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The Deep Work
Divide
Balancing between collaboration and deep work
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Swanand Pagnis
! Principal Engineer at First.io
meetup.com/Bangalore-Ruby-Users-Group/
info.pagnis.in
$ postgres-workshop.com
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Premise, problem
Rules, strategies
Pitfalls, gotchas
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Raise your hand if
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You have worked as a
knowledge worker:
e.g. programmer, writer,
designer, researcher etc
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You have worked as a
people person:
e.g. manager, leader,
executive, coach etc
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You were present in a
meeting where you
weren't required.
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You were so engrossed
in work, that you forgot
to have lunch or dinner.
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You were extremely
satisfied how you wrote
a particular user story.
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Premise, problem
A primer and a pitch
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We live in a
knowledge economy
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Knowledge work is the
most value producing
kind of work in this era
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Knowledge work is the
most rewarding
kind of work in this era
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Being a highly skilled
worker is one way of
thriving, amongst many.
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Deep Work paves a path
to becoming one.
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But…☝
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We're fundamentally
social
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Naturally, our work is
also social
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Success, value creation,
wealth creation is also
social
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And so work is a balance
between solo work and
collaborative work
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But…☝
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BALANCE
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Modern work
environments lean
heavily towards
collaboration
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Collaboration is about:
• An open exchange of ideas
• Decision making
• Responding to stimuli
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Deep work is about:
• Immersive thinking
• Long threads of thoughts
• Shutting down external stimuli
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tl;dr
They're at odds with
each other
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Chess vs Cricket
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Do less to do better.
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Start here:
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– Cal Newport, in Deep Work
Professional activities performed
in a state of distraction-free
concentration that push your
cognitive capabilities to their limit.
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– Cal Newport, in Deep Work. Emphasis mine.
Professional activities performed
in a state of distraction-free
concentration that push your
cognitive capabilities to their limit.
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Just focussed working
is not enough
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Just distraction-free
is not enough
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Challenging work in a
deep focused mode
over a long period of
time is
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And the result?
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– Cal Newport, in Deep Work
These efforts create new value,
improve your skill,
and are hard to replicate.
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– Cal Newport, in Deep Work. Emphasis mine.
These efforts create new value,
improve your skill,
and are hard to replicate.
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That's your x-factor.
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Hypothesis
• Over a longer period of doing
deep work, you develop two
abilities:
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1. To quickly master hard
things.
2. To produce at an elite
level, in terms of both
quality and speed.
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1. To quickly master hard
things.
2. To produce at an elite
level, in terms of both
quality and speed.
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To summarise
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Distraction-free work
that pushes limits,
creates new value,
and improves skill.
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Process. Not result.
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Distraction-free work
that pushes limits,
creates new value,
and improves skill.
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Deep work is valuable
Deep work is rare
Status quo favours
collaboration
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Rules, strategies
The tenets of deep work, staying on course
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First, some meta talk.
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Disclaimer
• This is an experience report
• YMMV
• No one true way
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Not just about:
http://calnewport.com/
books/deep-work/
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Some more
case studies*
https://
www.mortenhansen.com/
book/great-at-work/
*Be very aware of selection bias
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A good
complimentary
strategy:
https://mindsetonline.com/
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Practice.
Learn from experience.
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Rules, strategies
The tenets of deep work, staying on course
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Deep work
Shallow work
Draw clear boundaries
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Errno!::ETOOMANYMEETINGS
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Number of meetings
is always more than
needed *
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Discourage status
meetings.
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Only allow meetings
with pre-written
agenda.
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No meeting should be
an obligation. .
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Have meeting free
days.
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Have meeting free
days weeks.
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Emails, Asana, Trello,
Jira, PR reviews etc.
The shallows!
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Have a fixed time-slot
for them in the day
towards the EOD.
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Written communication
is effective. Don't
downplay it.
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100% pairing
= 100% distraction
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Have pairing free
days.
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Have pairing free
weeks.
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On-call rotation, pager
duty etc. is shallow by
definition. ☎
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Avoid deep work during
that period.
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When we know we
won't be distracted,
we focus better.
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Focus on focus
Work deeply, plan for depth
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Uncertainty is a focus
killer
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Plan your day well
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Plan your week well
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Invest in a productivity
system like GTD®
– David Allen's Getting Things Done®
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Leisure time is essential.
Budget for it.
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Forgive yourself for
wanting to have fun.
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Work environment is
critical
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Noise is a distraction
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Viewport activity is a
bigger distraction.
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Workplaces suffer from
tap on the shoulder
disease
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Open office plans are
probably the costliest
mistake since Null
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Do not walk up to
people and break their
flow. Even for things
like ☕ break.
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Golden rule:
No surprises.
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Learn from
Barbeque Nation
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Flag is up !=> Bring food!
Flag is down !=> Stop!
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Establish an etiquette,
stick to it.
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Hunger is a distraction,
manage it well
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Co-ordinated lunches
are great for bonding.
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Embrace boredom.
– Cal Newport, in Deep Work
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This is a core Deep
Work rule.
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Avoid jumping on to
something else when
waiting on things.
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e.g. Don't jump to
Twitter when waiting
for your app to load up
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Dial up the verbosity on
logs, ssh sessions,
bundle install, rspec etc
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Put your phone away,
say in a different room,
when working.
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Train yourself by not
carrying the phone to
the
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Raise your hand if
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Embrace boredom.
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This habit requires a lot
of training. Possibly the
hardest to change.
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Why is it important?
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Hypothesis
• It (the jumping around) trains
your mind to be distracted, and
prevents long hours of focus,
eventually reducing your ability
to focus.
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H
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Stretch your limit
Pick work at the edge your skillset
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Pick something
you haven't done.
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If Ruby is all you do, go
write Haskell.
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If you are a front-end
developer, understand
how minification really
works.
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Write a compiler
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Design a new font
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Pick something
outside your domain
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Pick something
adjacent to your skills
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It has to be knowledge
work or craft work.
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If work isn't offering
you a stretch, pick a
MOOC or a book
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Side projects are
overrated, because they
are "side" projects *
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If you want to work on
something 'side', take a few
days off and make it the
main thing for those days.
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Offer your team a
stretch time where they
can hone their craft.
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Invest in and get better
at writing. ✍ ✨
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Nothing really brings
out deep focus like
writing. M
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Writing improves
communication. N
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Writing improves
collaboration.
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Don't fight biology
Be aware of your boundaries
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Sleep well.
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Gift yourself regular
exercise QST
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Understand your
biological cycle ⏰
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Discipline is important.
It brings reliability. ✌
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Seek reliability, not
discipline.
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Allow people to choose
their own schedule.
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Separate deep & shallow
Focus on focus
Stretch the limits
Don't fight biology
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Pitfalls
Traps, false positives, gotchas.
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Going too far down
the rabbit hole
Losing the big picture
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Abdicate responsibility
in search of focus H
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Ineffective
collaboration
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Ineffective
communication
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Becoming a JIRA ticket
pusher
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Over-estimating your
deep work ability
There is a point of diminishing returns
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Missing out on
leadership
Deep work is a very individual effort
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Losing the big picture
Losing out on collaborative
aspects of work
Trying out too much deep work
Missing out on leadership
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Despair not,
remember what we're
working towards:
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To quickly master hard
things
To produce at an elite
level, in terms of both
quality and speed
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Thank you!
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Swanand Pagnis
! Principal Engineer at First.io
meetup.com/Bangalore-Ruby-Users-Group/
info.pagnis.in
$ postgres-workshop.com