How Does One Even Achieve "Deep Work"
Starting a focus challenge on a holiday weekend is a bit of a cop-out, isn't it?
I’m a 26-times-in-an-hour sort of girl. Opening and closing each of my messaging apps in succession just to see if there’s anything new. This sounds mad, considering notifications, there’s only a small justification in the fact that my phone, for reasons beyond my understanding, doesn’t always send through lock screen notifications, especially for the non-native apps.
Yes, I have tried to fix it. Yes, even so, this is a problem.
One day some months ago, I popped over to Screen Time, still lying in bed in the wee hours of the morning browsing whatever I might find on my phone, and just happened to see that I had indeed opened Signal 26 times since I’d awoken.
I was so irate with myself that I terminated my account and deleted the app much to the surprise of a few friends with whom I had more or less been in the middle of conversations. Not that it made much difference to my Telegram, Whatsapp, and Messages app viewing.
I realized this week that Newport didn’t actually explain how one achieves “deep work.” Or, I don’t remember him explaining, and I had meant to pick up the book again, skim my notes and stickies, to find what it was I’d missed, but I have the attention span of a hummingbird, so I didn’t do that.
He did go on about a few different examples of people who have accidentally or intentionally engaged in deep work.
A young man in changing his career from a glorified data entry specialist to coding, locked himself in a room for days or weeks with textbooks before embarking on some extremely rough, fast-track coding school you’ll probably have heard of if you’re a computer science person. He realized if he was going to survive the course, he needed to train himself how to focus intensely. And did.
Another man had begun arriving at the synagogue at 6 am to engage in deep study as an Orthodox Jew and found that his general focus had improved.
Then there was the ADHD teen who began practicing memory tricks and went on to win national and international memory competitions (this is a thing?). He also found his attention and focus greatly improved from his clumsy, scattered childhood and, I don’t know, graduated college with top marks, or something of that nature.
I’m certainly not locking myself in a room, but I did finish Newport’s book in three sittings over three days, does that count?
I remember him spending a lot more time outlining how his fine readers might avoid distractions, or “shallow work,” mostly in the name of screen distractions than he does the steps we might take to reach deep work. These are all things we already know: never have joined Facebook (he does have a compelling system for determining if certain apps/social media sites are worth your time and attention), avoid having multiple tabs open, shut down wifi, turn off the phone, leave it another room, never check your email, etc.
The basics.
And I have successfully only checked my email a few times this week (there really wasn’t anything important in it and it was only successful because I deleted the app from my phone otherwise it becomes part of the app opening and closing ritual), I avoided social media (I even posted links to my last newsletter without actually signing in, in truth, I haven’t had these apps on my phone for months with the occasional Instagram lapse), but I completely failed at keeping my phone in focus mode for more than a half-hour at a time and I played solitaire for too many hours. Maybe fewer hours than I did the week before, but still quite a few hours.
I think the biggest mistake I made was not choosing in advance each day or for the week, what project(s) I might focus deeply on. I, of course, have projects on the go that need my attention, but I failed to make one a priority and in fact, after the long weekend there was quite a lot of busywork that needed doing.
One or both of my parents were home until Tuesday and if they weren’t making a bunch of noise tearing out the kitchen, I generally just find it harder to focus when other people are in the house even if we’re in completely separate parts behind closed doors. Then I enjoyed an eight-hour day of solitude as I finally had the house to myself, which generally includes doing a lot of nothing (I very much need my own house). Paperwork for the government. A course that’s currently live on Tuesdays for nearly three hours. And physical therapy to finally relieve my long-tormenting back pain.
I got a lot of stuff done given the limitations, including bringing yoga back into my life, but was it the really important stuff? The stuff that I can feel a sense of accomplishment about, or that will, in whatever small way, and I cringe to say it this way, advance my career? Do I even have a career?!
I probably engaged in more “deep work” in text conversations, than I did for any other thing. Do I have a problem?
Maybe I’m just lonely.
Ah, see, I wrote this whole missive without looking at my phone at all. I didn’t even have to put it in the other room. Maybe I’m all right after all.