Deep Work


Deep work focuses on boosting the creativity. It allows to get to our limit focus levels.

It allows us to produce much and with better quality:

High-Quality Work Produced = (Time Spent) x (Intensity of Focus)

To produce at your peak level you need to work for extended periods with full concentration on a single task free from distraction: it's Deep Work.

You need to have a real goal to be satisfied with deep work.

Strategies


There are many strategies to get to Deep Work. The key to developing a deep work habit is to move beyond good intentions and add routines and rituals to your working life designed to minimize the amount of your limited willpower necessary to transition into and maintain a state of unbroken concentration.

Monastic Philosophy


This philosophy attempts to maximize deep efforts by eliminating or radically minimizing shallow obligations. Practitioners of the monastic philosophy tend to have a welldefined and highly valued professional goal that they’re pursuing, and the bulk of their professional success comes from doing this one thing exceptionally well. It’s this clarity that helps them eliminate the thicket of shallow concerns that tend to trip up those whose value proposition in the working world is more varied.

Bimodal Philosophy


This philosophy asks that you divide your time, dedicating some clearly defined stretches to deep pursuits and leaving the rest open to everything else.

This division of time between deep and open can happen on multiple scales. For example, on the scale of a week, you might dedicate a four-day weekend to depth and the rest to open time. Similarly, on the scale of a year, you might dedicate one season to contain most of your deep stretches.

Rythmic Philosophy


This philosophy argues that the easiest way to consistently start deep work sessions is to transform them into a simple regular habit. The goal, in other words, is to generate a rhythm for this work that removes the need for you to invest energy in deciding if and when you’re going to go deep.

Journalist Philosophy


It's when you fit deep work wherever you can into your schedule.

This approach is not for the deep work novice. The ability to rapidly switch your mind from shallow to deep mode doesn’t come naturally. Without practice, such switches can seriously deplete your finite willpower reserves. This habit also requires a sense of confidence in your abilities— a conviction that what you’re doing is important and will succeed. This type of conviction is typically built on a foundation of existing professional accomplishment.

Ritual Philosophy


To make the most out of your deep work sessions, build rituals of the same level of strictness and idiosyncrasy.

A ritual should specify:

The Grand Gesture Philosophy


By leveraging a radical change to your normal environment, coupled perhaps with a significant investment of effort or money, all dedicated toward supporting a deep work task, you increase the perceived importance of the task. This boost in importance reduces your mind’s instinct to procrastinate and delivers an injection of motivation and energy.

Collaboration Philosophy


Consider the use of collaboration when appropriate, as it can push your results to a new level. At the same time, don’t lionize this quest for interaction and positive randomness to the point where it crowds out the unbroken concentration ultimately required to wring something useful out of the swirl of ideas all around us.

Break Principle


When you work, you work. When you're done, you're done.

Having breaks is important for mind's recovery.

Habit Principle


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.

Rules


Rule 1


Integrate deep work into your schedule and support it with routines and rituals designed to help you consistently reach the current limit of your concentration ability.

Rule 2


Getting the most out of your deep work habit requires training, and as clarified previously, this training must address two goals: improving your ability to concentrate intensely and overcoming your desire for distraction

How to Counter Boredom


Having interesting things to do and accurate goals can help be bored and going on the phone.

Tool Selection


You should select only the tool having a positive outcome on your life.

Day Scheduling


To avoid being bored during the day, it's important to always have something to do.

META

Status:: #wiki/notes/mature
Plantations:: Productivity
References:: Deep Work