Do Deep Work with your Superpower… Concentration!

We all know that we allow ourselves to be distracted—most often by our devices but also by other things.

Perhaps we do not understand the downside of that as well as we could. Author Cal Newport has championed a concept called Deep Work and its opposite, Shallow Work. Shallow work is all that ‘stuff’ you must do at work and in life that does not require a lot of brain power--answering email, taking care of your house, administrative things. He suggests that these can take up too much time and that we should do them quickly and try to limit the time we allot to these tasks.

More important, though, he encourages us to set aside COMPLETELY undistracted time for ‘deep work’. This is the kind of task that requires real thinking and, to do this well, must be done without interruptions. Problem solving, projects, creative work-to do your best, you must give yourself uninterrupted time for this deep work.

 There is, apparently, a reaction to switching your focus, even for a brief moment---to check your email, look at a text, move the laundry from washer to dryer, make a phone call. This side effect is called ‘attention residue’. When you return to the hard task you were doing, this attention residue will affect your ability to focus for longer than you think. 

Newport encourages setting aside blocks of time for deep work. I’ve heard this before, in other famous time management theories. Remember the ‘big rocks first’ example from Stephen Covey? But Covey came up with that BEFORE we had our devices with us all the time—his famous, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People published in 1989! It is worthwhile to remember, now, to put away or turn off the devices altogether while you are working on something important or creative. And make sure to schedule real time, that you protect and use well, on your calendar for whatever is the deep work in your life.

In the end, it is not so much what is wrong with distractions but what is so valuable about the opposite. “Concentration is like a superpower”, says Newport. “If you take the time to cultivate this power, you’ll never look back.” I like the sound of that!