The Deep Work Mentality

Mastering hard things fast is the ultimate x-factor. It is what makes some people deliver a disproportionately large impact. This journey of a 1000 miles begins at deep focussed work and cultivating the right learning habits. I am on this journey, and I want you to start yours.

Transcript

1. The Deep Work Mentality Experiments with knowledge work
2. What, why? Rules, strategies Pitfalls
3. What, why? A primer and a pitch
4. We live in a knowledge economy
5. Knowledge work is the most value producing kind of work in this era
6. Knowledge work is the most rewarding kind of work in this era
7. Being a highly skilled worker is one way of thriving, amongst many.
8. Deep Work paves a path to becoming one.
9. Start here:
10. – Cal Newport, in Deep Work Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit.
11. – 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.
12. Just focussed working is not enough
13. Just distraction-free is not enough
14. Challenging work in a deep focused mode over a long period of time is
15. And the result?
16. – Cal Newport, in Deep Work These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.
17. – Cal Newport, in Deep Work. Emphasis mine. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.
18. That's your x-factor.
19. Hypothesis • Over a longer period of doing deep work, you develop two abilities:
20. 1. To quickly master hard things. 2. To produce at an elite level, in terms of both quality and speed.
21. 1. To quickly master hard things. 2. To produce at an elite level, in terms of both quality and speed.
22. To summarise
23. Distraction-free work that pushes limits, creates new value, and improves skill.
24. Process. Not result.
25. Distraction-free work that pushes limits, creates new value, and improves skill.
26. Rules, strategies The tenets of deep work, staying on course
27. First, some meta talk.
28. Disclaimer • This is an experience report • YMMV • No one true way
29. Not just about: http://calnewport.com/ books/deep-work/
30. Some more case studies* https:// www.mortenhansen.com/ book/great-at-work/ *Be very aware of selection bias
31. A good complimentary strategy: https://mindsetonline.com/
32. Practice. Learn from experience.
33. Rules, strategies The tenets of deep work, staying on course
34. Deep work Shallow work Draw clear boundaries
35. Errno!::ETOOMANYMEETINGS
36. Number of meetings is always more than needed $
37. Have meeting free days.
38. Have meeting free days weeks.
39. Emails, Asana, Trello, Jira, PR reviews etc. The shallows!
40. Have a fixed time-slot for them in the day towards the EOD.
41. 100% pairing = 100% distraction
42. Have pairing free days.
43. Have pairing free weeks.
44. On-call rotation, pager duty etc. is shallow by definition. ☎
45. Avoid deep work during that period.
46. When we know we won't be distracted, we focus better.
47. Focus on focus Work deeply, plan for depth
48. Uncertainty is a focus killer
49. Plan your day well
50. Plan your week well
51. Invest in a productivity system like GTD® – David Allen's Getting Things Done®
52. Leisure time is essential. Budget for it.
53. Forgive yourself for wanting to have fun.
54. Work environment is critical
55. Noise is a distraction
56. Viewport activity is a bigger distraction.
57. Workplaces suffer from tap on the shoulder disease
58. Open office plans are probably the costliest mistake since Null
59. Learn from Barbeque Nation
60. Flag is up !=> Bring food! Flag is down !=> Stop!
61. Establish an etiquette, stick to it.
62. Hunger is a distraction, manage it well
63. Embrace boredom. – Cal Newport, in Deep Work
64. This is a core Deep Work rule.
65. Avoid jumping on to something else when waiting on things.
66. e.g. Don't jump to Twitter when waiting for your app to load up
67. Dial up the verbosity on logs, ssh sessions, bundle install, rspec etc
68. Put your phone away, say in a different room, when working.
69. Train yourself by not carrying the phone to the
70. Embrace boredom.
71. This habit requires a lot of training. Possibly the hardest to change.
72. Why is it important?
73. Hypothesis • It (the jumping around) trains your mind to be distracted, and prevents long hours of focus, eventually reducing your ability to focus.
74. ?
75. Stretch your limit Pick work at the edge your skillset
76. Pick something you haven't done.
77. If Ruby is all you do, go write Haskell.
78. If you are a front-end developer, understand how minification really works.
79. Write a compiler
80. Design a new font
81. Pick something outside your domain
82. Pick something adjacent to your skills
83. It has to be knowledge work or craft work.
84. If work isn't offering you a stretch, pick a MOOC or a book
85. Side projects are overrated, because they are "side" projects $
86. If you want to work on something 'side', take a few days off and make it the main thing for those days.
87. Invest in and get better at writing. ✍ ✨
88. Nothing really brings out deep focus like writing. D
89. Don't fight biology Be aware of your boundaries
90. Sleep well.
91. Gift yourself regular exercise GIJ
92. Understand your biological cycle ⏰
93. Discipline is important. It brings reliability. ✌
94. Separate deep & shallow Focus on focus Stretch your limit Don't fight biology
95. Pitfalls Traps, false positives, gotchas.
96. Going too far down the rabbit hole Losing the big picture
97. Abdicate responsibility in search of focus ?
98. Ineffective collaboration
99. Ineffective communication
100. Becoming a JIRA ticket pusher
101. Over-estimating your deep work ability There is a point of diminishing returns
102. Missing out on leadership Deep work is a very individual effort
103. Losing the big picture Losing out on collaborative aspects of work Trying out too much deep work Missing out on leadership
104. Despair not, remember what we're working towards:
105. To quickly master hard things To produce at an elite level, in terms of both quality and speed
106. Thank you!
107. Swanand Pagnis R Principal Engineer at First.io meetup.com/Bangalore-Ruby-Users-Group/ info.pagnis.in U postgres-workshop.com