Teach Yourself: Deep Work
I made some notes on deep work — what it feels like, how I structure it in my day, and the rituals I’ve built after chasing flow states for years as a writer. This is by no means a definitive system, but it’s mine and it’s shaped by my own quirks (afternoon naps included), and leans heavily on Cal Newport’s original framing along with a few other writers who’ve thought about focus and attention. I hope you find it useful:
I’m not much of a believer, but when I’m engaged in deep work, I’m in unity with my ideas, and that is the only god I’ve experienced.
To me, deep work feels like a spiritual experience. The conception of past and future disappears. The writing flows from a higher state to my word doc. My body is just a conduit that’s doing the typing.
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Intensity of focus is the secret sauce in deep work. Unlike other types of work, you maximise concentration to prepare for tests, write papers, master skills often at a fraction of the time, without compromising quality.
In a world of permission-less leverage, only those who produce will thrive. And to produce high quality work, you must master the ability to go deep.
Newport’s Deep Work Hypothesis: Deep work is becoming rare at exactly the same time it is becoming valuable in our economy.
Corollary: Longer you put off going deep, the more you engage in depth destroying behaviours. The more you engage in depth destroying behaviours, the harder it becomes to do deep work.
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Deep work is measurable: High-Quality Work Produced = (Time Spent) x (Intensity of Focus)
You can’t do eight hours of deep work a day. The limit for most people seems to be Three to four hours a day, five days a week. You’ll be surprised to know that’s more than enough to churn out your life’s work.
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The Ideal deep work session length is ninety minutes, after which, your performance starts dipping.
Absolutely no phones. Deep work zones are no-phone zones. Put your phone in another room.
A.R. Rahman does the same: “I keep all phones, ringers and emails off while working. I’ll be in the middle of something and suddenly get a message reading ‘pay your taxes!’ which will totally distract me. I know it’s tough to survive without phones, but just for that one hour, you need to dive deep into your inner consciousness and focus on work with a radar around you. That’s more than enough.”
Breaks are indispensable. A 15-minute walk break outside, no phone, every day for the next week is a terrific way to replenish willpower.
Schedule focus blocks. You probably know when your brain’s a livewire. Block those times off in the cal so you don’t rely only on inspiration. You can, however, be flexible on what to focus on. Toggle between projects to keep novelty alive.
Add routines and rituals. The Path to hell is paved with good intentions. Move beyond them. Add routines and rituals to increase your chance of success.
I brew green tea before a pre-lunch deep work session. Post-lunch, I bribe myself with a coffee and something sweet. I acknowledge I’m doing something difficult and pamper myself to counter my dipping willpower.
Track hours spent on deep work. Put it somewhere you can see it. I put on a white board and strike out every hour of deep work I complete. It’s immensely satisfying!
And for the neurodivergent among you, remember that triggers for hyperfocus are interest, competition, novelty, urgency. Use them to aid your deep work sessions.
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Focus Gates. That discomfort you feel at the start of a deep work session is a focus gate. This is when your mind is most susceptible to putting off deep work. You can counter that agitation and stress by starting with something easy, like journaling for ten minutes, or proofreading your work from the previous day.
I usually start my deep work sessions talking about how vulnerable I feel. I simply rant about how I don’t have the energy to write for the length of the duration. I do this in a question - answer format so I can talk to myself.
For example:
A - There’s no way I’m completing this 60 minute flowstate.
B - Why do you say so?
A - Well, I don’t think I have writing worth 60 minutes in my head.
B - No worries. How about we spend 10 of those minutes talking instead?
A - Uh, sure.
B - Great. How was yesterday?
A - Well, Ani was over and we had pizza and …
You get the point.
Beware of the superficial. A large obstacle to going deep is the urge to turn your attention toward something more superficial. This is a huge trap, because completing superficial tasks gives you the illusion of victory. Besides being brutally honest with yourself, a key way to identify if you’ve done deep work is fear.
Deep work will always elicit fear. Shallow work rarely does. So if you’re feeling fear, quite likely you’re taking on a deep work task. Do it, because what you feel afterwards is a heady mixture of joy and euphoria!
Another advantage of visibly tracking deep work is momentum. The more deep work you do (and see you’ve done), the more it goads you into doing.
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There is such a strong body of evidence to show that there are huge cognitive benefits including improved attention to doing even a small amount of daily exercise.
Blood flow shifts back almost immediately after you finish exercising, and this is the perfect time to focus on a project that demands sharp thinking and complex analysis.
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People have gone to great extremes to do deep work:
Carl Jung: At Bollingen I am in the midst of my true life, I am most deeply myself,” Jung wrote. “. . . I have done without electricity, and tend the fireplace and stove myself. Evenings, I light the old lamps. There is no running water, I pump the water from the well. I chop the wood and cook the food. These simple acts make man simple; and how difficult it is to be simple!””
Bill Gates: Microsoft CEO Bill Gates famously conducted “Think Weeks” twice a year, during which he would isolate himself (often in a lakeside cottage) to do nothing but read and think big thoughts.”
David Dewane: This brings us to the final room of the machine, a collection of what Dewane calls “deep work chambers” (he adopted the term “deep work” from my articles on the topic). Each chamber is conceived to be six by ten feet and protected by thick soundproof walls (Dewane’s plans call for eighteen inches of insulation). “The purpose of the deep work chamber is to allow for total focus and uninterrupted work flow,” Dewane explains. He imagines a process in which you spend ninety minutes inside, take a ninety-minute break, and repeat two or three times—at which point your brain will have achieved its limit of concentration for the day.”
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Distractions are worse than you think. Jumping on a call or saying yes to a coffee meeting seems innocuous, but it can be detrimental if it’s at the cost of deep work. Committing to a fixed deep work blocks and sharing those blocks with people will remove guilt from obligations.
People will also respect your right to become inaccessible if these periods are well defined and well advertised, and outside these stretches, you’re once again easy to find.
Cognitive switches. No matter how tempting, giving into a cognitive switch is detrimental to deep work. I make it impossible for myself to switch context by using apps like the Most Dangerous Writing App, where if I stop typing for 5 seconds, I lose all words I’ve typed so far.
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Create consistent deep work with an ironclad rest ethic. Tons of research all say that regularly resting your brain improves the quality of your deep work.
Be bored. Be idle. Swim around in your own stray thoughts. It’s how your brain recovers, and prepares to do more deep work!
Even the most gifted thinker cannot spend more than four hours in a state of depth. Meaning you can safely spend the rest of the day wallowing in the shallows without adverse effect.
Take naps. I nap between Focus Block 1 (1-215pm) and Focus Block 2 (330 pm - 445 pm). Basically, between 245 pm to 3 pm, I’m out like a light. I do wake up a little woozy (I call it my depression naps), but I offset it with dark chocolate and coffee. Quite often, my second focus block is better than the first. It’s the combination of caffeine and rest (and some banger music) pushing my brain to fire on all cylinders. I love it!
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Summing up, we must build our working life around deep work flow states as they’re a proven path to deep satisfaction.
Quoting Newport, “The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.”
Interestingly, I almost never fail to complete my 60 minute flow states. Nearly all my flow states start with fear and end with joy.
Bibliography
Cal Newport, Deep Work
Daniel Pink, How to Fix Your Attention Span
Gautam Sunder, A.R. Rahman Shares Tips on Working From Home, and Staying Away From Vices
Approach with Alacrity, 101 Things I Would Tell My Self From 10 Years Ago
James Stuber, Last Year I Was Diagnosed With ADHD
Dr John J. Ratey, Eric Hagerman, Spark
Liam Porritt, How I Stay Focused Working 14-Hour Days - My Flow System
Billy Oppenheimer, I Think About This Twice a Day
Mason Currey, Daily Rituals
George Mack, High Agency In 30 Minutes
Study Hacks, The Tao of Cal