Fundamental of Achievement
Deep
Work
In our hyper-distracted world, the ability to perform deep work is becoming a rare skill. As with most rare skills, it’s also becoming more valuable. That’s a great thing if you can learn to develop your focus. But for the majority who struggle to do so, falling behind becomes an inevitability.
Tier
What Is Deep Work?
Deep work is labor done through periods of intense concentration, especially that which stretches your cognitive capabilities. Deep work can include time spent on creative, analytical, or critical thinking tasks that are best accomplished in alpha brainwave state.
Why Deep Work?
Today, the work of the mind is usually more rewarding than the work of the body. As such, mastering deep work leads to a better life.
I don’t claim to be an expert on anything I write about.
Hell, I hardly claim to be an expert on myself. 😂😂😂
These breakdowns are largely for me. I use them to record and reference. Unlike most others on this site though, this goal setting page might actually be useful to the outside observer.
No promises. You can tell me.
Elite Performance
The ability to perform deep work is a major separator in modern society. And its importance is only going up.
Alpha Mode
Training your brain to enter the alpha brainwave state requires practice. Yet it’s crucial to reaching your potential.
Maximum Efficiency
Multitasking doesn’t work, despite what you’ve heard. At least, it doesn’t work nearly as well as singular focus.
Dopamine Drip
Daily deep work is one of those micro goals that make you feel like a boss as you pursue your big-picture goals.
Doing deep work isn’t all that complicated. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Here’s a quick look at what mastering my focus has been like for me.
Learn with Me
I’m still working on this one.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m probably in the top 10% already.
However, I still succumb to distraction too often. My success at achieving daily deep work ebbs and flows. But when I’m on, I’m really on. Learning about this concept has a lot to do with that.
Most of the work I do for myself or my clients requires deep work. As such, deep work is crucial to my personal progress.
I’m still developing elite processes for myself.
Most days, I’m able to dedicate four to five highly-concentrated hours to my most important projects. Sometimes it’s much more; others it’s much less. Better scheduling and less distraction are my main areas to improve upon.
Most of what I produce is a product of deep work, including This Site.
My Experience
I still have a long way to go on this one.
I’m able to squeeze out more and more over time.
However, I know that my ceiling is much higher than my current deep work output. In short, I could be “in the zone” more often and get more out of it when I am there.
To that end, I’m continually looking for ways to upgrade my work systems. There some fairly obvious things, like avoiding my smartphone and social media. There are also less obvious ones, like scheduling my non-deep-work time better.
Overall, there is a large degree of experimentation involved.
The way I use my Bullet Journal is critical to this process.
Tracking my progress helps me to find what works best. I spend a fair amount of time researching the habits of other high performers as well.
- Importance – 98%
- Passion – 85%
- Mastery – 60%
Journey Started: ≈2016
Good Life Foundation
Deep work is vital. Cultivating the ability to turn out extremely productive hours is one of the keys of the modern-day high performer.
Where Deep Work Fits in a Good Life
Doing deep work is the primary goal of the Peak State puzzle.
For me, it’s a “Tier 5” concept along with Flow State, Scheduling, and Cognitive Performance.
It is also highly dependent on Habits and Rituals.
2. High Performance
3. Productivity
4. Peak State
‣ 5. Deep Work
5. Flow State
5. Scheduling
5. Biohacking
4. Project Management
4. Discipline
Success Habit Rank
Videos Watched
Mentions on My Site
Books Read
Doing Deep Work That Breeds Achievement
For those new to deep work…
Let’s start with the best advice up front.
Just get started.
You get better at doing deep work by doing deep work.
That’s because a large part of mastering deep work is brain training. The more time you spend concentrating, the easier it becomes and the better you get at it. It’s called neuroplasticity and it’s one of the most beautiful things about the human mind.
However, the opposite is also true.
The more time you spend on “shallow work” the better your brain gets at frivolous activity.
Unfortunately, frivolity is the default state for most of us in our hyper-distracted world.
Treat your Focus like a muscle. Be intentional about making it stronger.
Make incremental improvements. Rinse and repeat everyday.
Daily Practice is one of the most powerful tools in a High Performer’s arsenal. Certainly, there is an element of Willpower involved—especially when it comes to the work you don’t really feel like doing.
But never forget, you are the master of your own mind. If you make deep work a part of your Self Identity, your brain will shrug and say “This is just something we do,” and get over it. 🤷♂️ In fact, that’s the sweet spot.
Not to mention, the boring, tedious work doesn’t take as long if you go all in on it.
Your ultimate goal is to reach Flow State, where you’re simply “in the zone.” Time flies by and the next thing you know, the work is done.
Getting there is a little bit different for everyone.
And there are always Productivity “hacks” you can use.
But as human beings, our brain chemistry is more similar than not.
So the basic formula looks something like:
- Find work that matters.
- Commit to doing it.
- Avoid distractions.
- Practice. Practice. Practice.
- Improve your process.
Keep in mind that Motivation plays a role too, especially when you’re first developing the skill.
Choosing work you really care about makes it easier, even more so if you also enjoy it.
That doesn’t mean you should choose the fun stuff over the important stuff.
However, creating art, making music, playing sports, and other activities you enjoy are great paths to develop your concentration. Look at them as training for your mind, a means to get better at doing the work that may matter more but isn’t as fun.
Additionally, practices like Meditation and Mindfulness help as well. Intentionality in all forms is useful. Exercise and good diet are also key because they impact your brain chemistry.
On the flip side, there are definitely some things you should avoid.
- High-sugar foods
- Multi-tasking
- Social media
These things can cripple your ability to do deep work due to the ways they affect the brain.
Again, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. You’ll have to figure out what works for you.
Commit to Growth and you’ll be surprised at how productive you can become.
How to Do Deep Work Step-By-Step
01
Time and Space
Environment has a major impact on your ability to concentrate. In order to make deep work a reality, you need to carve out time and space to get the work done. It’s best to schedule blocks of time devoted to it. Likewise, creating a dedicated workspace also helps.
02
Prepare Your Mind
Alpha brainwave state can be elusive. Therefore, the state of your mind is one of the biggest determining factors when it comes to the quality of your work. That means Diet, Meditation, Journaling, and other Habits can make a real difference in your Productivity.
03
Avoid Distractions
Our brains often like to push us away from things that make us feel uncomfortable. This can lead us to seek diversions or procrastinate outright. However, you can train yourself to ignore these impulses. It takes practice. But master your focus cand you can push through.
04
Do It Everyday
The more deep work you do, the easier it gets. Not only does your brain begin to expect it, but it can also get better at it. Over time, doing deep work becomes second nature and a part of self identity. Make it a keystone habit and eventually you’ll be an elite performer.
05
Refine Your Process
As with anything, you can always get better at doing deep work. There are some universal tips that anyone can benefit from. But over time, you’ll find what works best for you. Don’t get content. You can always increase the quality and quantity of your output.
BONUS
Cognitive Cues
This is something like a special hack. You can use certain Habits to trigger a state of total concentration. For example, I loop specific lo-fi tracks to let my brain know it is deep work time. They are reserved for this purpose only and help me reach alpha brainwave state.
Remember: just start. Most people do very little deep work so it doesn’t take long to put yourself in the top 50%, 25%, 10%, or 1% of High Performers.
My Favorite Deep Work Videos
You can find everything you need to know about deep work online.
I’m no high performance titan. I stand on the shoulders of giants. I simply listen to what my Heroes say and apply it. Not everything sticks. But enough does to make a lasting impact.
Data
Dump
One of the main purposes of This Site is to catalog my learnings. I’m not that learned. But I’m working on becoming moreso. If you see a “data dump” on this site, you’re looking at unsorted information. It may be related or completely unrelated, depending on the topic.
This Isn't Fun But It Makes Me $2k A Hour
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AoI: How To Supercharge Your Productivity
The Complete Guide to Developing Your Focus
Art of
Improvement
The Art of Improvement YouTube channel produces animated tutorials on Achievement. They create deep-dive and quick-hitters. Naturally, many of them touch on ways to refine your ability to do deep work. Their videos provide great conceptual introductions and specific tips.
Brian
Johnson
Brian Johnson was the first one to introduce me to the concept of deep work. The idea didn’t come from him, but it did within my own consciousness. I’ve learned a ton from his reviews of books like Deep Work, Flow, Your Brain at Work, and others on High Performance.
PNTV: Deep Work by Cal Newport
1. Myelin Workout – 2:47
- To develop skill, work out your neurons
- Cultivate myelin (what insulates our brain neurons)
- To perform at a peak level, you need to train your brain
- Building myelin via deliberate practice/deep work in our chosen field
2. Attention Residue – 4:56
- Multi-tasking doesn’t really exist
- When you split your attention, you have what researchers call “attention residue”
- When your attention is split, you perform less well than someone focusing on one thing only
- Strongest reason to create “time blocks,” or invested time intently focused over extended periods of time
3. Routines (xy) – 8:46
- First rule of working deeply: create routines
- Structure your life with routines and rituals to make deep work more likely to occur
- The monastery approach (detaching from the world), bimodal approach (combining monastery approach with normal life), rhythmic approach (“don’t break the chain of creativity”), and journalistic approach (setting deadlines and getting into deep work on demand)
4. #1 = Wildly! – 12:13
- Discover what you’re fired up about; what goal that’s challenging and feasible could you achieve in the next 6-12 months?
- Becoming so excited about your goal that distractions are organically removed
5. Shutdown Complete – 13:15
- We need to create “containers” for our creativity
- Create limits for your workday
- The only way to sustainably produce high-quality work is to train our “rest phase”
- If you go hard, you need to recover
- Quit letting your work leak into every aspect of your life
PNTV: How to Become a Straight-A Student by Cal Newport
1. Pseudo-Work – 2:07
- The distinction between “kinda working but mostly hanging out” (psudo-work) and real work
- The thing you need to pay attention to is Work = Time spent doing it x Intensity
- Students who spend a lot of time grinding but don’t have a lot of intensity still end up doing mediocrely
- If you dial up your intensity, you have to put in less work
- Deep work time-blocks create masterpiece days
2. Procrastiation – 5:06
- None of these straight-A students eliminated procrastination completely
- You’re gonna have the urge to procrastinate, but you can develop effective strategies to combat it
- It’s not about getting rid of the urge
- Strategies include being well-rested and well-fed (research agrees). The fastest way to deplete your willpower is to be tired and hungry
3. When? Where? How Long? – 6:41
- When should we study? Where should we study? And how long should we study?
- When? Early. The earlier the better. You’re best between when you wake up and before dinner. You want to use your best energy wisely, then enjoy your evenings.
- Where? In isolation. Go find somewhere where no one’s going to find you and turn everything off.
- How long? Don’t work for longer than an hour in one stretch. We want to be focused and intense, which can be draining and lead to procrastination.
4. #1 Tip = Q – 8:42
- If you want to study effectively, the worst way is to re-read your notes. This gives you the “fluency illusion.”
- Shut your book, get out a blank sheet of paper, and quiz yourself. The science says the best way t study is to self-test. Shut your notes and see if you can say it out loud.
5. S.P.A.C.E.O.U.T. – 10:47
- Space out your studying time, no matter what you’re doing
- Your mind can only work so hard so long. For memorizing, never try and do more than an hour at a time.
- You’re better off taking that time and splitting it up
- Your mind works best with frequent check-ins (“distributed learning”)
- Do intense real work over time instead of cramming
PNTV: Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
“The Psychology of Optimal Existence”
1. The Contents of Our Consciousness – 1:39
- How can we determine and choose what we focus on to enter “the flow?”
- It takes practice to make oneself happy/miserable. It’s done by ordering the consciousness to be in control of feelings and thoughts
2. Knowing and Doing – 3:09
- It’s not enough to know how to do it, one must do it
- Theory is rudimentary, practice is advanced. It’s important we do what we know
- What’s the number 1 thing you know you could be doing to live a more extraordinary life and is now a good time to start doing it?
3. Flow – 5:19
- The levels of challenge and skill need to be proportional. Flow is when your skills match the challenges you’re facing
- If skill is greater than challenge, we’re bord. If challenge is greater than skill, we’re overwhelmed. But when they allign, we’re in flow
4. Cultures Building Flow – 8:11
- Every 25 or 30 years, a tribe in India would relocate the entire village. They felt they were meeting their challenges too easily and becoming stagnant. So to keep their edge, they would move to a new area to face new challenges to keep them sharp.
- Consciousness is a skill most people haven’t learned to cultivate
5. Flow in Leisure Time – 9:03
- TV has been correlated to mild depression. Sitting and doing nothing bores us and we’re facing no challenges
PNTV: Your Brain at Work by David Rock
1. Prioritize(ing) – 2:20
- We need to prioritize prioritizing
- Our brain can only handle so much at one time and it gets easily depleted
- Take control of your “AM Bookend,” starting the day with the most important thing
- Engage in the creative/deep work before you waste brain power on email/less important parts of the day
2. IQ -15 or -5 – 5:50
- A study was done where they determined constantly emailing or texting effectively reduces your IQ by 15 for males and 5 for females; an average of 10 IQ point reductions
- You’re bombarding your nervous system with too much stimulation
- We get more stimulation in a week than our ancient ancestors got in a lifetime
3. Basal Ganglia – 8:06
- The part of your brain that puts things on routine/autopilot
- We want to find as many ways as we can to move things from your prefrontal cortex to your basal ganglia
4. Director – 11:28
- To put on a beautiful performance, you need a strong director
- “Mindsight” – a form of mindfullness; the ability to look inside your mind
- The “Director” can say “that thought isn’t particularlly helpful” or “we need to prioritize prioritizing”
- Also cultivating reapprasial, or the ability to step between tasks
5. Seasaw – 13:19
- Being cool under pressure; when things heat up, how do we stay cool?
- Your prefrontal cortex and your limbic system act like a seasaw
- When you experience high emotions, there are several courses of actions: suppress it (not helpful), express it (also not super helpful), be dramatic about it… but if you label it and mindfully observe it (eg “I notice I am feeling fear”)
- The Director needs to be in charge
How I Use Deep Work to Create the Life I want
If you haven’t noticed, I take this stuff seriously.
You don’t have to do it like me. But maybe you wanna know. So I guess I’ll tell you. You might have picked some of it up by reading through this page or clicking on some of the links.
I’ll spell it all out here.
Working for My Clients
My ability to provide for myself is largely dependent on my ability to do deep work. At Greensboro SEO Pro, we sell a lot of Writing and Website Design. Both of these require deep work in order to produce high quality. Running my business also includes a lot of reading, Delegation, and Critical Thinking. Without deep work, GSP wouldn’t last very long.
Working for Myself
Deep work is one of the main ways I build My Brands. In addition, it’s generally much easier for me to reach states of intense Focus when I’m working on my own projects. After all, most are born out of my personal passions. For example, writing this page has been fun. When working for myself, Procrastination fades and I’m almost immune to distraction.
Business Development
Creating and maintaining a successful business is one of the most difficult things you’ll ever do. Entrepreneurship requires a combination of skills like Sales, Accounting, and Delegation. Deep work helps with all of these. For me, the Critical Thinking that goes into refining our business systems can often become a brood-fest of intense Focus.
Learning New Skills
Learning is one of my greatest passions. I’m definitely a know-it-all by nature. My tendency is to do massive deep-dives into the topics I’m interested in—the results of which you can see on This Site. In order to learn new things and Acquire Skills that enhance your life, deep work is absolutely necessary. Distraction gets in the way of getting better.
Planning and Review
I do an awful lot of Journaling. I usually consider the time spent to be deep work. Goal Setting, Affirmations, Habit Tracking, and other means of Personal Growth require concentration. If you try to build your Self Identity while distracted, distraction will remain a part of your identity. I’m all about Self Brainwashing and I understand that Focus is essential.
Favorite Coaches
Favorite Teachers
Favorite Entrepreneurs
My Deep Work Posts
Becoming Legendary: My 2022 Goals
I'm fairly confident 2022 is going to be the most successful year of my life so far. I'm writing this post to help guarantee that. Obviously, I can't control the future. But I can set intentions and create a plan of action. That's what Goal Setting is all about. So...
Setting the New 20s Off Right: My 2020 Goals
New Year's Resolutions get a bad wrap. It's not their fault though. It's yours. The truth is: The beginning of the year is a perfect time for a reset. You have to execute though. Do it right and this year could be the best year you've ever had. No guarantees. Because,...
365 Day Content Challenge Week 34: Alchemy
Without a doubt: My content production was the lowest this past week than it has been Before making up last week's update, I would have thought it was the last several weeks. But that's not what happened. This week was exceptionally weak within the context of my...
Becoming Legendary: My 2022 Goals
I'm fairly confident 2022 is going to be the most successful year of my life so far. I'm writing this post to help guarantee that. Obviously, I can't control the future. But I can set intentions and create a plan of action. That's what Goal Setting is all about. So...
Setting the New 20s Off Right: My 2020 Goals
New Year's Resolutions get a bad wrap. It's not their fault though. It's yours. The truth is: The beginning of the year is a perfect time for a reset. You have to execute though. Do it right and this year could be the best year you've ever had. No guarantees. Because,...
365 Day Content Challenge Week 34: Alchemy
Without a doubt: My content production was the lowest this past week than it has been Before making up last week's update, I would have thought it was the last several weeks. But that's not what happened. This week was exceptionally weak within the context of my...
365 Day Content Challenge Week 11: Deep Work and Flow
This challenge has taught me a valuable lesson. I am SO much more productive when I work on my own projects. It's unfortunate that it's taken six years of working online to see this. Or, maybe it's fortunate that it's only taken six years. It's not like I lost much. ...
My Top 3 High Performance Coaches
"YouTube University" has brought many a life-optimizer across my path. These three are my favorite high performance coaches.