I want to build a lifestyle in which I can afford and spend valuable focus time on what matters, more regularly and more effectively.
So that I can become more consistently productive in the right places as well as experience a more meaningful time spent without meaningless distractions overall.
That was the very broad statement I had in my mind for a while. I know I am slowly losing control over my attention span and deep focus on important matters. With more demanding responsibilities (relationship, children and career) coming my way rapidly, it's time to try and do elementary changes and begin some important shifts.
Current schedule, status and reflections are tracked in the Runtime sub-doc.
Context
About a little over a year now, I have been trying to increase the frequency and length of time I spend in focus/flow state. The most recent attempt was simply to put on my calendar blocks of 3-4 hours reserved for Deep Work. They were opt-in slots, so I'd try to make it to them if there are no other priorities popping up.
That did not work. At best, I might have used 20% of these slots. With couple more sessions outside the planned slots here and there, very chaotic. There was no pressure, no measurement, no incentive and no method whatsoever.
Most attempts prior to it were all marked with this opt-in/passive nature, and that's now it's become evident that that's not going to work.
That's what pushed to actually pick up the book finally and read it. I was curious whether the subtleties in it would make it clear why my previous 0-low effort strategy did not work at all. And I think it did indeed help organize my thoughts and realize why that might have been the case. Two main things were clear which I didn't pay much attention to before
.1this is a habit, not just a calendar slot. Maybe even more than a habit, a lifestyle that our generation seems to have lost → building that habit or shifting to that lifestyle will take effort, time and constant reflection and adjustment.
.2 shallow work and downtime should not be merged. And the latter is as much important as underrated → downtime should be treated as importantly as deep work itself.
So now it's time to take this to next level serious. An experiment!
Goal setting
Deep Work book claims that research seems to suggest that our avg. capacity for Deep Work is 4 hours per day. So I'll take that as the maximum utilization.
It also suggests that 4 hours per day is a good amount of time to spend on shallow work (trivial, low-effort, low-value, low-focus and mundane tasks).
I will go generously and say that I do one session of deep work per week on avg. so that's about 15% of the capacity.
And the goal of this experiment shall be:
make a sticky habit of deep work; and
increase utilization of focus/flow state to min 50% of the suggested capacity
In other words, I should maintain a habit of doing avg. of 3.5 sessions per week. That is basically tripling the current utilization (output), which means, realistically, means I'll need to quadruple my efforts (input).
My situation
small children with 50% child-care (single parent) → little control and high demand attending to their needs
career in tech → harder to really disconnect fully at anytime
having primarily experimental and extroverted personality → more distraction due to weakness in saying No to exciting things/people
being too self-critical → built-in fear of rituals and habits in general
My Deep Work philosophy
First, and for the sake of being holistic, I will think of it as a lifestyle, not just a habit. Why? because none of Deep Work (Focus), shallow work or downtime can exist in isolation. It cannot be that they can be designed for separately. This aligns with the book's spirit as well. I'm just zooming out a bit already to not end up focusing much more on the focus problem and neglect the other two.
Second, mastering any approach to that lifestyle is not the real final outcome, but only the output. Utilizing 90% of focus capacity on low priority projects (which might as well make it easier to achieve) is no good after all. This means my dashboard of gauges will have to cover impact on my real goals.