work produced, equals the time spent times the intensity of focus.
Survival by looking visibly busy
“Busyness as a proxy for productivity – in the absence of clear indicators of what it means to be productive and valuable in their jobs, many knowledge workers turn towards an industrial indicator of productivity – doing lots of stuff in a visible manner,” writes Newport.
In the absence of clear metrics of performance, most people fall back on the things that are easiest to do. That likely means attention to the next notification beep, from that little computer in your pocket, getting a tiny rush of dopamine, making sure you are not missing out.
Athletes know – no pain, no gain. Doing deep work, probably a maximum of four hours in a day, means being able to face discomfort, not giving in to sugar high-like cravings. Tough at first, but with practice, it gets easier.
Focus is the secret sauce
“By forcing you to resist distraction and return your attention repeatedly to a well-defined problem, it helps strengthen your distraction resisting muscles. And, by forcing you to push your focus deeper and deeper on a single problem, it sharpens your concentration.
To succeed with productive meditation, it’s important to recognise that, like any form of mediation it requires practice to do well. Deep work requires levels of concentration well beyond where most knowledge workers are comfortable” advises Newport.
Business success is all about ‘the ability to create and capture unique value’.
That talent to be in a ‘flow state’ able to create tangible value, gets rewarded at the end of the month. Yes, one can look busy, say all the right things, spout out the latest fluffy business jargon, do mediocre ‘cut and paste’ work, letting AI chat bots do your thinking for you. It may work for a time. But it’s a shallow way of ‘just getting by’ surviving – not thriving.
Shallow work is the “non cognitively demanding, logistical style tasks, often performed while distracted. These efforts tend not to create much new value in the world and they are easy to replicate.”
Undoubtedly, it is a balancing act, there are all those shallow work tasks to do, administration that has to get done, more ‘do this, do that’ but when all is said and done, deep work matters. Everyone from Carl Jung, Michealangelo to Galileo to Silicon Valley wizards, know the value deep work creates.
Change is a door opened from the inside. Be wise, pay attention to the inner you, not the faults of your upsetting colleague down the hall.
Ability to focus is an absolute. As Winifred Gallagher explains: “Who you are, what you think, feel, and do, what you love – is the sum of what you focus on.”
The writer is a director at aCatalyst Consulting. Email: [email protected]
