In the forth week of a life of focus, the final week of focused work, was centred around the idea that deep work is easily derailed and how to recognise and prevent that from happening.
Cal started off the fourth week by going into detail about time management. Specifically his method of time blocking. He uses his method to control his time and get more done. In his own words “serious time block planners get 2x more things done per week than someone working the exact same hours not using time blocking”.
In addition to going deep on his time block planning, Cal reiterates the idea that these new deep work habits will be derailed easily and the only way to sustain them over time and even improve them is to measure. He advises to measure every single day, even days where you do zero hours. And then if you don’t like your measurements, modify until to do. This ongoing process will see our current deep working practices evolve over time.
Scott drawing on his experience doing the year long MIT challenge, shares a universal truth. That we become the stories we tell ourselves. He advises us to create a strong narrative to keep the wind at our backs, to enable us to overcome the random friction of everyday life trying to suck us back into the frenzied struggle of the shallows.
The first month is concluded with the bonus lesson about avoiding burnout in search of a life of focus. Scott troubleshoots the main causes of burnout in this pursuit, like automatic tendencies to do shallow work, poor project selection and an unbalanced range of pursuits.
My own deep work took a nose dive this week, due to a number of factors namely unexpected pharmacy locum cover and a silly hangover. My actually deep work was only 3 hours.
This minor setback has some silver linings though. I have manage to practice and cemented a deep work ritual which has proven effective in getting me focused and ready for doing deep work.
My focus for the coming week is still to deliberately practice my ritual and to start using time block planning. Cal’s statement that time block planners get double the work done has caught my attention and warrants a trail to validate it.
Eoghan‘s Blog 