Have you ever found yourself in a fog of uncertainty, unsure of what you were doing or should be doing next?
Many of the tasks that we give our attention to can be classified as mindless. Responding to emails, group chat notifications, making some calls, reading the social media posts of others, or watching videos.
Author and academic, Cal Newport, refers to these as shallow tasks. Shallow because they require little focused effort and we often switch between them quickly. We may feel productive when we’re performing them, but what has been produced?
The familiar foe, multi-tasking, plays a key role in us switching between these shallow tasks quickly. However, researchers claim that most of us (98%) can’t effectively multitask. Put simply, multi-tasking is most commonly a case of performing two or more tasks (poorly), at the same time.
The Paradox of Multitasking, published in a 2013 issue of Harvard Business Review, outlines the detrimental effects of task-switching on productivity to be as high as 40%, especially amongst those who consider themselves ‘good’ at multitasking.
However, it’s not all doom-and-gloom, there is another way.
Shallow vs Deep Work
Shallow work is what many of us do each day, both at work and in our personal lives. If you’ve ever felt like you’re juggling, or bouncing between tasks one after another, that’s shallow work.
We want to minimise shallow work for its better alternative: deep work. Deep work is dedicating attention to one task, at the exclusion of all others.
Deep work is where we get into the flow or rhythm of the task at hand, and it’s also where we produce our best work.
To manage our attention more effectively, we firstly need to identify when we’re working in-the- shallows, so we can better manage our attention and divert more resources towards deep work. Newport refers to this practise as draining the shallows.
Building a Deep Work Routine
Consider the following when building a deep work routine.
1. Location: Choose a place that’s distraction-free and conducive to long periods of focus.
2. Duration: Determine how much time you will devote to the work before any break.
3. Structure: Define what deep work mode looks like (phone on or off, snacks or not, etc.)
You can read more about the impact of shallow work, and how to work deeper in Cal Newport’s bestseller, DeepWork: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World.
“Focus requires you to choose what doesn’t matter. What you refuse to do determines what you can do”