No matter what the multi-taskers tell you, great work comes through focus. The more distractions we have the less the quantity and often the quality of the work we get done.
Over the years people have developed systems for ensuring we can put the required focus into the task at hand.
To me, there are only two that we ever need to concern ourselves. The two schools of focus I think hold water.
- Pomodoro time (The Tomato, Pomodoro is the word in Italian)
- Deep Work (The Miner, ok did you see what I did there)
Pomodoro Time – If you are not familiar with Pomodoro time it deals with short Sprints of focus usually 25 mins followed by a 5 min non-distracted rest. Non-Distracted means no mobile phones, not checking email etc The idea is just let your brain have a few minutes off before the next sprint. You repeat this 4 times then have 15 min rest. Before you start all over again. I tend to believe most people can get more done on 4 Pomodoro’s that most people get done in a day.
On a side note, before Pomodoro’s became a thing, I was originally introduced to the idea of focus sprints by the legendary copywriter Eugene Schwartz who suggested 33 mins. I could never consistently focus that long and dropped by time to 27 mins. Which incidentally seems to be the perfect length for a Nap. Anyway, 25 works because most people will not get fatigued by that length of time and can continue with Pom’s for most of the day if required.
Deep Work – There is a book of the same name, which I think is essential reading. The idea is to take yourself away from all distractions to focus solely on one thing, allowing for the opportunity of Flow. Flow is that state, where time slows down, and work becomes effortless. In the modern world, few of us take the time to allow us to get into deep concentration where we can create or think or problem-solve with let’s call it the muse on our side.
The thing is both have reasons to be recommended.
Pom’s work best for tasks that can be “small chunked”. If you focus solidly it is amazing how much you can achieve in relatively small amounts of time with no interruptions. You can smash those everyday tasks out of the way in no time flat.
Deep work allows for serious work. Work that requires you to draw from that place of perfect intelligence or creativity. It usually takes a sustained amount of focus to drop into the state of flow, but when you get there magic happens. We all have glimpsed this state from time to time where what we are doing is effortless. It sort of reminds me of the quote from the Tao Te Ching “In the study of the way each day something is dropped. Less and less do you have to force things, until finally you arrive at the place of non-action. Where nothing is done and nothing remains undone.”
Anyway, your job is to figure out which work requires what strategy and set your days accordingly. If you do the amount of quality work you can produce will be miraculous.
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