Image Source: salesforce
Our world of today is filled with lots of distractions which affect the general focus level of humans. These distractions may include social media distractions to always want to chat with friends, peers always wanting you to hang out with them, opposite sex who we are always attracted to and would want to fraternize and many, the truth is there will always be some considerable level distractions.
The essence of this article is for you to be able to increase your productivity by building your working skills despite all the available distractions.
Deep Work is the ability to increasing your productivity or the ability of getting things done without distractions from social medias like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Such distractions are likes alert, notification pop-ups etc. Deep work therefore is a skill that requires lots of practice to achieve mastery but believe me, with such skill, you definitely have an edge in the area of working without distractions.
The phrase "deep work" was derived by a computer science professor known as Cal Newport of Georgetown University. He is a PHD holder who loves to blog on a regular basis despite all the academic and paper works, he also was able to publish lots of books and he is also married with kids. One will wonder how he was able to achieve all this despite all the tedious work and commitment. The answer is simply deep work. This is the secret behind Cal Newport's productivity.
According to him, deep work refers to "Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to its limit. These efforts will create new value and also improve your skills. Hence, these skills are hard to replicate."
He also explained what shallow work means as a way to give a better understanding of deep work. Hence, shallow work are non-cognitively demanding task which are mostly performed while distracted.
Examples of Deep and Shallow work
Deep work include things like writing a book, building an application project, creating music and solving difficult problems that requires high level of concentration. In contrast, examples of shallow work includes reading of emails, filling expenses, checking Facebook or Instagram notifications and any other items that can be easily checked in ones to-do list.
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How to achieve focus despite the high level of distraction
Newport opines that in our society today with high level of distraction, the ability to access a deep work state is by becoming both more valuable and more rare. That is spending more time in deep work than shallow work is the key to accomplishing more with your time.
He further explained that the excess notifications we get from different medias has reduced our level of attention(attention span). Hence, your have to treat your attention with respect, just like a professional model will treat her body.
Sharpening your deep work skills can be achieved by intentional practice, focusing and removing distractions. According Newport, the positive outcome of this is that you will be able to learn difficult things faster and create to the best of your ability.
References:
- Deep Work: Carl Newport
- Rules For Focused Success in a Distracted World: worqer
- Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World: Amazon
