Simple but effective principles that re-shaped my productivity

It's a typical weekday, I find myself in a constant battle with distractions. My work is suffering, my energy waning, and my productivity was just not where I wanted it to be. You know that feeling when you have a million tabs open on your browser, your phone is buzzing with notifications, and your to-do list seems to multiply by the minute? That was me. I was drowning in a sea of 'urgent' tasks, forgetting the important ones.

Then, I stumbled upon the concept of deep work.  It's the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. Deep work is the time period where you are fully immersed in a particular task with 0 distractions. I have found that I produce my best work when it follows these periods of no distraction work.  It's like a cheat code for producing high-quality output in less amounts of time. I owe all the credit to these principles to American Author Cal Newport, he has written multiple books around the topics of productivity, focus, and distractions in today's digital age.

The Power of Saying 'No'

"The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say 'no' to almost everything." - Warren Buffet

This principle of selective focus is at the heart of deep work. By saying 'no' to distractions and 'yes' to focused, dedicated periods of work, our productivity and output quality can skyrocket. It's a simple yet powerful shift that has completely transformed my work life for the better.

Principle 1: Eliminate Distractions

When you think about a remote workday, how many hours do you think a person is actually working? Most might say 8, but they would be lying. The honest answer is about 1-3 hours. When I say work, I mean fully engaged in whatever the task at hand is, with 0 distraction. Surfing email and sitting in meetings don’t count. I am not saying that it should be 8 either. I am saying that we can only be laser focused for a short amount of time. Our brains simply can’t handle working 8 consecutive hours a day. I am referring to remote knowledge work such as engineering, analytics, software, etc. Obviously working at a restaurant or factory, you can work 8+ hours a day.  This entire philosophy revolves around maximizing productivity in a world filled with distractions. The goal is to be able to squeeze the absolute most output can in the time you are working undistracted.

Once I figured out early in my career what I should be doing (Learning SQL, Power BI, data -related stuff etc.) I figured it would be a cake walk to sit down and just do those things. Wrong. I was constantly distracted and had my attention in 50 different places. Then when I finally sat down to learn, within 10 minutes I got distracted by something else. 2-3 hours would pass, and I realistically only did 30 minutes of work. I was convinced I was sitting down and learning the whole time regardless of what information I had attained. What I was learning in a week would of took me 2 days had I been effective. Weeks went by and I was noticing how little progress I was making. This frustrated me because I had already decided that data analytics was the path I was going to take. So why is it so difficult for me to sit down and do the work necessary? I hadn’t gone through the elimination process. I had a ton of things that was slightly taking away my attention that it took a hit on my productivity.

Principle 2: Prioritize work

Self-Discovery

So, what did I do about it? A life-changing thing I did was figure out when was it that I work my best cognitively. For me that time period is first thing in the morning, for you it may be a different time of the day. This is mostly because first thing in the morning I am fresh and have not done a hundred other things fighting for my attention. My mind is unburdened and can easier fall into a state of flow. Experimentation and diving into my own self-discovery was how I was able to get a clear understanding of how i should move forward.  I owe all the credit to these principles to American author Cal Newport. I highly recommend his books as a read; it changed my outlook on focus and distractions.  My understanding for what it takes to sit down and be productive has made my workdays more effective and less stressful. This quest, as straightforward as it might seem, took some time and a fair share of trial and error, but it was absolutely worth it.

The Epiphany

With this newfound understanding, my workdays have become a lot more effective and significantly less stressful. It's a prime example of how a simple change in routine and a bit of introspective exploration can drastically improve your productivity. Remember that productivity isn't just about getting more work done.

Principle 3: Time Blocking

The third principle that significantly re-shaped my productivity revolves around a concept that some refer to as Time Blocking. Like a craftsman chiseling away at a piece of marble, this technique requires one to meticulously sculpt their time, dedicating specific chunks to specific tasks.

What is Time Blocking?

At its core, time blocking is a scheduling method where you allocate a set period to a certain task and nothing else. The idea is to create an unwavering focus on that task, eliminating all potential distractions. It's about making a reservation in your day for a single task, a time slot where you become single-minded in your pursuit of productivity.

The Difference Between Time Blocking and Traditional Scheduling

You might be wondering, "Isn't that just scheduling?" In a way, it is, and it isn't. The critical difference between time blocking and having something on my schedule is the level of commitment it demands. With time blocking, I don’t allow myself to do any other task during that dedicated time block. It's a contract i sign with myself for focused productivity.

The Luxury of Distraction

When I didn’t use time blocking, I would often give myself the luxury to do other things in between tasks. This, however, often led to distractions that hampered productivity. The unimportant emails I would check while working, for instance, would end up stealing 20 precious minutes from my productivity. Reading one email often led to another, and before I knew it, a considerable amount of time had been lost.

Research indicates that it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to refocus after being distracted.

This stat underline the importance of uninterrupted, focused work sessions. And that's where time blocking shines, acting as a shield against the infinite distractions that are comes with the technology dominated world, we live in.

Bonus - iPhone users

The average person checks their phone 58 times a day. It's currently 3:26 PM and I’m currently sitting at 16. Since my phone was one of my biggest issues, I decided to make a section dedicated to how I made my phone less distracting.

The first thing I did was turn off the “Raise to Wake” feature. If you don’t know what that is, it is when you grab or move your iPhone and the screen automatically lights up. So, if I want to see my screen, I must click the power button. I found that when my phone light ups from just movement i open it and unlock it without even having an intentional reason to use the phone. It had ust become a second nature habit that I picked up along the way.

The next thing I did was remove all notifications. An alternative if you don’t want to be as extreme to customize your Do Not Disturb features. So, if I want to check my phone for something, I am not pulled away by other apps and just use my phone for what I picked it up for. I then can just go back to the task I was currently doing. The reason I decided to do no notifications because I noticed I will get a notification about something I wasn’t even thinking about, and it will snatch away my attention. Combine this with all the apps that can be on my phone, it was non-stop.