We talk a lot about the competitive advantage digital natives may have in today’s workplace. But the rest of us may have an opposite advantage. My hypothesis is that because we grew up without the distractions of a digital world, we can more easily clear our brains for the deep work that is highly valued by the world.
I’ve always appreciated that 15 years ago Basecamp named its company newsletter “Signal v. Noise.” Core to Basecamp’s founders’ DNA was the signal of focused, deep work amidst all the noise in the tech world. Basecamp’s emphasis hasn’t really changed in those 15 years. The world has, however. It’s never been noisier.
Distractions from meaningful work are omnipresent. Yet, the employee who is able to focus and filter out the noise, has the opportunity to create great value by going deep. It just may take a little retraining.
What qualifies as deep work? Deep work could be creating something, whether coding a complex new feature or writing an in-depth report. Deep work could be a problem-solving session or a pattern-recognition exercise. Deep work could be having a difficult conversation where you are fully present to listen and share.
How is deep work structured in a business setting?
- A specific period of time is designated without the distractions of email, social media, or meetings.
- Your mind is fully present and focused on the problem or project at hand. This can take practice, such as starting with short twenty-minute sessions, then adding five-minute increments as you become more proficient.
- The work is purpose-driven—you’re focused on this particular thing because you’ve determined it to be high-value.
- It is best done with constraints. Time is a great one, which is why deadlines are so effective.
Several prominent deep work evangelists have written extensively about these practices and their books are helpful resources if you want to retrain your mind to free it from distractions and brush up on focus skills:
Cal Newport – A computer science professor at Georgetown University, his books include Deep Work and Digital Minimalism. Newport also has a blog and podcast.
Nir Eyal – Having designed many of the habit-forming software techniques that have hooked us, this Silicon Valley veteran has “crossed the aisle” now to advocate unhooking from digital distractions. His recent book, Indistractable, is excellent.
Seth Godin – An advocate for ditching the industrial complex and learning to think independently, Godin’s new book, The Practice, is a guide for those who want to “ship creative work.”
If you’ve read this far, you may have intuited that this topic is of special interest to me. It’s true. I’ve been struggling with focus this year, and I’m working to add practices to my day that support focus. It was only a few years ago that I began to experience the noise of digital distraction. So my hope is that my age is my superpower—with a little retraining, I’ll soon be a deep work master.