The Growth Booth

#7: Realize Your Full Potential Through Focused Deep Work

February 22, 2022 Aidan Booth Season 1 Episode 7
The Growth Booth
#7: Realize Your Full Potential Through Focused Deep Work
Show Notes Transcript

Would you like to work less but get MUCH better results? If so, then Deep Work is a concept you need to explore!

Welcome to the seventh episode of The Growth Booth Podcast, a show focused on supporting budding entrepreneurs and established business owners alike, towards achieving lifestyle freedom through building successful online businesses.

In this episode, we talk about Deep Work, a book written by Cal Newport, and discuss how the concept of deep work can improve the way you work and provide you with the greater sense of accomplishment that comes from ingenuity.

Deep work is more than just a way to increase productivity. Prioritization is essential when it comes to focusing. Often, the more you try to do, the less you actually accomplish—so, in order to work deeply, you must focus on the most important task at hand.

Whether you're looking for step-by-step strategies to start building an online business, simple game plans to grow your business or proven lifestyle freedom frameworks, you’re in the right place.

Stay tuned and be sure to join the thousands of listeners already in growth mode!

Timestamps:

00:00 - Intro

03:34 - Deliberate Practice is the Key to Deep Work

04:13 - Multi-tasking Is the Enemy

06:00 - The Easier The Work, The Less Valuable It Becomes

07:04 - Tips for Developing A Deep Work Routine

09:25 - Monastic Approach

09:59 - Bimodal Approach

10:42 - Rhythmic Approach

11:35 - Journalistic Approach

12:54 - Building Routines and Habits

16:27 - Final Thoughts

18:48 - Outro


About Our Host:

Aidan Booth is passionate about lifestyle freedom and has focused on building online businesses to achieve this since 2005. From affiliate marketing to eCommerce, small business marketing to SAAS (software as a service), online education to speaking at seminars, the journey has been a rollercoaster ride with plenty of thrills along the way. Aidan is proud to have helped thousands of entrepreneurs earn their first dollar online, and coached many people to build million-dollar businesses. Aidan and his business partner (Steven Clayton) are the #1 ranked vendors on Clickbank.com, and sell their products in over 100 countries globally, as well as in 20,000+ stores across the USA, to generate 8-figures annually.

Away from the online world, Aidan is a proud Dad of two young kids, an avid investor, a swimming enthusiast, and a nomadic traveler.

Let's Connect!

●  Visit the website:  https://thegrowthbooth.com/

●  Follow Aidan on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aidanboothonline

●  Follow Aidan on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aidanboothonline/

●  Subscribe to Aidan’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/thegrowthbooth

Thanks for tuning in! Please don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe!



 

Today I want to talk about deep work. Now deep work is the concept that Cal Newport has written a very good book about, a book I've read a couple of times. Cal is someone who has really captured this idea of being in the zone and working in a way where you get so much more done, better than anyone else. I've always been aware that there are times when I seem to get an unreasonable, uncommon, unusual amounts of work done and an unusual amount of value created and unusual amounts of content or whatever it is that I'm working on done, and that happens when I'm in a state of deep work. 

It's really where I get my most creative work done. I think about all the value and all the content that I create, or that you create. Probably if you apply the 80/20 rule there, you'll find that 80% of the best content that you can create comes from 20% of the time that is spent actually creating it, and chances are that 20% of the time that creates 80% of the value is when you are more likely to be in the state of deep work. 

Now deep work is a task or it’s a state of mind that requires your full attention. It's not something that you can just, you can't be multitasking and doing deep work at the same time. They're kind of the opposite of one another. But deep work allows you to tap in to your highest ability. For me personally, it allows me to be so much more creative, and just get more things done. 

Oftentimes being busy is a trap that people fall into and I feel like it's easy to fill up your day, doing things that keep you busy which may not be moving you or your business or your life forward in a productive manner. In the book, Cal Newport refers to this as shallow work. Shallow work is the kind of work that you can do when you're distracted – so you can be in conversation with someone and doing something else at the same time, or you could be watching your kids play soccer or something and at the same time you could be doing something on your phone. That's shallow work and it’s the kind of work that doesn't really have very meaningful results, which is why it's called shallow work, and which is why people are able to do it while they're multitasking but it's still a dilution of your energy. 

In this episode today, I want to talk about some of the characteristics of deep work and give you some ideas about how you can get in the zone to really pump out your best quality content or effort (or whatever that may be) and hopefully leave you with some ideas on how you can bring this into your own life. 

A big part of this is deliberate practice. Deliberate practice is really the key to accomplishing deep work: it won't necessarily come naturally and I think a lot of people struggle to maintain a state of deep work over a longer period of time. But if it’s something that you're conscious of and you focus on practicing, then over time, you're going to find that the skills that you develop for it will allow you to get into that state of maximum productivity, maximum creativity, this deep work state more regularly. 

However, the very first rule of this is that, multitasking is the enemy here. Multitasking inevitably will lower your performance because it means that your brainpower is essentially diluted, so if you've got all of your brainpower working on just one thing at a time, then of course you're going to get better results than if you're dividing it up across multiple things, at the same time. The price that you pay for distraction is not just in the moment; if you're distracted from deep work, it can take you 15 minutes to get back into that productive state. So multitasking is a huge distraction and can kill any chance of being in deep work and ultimately lead you to working, and creating something that is probably much lower quality than you can do and, most likely, mediocre. 

I think some people find it hard to get into a state of deep work and part of that is because there are so many distractions out there. You could have social media buzzing at you, and you could have your phone beeping at you, and you could have someone else demanding something of you. It's probably easier for someone who works for themselves, who is in control of their own day, to be able to find and get into that deep work state than it is for someone who is working in an office just because of all of the environmental distractions that might come your way if you're working in an office. 

That's not to say that you can't get into that state. Obviously, if you are on your own, you're probably more likely to be able to get in the zone and get some of your best work done more easily or you're able to control your surroundings a lot more easily and avoid falling into this shallow work track that we talk about. Oftentimes, the easier the work is, the less valuable it is. 

That is not to say that if something comes easy to you it’s not going to be valuable. It doesn't always happen like that. But oftentimes, the easiest tasks, the ones that can fill up the day - the things that you do to make yourself feel dizzy - they don't require much time and energy, you can do them on shallow work, but they're not normally the things that result in the very best outcomes. 

There have been lots of studies that have been done to show that deep work is correlated with hedonists, deep work is correlated with having a good life, and being able to manage your attention is a really, really important skill in achieving things that you want to achieve and most for achieving happiness. 

So there's all kinds of reasons why I think they go beyond just business growth and personal growth and why it makes sense to at least be aware of deep work. Now a few tips: I think it really helps if you can get to build or develop a deep work routine. If you've got a routine, then that's going to help you not just maintain a state of deep work, but get into this state of deep work a lot more regularly and more easily. 

An environment that works for you is something that you essentially want to develop here. There are different environments for everyone. It doesn't have to be a quiet place where you're on your own. In fact, it’s quite the opposite sometimes. I get into a state of deep work when I take my laptop into a coffee shop and I put my headphones on and I have my favorite music going on in the background, and that's sort of just trickling into my mind there as I’m working away, but I’m still in a state of deep work. 

Some of the very best deep work I’ve ever done is on long haul flights, and I've always used this as a good way to justify going in business class because I've got so much more space and comfort and then I will get my computer out and do some work. The beauty of business class – at least up until now – has been that in many cases you just don't have the internet, so one of the biggest distractions is completely eliminated. 

 

Now I know that's changing and I know most of the time you can get internet when you fly now, especially on long haul, even a few years ago, it wasn't that way. Being on my own, headphones on, sitting on the airplane has always been a place where I've been able to be in a really good state of deep work. 

There's a lot to be said for the environment, but even more than the environment, the triggers that you build up in your mind. If I need to get to my best state of deep work, I go away and work in a different city for the day. Maybe I'll travel an hour and get to another city, or maybe I'll just do something completely different, work from a different place that can really shake things up and allow me to hit that reset button and get into the deep work and overcome a lot of distractions. 

There are other ways that you can get into a state of deep work, you don’t have to go somewhere special and anything like that. We're talking about building habits and rituals that allow you to get into that deep work state. 

A few suggestions which we've taken from the book, Deep Work, one of them is to try and get into that meditative state. I’m someone that, I normally try to do a quick meditation every single morning for about 10 minutes. One of the reasons I do that is because I find it allows me to reset myself and bring into focus what I want to get done, and that always results in me getting better results. It's almost like a monastic, like a monk-like sort of philosophy via getting away from distractions and just working on the focus. 

Now another way to do it, if that's not something that works for you, is to think about sort of like a bi-modal approach. This is where you might have one hour where you're removing all of your distractions and you're working hard to get into a deep work state followed by an hour or a couple of hours where you're quite willing for distractions to come in. 

An example of this might be working from 8am to 9am, really trying hard to get into that deep work state, but then from 9am to 11am, you might willingly accept different distractions that come your way. So basically, alternating between periods of high focus, deep work and high distraction, potentially a more shallow work. 

Another approach that we use is rhythmic approach. This is where you're sort of building more routine, so it might be every day, from 5am until 6:30am, you know that you are going to get work done. That's your time. You're not going to let anything interfere with that, make this at a time that works for you because you might be a morning person. Maybe everyone else in the house is still asleep. As a result, you can more easily get into the groove, and oftentimes start building that habit, so then your body knows, your mind knows, your brain knows that 5am, it's showtime. You can easily fall back into that state of deep work. 

So again, different things work better for different people. I think you can train your brain to sort of work in that state of maximum capacity. There's a good way to approach it, and this is one of the things that I use. 

Another approach that works for busy people is almost like a journalistic approach whereby maybe you've got a busy day, maybe you've got kids that are likely to interrupt you all day if you're working from home, or maybe you're working in a very busy office and people will regularly interrupt you. In that kind of a situation, it’s sometimes useful to try to deliberately leverage the small windows of opportunity that you have to use up for the state of deep work. 

So let's say you're working in an office, lots of people around you, constant distraction, but you know that from 10am till 11am, there's a window where you're not going to be called off for any meetings or anything like that. What if you could just go down to a coffee shop, put your headphones on, and get into this state? 

Or what if there’s a meeting room that you can just slip into, where you know that no one will bother you. Or maybe your kids are going out to football practice and you know you're going to have a one-hour window. In fact, as I film this podcast right now, I am in a window because my kids are at preschool, so leveraging those kinds of windows, that’s sort of like a journalistic philosophy. Again, it really helps to do that if you're able to sort of switch on and switch off this deep work sort of philosophy. 

No matter which approach you follow, it helps to build a routine, to build habits and a plan. So think to yourself, where will you get your deep work done? Is there an environment that works best for you? Will there be someone knocking on the door? Will there be a kid interrupting you or your partner or colleague or what will it be? How long can you do deep work for? When will you need a break?Will you turn off your phone to completely eliminate distractions? What are you going to do? 

I think everyone is different, so it's just a case of being aware of what the book is all about and then figuring out what works best for you. Couple of examples that you may have heard of: JK Rowling stayed in a hotel to finish the last Harry Potter book. Bill Gates has been known for going into a remote cabin just to read and focus. I think he does it every single month. It's easy for them to show the benefits of that because they've had these amazing projects that the whole world is aware of. They found what works for them, and they doubled down on it. What is your thing? 

I've made a couple of examples of mine. I changed my environment. I go and work in a coffee shop or sometimes, something I've been doing lately is hiking. It's not always about sitting down and actually working. Sometimes it's about thinking and one of the things that Cal Newport talks about in this book is he calls it productive meditation where you are actively doing something, it can be driving a car, but instead of having the radio going or listening to a podcast or your favorite musical, something, you are just thinking about a problem or a situation consciously trying to advance it. You can do that if you're hiking or if you're walking to the supermarket or driving your car and still sort of feel like you're getting something done. 

Some people find deep work to be boring. I don't really find it to be boring. I find it to be very rewarding, actually. I do find it to be sometimes mentally taxing, but once I get in that groove, the amount of work that I can get done makes it worth it every single time. I think this is also part of just figuring out what works for you and what excites you, gets you in that groove of wanting to do deep work and realizing that your best work is going to come when you are in the zone. Maybe in your mind, maybe you're just in the zone or focused or something with it. That's ultimately what you're trying to achieve. 

I think also, using social media wisely is really important. Think about how social media can positively contribute to your success and happiness and not just be a place where you go to get distracted. Certainly there's a lot to be said for turning off a lot of these pop up notifications that will appear on your phones and different devices. 

I think also scheduling your data to know your limits, I think most people would struggle with more than four hours of deep work in a single day. That's a lot of energy and focus, and to start with even just one hour could be a game changer for you, getting one hour of work where you're focused on something that's going to move the ball forward is much better, so much more valuable than eight hours of just feeling busy and making yourself feel productive. 

So a few final thoughts and things to ponder here. Can you apply the 80/20 rule to deep work? Can you apply the 80/20 rule and put yourself in a position where you are more regularly able to get in that zone and focus? Is there a time of day where you know you get better work done? Some people are morning, some people evening people. Is there a situation that you can be in which you can sort of schedule into your life to get more of because you know how valuable that is? In addition to that, can you train yourself to be in that zone, in that state of focus, for longer periods of time? 

This isn’t something that's going to just happen. This is something you need to consciously work on. What's your number one distraction that sort of pulls you out of that state of high productivity, of high creativity, of focus? If you can figure out what your top couple of distractions are and eliminate them, then obviously you're going to be putting yourself in a position where you can get so much more of that deep, meaningful work done. 

Finally, in my own personal situation, I always find it so much more difficult to get into the state of deep work when I'm feeling burnt out. So when I've got too many open loops in my life, too many unfinished projects, too many different projects that I'm working on at the same time, that gives me the sense of burnout because I feel like I'm being pulled in 100 different ways. I think this is one of the reasons why for me personally I always do much better when I'm focused on just a couple of different projects as opposed to jumping all over the show. If I'm just focused on one project, even better. 

For me, it's important to steer clear of burnout, to stay away from this shallow trap. I think a little bit of shadow work is absolutely fine and even healthy, but I definitely want to make sure that I'm getting a few hours of that deep, productive work in my life every single day. It doesn't have to be related to online business. It could be related to absolutely anything or any project, and I always, always, always notice the result of doing that. 

Hopefully you've got some good thoughts about that. Go away and think about it and just see how you can work more of this into your life, and if nothing else, just be aware and conscious of the fact that working is not created equal. Eight hours a day of you working away at something are not going to be created equal. There are going to be pockets of time when you are hyper productive, hyper creative, and that's a state that you want to foster and encourage. 

That's all for today. I will see you in the next episode.