Category: deep work

What helps us to get more done and do work that matters?

Posted on by philipdodson

Two things help us get more done.

Firstly, doing less. Secondly, taking breaks. That’s it.

We all try to do so much that we end up doing very little, we are a busymess of activity and very little to show on any depth. We are all doing shallow, repetitive and low-value activities. We go from one thing to the next in a whirl of multi-tasking. Multi-tasking, the myth that we have been sold to us, to keep us going with mainly irrelevant shit, that keeps our employers happy as we work like drones as giant human data servers, shifting endless bits of mainly useless data, to and from other human data servers. For what purpose? Not much.

If we do less, and sift through all the meaningless tasks and find the ones that matter, they will be the big ugly hairy tasks that we avoid by doing lots of meaningless shit. That is because the things that really matter are ugly, hairy, big and scary, so we avoid them. It means taking the plunge and overcoming the fear of showing up and making a difference. It means discarding the low-value tasks.

However, once we stop doing all the small low-value shallow shit, that frankly do not matter one bit, you know re-arranging the self-help books on the shelf at the home office, or cleaning the under-sink cupboard, or compacting down all the recycling in the bin (maybe this is just me and I need to get out the house more often). Then we have time to take on the big important things that will make a difference in our lives and in the world.

Of course, doing deeper and more important work means more focus, concentration, discipline, energy and focus, but hey, who said doing work that matters was easy?

This means that we have to take breaks, and allow ourselves to recharge a little bit. Using the Pomodoro method for example, where we work in focus distraction-free environment solidly for 25 minutes and then take a break of 5 minutes. Then perhaps, after a couple of hours, we need to get up, get the blood flowing through the veins, get some fresh air and so on. 

But like a battery that needs recharging so do we and we only have finite attention in any one 24-hour period, so if we have done deep concentrated work that matters for 2, 3 or maybe 4 hours, that’s it, we’re done. Of course, we can then do a few less important tasks afterwards. 

However, 3-4 hours a day of work that matters is so much more fulfilling and important than 8-12 hours of busy-bee shit that does not matter and is mainly about appearances of being busy as that is what we have created as the measure of hard work.

We need to stop that bullshit and do less and have plenty of breaks to enjoy life and experience other things than just being busy for the sake of it.

The relaxation/guilt circle

Posted on by philipdodson

Then, when we are wanting to relax, we feel guilty about the things we haven’t yet completed or need to be done. Also, in the industrialised world, it is seen as bad not to be constantly busy.

Therefore, relaxation time is far from that, it is stressful and time where we make ourselves feel bad.

When we are wanting to work, to do things, to take action, we feel resentful because when we were supposed to be relaxing in the evening or the weekend, we didn’t, we felt guilty. Therefore, we didn’t get time to chill and now work seems like a chore.

So, we don’t do the work and when it is time to relax, guess what? Yep, the same circle repeats itself guilt – resentment – guilt – resentment and so on.

To break it, we need to do one thing, create a time when work ends, and begins again, a shutdown. During the shutdown, we switch off work, phones, email, text, and so on.

If you are doing a job that is so important that you can not switch off for 8-12 hours a day, then change it, for the rest of us, there is nothing so earth-shatteringly important that it can not wait a few hours.

This breaks the circle of guilt followed by resentment. We properly relax and therefore we are fully supercharged to do our work, we get more work done and soon we have more time to relax.