The Single Most Valuable Skill to Thrive in Life

In this weeks blogpost I want to share the lessons I learned in Cal Newports Book "Deep Work". It completly changed the way I approach work in general and I found so much value in this book, which you should'nt miss out on.

As technology advances and the job market being more competitive than ever due to globalization, we have to be able to quickly learn things and produce the absolute best stuff we are capable of. In order to do that we have to master a skill, which Cal Newport calls Deep Work. Deep Work is defined as professional activities performed in a state of destraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill and are hard to replicate.

In the age of social media and email we are more connected than ever, but probably also more distracted than ever. The average knowledge worker spends about 60 % of the workweek engaged in electronic communication and internet searching. This is basically the opposite of deep work, because you are constantly distracted and you switch between tasks in rapid time. Cal Newport calls this type of work shallow work, which is defined as noncognitively damanding, logistical-style tasks often performed while distracted. These efforts tend not to create much new value in the world and are easy to replicate.

But why is deep work the single most valuable skill to master in todays society?

As intelligent machines improve and remote work becoming easier than ever, the job market is very competetive these days. There are three types of workers, who will thrive in this competitive environment: The high-skilled workers which are good at working with intelligent machines, the superstars who count to the best in their work field and the owners who have access to capital and can invest into companies with great potential. There are basically two core abilities you need to master in this new econonomy. The ability to quickly master hard things and the ability to produce at an elite level, in terms of both quality and speed. Those two abilities both require the ability to practise deep work.

But what is so bad about constantly switching between tasks and practising shallow work? The problem is when you are switching from one task to another your attention does not follow immediately. You are still thinking about the former task. This phenomenon is called attention residue and in order to avoid it, you have to work on a single hard task for long periods of time.

So deep work is becoming more valuable and at the same time more rare, because the average knowledge worker is becoming more distracted than ever. In order to be successful in this environment you have to master the ability to go deep.

If I haven't convinced you to implement deep work into your life, I am sure that I will have now. Deep Work is meaningfull and creates happiness.

"Who you are, what you think, feel, and do, what you love - is the sum of what you focus on." While practising deep work you focus so deeply at a certain task, that you stop thinking about the smaller less pleasant things. This will significantly improve your life, without really changing any of your circumstances.

Deep work helps us to get into the state of Flow. I don't know if you've heard about Flow before, but it is basically a mental state where a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwile. Reasearchers found out that we feel the happiest when we are in this state of Flow. So ironically we are the happiest when we lose ourselves in working on a hard task and not while we are having free time.

Last but not least Deep Work helps us to create meaningfull work that we can be proud of. It is the key to extracting meaning form you profession, which leads to overall satisfaction.

Now we know why deep work is so crucial and we can get to the steps how to actually implement deep work into our everyday life.

The hardest part of practising deep work is to actually get started, because after you got into a state of Flow it is a quite effortless task. The initiation of deep work needs will power and we have a finite amount of willpower on each day to spend. The key to be a deep work master is to reduce the amount of will power which is required to get into the state of unbroken concentration. In order to do that you need to build habits and routines, which make it effortless to start a deep work session.

How you implement deep work into your life depends on your circumstances and I recommend choosing a routine which fits best to you. Whether you do think weeks like Bill Gates, where you lock yourself into a little barn for a week, wake up at 5 am to work on your most meaningfull task or practise deep work whenever you have a spare hour, doesn't really matter as long as it works for you.

There are a few rules that I think are quite usefull to manifest a deep work habit. The key words are rituals and planning. Create rituals how you start or end your deep work sessions. You could for example make yourself a cup of coffee whenever you are going deep. Define a deep work space and time. Think about a place where you can focus best and than think about the time slot in the day where you mind is the sharpest. You should always define a time frame for your deep work session, so it does not end up being a open-ended slog.

In addition you should define a goal for your deep work session, which should be ambitious but also mangable in that time slot. It should push you mental capacity to its limit.

In order to work deeply on a daily basis your mind needs rest. To properly rest you should completly forget about your work during your down time. So no late night email checking. A good advice regarding that is to create a ritual which puts you out of work mode and into rest mode. A good way of doing that is to plan your upcoming day at the end of each work day. Which tasks need to get done and which meetings do I have scheduled? After doing that your mind can rest and you don't have to worry about work until next morning. It can be really tempting to squeeze in a few hours of work during your relaxation time, especially during busy times, but deep work requires an intense amount of concentration and your mind has only a limited capacity of that and needs rest to recharge that capacity. After 4-5 hours of deep work your capacity is probably at its limit and if you don't give yourself the time to rest you are probably reducing this amount and get done less the next day than if you would have given yourself the time to rest.

In the beginning of your journey of becoming a deep worker you will probably notice that you lack focus and that you become easily distracted. Concentrating deeply is a skill that needs to be developed over time and especially for people who are used to distracting themselves with social media whenever they feel the slightest hint of boredom this can be really hard. So in order to extent your ability to work deeply for long periods of time, you need to embrace boredom on a daily basis. Whenever you feel bored for example while waiting in a line, resist the urge to take out your phone and instead embrace the boredom.

The less distractions you have to choose from, the easier it will be for you to focus deeply. Social media is a great tool and it definitely has its advantages, but I want to encourage you to also to acknowledge the disadvantages. Quitting social media for 30 days is a great way to get a feeling whether it actually adds value to your life. You will probably notice that actually nobody cares about your posts, you are not missing out on anything and it is far more valuable to connect to your friends in a meaningful way instead of the supercial way of social media. If you find out that after 30 days you are missing out on value, you can always come back, but you should at least give it a try.

Far to many people are moving through life on autopilot, instead of being intentional with their limited amount of time. A good way to avoid that is to schedule your day at least in a broad way. Ask yourself: What makes the most sense right now?. Treat your time with respect. Cut out the shalloweness of your day. Is it really necessary to attend every meeting, do I really need to reply to every email within minutes? These kind of habits are disrupting you day and prevent yourself from practising deep work.

But which tasks require deep work? A good way to categorize your tasks is to ask yourself how long it would take to train a student to do this task. Regarding to the time it would take, you can decide which tasks you should get done during your deep work sessions.

I hope I convinced you to give deep work more room in your life and cut out the shallowness wherever it is possible. Deep work will not only make you thrive in your professional life, it will also make your life more meaningfull and happier.

Cheers Emil