What’s most important is that your environment is quiet and somewhere you can be undisturbed for a set amount of time. For many people, it is helpful for the space to be tidy since physical clutter can be distracting. You may have many options or you may only have your usual workspace. What this means will depend on how much control you have in your environment. The environment you choose for your deep work session sets the stage. You want to think about the following 5 steps in the context of your role, schedule, work location, and the type of deep work you want to do. How to set up a deep work ritualĮveryone’s deep work ritual will look a little different and there is no right or wrong way to set one up. Whew! Whatever you are working on will take exponentially longer with all these distractions. This is where the magic happens! It’s where you find that elusive flow state.Ĭonversely, it’s impossible to get to that deep work flow-state when your mind is full of your never-ending todo list, you are still annoyed about that email you got this morning, you know you have 15 unread Slack messages, your phone is vibrating every few minutes because your best friend wants needs to vent about their jerk co-worker, and you have a meeting in half an hour anyway. Over time, you will be able to settle into focussed deep work faster and with greater ease. The process of going through your deep work ritual sets the expectation both psychologically and physiologically for what comes next. Ritual is a routine that you can do to calm your mind and body before you set out to focus. Ritual, in this context, is “ an act or series of acts regularly repeated in a set precise manner”. Photo by Stefan Cosma on Unsplash Why does ritual support deep work? Writing (and being able to focus while doing it) is particularly important to me because it is a primary source of value I create for clients and is a marketing driver for my business. Generally, it requires problem-solving or has some level of complexity that requires your full attention.Ĭal further states that: “the key to developing a deep work habit is to move beyond good intentions and add routines and rituals to your working life designed to minimize the amount of your limited willpower necessary to transition into and maintain a state of unbroken concentration.”įor me, deep work shows up in many facets of my work but most often as strategic thinking and writing. What you consider cognitively demanding will vary depending on your role and the type of work you do. What does deep work mean?Ĭal defines deep work as: “the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task”. There were many valuable learnings, but one in particular that has stuck with me is how powerful setting a deep work ritual is. One of the books I have read in the last year that helped support me in my quest for greater focus was Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport. It’s a wonder any of us get anything done at all! the number of times you get interrupted each day is astronomical. Colleagues or team members if you are in an office.Uninterrupted, focused time on tasks that require deep thinking can be a tall order in our world of a million and one distractions. Learn how ritual supports deep work and focus and how to set up your own deep work ritual.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |