I bought a copy of Deep Work by Cal Newport back in 2021 after hearing him interviewed on a podcast.
Amazon link if you'd like to get your own copy.
The book was talked about in great detail by in the productivity circles of the internet. Infact, I was exposed to the book so much online over the course of a few weeks that I don't think I actually read it until this month!
I was cleaning up the home office and found the book and thought I would read it again, for I definitely need a refresher. Many of my old habits of distraction have return and there are once again, not enough hours in the day to get work done to my expectations.
So as I started the book, I quickly released I didn't read it yet... At least not past the introduction. That was familiar territory, but then again that could have been discussed in one of the podcasts I heard on the books. At any rate....
Over the past few weeks I have started to put recommendations from this book into practice and it is already making a noticeable difference on how my day goes!
The book suggests the tactic of blocking off chunks of your calendar for focused, unrestricted work. While time blocking is nothing new and a tool I've been using for well over a decade, I have now started be much more intentional. I make a point to eliminate as many potential distractions as possible, and define specific tasks I am going to work on (not just "work on this project" for an hour).
Possibly the best hack (so far) that I've implemented into my office life is shutting off MS Outlook for about half my time in the office. That's right. I don't just turn notifications off, minimize the Outlook window on my computer. I close the app entirely for hour long (if not longer) stretches at a time.
And not just for times I block my calendar off to focus on "deep work" either. Basically I just turn off Outlook at an early trigger point in my morning, such as during a Teams meeting or my first blocked hour or half hour of focused "deep work." Then the rest of the day it is turn on or half in roughly one hour intervals.
One caveat is that it's on the last 45 minutes to an hour of the day. That way I can put out any end of the day fires and be able to shut things down with a zero inbox. Yes, being able to have a zero inbox is actually possible. I've been able to do it since 2019!
Amazon links to this book and others I recently recommended here on this blog
As always, thank you for your time reading this. All comments are welcome. Even if you want to let me know how wrong I am. If you think others would get some sort of value, please share this on your socials.
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