After recent set backs in getting a job in startups I have taken a step back and enrolled in another course.. A Life of Focus is a course created by Cal Newport and Scot Young. I am a big fan of both of their work and was drawn to the course as it offered a guided path to deepening my own work and life.
My aim in completing this course is to strengthen my deep working strategies and practices helping me to become a perpetual learner.
The course is split into three months, each month focusing on a different aspect of a focused life. The first month is about focued work, the second is focused life and the final month is a focused mind.
The design of the course is intentionally drawn out to allow students to take monthly challenges with three weekly lessons.
I have just completed the first week of the course and completed the first three lessons. The challenge for the month is to hit your deep-to-shallow work ratio or number deep work hours each week.
I set my daily challenge to be 3 hours a day, with a target of 15 hours a week. I am really torn over whether to add the weekends as deep working days. I should be able to use them but I don’t want to let a bad weekend or two derail my plan completely.
After two days of tracking my hours I am already behind target. I surpirsed myself as I only actually do 2.5 hours a day even though I am ‘working’ from like 9 til 3 each day (6 hours) and sometimes longer.
I also want to be able to enhance this course with concepts of Scott’s and Cal’s books so I can finish the three months as an extremely adept worker and perpetual learner. Extra work I will be doing is reading and digesting daily their books as well as other books on the topics like Josh Waitzkin’s and more.
| Day | Hours of Deep Work | Comment |
| Monday | 2.5 | |
| Tuesday | 0 | Day Drinking |
| Wednesday | 2.5 | |
| Thursday | 2.5 | |
| Friday | 2.5 | |
| Saturday | 3 | Switched from Pomadoro technique to 90 minute blocks |
| Sunday |
Total 13 hours
Weekly Target 15 hours
Eoghan‘s Blog 